Rashomon (1950)

Rashomon (1950)

By Dan and Alfie

Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZQKh4sISyI

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Plot summary

A priest, a woodcutter and another man are taking refuge from a rainstorm in the shell of a former gatehouse called Rashmon. The priest and the woodcutter are recounting the story of a murdered samurai whose body the woodcutter discovered three days earlier in a forest grove. Both were summoned to testify at the murder trial, the priest who ran into the samurai and his wife traveling through the forest just before the murder occurred. Three other people who testified at the trial are supposedly the only direct witnesses: a notorious bandit named Tajmaru, who allegedly murdered the samurai and raped his wife; the white veil cloaked wife of the samurai; and the samurai himself who testifies through the use of a medium. The three tell a similarly structured story - that Tajmaru kidnapped and bound the samurai so that he could rape the wife - but which ultimately contradict each other, the motivations and the actual killing being what differ. The woodcutter reveals at Rashmon that he knows more than he let on at the trial, thus bringing into question his own actions. But another discovery at Rashmon and the resulting actions from the discovery bring back into focus the woodcutter's own humanity or lack thereof

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Themes

Greed

Greed is a central motivating factor that frequently leads to demise. Takehiko takes Masago with him to follow Tajomaru to the grove in "In a Grove" because of their perceived greed for cheap weapons, which ends in the death of Takehiko. For Goi, it is his insatiable greed for yam gruel that ultimately leads him to hate the only thing that gave him happiness ("Yam Gruel"). Likewise, Hanaz's greedy desire for attention goes too far and ends up deeply embarrassing him when his priestess aunt arrives in town ("The Dragon"). Even "The Martyr" can be summarized by the umbrella-maker's daughter's greed for Lorenzo's attention. Save Hanaz's redemption when his lesson is learned, each of these characters meets their own demise with the excess of greed.

Ugliness

Abnormal physical features and general perceived ugliness play a big part in the basic emotional lives of Akutagawa's characters. Goi ("Yam Gruel") and Hanaz ("The Dragon") share the commonality of an ungainly red nose, which affects their lives in variously negative ways. At one point, the narrator even shares that Hanaz looked around as if he didn't have a big nose, implying that he ought to be more careful of who he looks at with such an unsightly feature. It directly affects the names that people call them and the stories' arcs. For Kesa in "Kesa and Morito, Morito's perception of her ugliness shows in his eyes and forever changes Kesa's relations to her husband and Morito. She can't stand the fact that she had been ignorant of her possible ugliness, and even Morito cannot stand the difference between his new mindset and his previous conception of her statuesque beauty. For this reason, Kesa decides that she will put her own head underneath Morito's blade instead of her husband's.

Poverty

Akutagawa frequently focuses on those inhabiting the lowest rung of the economic totem pole. We see this most clearly in "Rashmon, where the servant's abject poverty results in an inconceivable choice between death and thievery. His moral corruption is solidified when he is blinded by his own justifications for not choosing death, by stealing from somebody even poorer than he. In "Yam Gruel, it is Toshihito's relative wealth that that allows him to take advantage over the poor Goi, whose inability to purchase gruel mutinies his psyche.

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Akira Kurosawa was a Japanese filmmaker, and seen as one of the most influential filmmakers in the history cinema, directing over 50 films (53)

In a career of 57 years. Akira Kurosawa was so influential, that the huge film series, Star wars, borrowed from his samurai film, The hidden fortress (1958) after watching both these films, the similarities are very obvious, through both the storyline, characters and even Jedi was based on the genre named Jidai-geki, which The Hidden fortress was classed under. With the director being this hugely influential figure in cinema history, its safe to say Rashomon was very well received.

Akira Kurosawa

Star Wars vs The Hidden Fortress

Box Office & Reception.

Rashomon earned a Domestic Box Office of $96,568, with the budget of $250,000 shows that the film