A Rashomon Effect

In the beginning of Rashomon, a series of shots establishes the scene. The viewer sees various aspects of the setting, gradually closing in on the two men sitting under the Rashomon gate. One man says that he “just does not understand”. Then, another series of establishing, aspect-to-aspect shots broaden out and show the gate and the rainstorm from various angles, finally allowing the third man, who will hear the story, to enter the scene. A short while later, during the storyteller’s first version of his flashback, he is walking through the woods. As the camera tracks him through the forest, again cutting between aspects of his walk all the while, and accompanied by the soundtrack that stops when he does, it represents his motion by the relative motion of the forest around him. In other words, we see the trees and brush blurred by their horizontal movement, while he only bounces up and down in accordance with his stride.

The same techniques reappear during Tajomaru’s version of the story, when he is leading the samurai to the grove where the murder and rape ultimately occur. During the courthouse sequence, another significant technique is employed to dramatize the scene. Whoever is hearing the case never speaks aloud and is never seen. Rather, those who testify seem to speak just past and to the left of the viewer, with the notable exception of the medium. For her testimory, the camera follows her around the courtyard as she whirls and convulses, which none of the other witnesses undertake. She even looks the camera “in the eye” at times. Further, she speaks with a double voice, at once hers and that of the dead man’s. Finally, the way in which elements of the set, props, and costumes appear and reappear (like the hats, weapons, rope, and the wood of the Rashomon Gate) mimics the way the narrative of the plot is ruptured and contradicted by each revision of the story, as well as the repetition and different permutations of the cinematic techniques throughout the film.

Perhaps the most “arspoetic” or meta-filmic effect of the film is the way in which it invites the viewer to reexamine the fundamental assumptions they make about what goes on between the frames of the film. The logical flow of events and consequences between versions of the story, cuts within a scene, turns in the dialogue, moments in the plot, and eventually between the flickerings of the celluloid against the projector (“is that rain, or static?”) all depend on the capacity of the viewer to make “closure” between them, in Scott McCloud’s term (Understanding Comics). Beyond frustrating that sense of “closure,” Kurosawa’s film combines the techniques described above, among many others including the score, to effect a uniquely “Japanese style”, beyond the historical and linguistic specifics of the work. This implies that film is not a universal form, but a highly malleable, culturally and locally contingent art. That might seem to contradict (with Rashomonian flair) the critical acclaim that the film received in the West, compared to its tepid response from Japanese audiences and critics [1]. What is important, though, is that the claim to represent truth or the real with absolute fidelity is not primary to film. It is undermined at all times by the subjectivities of production, location, and perception.