Rashômon (1950)

"It's human to lie. Most of the time we can't even be honest with ourselves."

Director: Akira Kurosawa


Based on Akutagawa's short story "In a Grove"
http://www.geocities.com/cyber_explorer99/ryunosukegrove.html
though the title and setting were taken from another Akutagawa short

(n.b. most late-night awkward film analysis)

"We all want to forget something, so we tell stories. It's easier that way." Thus a single line of dialogue encompasses the mighty column that supports In a Grove by Ryunosuke Akutagawa and Akira Kurosawa's 1950 film adaptation, Rashômon. Clearly related although altered slightly to suit the varying mediums, the story and film each present an intricate whodunit scenario far before its time, crafted with meticulous elegance and understated mystery. I was initially drawn to In a Grove because of its structure. It is a story built from seven different perspectives on the same twisted event, and that appealed to me, drawing my thoughts back to discussions of cubism before reading Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. Add that to a guilty love for crime drama and the thrill of jury-style debate and there was no question to what I would choose from the anthology.
Treating In a Grove like a typical story makes analysis rather peculiar. Each testimony recalls an incident, brief and personal, that exists for each witness standing alone in his or her memory. That incident is of a mysterious crime that occurred unplanned in a secluded grove of bamboo and cedars. The greater story, the one that the reader contemplates as the book is closed, is the collective testimonies and the underlying essential questions of truth and the shady condition of human nature. In a Grove presents for questioning the significance of honor and reputation, pitting words against words for the objective and unsuspecting reader to consider. The revelation of what really happened would be earth-shattering, confirming terrible qualities in one or more of the characters involved, so at least some of the witnesses choose to tell and live the lie -- for honor, for reputation, to protect themselves, or perhaps to protect others.
The seven testimonies in the story of a woodcutter, a priest, a policeman, an old woman, a bandit, a wife, and a spirit are on a rape and murder involving the just mentioned bandit, woman, and spirit of the murdered man. The bandit, Tajomaru's, testimony seems most powerful to me, especially because it is one of the four carried on to the film. He certainly faces the most pressure from the court. From the text (and in the film from his words and disheveled appearance) it is suggested that he was tortured or at least threatened with torture. This undoubtedly is what pushes him to tell a "good story". “No torture can make me confess what I don't know," he says. "Now things have come to such a head, I won't keep anything from you." Perhaps the violence worked too well, and the words Tajomaru feeds the court have been stretched beyond the truth. The story that follows lives up to his apparent notoriety as a bandit. Another motivation to bear false witness would be to uphold his infamy, to go down in history if he were to be found guilty and executed. This provides justification for the information he chooses to reveal, possibly explaining the vagaries in his story. How could he have tied up a sword-bearing samurai? How did he so easily become equal to the samurai in the eyes of the woman?
The warrior's story is similarly strange. First of all, how far can we trust the medium? Forced to assume her connection is real and her words are those of the slain warrior, what of them? They contradict like all the others. Perhaps the warrior lied in the embarrassment of so easily being lured and slain by Tajomaru and of breaking the Bushido code. Why does he ultimately praise the bandit and degrade his wife? And where does the wife's testimony come from? Exploring her words, explanations for dishonesty range from shame and dishonor, blocking of the memory, and further covering of an unhappy marriage and an attempted suicide. Beyond these three core characters, the other testimonies are equally believable and yet contradictory, but were cut from the film (although some of the characters were not).
In the story, the inflections and tone of voice in the delivery are impossible to detect beyond the pace and diction of the writing. These are details that usually make testimonies and inquisitions much more effective in determining guilty and innocent. In order to maintain the same sort of ambiguity, Kurosawa needed to be very particular in manipulating the words for his adaptation. Set as flashbacks in an exchange between a commoner, the priest, and the woodcutter, the testimonies in court are from Tajomaru, the wife, and the warrior's spirit and they are perfect. Symmetrical in frame, each person sits before the voiceless court, speaking and responding to the unseen group while the focus is kept solely on them. Tajomaru does have a guard bound to his side though and shots of both wife and medium have a figure sitting in the far right background, as if to distract the eye only slightly, interfering with or weakening the strength of the focus they are receiving. Outside of the court, all the exchanges at the gate are heard with the distracting ambient sound of pouring rain.
My favorite part of Rashômon and what really is most notable in terms of cinematography is the lighting. Kurosawa's use of natural light, enhanced by mirrors and the trees themselves in the forest scenes, establishes each shot under the rawest circumstances, reflecting how human nature is both open and light-hearted, but also spotted with heavy tones of obscurity and evil. Natural light exposes but also readily hides. Because of this, all the cut-away scenes portraying each testimony are definitely most memorable. Intricate and creepy, the shifting, inconsistent light is ominous and makes the viewer rather uncomfortable. In these scenes, the camera manages to capture bandit, warrior, and wife all as most powerful and most vulnerable. Some shots are close-up detail shots of their emotion-filled faces caught in conflict while others pull back so that the light riddles their frames with layers upon layers of distraction. In terms of editing, the clean and patient cuts from still and dramatic court to figures talking with a heavy rain backdrop go quite smoothly. The contrast of just that is striking.
A technical and creative success, Rashômon successfully captures the motives of crime and the qualities of man that encourage lies and deceit. There are the pressures of honor and reputation--the obedient wife, the fearless warrior, the cunning and infamous bandit. Akirugawa ends his story completely hanging, with no real conclusions or directions in terms of resolving the crime. While Kurosawa keeps this open ending, he adds a glimmer of hope in the condition of man when the Commoner, however half-heartedly, takes in an abandoned child as one of his own. Having read the story first I found this addition to the plot in the film's final minutes slightly distracting. It just seemed out of place. I think this is just because of how familiar I was with the text at that point though. I can understand it as a choice in direction. That little moment of compassion leaves a hope for mankind, appealing to audiences by showing a fine quality of man muddled in with all the lesser qualities presented beforehand. Rashômon is an excellent adaptation of an excellent, albeit troubling short story and left behind the quiet air of sad satisfaction that comes when presented with life’s unanswerable questions.


Because the short story is written from an objective perspective in the form of various testimonies, I was curious how the transition to film might be done. Below is the opening scene, establishing well how Kurosawa made a time, place, and story out of the conflict and dialogue presented in Akutagawa's words.