1951 Winner, Rashomon

Rashomon

Director:        Akira Kurosawa

Distributed by:  Toho Studios

Released:  August 1950

Country:  Japan

What is Truth?

Is Truth unchanging law?

We both have truths.

Are mine the same as yours?

--Pontius Pilate, Jesus Christ Superstar

Moral relativism is a belief that there is no one truth, that each point of view has a truth is as true as another.  But when you think of it, no one can make a case for relativism with any certainty because to the arguer, it could be just as true that he is dead wrong.  Certainly, it is true, then, that there is one Truth.  It’s in our perceptions and biases, though, that we see and experience this one Truth, and therein lies the problem.  The Academy awarded Rashomon the Best Foreign Film Honorary Award in 1950 for telling a story that examines this concept.

The bandit hamming it up at the tribunal

This was the film that put famed Japanese director Akira Kurosawa on the map, and the iconic movie has become part of the culture, lending its name to the “Rashomon effect” concept of perceiving the truth through different lenses.  The story is extremely simple:  A samurai and his wife are traveling through the woods of 12^th century Japan, she on horseback and he walking beside her.  A bandit, played by Kurosawa regular Toshiro Mifune, comes out of hiding and attacks them for their loot.  The bandit leaves the scene, having taken the samurai’s money and life, and having violated the wife.  He is eventually captured and has to tell what happened to a tribunal who will decide his fate.

Takashi Shimura as the Woodcutter

Here is where the multiple versions of the Truth are put forth.  The bandit and the woman, who is also found, give witness to what they experienced, and their stories are very different.  Oddly, a third version of what happened is given by the dead man through a medium, with all three versions contradicting each other as to who is truly at fault.  A seemingly objective opinion is later told to us by a woodcutter, played by another stock Kurosawa player, Takashi Shimura.  The woodcutter saw everything but never reported his completely different version to the tribunal.  His motive for not providing testimony just might show that his version isn’t quite as objective he would lead us to believe.

Beside the philosophical angle, there is a good reason this film is so well-regarded.  Firstly, Kurosawa is masterful in the way he presents the story.  The story is introduced at a building/gate called Rashomon during a severe downpour (Kurosawa likes rain!), with Shimura’s woodcutter discussing what happened with a Buddhist priest, played by still another Kurosawa regular, Minoru Chiaki.  Kurosawa uses the elements of the rain and sun to illustrate moral peril of the whole concept of there being multiple truths.  The way he paces the film is perfect, with the story told in parts, jumping back and forth from the hazy, muggy grove where the crimes took place to the torrential loudness of rain at the gate.

Machiko Kyō as the wife, testifying

Additionally, the acting performances are as good as it gets.  Mifune’s frequent overacting might be off-putting at first, until you realize that the reason for it is that his persona is being related by another’s perspective.  Shimura, who best shines in 1952’s Ikiru (a personal favorite of mine from Kurosawa), and Chiaki provide a solid base for the film.  But Machiko Kyō, as the wife (and who also appeared in the 1953 winner Gate of Hell), gives perhaps the most impressive performance, or more accurately, performances, with subtle but discernible differences in her character showing up in the different versions of what happened.

Rashomon is the film that got me watching Kurosawa films long ago, and over the years, I would have a hard time sticking to one favorite:  Seven Samurai, Ikiru, Throne of Blood, Yojimbo, and Ran have all topped my list over time (and Dersu Uzula won Best Foreign Film in 1972). Each has its own greatness and I could make a valid, subjective argument as to why each should be considered Kurosawa’s best.  But objectively speaking, Rashomon was the movie that affected me first and made me want to see the others.  There is no disputing that Truth.

"We both have truths.  Are mine the same as yours?"

The Title: 羅生門  The name comes from a short story by Japanese writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, and is the name of an actual gate in Tokyo, but the story is adapted from another Akutagawa short story, In a Grove, published in 1922.

The culture:  The setting of the film isn’t as important as the story, which has been told in other forms over the years, including the 1964’s The Outrage, starring Paul Newman as the bandit.  But the “Japanese” element of the film is important to this film, with the juxtaposition of the wealth and status of the samurai and his wife to the ruthless bandit.  There is a falseness to the honor of the higher class characters and a central moral strength in the Buddhist priest.

Agenda danger:  Pope John Paul II wrote, “Although each individual has a right to be respected in his own journey in search of the truth, there exists a prior moral obligation, and a grave one at that, to seek the truth and to adhere to it once it is known.”  I think Kurosawa would agree.  The priest in the film laments, “Because men are weak, they lie to deceive themselves.”  It is the central horror of the film that Truth is so malleable.

Best Picture that year:  An American in Paris.

Rating:  German director Werner Herzog called Rashomon “the closest to ‘perfect’ a film can get.”  I don’t disagree.