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<Spoiler Warning>
Any film buffs out there of classic Japanese movies?
Any Kurosawa Akira maniacs?
Rashomon (1950) is one of the most well known movies by Kurosawa and it put Japanese movies on the map in overseas markets. It stars Toshiro Mifune, who some would argue is the greatest "stereotypical" Japanese male actor ever, and many film scholars have studied this film for both its story-telling and filming technique.
Actually, the film is based mostly on the story "Yabu no Naka" more than the short story "Rashomon," but it deals with a variety of themes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashomon
Anyway, one thing I find interesting is how differently this film is interpreted in the West as opposed to in Japan. I had a college class about this film and I was the only one who interpreted it from a Japanese point of view, which got me a good standing with the professor because my way of thinking was seen as "unique."
If you've seen the movie, it deals with different stories told about the same incident -- a bandit desires the wife of a samurai and attacks him in the deep forest. He ties him up and rapes her right in front of him, then leaves the scene, or maybe not. Later, the bandit is captured for a different crime, the wife is found alive, and the samurai is dead from stab wounds. The question is, who killed who?
Each of the three characters' version of the events is slightly different, and this is compounded even further when it comes to light that a woodcutter was watching the entire thing and has his own version.
Now, for interpretation, I find that a lot of Western scholars argue how this movie shows how you can't really know what happened in an affair between other people because the truth will always be obscured by other things -- greed, pride, love, etc. They tend to argue that all 4 versions of the story may be true, or maybe not. We can never know. This is what makes it so hard for police to determine what really happened at crime scenes when the only evidence is witness testimony.
From my point of view, though, it's quite obvious that Kurosawa only intended for the woodcutter's story to be the true version. In the bandit's, the wife's, and the samurai's version of events, they each told their respective stories to make it seem like they were the victim of the event and the other two were totally to blame.
<Bandit> The wife wanted me to have sex with her. She promised to run away with me if I killed her husband, so I challenged him to a duel and bravely fought and killed him.
<Wife> The bandit raped me. He then left me like garbage and my husband said he now hated me, so I fainted with a knife in my hands and accidentally killed him.
<Samurai> My wife promised herself to the bandit after he raped her. After the bandit let me go, I killed myself through seppuku.
It is only in the woodcutter's version were we see that all three of them were guilty in some way with what happened. After the rape, the wife asked her husband to defend her honor, but he refused. She had to yell at them both to fight for her. The bandit and samurai had a lame sword fight, which was only won because the samurai tripped and fell on his ass.
I think a lot of this interpretation relies on the viewer noticing certain points about Japanese culture and honor, so it might not be recognized by people who aren't familiar with these aspects.
Is there anyone who has a position on these interpretations? I'd be interested to hear your point of view (especially since we each live in our own "true" version of this world).
Any film buffs out there of classic Japanese movies?
Any Kurosawa Akira maniacs?
Rashomon (1950) is one of the most well known movies by Kurosawa and it put Japanese movies on the map in overseas markets. It stars Toshiro Mifune, who some would argue is the greatest "stereotypical" Japanese male actor ever, and many film scholars have studied this film for both its story-telling and filming technique.
Actually, the film is based mostly on the story "Yabu no Naka" more than the short story "Rashomon," but it deals with a variety of themes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashomon
Anyway, one thing I find interesting is how differently this film is interpreted in the West as opposed to in Japan. I had a college class about this film and I was the only one who interpreted it from a Japanese point of view, which got me a good standing with the professor because my way of thinking was seen as "unique."
If you've seen the movie, it deals with different stories told about the same incident -- a bandit desires the wife of a samurai and attacks him in the deep forest. He ties him up and rapes her right in front of him, then leaves the scene, or maybe not. Later, the bandit is captured for a different crime, the wife is found alive, and the samurai is dead from stab wounds. The question is, who killed who?
Each of the three characters' version of the events is slightly different, and this is compounded even further when it comes to light that a woodcutter was watching the entire thing and has his own version.
Now, for interpretation, I find that a lot of Western scholars argue how this movie shows how you can't really know what happened in an affair between other people because the truth will always be obscured by other things -- greed, pride, love, etc. They tend to argue that all 4 versions of the story may be true, or maybe not. We can never know. This is what makes it so hard for police to determine what really happened at crime scenes when the only evidence is witness testimony.
From my point of view, though, it's quite obvious that Kurosawa only intended for the woodcutter's story to be the true version. In the bandit's, the wife's, and the samurai's version of events, they each told their respective stories to make it seem like they were the victim of the event and the other two were totally to blame.
<Bandit> The wife wanted me to have sex with her. She promised to run away with me if I killed her husband, so I challenged him to a duel and bravely fought and killed him.
<Wife> The bandit raped me. He then left me like garbage and my husband said he now hated me, so I fainted with a knife in my hands and accidentally killed him.
<Samurai> My wife promised herself to the bandit after he raped her. After the bandit let me go, I killed myself through seppuku.
It is only in the woodcutter's version were we see that all three of them were guilty in some way with what happened. After the rape, the wife asked her husband to defend her honor, but he refused. She had to yell at them both to fight for her. The bandit and samurai had a lame sword fight, which was only won because the samurai tripped and fell on his ass.
I think a lot of this interpretation relies on the viewer noticing certain points about Japanese culture and honor, so it might not be recognized by people who aren't familiar with these aspects.
Is there anyone who has a position on these interpretations? I'd be interested to hear your point of view (especially since we each live in our own "true" version of this world).
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