Rashomon (film)
Encyclopedia
The bandit's story
Tajōmaru, a notorious brigand , claims that he tricked the samurai to step off the mountain trail with him and look at a cache of ancient swords he discovered. In the grove he tied the samurai to a tree, then brought the woman there. She initially tried to defend herself with a dagger, but was eventually "seduced" by the bandit. The woman, filled with shame, then begged him to duel to the death with her husband, to save her from the guilt and shame of having two men know her dishonor. Tajōmaru honorably set the samurai free and dueled with him. In Tajōmaru's recollection they fought skillfully and fiercely, but in the end Tajōmaru was the victor and the woman ran away. At the end of the story to the court, he is asked about an expensive dagger owned by the samurai's wife: he says that, in the confusion, he forgot all about it, and that it was foolish of him to leave behind such a valuable object.

The wife's story
The samurai's wife tells a different story to the court. She says that Tajōmaru left after raping her. She begged her husband to forgive her, but he simply looked at her coldly. She then freed him and begged him to kill her so that she would be at peace. He continued to stare at her with a look of loathing. His expression disturbed her so much that she fainted with dagger in hand. She awoke to find her husband dead with the dagger in his chest. She attempted to kill herself, but failed in all her efforts.

The samurai's story
The court then hears the story of the deceased samurai, told through a medium
Mediumship
Mediumship is described as a form of communication with spirits. It is a practice in religious beliefs such as Spiritualism, Spiritism, Espiritismo, Candomblé, Voodoo and Umbanda.- Concept :...

 ' onMouseout='HidePop("81946")' href="/topics/Miko">miko
Miko
is a Japanese term that anciently meant a "female shaman, spirit medium" who conveyed oracles from kami , and currently means a "shrine maiden; virgin consecrated to a deity" who serves at Shinto shrines.-Word:...

). The samurai claims that Tajōmaru, after raping his wife, asked her to travel with him. She accepted and asked Tajōmaru to kill her husband so that she would not feel the guilt of belonging to two men. Tajōmaru, shocked by this request, grabbed her, and gave the samurai a choice of letting the woman go or killing her. ("For these words alone," the dead samurai recounted, "I was ready to pardon his crime.") The woman fled, and Tajōmaru, after attempting to recapture her, gave up and set the samurai free. The samurai then killed himself with his own dagger; later, somebody removed the dagger from his chest.

The woodcutter's story
Back at Rashōmon gate (after the trial), the woodcutter explains to the commoner that the samurai's story was a lie. The woodcutter had actually witnessed the rape and murder, he says, but just did not want to get too involved at the trial. According to the woodcutter's new story, Tajōmaru begged the samurai's wife to marry him, but the woman instead freed her husband. The husband was initially unwilling to fight Tajōmaru, saying he would not risk his life for a spoiled woman, but the woman then criticized both him and Tajōmaru, saying they were not real men and that a real man would fight for a woman's love. She spurred the men to fight one another, but then hid her face in fear once they raise swords; the men, too, were visibly fearful as they begin fighting. They began a duel that was much more pitiful than Tajōmaru's account had made it sound, and Tajōmaru ultimately won through a stroke of luck. After some hesitation he killed the samurai, and the woman fled in horror. Tajōmaru could not catch her, but took the samurai's sword and left the scene limping.

Climax

At the temple, the woodcutter, priest, and commoner are interrupted from their discussion of the woodcutter's account by the sound of a crying baby. They find the baby abandoned in a basket, and the commoner takes a kimono and an amulet that have been left for the baby. The woodcutter reproaches the commoner for stealing from the abandoned baby, but the commoner chastises him. Having deduced that the woodcutter in fact stole the dagger from the scene of the murder, the commoner mocks him, "a bandit calling another a bandit". The commoner leaves Rashōmon, claiming that all men are motivated only by self-interest
Psychological egoism
Psychological egoism is the view that humans are always motivated by self-interest, even in what seem to be acts of altruism. It claims that, when people choose to help others, they do so ultimately because of the personal benefits that they themselves expect to obtain, directly or indirectly,...

.

These deceptions and lies shake the priest's faith in humanity. He is brought back to his senses when the woodcutter reaches for the baby in the priest's arms. The priest is suspicious at first, but the woodcutter explains that he intends to take care of the baby along with his own children, of whom he already has six. This simple revelation recasts the woodcutter's story and the subsequent theft of the dagger in a new light. The priest gives the baby to the woodcutter, saying that the woodcutter has given him reason to continue having hope in humanity. The film closes on the woodcutter, walking home with the baby. The rain has stopped and the clouds have opened revealing the sun in contrast to the beginning where it was overcast.

Influence of silent film and modern art

Kurosawa's admiration for silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 and modern art
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...

 can be seen in the film's minimalist sets. Kurosawa felt that sound cinema multiplies the complexity of a film: "Cinematic sound is never merely accompaniment, never merely what the sound machine caught while you took the scene. Real sound does not merely add to the images, it multiplies it." Regarding Rashomon, Kurosawa said, "I like silent pictures and I always have… I wanted to restore some of this beauty. I thought of it, I remember in this way: one of techniques of modern art is simplification, and that I must therefore simplify this film."

Accordingly, there are only three settings in the film: Rashōmon
Rashomon
Rashomon may refer to:* Rashōmon, the former main city gate in two Japanese capital cities, Heijokyō and Heiankyō * Rashōmon , a short story by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa first published in 1915...

 gate, the woods and the courtyard
Courtyard
A court or courtyard is an enclosed area, often a space enclosed by a building that is open to the sky. These areas in inns and public buildings were often the primary meeting places for some purposes, leading to the other meanings of court....

. The gate and the courtyard are very simply constructed and the woodland
Woodland
Ecologically, a woodland is a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade. Woodlands may support an understory of shrubs and herbaceous plants including grasses. Woodland may form a transition to shrubland under drier conditions or during early stages of...

 is real. This is partly due to the low budget that Kurosawa got from Daiei.

Kurosawa's relationship with the cast

When Kurosawa shot Rashomon, the actors and the staff lived together, a system Kurosawa found beneficial. He recalls "We were a very small group and it was as though I was directing Rashomon every minute of the day and night. At times like this, you can talk everything over and get very close indeed".

Cinematography

The cinematographer
Cinematographer
A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...

, Kazuo Miyagawa
Kazuo Miyagawa
is generally recognized as having been one of the finest Japanese cinematographers.Miyagawa is best known for his tracking shots, particularly those in Rashomon , the first of his three collaborations with preeminent filmmaker Akira Kurosawa....

, contributed an enormous amount of ideas and support. For example, in one sequence, there is a series of single close-ups of the bandit, then the wife, and then the husband, which then repeats to emphasize the triangular relationship between them.

Use of contrasting shots is another example of techniques in Rashomon. According to Donald Richie, the length of time of the shots of the wife and of the bandit are the same when the bandit is barbarically crazy and the wife is hysterically crazy.

Rashomon shot directly into the sun. In the shots of the actors, Kurosawa wanted to use natural light, but it was too weak; they solved the problem by using a mirror to reflect the natural light. The result is to make the strong sunlight look as though it has traveled through the branches, hitting the actors. The rain in the film had to be tinted with black ink because camera lenses could not capture rain made with pure water.

Symbolic use of light

Robert Altman
Robert Altman
Robert Bernard Altman was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.His films MASH , McCabe and...

 compliments Kurosawa's use of "dappled" light throughout the film, which gives the characters and settings further ambiguity. In his essay "Rashomon", Tadao Sato
Tadao Sato
is a prominent Japanese film critic and film theorist. Satō has published more than 30 books on film, and is one of the foremost scholars and historians addressing Japanese film, though little of his work has been translated for publication abroad....

 suggests that the film (unusually) uses sunlight to symbolize evil and sin in the film, arguing that the wife gives in to the bandit's desires when she sees the sun. However, Professor Keiko I. McDonald opposes Sato's idea in her essay "The Dialectic of Light and Darkness in Kurosawa’s Rashomon". McDonald says the film conventionally uses light to symbolize "good" or "reason" and darkness to symbolize "bad" or "impulse". She interprets the scene mentioned by Sato differently, pointing out that the wife gives herself to the bandit when the sun slowly fades out. McDonald also reveals that Kurosawa was waiting for a big cloud to appear over Rashomon gate to shoot the final scene in which the woodcutter takes the abandoned baby home; Kurosawa wanted to show that there might be another dark rain any time soon, even though the sky is clear at this moment. Unfortunately, the final scene appears optimistic because it was too sunny and clear to produce the effects of an overcast sky.

Editing

Stanley Kauffman writes in The Impact of Rashomon that Kurosawa often shot a scene with several cameras at the same time, so that he could "cut the film freely and splice together the pieces which have caught the action forcefully, as if flying from one piece to another." Despite this, he also used short shots edited together that trick the audience into seeing one shot; Richie says in his essay that "there are 407 separate shots in the body of the film ... This is more than twice the number in the usual film, and yet these shots never call attention to themselves".

Music

The film was scored by Fumio Hayasaka
Fumio Hayasaka
Fumio Hayasaka was a Japanese composer of classical music and film scores.- Early life :...

, who is among the most respected of Japanese composers. At the director's request, he included an adaptation of "Boléro
Boléro
Boléro is a one-movement orchestral piece by Maurice Ravel . Originally composed as a ballet commissioned by Russian ballerina Ida Rubinstein, the piece, which premiered in 1928, is Ravel's most famous musical composition....

" by Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

, especially during the woman's story.

Allegorical and symbolic content

The film depicts the rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...

 of a woman and the murder of her samurai
Samurai
is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...

 husband through the widely differing accounts of four witness
Witness
A witness is someone who has firsthand knowledge about an event, or in the criminal justice systems usually a crime, through his or her senses and can help certify important considerations about the crime or event. A witness who has seen the event first hand is known as an eyewitness...

es, including the bandit/rapist, the wife, the dead man (speaking through a medium), and lastly the narrator, the one witness that seems the most objective and least biased. The stories are mutually contradictory
Unreliable narrator
An unreliable narrator is a narrator, whether in literature, film, or theatre, whose credibility has been seriously compromised. The term was coined in 1961 by Wayne C. Booth in The Rhetoric of Fiction. This narrative mode is one that can be developed by an author for a number of reasons, usually...

 and not even the final version can be seen as unmotivated by factors of ego and face. Even the actors kept approaching Kurosawa wanting to know the truth, which he claimed was not the point of the film as he intended it to be an exploration of multiple realities rather than an exposition of a particular truth. Later film and TV uses of the "Rashomon effect
Rashomon effect
The Rashomon effect is the effect of the subjectivity of perception on recollection, by which observers of an event are able to produce substantially different but equally plausible accounts of it. A useful demonstration of this principle in scientific understanding can be found in an article by...

" focus on revealing "the truth" in a now conventional technique that presents the final version of a story as the truth, an approach that only matches Kurosawa's film on the surface.
Due to its emphasis on the subjectivity of truth and the uncertainty of factual accuracy, Rashomon has been read by some as an allegory of the defeat of Japan at the end of World War II. James F. Davidson's article "Memory of Defeat in Japan: A Reappraisal of Rashomon" in the December 1954 issue of the Antioch Review, is an early analysis of the World War II defeat elements.

Another allegorical interpretation of the film is mentioned briefly in a 1995 article "Japan: An Ambivalent Nation, an Ambivalent Cinema" by David M. Desser. Here, the film is seen as an allegory of the atomic bomb
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...

 and Japanese defeat. It also briefly mentions James Goodwin's view on the influence of post-war events on the film.

However, Akutagawa's "In a Grove
In a Grove
is a short story by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, first appearing in the January 1922 edition of the Japanese literature monthly Shinchō. Akira Kurosawa used this story as the basis for his award-winning movie Rashōmon....

" predates Kurosawa's film adaptation by 28 years, thus any international postwar allegory would have been the result of Kurosawa's editing (based more on the framing of the tale than the events themselves).

Symbolism runs rampant throughout the film and much has been written on the subject. Bucking tradition, Miyagawa directly filmed the sun through the leaves of the trees, as if to show the light of truth becoming obscured. The gatehouse that we continually return to as the 'home' location for the storytelling serves as a visual metaphor for a gateway into the story, and the fact that the three men at the gate gradually tear it down and burn it as the stories are told is a further comment on the nature of the truth of what they are telling.

Impact and Influence

Japanese responses

The film was produced by Daiei
Kadokawa Pictures
is a Japanese movie studio.-History:One of the most famous studios in Japan and founded in 1942 as , it is best known for having produced the giant monster Gamera film series and the Daimajin Trilogy. It also produced the Zatoichi and Nemuri Kyoshiro film series and the television series Shōnen Jet...

. When it received positive responses in the West, Japanese critics were baffled; some decided that it was only admired there because it was "exotic," others thought that it succeeded because it was more "Western" than most Japanese films.

In a collection of interpretations of Rashomon, Donald Richie
Donald Richie
Donald Richie is an American-born author who has written about the Japanese people and Japanese cinema. Although he considers himself only a writer, Richie has directed many experimental films, the first when he was 17...

 writes that "the confines of 'Japanese' thought could not contain the director, who thereby joined the world at large". He also quotes Kurosawa criticizing the way the "Japanese think too little of our own [Japanese] things".

Influence outside Japan

The film appeared at the 1951 Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...

 at the behest of an Italian language teacher, Giuliana Stramigioli who had recommended it to Italian film promotion agency Unitalia Film seeking a Japanese film to screen at the festival. However, Daiei Motion Picture Company
Kadokawa Pictures
is a Japanese movie studio.-History:One of the most famous studios in Japan and founded in 1942 as , it is best known for having produced the giant monster Gamera film series and the Daimajin Trilogy. It also produced the Zatoichi and Nemuri Kyoshiro film series and the television series Shōnen Jet...

 (a producer of popular features at the time) and the Japanese government had disagreed with the choice of Kurosawa's work on the grounds that it was "not [representative enough] of the Japanese movie industry" and felt that a work of Yasujiro Ozu
Yasujiro Ozu
was a prominent Japanese film director and script writer. He is known for his distinctive technical style, developed during the silent era. Marriage and family, especially the relationships between the generations, are among the most persistent themes in his body of work...

 would have been more illustrative of excellence in Japanese cinema. Despite these reservations, the film was screened at the festival and won both the Italian Critics Award and the Golden Lion
Golden Lion
Il Leone d’Oro is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival. The prize was introduced in 1949 by the organizing committee and is now regarded as one of the film industry's most distinguished prizes...

 award—introducing western audiences, including western directors, more noticeably to both Kurosawa's films and techniques, such as shooting directly into the sun and using mirrors to reflect sunlight onto the actor's faces.

The 1964 Western The Outrage
The Outrage
The Outrage is a remake of the 1950 Japanese film Rashomon, reformulated as a Western. Like the original Akira Kurosawa film, four people give contradictory accounts of a rape and murder. Kurosawa is credited with the screenplay. It was directed by Martin Ritt and is based on stories by Ryūnosuke...

, which starred Paul Newman
Paul Newman
Paul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver and auto racing enthusiast...

, Claire Bloom
Claire Bloom
Claire Bloom is an English film and stage actress.-Early life:Bloom was born in the North London suburb of Finchley, the daughter of Elizabeth and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales...

, Edward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson was a Romanian-born American actor. A popular star during Hollywood's Golden Age, he is best remembered for his roles as gangsters, such as Rico in his star-making film Little Caesar and as Rocco in Key Largo...

, and William Shatner
William Shatner
William Alan Shatner is a Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, and author. He gained worldwide fame and became a cultural icon for his portrayal of James T...

, was a remake
Remake
A remake is a piece of media based primarily on an earlier work of the same medium.-Film:The term "remake" is generally used in reference to a movie which uses an earlier movie as the main source material, rather than in reference to a second, later movie based on the same source...

 of Rashomon, with Kurosawa acknowledged for the screenplay.

The film's concept has influenced a variety of subsequent films, such as Hero
Hero (2002 film)
Hero is a 2002 wuxia film directed by Zhang Yimou. Starring Jet Li as the nameless protagonist, the film is based on the story of Jing Ke's assassination attempt on the King of Qin in 227 BC....

, Vantage Point
Vantage Point (film)
Vantage Point is a 2008 American political action thriller film directed by Pete Travis. It was adapted from a screenplay written by Barry L. Levy. The story focuses on an assassination attempt on the President of the United States as seen from a different set of vantage points through the eyes of...

, Courage Under Fire
Courage Under Fire
Courage Under Fire is a 1996 film directed by Edward Zwick, and starring Denzel Washington, Meg Ryan, Lou Diamond Phillips and Matt Damon. It is one of the first films to depict the 1991 Gulf War.-Plot:...

, Basic
Basic (film)
Basic is a 2003 American/German thriller film directed by John McTiernan and starring John Travolta, Connie Nielsen and Samuel L. Jackson.-Plot:...

, One Night at McCool's
One Night at McCool's
One Night at McCool's is a 2001 American dark comedy/neo-noir film, directed by Harald Zwart and starring Liv Tyler, Matt Dillon, Michael Douglas, John Goodman, Paul Reiser, Reba McEntire and Andrew Dice Clay.-Plot:...

and U Mong Pa Meung (Thai Movie). The first act of Michael John LaChiusa's musical, See What I Wanna See
See What I Wanna See
See What I Wanna See is a musical by Michael John LaChiusa based on three short stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa: "Kesa and Morito", "In a Grove" and "The Dragon". The story is told in two parts with two prologues. Each prologue involves the medieval lovers/killers Kesa and Morito...

, is also based on the same short stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
was a Japanese writer active in the Taishō period in Japan. He is regarded as the "Father of the Japanese short story". He committed suicide at age of 35 through an overdose of barbital.-Early life:...

, and features a main character who goes to a theater to see Rashomon.

Influence in Television

The multiple-perspective concept has also been used, sometimes with over-the-top exaggeration for comedic expression, in episodes of many television programs.

TV Show
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...

Episode Comments
All in the Family
All in the Family
All in the Family is an American sitcom that was originally broadcast on the CBS television network from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979. In September 1979, a new show, Archie Bunker's Place, picked up where All in the Family had ended...

"Everybody Tells the Truth" Archie Bunker
Archie Bunker
Archibald "Archie" Bunker is a fictional New Yorker in the 1970s top-rated American television sitcom All in the Family and its spin-off Archie Bunker's Place, played to acclaim by Carroll O'Connor. Bunker is a veteran of World War II, reactionary, bigoted, conservative, blue-collar worker, and...

 and Mike Stivic give conflicting accounts of an incident involving a refrigerator
Refrigerator
A refrigerator is a common household appliance that consists of a thermally insulated compartment and a heat pump that transfers heat from the inside of the fridge to its external environment so that the inside of the fridge is cooled to a temperature below the ambient temperature of the room...

 repairman and a black apprentice repairman.
CSI "Rashomama" The episode required the CSIs, deprived of any of the usual forensic evidence, to rely on the eye witness accounts of guests at a wedding to solve the case.
The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Dick Van Dyke Show is an American television sitcom that initially aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System from October 3, 1961, until June 1, 1966. The show was created by Carl Reiner and starred Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore. It was produced by Reiner with Bill Persky and Sam Denoff....

"The Night the Roof Fell In" Rob and Laura recall to friends vastly different versions of a marital spate that had Rob go out of the house after both of them had a rough day.
Fame
Fame (1982 TV series)
Fame is an American television series originally produced between 1982 and 1987. The show was based on the 1980 motion picture of the same name. Using a mixture of drama and music, it followed the lives of the students and faculty at the New York City High School for the Performing Arts. Although...

Under a theater marquee, two characters huddle to wait out a rainstorm. Only after the entire story has unfolded in flashback does the camera pan back enough to disclose that the theater marquee announces "A Kurosawa Festival".
King of the Hill
King of the Hill
King of the Hill is an American animated dramedy series created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, that ran from January 12, 1997, to May 6, 2010, on Fox network. It centers on the Hills, a working-class Methodist family in the fictional small town of Arlen, Texas...

"A Firefighting We Will Go
A Firefighting We Will Go
"A Firefighting We Will Go" is the 10th episode in the third season of the Fox animated series King of the Hill, and the 45th episode overall.-Plot:...

"
The main characters recount the events that led to a fire station burning down while acting as volunteer firefighters. Each character's story make themselves out to be heroic while the others are bumbling.
Leverage
Leverage (TV series)
Leverage is an American television drama series on TNT that premiered in December 2008. The series is produced by director/executive producer Dean Devlin's production company Electric Television...

"The Rashomon Job" Team members recount contradictory stories about a night five years earlier, when it turns out they each unwittingly tried to steal the same artifact at the same time.
Magnum, P.I.
Magnum, P.I.
Magnum, P.I. is an American television series starring Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum, a private investigator living on Oahu, Hawaii. The series ran from 1980 to 1988 in first-run broadcast on the American CBS television network....

"I Witness" During a robbery at the King Kamehameha Club, the three main supporting characters of the series (Higgins, Rick, and T.C.) are victimized and relate widely-varying, self-serving statements to investigator Tanaka.
Mama's Family
Mama's Family
Mama's Family is an American television sitcom that premiered on NBC on January 22, 1983. It was cancelled in May 1984, but NBC would continue to air reruns until September 1985. In September 1986, Mama's Family returned in first-run syndication, where it aired for an additional four seasons,...

"Rashomama" Eunice, Ellen, and Naomi tell overly exaggerated versions of how Mama got hit in the head with the pot while making gooseberry jam.
NewsRadio
NewsRadio
NewsRadio is an American television situation comedy that aired on NBC from 1995 to 1999. The series was created by executive producer Paul Simms, and was filmed in front of a studio audience at CBS Studio Center and Sunset Gower Studios...

"Catherine Moves On" Catherine announces she is leaving WNYX. The rest of the staff offer Mr. James their versions of how Catherine quit and why, colored by their own perceptions.
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as part of the Star Trek franchise. Roddenberry, Rick Berman, and Michael Piller served as executive producers at different times throughout the production...

"A Matter of Perspective" A character is accused of murdering a scientist because of an alleged interest in the scientist's wife. Several similar but contradictory scenarios based on the testimony of the people involved are played out on the holodeck
Holodeck
A holodeck, in the fictional Star Trek universe, is a simulated reality facility located on starships and starbases. The first use of a "holodeck" by that name in the Star Trek universe was in the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Encounter at Farpoint", although a conceptually...

.
Farscape
Farscape
Farscape is an Australian-American science fiction television series filmed in Australia and produced originally for the Nine Network. The series was conceived by Rockne S. O'Bannon and produced by Jim Henson Productions and Hallmark Entertainment...

"The Ugly Truth" After a Plokavian ship is destroyed by Talyn, the crew is put on trial. During their testimony, the story of their meeting with Talyn and Crais is told from a number of perspectives, the truth still ambiguous to the end as Stark sacrifices himself by pleading guilty so that the others might live.
Batman: The Animated Series
Batman: The Animated Series
Batman: The Animated Series is an American animated series based on the DC Comics character Batman. The series featured an ensemble cast of many voice-actors including Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Arleen Sorkin, and Loren Lester. The series won four Emmy Awards and was nominated...

"P.O.V."

Influence on philosophy

  • Rashomon plays a central role in Martin Heidegger
    Martin Heidegger
    Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher known for his existential and phenomenological explorations of the "question of Being."...

    's dialogue between a Japanese person and an inquirer. Where the inquirer praises the film early on for being a way into the "mysterious" Japanese world, the Japanese person condemns the film for being too European and dependent on a certain objectifying realism not present in traditional Japanese noh
    Noh
    , or - derived from the Sino-Japanese word for "skill" or "talent" - is a major form of classical Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the 14th century. Many characters are masked, with men playing male and female roles. Traditionally, a Noh "performance day" lasts all day and...

     plays.
  • The political scientist Graham Allison claimed to have used Rashomon as a starting point for his magnum opus, Essence of Decision
    Essence of Decision
    Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis is an analysis, by political scientist Graham T. Allison, of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Allison used the crisis as a case study for future studies into governmental decision-making. The book became the founding study of the John F...

    , in which he told the story of the Cuban Missile Crisis
    Cuban Missile Crisis
    The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...

     from three different theoretical viewpoints (and, as a result, the Crisis is described and explained in three entirely different ways).

Awards

  • Blue Ribbon Awards
    Blue Ribbon Awards
    The are film-specific prizes awarded solely by movie critics and writers in Tokyo, Japan.The awards were established in 1950 by which is composed of film correspondents from seven Tokyo-based sports newspapers...

     (1951) - Best Screenplay: Akira Kurosawa and Shinobu Hashimoto
    Shinobu Hashimoto
    Shinobu Hashimoto is a Japanese screenwriter, director, producer, and was a frequent collaborator with Akira Kurosawa.He has won some 16 awards for his writing including a succession of Blue Ribbon Awards particularly in the 1960s....

  • Mainichi Film Concours (1951) - Best Actress: Machiko Kyō
    Machiko Kyo
    is a Japanese actress whose film work occurred primarily during the 1950s. She rose to extraordinary domestic praise in Japan for her work in two of the greatest Japanese films of the 20th century, Akira Kurosawa's Rashōmon and Kenji Mizoguchi's Ugetsu.Machiko trained to be a dancer before...

  • Venice Film Festival
    Venice Film Festival
    The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...

     (1951) - Golden Lion
    Golden Lion
    Il Leone d’Oro is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival. The prize was introduced in 1949 by the organizing committee and is now regarded as one of the film industry's most distinguished prizes...

    : Akira Kurosawa
  • National Board of Review USA (1951) - Best Director: Akira Kurosawa and Best Foreign Film: Japan
  • 24th Academy Awards
    24th Academy Awards
    The 24th Academy Awards is an event that honored the Greatest Films of 1951.Best Picture was awarded to An American in Paris, which, like A Place in the Sun, received six academy awards...

    , USA (1952) - Best Foreign Language Film

Top lists

The film appeared on many critics' top lists of the best films.
  • 5th - Top ten list in 1950, Kinema Junpo
    Kinema Junpo
    , commonly called , is a Japanese film magazine which began publication in July 1919. The magazine was founded by a group of four students, including Saburō Tanaka, at the Tokyo Institute of Technology . In that first month, it was published three times on days with a "1" in them. These first three...

  • 10th - Directors' Top Ten Poll in 1992, Sight & Sound
  • 9th - Directors' Top Ten Poll in 2002, Sight & Sound
  • 290th - The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time in 2008, Empire
  • 50 Klassiker, Film by Nicolaus Schröder in 2002
  • 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
    1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
    1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die is a film reference book edited by Steven Jay Schneider with original essays on each film contributed by over 70 film critics...

    by Steven Jay Schneider in 2003
  • 22nd – Empire
    Empire (magazine)
    Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...

    magazine's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.

See also

  • A Matter of Perspective
  • Unreliable narrator
    Unreliable narrator
    An unreliable narrator is a narrator, whether in literature, film, or theatre, whose credibility has been seriously compromised. The term was coined in 1961 by Wayne C. Booth in The Rhetoric of Fiction. This narrative mode is one that can be developed by an author for a number of reasons, usually...

  • Blind men and an elephant
    Blind Men and an Elephant
    The story of the blind men and an elephant originated in India from where it is widely diffused. It has been used to illustrate a range of truths and fallacies...

  • Kishotenketsu
    Kishotenketsu
    describes the structure and development of Chinese and Japanese narratives. It was originally used in Chinese poetry as a four-line composition, such as Qijue, and is also referred to as . The first Chinese character refers to the introduction or , the next: development, , the third: twist, ,...

  • Nonlinear (arts)
    Nonlinear (arts)
    Nonlinear narrative, disjointed narrative or disrupted narrative is a narrative technique, sometimes used in literature, film, hypertext websites and other narratives, wherein events are portrayed out of chronological order...


Further reading

  • Davidson, James F. "Memory of Defeat in Japan: A Reappraisal of Rashomon". Rashomon. Ed. Donald Richie. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP
    Rutgers University
    Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...

    , 1987. page 159-166.
  • Erens, Patricia. Akira Kurosawa: a guide to references and resources. Boston: G.K.Hall, 1979.
  • Heider, Karl G. "The Rashomon Effect: When Ethnographers Disagree". American Anthropologist volume 90, March 1988. page 73–81.
  • Kauffman, Stanley. "The Impact of Rashomon". Rashomon. Ed. Donald Richie. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1987. page 173-177.
  • McDonald, Keiko I. "The Dialectic of Light and Darkness in Kurosawa's Rashomon". Rashomon. Ed. Donald Richie. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1987. page 183-192.
  • Richie, Donald
    Donald Richie
    Donald Richie is an American-born author who has written about the Japanese people and Japanese cinema. Although he considers himself only a writer, Richie has directed many experimental films, the first when he was 17...

    . "Rashomon". Rashomon. Ed. Donald Richie. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1987. page 1-21.
  • Richie, Donald. The Films of Akira Kurosawa. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California
    University of California
    The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...

     P, 1984.
  • Sato, Tadao
    Tadao Sato
    is a prominent Japanese film critic and film theorist. Satō has published more than 30 books on film, and is one of the foremost scholars and historians addressing Japanese film, though little of his work has been translated for publication abroad....

    . "Rashomon". Rashomon. Ed. Donald Richie. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1987. page 167-172.
  • Tyler, Parker. "Rashomon as Modern Art". Rashomon. Ed. Donald Richie. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1987. page 149-158.

External links

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