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Film Style and Narration in Rashomon

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Film Style and Narration in Rashomon Film style and narration in Rashomon Nick Redfern Department of Media, Film & Culture, Leeds Trinity University, Brownberrie Lane, Horsforth, Leeds LS18 5HD, UK. n.redfern {at} leedstrinity.ac.uk https://leedstrinity.academia.edu/NickRedfern Abstract This article analyses the use of film style in Rashomon (Kurosawa Akira, 1950) to determine whether the different accounts of the rape and murder provided by the bandit, the wife, the husband and the woodcutter are formally distinct by comparing shot length data and using multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) to look for relationships between shot scale, camera movement, camera angle and the use of point-of-view (POV) shots, reverse-angle (RA) cuts and axial cuts. The results show that the four accounts of the rape and the murder in Rashomon differ not only in their content but also in the way they are narrated. The editing pace varies so that although the action of the film is repeated the presentation of events to the viewer is different each time. Different types of shot are used to create the narrative perspectives of the bandit, the wife and the husband that marks them out as either active or passive narrators reflecting their level of narrative agency within the film, hibits both active and passive aspects to create an ambiguous mode of narration. Rashomon is a deliberately and precisely constructed artworkwhile the in woodcutterswhich form and account content ex work together to create an epistemological puzzle for the viewer. Keywords: Kurosawa Akira, Rashomon, narration, film style, statistical analysis, multiple correspondence analysis This is a post-print of an article published as: Film Style and Narration in Rashomon, Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema 5 (1-2) 2013: 21-36. DOI: 10.1386/jjkc.5.1-2.21_1. To cite this article please refer to the published version. Film style and narration in Rashomon Under the ruins of the Rashomon a woodcutter and a priest tell a commoner of a puzzling case in which a woman was raped in the forest, her samurai-warrior husband killed, and a bandit arrested for the crime. They recount four different versions of these crimes told by the bandit, the wife and the husband (via a spiritual medium), and of the woodcutter himself as an unseen witness to events. Each version of events differs from the others in several key respects: the bandit claims that he killed the husband in a sword fight after the wife demanded the two duel to save her from dishonour, a tale seemingly backed up by the woodcutter who also describes a fight to the death at the request of the wife. The wife confesses to murdering her husband with a dagger after he spurned her following the rape, bandit and the wife. while the husbands account concludes with his ritual suicide after the departure of the Rashomon (1950) and have sought to define the meaning of a film that permitsSince no the privileged films release interpretation. critics have Surveys been fascinat of contemporaryed by the irreconcilablereactions by American narratives and of Kurosawa Akiras selfishness, the nature of truth, and the construction of social reality, often presenting European critics by Smith and Van Es emphasize the films themes of on the irreconcilability of the four narratives and the motives that drive the narrators. The fiRashomonlm has been to westernunderstood audiences as a statement as an Oriental on phenomenolog enigma. Academicy that criticismaffords the has viewer focussed an experience of the fact that nothing has a definite nature and that illusion is the way things are (Linden 1973); a conundrum that strikes at the heart of our perception of human reality undoesCastle ;you if youand submitas a vast to beingdistorting limited mirror by what or, better, you h a collection of prisms that reflect sourceand refract of the reality. distortion … the in worldthe different is an illusion, narrative yosu is yourself attributed make to thereality, egotism but thisthat realitydrives the participants to present the version of events that aveportrays made themselves Richie : in the. bestThe possible light, and though none can be said to be lying each shapes the facts to fit their - character and situation. Van Es draws these elements together, describing the film as multi perspectivismThe film with offers a moralan interpretative edge: labyrinth by showing us seven different stories from six perspectives. On crucial points the stories are in conflict. This leads to an unsolvable epistemological problem: we do not know what exactly happened in the woods and who is responsible for what. In this sea of ambiguity people are thrown back upon themselves. The two core themes of the film are the social construction of reality and egoism (2002: 117). However, Rashomon does not lead us to despair of the world. Yoshimoto (2000: 183 84) interprets the film from a humanistic perspective by noting the source of the social chaos of – that presents them in the best light, but which may be overcome by the capacity for human compassionthe films setting that leads is the the egotism woodcutter that motivates each narrator to tell the version of events scene. Rashomon view of human memory,to perspective care for the andfoundling narrative discovered has been in extraordinarily the films final -established psychological phenomenon of interest routinelys invoked as an explanation by anthropologists, sociologists and legal researchersinfluential, and for thedifferences Rashomon in personaleffect is perspectivea well s of a single event (see, e.g., Heider 1988). This effect has even been noted in statistical science when several models offer a multitude of descriptions of a data set with about the same minimum error rates (Breiman 2001). [2] Film style and narration in Rashomon Much less attention has been devoted to the functions of style in Rashomon and its role in narration. Yoshimoto (2000: 185) writes that what makes Rashomon a special film is -visual form and narration. therefirst andhave foremost been no itsattempts formal to experiment, discover if theparticula four accountsrly its audio of the rape and the murder are stylisticallyThe focus of distinctive. the film is In how part the this story is because is presented style is as considered much as what by some it is criticsabout. to (owever, be of no said to be of note at all. Prince argues there is little to be discovered by looking at form in Rashomonconsequence because to the it films has no central relevance premise to the about central the problem nature of of truth the film: and reality, if it can be The ambiguity within the film the question of reliability of the various stories is psychological in nature, issuing from the characters and the reasons they have for lying. It is not an ambiguity of –form, located in the visual and aural organization– of the film. As Kurosawa said, the paradoxes of the film are those of the human heart. They are not those of the image itself (1999: 131). Similarly, Kovács (2007: 252) argues that in Rashomon rration is considered problematic not because of the problematic nature of narration but because of an extreme existential na not something proper to art or narration. Some critics do not find much to admire in the stylesituation of Rashomon where everybody. Japanese lies; critic and Tadashi that theIijima relat thoughtivism ofthe the film film to isbe moral a failure in naturebecause and of 80), while Georg evidentlyits insufficient the employmentplan for visualizing of whatever the style good of the idea original he ha storiesppens quotedto think in of, Richie and :these improvisations aree Barbarow in without stated much baldly regard that for what the entinterestsire pattern the d irectorof the film.in this Indeed, picture the is picture Rashomon A seconds pattern factor is is merelythat when fortuitous discussing : film style . in RashomonBarbarow indenies more positivethe film termsis a criticsmasterpiece have subsumedbecause a masterpiecevariations in is style not confusedbetween anthed confusing,different parts as of the filmis. under a larger artistic scheme that maintains an aesthetic principle of formal unity: the idea of Rashomon in a tradition of multi-perspectivism in modern art, threeness. Tyler places concludinglies inthe the films fact aesthetic that however unity different are the imaginations of the four witnesses, whatever harsh vibrations their mutual contradictions set up, the general design (as the film-makers have molded it) remains and dominates the work's final aspect of great beauty and great truth (1987: 158). Linden (1973) describes Rashomon with many cuts and close- as Kurosawas attempt to exhaust the triangle, with three different styles used for the three different parts of the film a conventional style ups at the Rashomon, a sedate compositionall sounds).style for Yoshimoto the court (2000:scenes, 185and the88) use also of identifies a fluid impressionistic a formal unity monta and coherencege in the forestto the sequences,film based aroundalong with the numberthree different three astypes a structural of sound Westernelement (three music, locations Japanese, musicthree principal natura characters in each location, the– three days between the trial and the gate sign); and contrasting the vertical compositions of the gate scenes and the horizontality of the trial sequences, while the scenes in the forest bringscenes, these twothree planes characters together in the with gates the verticality of the trees set against the horizontal movement of the camera. Richie also praises the film for achieving a formal unity despite being made up of various parts, all of [3] Film style and narration in Rashomon time to time carr which work admirably together to produce a kind of rhapsodic impressionism which from contrasting shots,ies held the for story equal and amounts creates theof time, atmosphere and of single and which close-ups is fully to emphasizerealized in the triangularwoodcutters nature walk of through the story, the while forest also : observin .g (ethat goes Kurosawa on to haddiscuss probably the usenever of moved the camera more than he does in Rashomon.
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