Truth and Art

After reviewing the readings and comments for this week, there has been a lot of discussion regarding the 'reality' of film and how this reality, true or false, affects and translates into the entertainment value for the viewer. Though I think this is an important issue, I was more intrigued by, as Arnheim's text puts it, the film as a work of art.

Though reality and truth are at the forefront when discussing a piece like Rashomon, where multiple conflicting perspectives drive the plot, I prefer to analyze the work as a piece of art. Just as a painter chooses colors and subject, the film's director uses tools like angles and shots to manipulate the actors, settings and story into his own vision for the final film. In Rashomon, Kurosawa uses these tools in an effective manner which "forces the spectator to take a keener interest" (Arnheim, 44). For example, during the interrogation scenes with the Bandit, the Medium and the Woman, he puts the viewer in the position of the interrogators by placing the camera directly in front yet slightly above the actors. The audience becomes the judge of who is telling the truth and who is lying. This is quite effective because later it will be upon the viewer to decide who, if anyone, is telling the true story. Similarly, during the various flashbacks in the woods, Kurosawa shoots certain frames in the storyteller's point of view. The fast moving camera mimicking the characters running through the forest, show the urgency felt by the characters, whether it is the bandit following the woman and her husband or the woman running to her husband after hearing he is injured. Also, the quick running shots through the leaves and branches of the forest present in all the flashbacks illustrate the confusion and blurring surrounding the events which transpired. All of these techniques deepen and illuminate the script within the final product.

Since film and photographic reproductions are filtered through man and man's perspective, it becomes less important to determine what is true or false. Even documentaries or photojournalism shots are framed to feature one area and omit others. Due to this phenomenon, I prefer to look at the art in relation to the artist as both a filter and a storyteller and what affect this has on the final product. Ultimately, it is the director's manipulations which create the fullness and gravity of the piece. Rashomon is a true testament to this idea since it is full of filters/storytellers, from the bandit to the woman to the priest and the woodcutter who retell all the tales to the villager though they are all framed and shot by the master narrator--the director.