Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon

Title: Rashomon
Director: Akira Kurosawa
TRT: 1hr 28 min
Year-1951
Awards: 1951 Venice Film Festival Golden Lion: Akira Kurosawa

Directed by the great Akira Kurosawa, “Rashomon” is actually based on two stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. The first one is Rashomon which provides the setting for the film and the second is In the Grove, providing the film with the characters and plot-line. The film tells the story of a rape of a woman and the murder of her husband. The story is told from different viewpoints such as from the bandit, the woman, the murdered husband, and the narrator. The theory of film that this falls under is psychoanalytical. Kurosawa focuses on human nature and what people will in the name of honor as well as in shame. In the movie, the woman wants her husband murdered because of the shame she has do to being being raped by the thief.
The first article I found is an online article entitled “Rashomon (Film). It is a very in depth article about the film. One of things interesting about the article is that it talks about the motivations of each character in the film. In the bandit’s version, he accepts blame but tells that duel between him and the samurai was an honorable one. In the wife’s version, she feels morally guilty so she says that she stabbed her husband. In the husband’s version, who is dead at the time they are each telling their story, is told through a medium, he is ashamed to what happened in the woods. The article also talks about other things suck as how Kurosawa was influenced by silent films. He states, “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." One last tidbit from the article is that it talks about the lighting in the film. The film uses sunlight to symbolize evil and sin in the film. An example is when the woman sees the sun and gives in to the bandit’s desire.
The second article is from Literature Film Quarterly entitled “Light and Darkness in Rashomon.” In the article they look at the different things about human nature. The light side (the good side) and the dark (the bad side). The film also shows the light through the use of sunlight and the dark by the rain and the ruined Rashomon gate. The article states the light represents reason and the dark represents human impulses. An example of the light. At the end of the movie, the woodcutter leaves with the infant they find at the end of the movie in his arms. This represents the potential harmony.
I have seen Rashomon a couple of times. It is an extremely well-made movie. It also shows how great of a director Akira Kurosawa is. He is able to use only three settings which are the ruined gate, the woods, and the courtyard and weave and interesting and complex story out of them. The cinematography with the use of sunlight is remarkable and the dialogue is sharp. This film has also influenced other mother with its use of telling stories from different points of view. One recent movie I can think of off the top of my head is Vantage Point that uses this. Rashomon is one of the best foreign films ever made.

Sources:

1.) http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Rashomon_(film)

2.) McDonald, Keiko I. "Light and Darkness in Rashomon." Literature Film Quarterly 10.2 (1982): 120. Communication & Mass Media Complete. EBSCO. Web. 29 Nov. 2010.

Current Events Article

The first article, “Film of Paul Bowles Short Story Rediscovered,” is a pretty interesting article. It tells how director Sara Driver, got a call from a stranger about how her first film “You are Not I” was found. It was neat to see how the director, with a shoe-string budget of only $12,000 and no rights to produce Bowles’ story, went about and made it anymore. She shipped a copy of the film to Bowles’ himself and he liked it. He even wrote her a critique on it and granted her the rights to the story. Another interesting fact in the article is that she filmed it in Western New Jersey and only in six days. Overall, it was a good little piece on the movie and how it came back around after so many years of believing it was lost.



The second article, “Brazil’s Best, Restored and Ready for a 21st-Century Audience is about the film “Limite” It is a 1930 film by director Mario Peixoto. It is showing at the World Cinema Foundation Festival. The article describes the movie as visually poetic and abstract in a way. It is also a movie more talked about and seen and is an independent film. When the film came out, it was detested by the cultural right wing and distributors thought it was too difficult for the audience. This was Peixoto’s only film he made. Walter Salles, Director of Central Station, describes the moves as “ a film of transcendent poetry and boundless imagination.” The writer never goes into what the movie is about, perhaps trying to get the reader intrigued to what it is all about.

The 400 Blows

Title: The 400 Blows
Director: Francois Truffaut
TRT: 99 minutes
Year-1959
Awards: Winner of Best Director, OCIC Award at Cannes Film Festival

Truffaut’s The 400 Blows was very influential for the French New Wave movement. It rejected the traditional cinematic structure. Like with Eisenstein’s films such as The Battleship Potemkin, it went against the typical hollywood style. The movie featured jump cuts. The visual style was also different as Truffaut used different and odd angles for shot instead of the typical long, medium, and close, shot. Truffaut instead focused on long tracking shots such as Antoine running at the end of the film.

The first article I chose is entitled “The Aesthetics of Absorption: Truffaut’s ‘The 400 Blows’. The article is talks about the directing style of Truffaut and about the different shots such as panning in the film that he uses. The article also talks about the French New Wave and compares and contrasts Truffaut to another director, Jean-Luc Godard. One of the scenes the article talks about is the jogging scene. In this scene, the gym teacher takes the class running through the streets and one by one the kids disappear. Truffaut places the camera high above the street to allow the viewer to see this unfold whereby a person walking on the streets would not be able to see (jenkins). Also, in the screening, Truffaut draws attention to the camera and Truffaut’s doesnt try to hide it over its narration.

The second article I chose is from Literature Film Quarterly entitled “The Existential Play in Truffaut’s Early Films. The article talks in details about Truffaut’s three early films which are The 400 Blows, Shot the Piano Player, and Jules and Jim. The article focuses on different themes and shots from each movie. The last shot of the film is a freeze frame of Antoine. The article relates it to the mug shot the police made of Antoine (thiher). Like the other article, this one also talks about Truffaut’s camera movements. These camera movement help the audience to foreshadow what Antoine does in the film. An interesting thing this article talks about how the music in the film doesn’t necessarily fit what is happening in the film (Thiher).

The 400 Blows was a good film in my opinion. I like the way he used the tracking and panning shots. I also like how the story was more existential of short in its way of thinking and wasn’t like the typical clear-cut Hollywood films. The sporatic opening shots of Paris which he did used jump cuts and tracking shots showed how the film was going to unfold with Antoine getting into mischief and how things will change in his life drastically. I also found it very interesting with Truffaut’s choice of music in his scenes because the music did not go at all sometimes because of the character’s emotions or tone of the scene. Lastly, I did like how Truffaut decided to end the film with the freeze frame of Antoine instead of giving us a typical Hollywood ending.



Citations:

Jenkins, Chadwicke. "The Aesthetics of Absorption: Turffaut's 'The 400 Blows'." n. pag. Web. 10 Oct 2010.
http://popmatters.com/pm/tools/print/70934

Thiher, Allen. "The Existential Play in Truffaut's Early Films." Literature Film Quarterly 5, no. 3 (Summer 77 1977) :183.
Communication & Mass Media Complete. EBSCO. web 10 Oct. 2010.