Rashomon

Poster 1

— Commoner (played by Kichijiro Ueda)

***Rashomon*** is a 1950 Daiei drama film, directed by Akira Kurosawa. Earning him the Golden Lion Award from Venice International Film Festival, it is one of Akira Kurosawa's greatest works and is one of the earliest productions to feature hand-held camera footage.

## Plot

The capital of Kyoto in the Heian era, where people 's minds were completely depleted due to continuous wars, epidemics, and natural disasters . At the ruined Rajomon gate , three men were staying in the rain. 2 of them, Soma sale was to appear as a witness in the case that there is (Soma Uri, fired sellers of wood) and the journey Hoshi Kebiishi was the way back from. When he heard and heard a strange story, he started telling another man.

Three days ago, Mr. Hitoshi, who took part in the mountain to collect firewood, discovered the samurai, Takehiro Kanazawa's corpse, and reported it to the unlawful inspection . And today, while remembering the situation at the time, Hitomi, who appeared in the interrogation place, has Ichimekasa, a trampled samurai hat, a cut rope, and a red woven protective bag near the body, I testify that I couldn't find Kanazawa's sword or female dagger that should be there. A travel lawyer who met Kanazawa on the way also appeared in the court, and Kanazawa testified that he was acting with his wife Masago.

First of all, the thief's Tayumaru is taken as a bad guy who killed Kanazawa. When he saw a samurai couple in the mountains, Tatsumaru was lustful when he saw the face of Masago, and tricked Kanazawa into arresting him, and then said that he had made Masako a glove. After that, the dignified Masago demanded a duel between the two and offered to become the wife of the winning one. However, during that time Masago fled and testified that he did not know the whereabouts of the dagger.

Then the testimony of Masago begins. After being gaged, Tatemaru ran away without killing Kanazawa. Masago tries to help Kanazawa, but Kanazawa looks down on his wife who allowed the man to stand in front of her with a disdainful look, and Masako, who is finally intolerable to his eyes, begs him to kill himself. When he awoke and woke up, he witnessed that his husband was stabbed with a sword and died, and he tried to die afterwards, but he did not die. The narrative was heartbreaking, far too far from the testimony of Tabesumaru.

Finally, a shrine maiden is called and calls the spirit of Kanazawa to obtain a testimony. According to Kanazawa's legend, Masago, after being humiliated by Tatsumaru, turned to him and asked him to kill his husband instead of going with him. However, that shallow attitude also made the fluent Tatanaru Maru amazed and offered to Kanazawa that the husband could decide whether to save or kill the woman. Upon hearing it, Masago fled, and Takujumaru disappeared, and he was so sad that he left himself alone with his wife's dagger. Then, after I died, somebody appeared and pulled out the dagger, but said I didn't know who it was.

After having talked about the disagreements of the three who disagree with each other, Toru tells his servant, "All three are lying." Toru said he had witnessed the entire story of the incident, but was afraid to get involved and was silent. According to Masuda, Tatsumaru was begging for marriage after being raped by Masago, but she refused and broke Kanazawa's rope. However, Kanazawa urged her, who was humiliated, to harm herself as a samurai wife. Then Masago laughed and screamed at the men's selfish words, killing Kanazawa and Tatsumaru. Two people who were not accustomed to the battle slashed each other with a flat waist, and finally Tamegumaru killed Kanazawa, but Masago was upset and escaped as the result of his own intention. Tatsumaru who was upset just after killing a person could not chase Masago.

The confession of the three is false for appearance, and the travel lawyer who knows the ruthless truth is ephemeral. Then, in a corner of Rajomon, a baby cried. Someone threw away the baby. The villain takes the kimono that wrapped the baby without hesitation, and leaves the baby. Although he was blamed for doing too much work, the servant preached his reason that humans who were not selfish in this world could not survive, and stole the Masago dagger that had disappeared from the scene I pointed out and left, swearing that you didn't qualify.

The traveller despairs about the unexpected consequences. Then, Toru salesman reached out to the baby. For a moment, a traveller was suspicious of robbing even the baby's kimono, but he was able to get rid of his hand, but Masutaru left behind, saying that he would "raise it as his own child" and took care of the baby. The traveller found his hope in the conscience of human beings while being ashamed of his unclearness.

## Cast

* Takashi Shimura as Kikori, the wood cutter
* Minoru Chiaki as Tabi Hōshi, the priest
* Kichijiro Ueda as the listener, a common person
* Toshiro Mifune as Tajōmaru, the bandit
* Machiko Kyō as the Samurai's wife
* Masayuki Mori as the Samurai, the husband
* Noriko Honma as Miko, the medium
* Daisuke Katō as Houben, the policeman

## Staff

* Director: Akira Kurosawa (Movie Art Society)
* Production: Jingo Minoura
* Planning: Shojiro Motoki (Association of Film Arts)
* Original: Ryunosuke Akutagawa
* Screenplay: Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto
* Photo: Kazuo Miyagawa
* Music: Fumio Hayasaka
* Art: Takashi Matsuyama
* Lighting: Kenichi Okamoto
* Recording: Iwao Otani
* Edit: Shigeo Nishida
* Assistant Director: Yasushi Kato
* Assistant Director: Mitsuo Wakasugi
* Record: Teruyo Nogami

## Titles

* Rashomon (Japanese: 羅生門 Original Japanese release title)

## Production

### history

Mansaku Itami have received guidance as the only disciple Shinobu Hashimoto is, after the death of Itami Kiyoshi Saeki become a disciple, was the study of the screenplay while the office worker. In 1949 , Hashimoto wrote a work adapted from Ryunosuke Akutagawa 's short story " Yabu no Naka ". When I showed this script to Saeki , the script turned around to Akira Kurosawa , who had been with him for some time . Kurosawa picked this up as the next film. On the murder that wrote the scenario of Hashimoto killed the samurai of the journey in the outskirts of Kyoto, three people involved is Kebiishi but to testify at, of misanthropy that it does not know the truth is as杳staggered everyone Although it was a story, it was too short to make into a movie, so I added the scene of the testimony of 杣 Sales and the episode of " Rashomon " of Akutagawa, and the episode of the baby that appeared in the last scene  .

At that time Kurosawa was free due to the influence of the Toho dispute by establishing a movie arts association with Mikio Naruse , Kajiro Yamamoto , Shojiro Motoki and others, but the association had a contract with Daiei . The company negotiated production. However, because Daiei twisted his head into making this difficult film into a movie, Kurosawa finally convinced President Masakazu Nagata that he could do it with a full set, and the plan was finally approved  .

### Shooting

The filming was done at Daiei Kyoto Studio . An open set of the full-scale "Rashomon" was built in the square in front of the studio. This set has 18 frontages (about 33 meters), 12 depths (about 22 meters), 11 heights (about 20 meters), and the pillars use 18 giant timbers of 4 shaku (about 1.2 meters), Four thousand roof tiles engraved as "Enryaku 17th year" were burned  . Furthermore, the right side of the gate has been greatly collapsed to recreate the ruined appearance. The completed gates becomes a thing very huge, Kurosawa also "I also was not willing to build such a big thing."  it said. Matsue Kawaguchi, a director of Daiei , complained that "I had eaten a lot by Mr. Black"  . The flat of the gate is 1 m 20 cm in length and 2 m 15 cm in width, and the characters are written by Shotaro Uno, a calligrapher  . The set other than this gate was made only by Shirasu, who was not inspected, and the forest scene was shot in the primeval forest of Nara Okuyama and the forest of Komyoji [ *Avoid ambiguity* ] .

At the beginning of the rain scene, he said that he used black ink to mix water with a hose in order to shoot a powerful image of rain with a monochrome camera. This method is also used in the battle scene in the heavy rain of " Seven Samurai ".

Performers of Kurosawa movie regulars Toshiro Mifune , Takashi Shimura , Minoru Chiaki to al Machiko Kyo , Masayuki Mori , YoshiJiro Ueda , in the small role Daisuke Kato , Fumiko Honma is only 8 people. Originally, the heroine's role as Masako was going to be Setsuko Hara , but because Kyo was eager for this role and shaved his eyebrows and went to the audition, Kurosawa bought the enthusiasm of Kyo and decided to Kyo.

On August 21, 1950 (Showa 25) , just before completion , the shooting station broke out while recording the post-recording, and the original negative was safe, but some of the sound negatives were burned down. Furthermore, on the next day, the flames rose again during the test on the projector, and the poisonous gas released from the film caused an accident that about 30 staff members got to bed  . The preview is scheduled for August 25, but Kurosawa did the recording work for the remaining two days and managed to make it in time for the preview.

### Development

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 the techniques of modern art is simplification, and that I must therefore simplify this film."

Accordingly, there are only three settings in the film: Rashōmon gate, the woods, and the courtyard. The gate and the courtyard are very simply constructed and the woodland is real. This is partly due to the low budget that Kurosawa gained from Daiei.

### Casting

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".

### Filming

The cinematographer, Kazuo Miyagawa, contributed numerous ideas, technical skill, and expertise in support for what would be an experimental and influential approach to cinematography. 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 the film techniques used 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 acting barbarically and the wife is hysterically crazy.

*Rashomon* had camera shots that were directly into the sun. 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 makes the strong sunlight look as though it has traveled through the branches, hitting the actors. The rain in the scenes at the gate had to be tinted with black ink because camera lenses could not capture the water pumped through the hoses.

### Lighting

Robert Altman compliments Kurosawa's use of "dappled" light throughout the film, which gives the characters and settings further ambiguity. In his essay "Rashomon", Tadao Sato 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 Kauffmann 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; Donald 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, who is among the most respected of Japanese composers. At the director's request, he included an adaptation of "Boléro" by Maurice Ravel, especially during the woman's story.

Due to setbacks and some lost audio, the crew took the urgent step of bringing Mifune back to the studio after filming to record another line. Recording engineer Iwao Ōtani added it to the film along with the music, using a different microphone.

## Publish

On August 25th, a preview was held on the 4th floor of Daiei headquarters. However, President Nagata, who was watching the preview, resented, "I don't understand this movie," and left the seat on the way. Furthermore, Nagata has relocated the general affairs manager to Hokkaido , and has fired the planner, Soujiro Motoki,  . This work was released the next day on August 26, but it is a difficult work, so the evaluation in Japan is really unpopular, and it is ranked 5th in Kinema Junpo Best Ten of this year was. The box office revenue was also a small number for Kurosawa's work.

At the end of the same year, invitation letters were sent to Japan from the Venice International Film Festival and the Cannes International Film Festival . In order to select a candidate for the Cannes International Film Festival to be held earlier, it was decided to select a recommended movie from each movie company, and Daiei chose Kosaburo Yoshimura 's "False Dressing" and "Rashomon"  . From among them, a vote was taken by the people concerned, and the top two works, " To see you again " and "Rashomon" were selected as candidates. However, the production company Toho declined due to the dispute because "Before you meet again" declined to sell, and although "Rashomon" remained, this also declined. Meanwhile, Italy Film's president, Juliana Stramiggiori, was asked by the Venice International Film Festival to search for a Japanese exhibition work, but when I saw how many works and candidate works, one of them was "Rashomon". Was impressed when I saw the movie, and decided to submit it, but Daiei opposed it. So Strami Joli sent it to the festival with English subtitles at her own expense  .

At that time, most people, including Daiei's executives, did not expect an award for the film, but it was highly acclaimed as soon as it was shown at the Venice International Film Festival , and Golden Lion on September 10, 1951 (Showa 26). It won the award . However, none of the Japanese producers participated in the film festival, so a Vietnamese man who was walking in a hurry would receive a trophy instead. This appearance was reported in photographs, and it was sometimes misleading that the unrelated Vietnamese were Kurosawa himself.

Nagata listened to the award report and asked back, "What is the Grand Prix?" and criticized "I don't understand." I told him. People ridiculed Nagata's attitude as "Akira Kurosawa was a grand prix, Masakazu Nagata was a silane prix." Kurosawa recalled this later, and described it as "a movie of "Rashomon" itself"  . Subsequent Daiei turned to the artistic epic movie line from entertainment movie line, "of Kōzaburō Yoshimura The Tale of Genji ", Kenji Mizoguchi of " Ugetsumonogatari ", " Sansho the Bailiff ", Teinosuke Kinugasa "of the Hell Gate is one after another company works such as" And won an award at an overseas film festival.

Akira Kurosawa did not even know that the work was sent to the film festival, and he knew for the first time that his award was received by his wife. Kurosawa made the following remarks at an award ceremony held later.

"It was the Japanese who disrespected Japanese movies the most. It was the foreigners who sent the Japanese movies to foreign countries. Isn't it necessary to reflect on this? Until Ukiyo-e went abroad It's almost nothing more than a painting by Ichii.Isn't there something that we, or ourselves, would mean too much? I don't think "Rashomon" is such a fine work. However, when I was told, "That is a whim," I wonder why I have to think so obscenely. Why did the Japanese cease to be confident about themselves or what they made? Why not try to defend their movie? I wonder what I'm worried about. "
## Release

### Japan release

The film was originally released in Japan on August 24-26 in 1950 by Daiei.

### U.S. release

The film was released in the United States by RKO Radio Pictures with English subtitles on December 26, 1951.

### Japan re-release

The film was originally re-released in Japan on January 1, 1962.

## Remake

" Assault " *The Outrage*
American movie　1964
Officially bought the rights to the original version of "Rashomon," and based on this script, the stage was replaced with Mexico and re-movied.
* Director: Martin Litt
* Robber Carrasco (Tasomaru): Paul Newman
* Husband (Takehiro Kanazawa): Lawrence Harvey
* Wife (Masago): Claire Bloom
* Explorer (Selling): Howard D. Silva
* Pastor (Journey): William Shatner
* Patten (Child): Edward G. Robinson

" U Mong Pa Meung- Rashomon " (U Mong Pa Meung, อุโมงค์ผาเมือง , *The Outrage* )
Thai movie In 2011, based on a script adapted from the original version of "Rashomon" by Kukrit Pramoth for theatrical Thai , the stage was replaced with Thailand about 500 years ago.
* Director: Panthewanop Dhewakul (ML Pundhevanop Dhewakul, th: หม่อมหลวงพันธุ์เทวนพ\_เทวกุล )
* Wife: Schumaan Bunyasak ( en:Laila Boonyasak )
* Husband: Ananda Ebaringamu ( En: Ananda Everingham )
* Monk: Mario Maurer
* Thieves: Dome The capital of Kyoto in theHate Lagoon ( th: ดอม\_เหตระกูล ).

## Gallery

The Original Japanese re-release postera Original Re-release postera Original Re-release poster