The story
Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon, released in Japan in August 1950, won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in September 1951 and an honorary Academy Award as the best foreign film of 1951. It tells how a samurai's death and the assault on his wife in a forest are recalled by a bandit, the wife, the dead man speaking through a medium, and a woodcutter. Each account differs and each makes the teller look better. The film is based on stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, and its stars included Toshiro Mifune and Machiko Kyo. Its cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa shot sunlight through the forest leaves, a new look at the time.
Japanese cinema had a mature studio system and great directors, but almost none of its films had reached the West. After defeat in World War II and the Allied occupation, Japanese film makers were free to rethink their art. The Venice prize amazed Japan and led Western distributors to look for more, and Kenji Mizoguchi, Yasujiro Ozu and Kurosawa himself, with Seven Samurai in 1954, soon found foreign audiences. Rashomon's structure, in which truth stays out of reach because every witness is biased, gave the language the phrase Rashomon effect, now used in law, psychology and journalism.
Why it mattered
- Japanese cinema entered world film culture, leading to Seven Samurai and its influence on Westerns and action films.
- The Rashomon effect became a standard term for differing accounts of the same event in the law, social science and journalism.
- International film festivals showed they could launch national cinemas into the world market.
- Multiple-perspective storytelling became a common device in films and television worldwide.
Sources
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