Rashomon
Akira Kurosawa has it rough. It wasn’t until his splintered drama Rashomon netted the Golden Lion at the 1951 Venice Film Festival that the West was even aware the East had exportable cinema. And so casual knowledge of classic Japanese cinema has largely remained since, much to the chagrin of certain prickly cinephiles, who rarely miss the opportunity to point out the director’s films were considered by his fellow countrypersons to be, quite pejoratively, too “Western,” and were mostly ignored.
Vast strides have been made to shed light on Kurosawa equals (or betters) such as Yasujiro Ozu, Kenji Mizoguchi, Mikio Naruse and Makasi Kobayashi. But it’s important to remember the gateway masters, which is why the tastemaking Criterion Collection is releasing a vast, pricey 25-film Kurosawa box set for the holidays. That explains the sudden appearance of Rashomon, his first acknowledged “masterwork”—though I prefer Stray Dog, made the previous year.
Like a lot of the really popular “foreign films” released before loose European sex became the dominating attraction (notably certain Ingmar Bergman films), Rashomon is a Thesis Film, setting out to prove an inconvenient truth, namely: that truth itself is unknowable, relying as it does on the various whims and prejudices of its entirely too human tellers. The film’s famous structure tells of the same general situation—an ambush, rape and murder performed by a cackling bandit (Toshiro Mifune, natch)—four times from four different perspectives, each one wildly, comically different.
As noted by many Kurosawa detractors, Rashomon spends all its energy pointing out an idea that better filmmakers tend to accept as a given; Kurosawa was really an expert craftsman who thought he was a big thinker, and who could mostly think in big, lumbering thoughts. But he was a heckuva craftsman, as Rashomon—weighty ideas and all—proves.
A sublimely well-made bit of obviousness, it’s gripping because it’s directed with the zeal of a boy’s adventure. Never once risking repetition, Kurosawa gives each story its own energy, and often it’s difficult to tell this serious film apart from such “entertainments” as Seven Samurai or Yojimbo. Now if only a Rashomon resurgence could shed more light on the rarely-seen Hollywood remake—with Paul Newman as the bandit and, in the wraparound story, Edward G. Robinson lecturing a pre-Trek William Shatner—that would be even lovelier. B+
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1. Lorin Ripley said... on Nov 19, 2009 at 10:19AM
“Why is it that so many of Prigge's reviews make him seem a poseur? Of course Kurosawa was not the only great Japanese director of his era, nor certainly the most "Japanese" director. But to cite Kurosawa's relative lack of popularity in Japan as indicative of anything is nonsense (unless, of course, Prigge thinks that popularity is the key to greatness. In which case he should love Spielberg and Lucas, and despise Fuller and Cassavetes).
The idea that great directors have not explored these waters as not important enough is ridiculous. Kurosawa just did it in a fascinating and moving way which was uniquely his. As in "Drunken Angel", "Ikiru", The Bad Sleep Well" and "High and Low". Not to mention the incredible "Ran".
BTW, the implication that Bergman became popular because he tittilated audiences is laughably absurd.
The problem is that Prigge is more interested in being clever that he is in being helpful. And, unfortunately, he's not clever enough to pull it off.”
2. Matt Prigge said... on Nov 23, 2009 at 09:34AM
“Sorry, but I wasn't attacking Kurosawa's career as a whole -- almost all of which I love or at least really, really like, this one included -- but was merely pointing out that most Westerner's knowledge of classic Japanese cinema has been by and large limited to his more accessible-to-Westerners output. Which, again, isn't a knock on him as an artist. And yes: Kurosawa himself explored the major theme of Rashomon in other, even better (and sometimes lesser) films.
And you utterly misread my sentence on Bergman. (Although his first American export, Monika, was recut and sold on the basis of its nude scene. That's how Woody Allen first got into his favorite, brooding director: breasts.)”