Ever since Rashomon splashed onto the world stage in 1950, critics and scholars have debated its meaning. The renown American film critic Pauline Kael, for one, gave her interpretation of the so-called Rashomon effect. For her Rashomon is the "classic film statement of relativism, the unknowability of truth." In other words, according to her view, the film argues not that the narrators are unreliable or lying but there is no definitive truth and each narrator shares their subjective truth.
Is Kael correct? Is this the proper view? Or is the film saying something different? What, if anything, is the film saying about truth, knowledge or egoism?
As seen in the film, truth and the manipulation of truth are found in slight alterations of a general knowledge understood by all of society. Through portraying each version of the story is similar in setup yet entirely different in outcome, Rashomon declares that changing the smallest and most seemingly miniscule details reveals vastly different perspectives, people, and personal interests and desires and highlights how people display their true motives, whether self-centered or well-intentioned, through slightly varied retellings of everyday events. Often, they will change just enough about the story's inner workings to paint themselves as innocent, heroic, well-mannered, or victimized, but not enough to entirely direct the story's focus onto them. Knowledge of a story's smallest details, therefore, is a form of protection and a form of attack. It can be used to accuse others of certain words and/or actions and can be used to defend one's innocence and lack of malice by proving disengagement in subtly or deceptively harmful occurrences.
ReplyDeleteThese contrasting yet intertwined intentions display themselves in Tajomaru, who portrays himself as cunning and physically capable to preserve his intellectual image and self-proclaimed nobility, and the wife and husband, who both depict themselves as victims of circumstance and betrayal who were compelled into attempts of suicide. What separates the woodcutter’s story from that of the three involved in the altercation, however, is that he strips away the artifice and embellishment surrounding the others’ stories and grounds every individual’s emotions in realism through the muted and somber way in which they approach the situation’s minor interactions. The woodcutter prioritizes objectivity in perspective because he does not seek to defend himself or attack others through his words. His focus is not towards himself but rather directed outwards towards an honest retelling of past events.
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ReplyDeleteKael does make a solid point about the 'Rashomon effect' showcasing the relative nature of truth. The movie kind of serves as a window into the complex world of human perspective and memory, where each person's version of events might be influenced by their personal experiences or even egos; yet at the same time, it might also be hinting at something more, perhaps a critique of human nature and our tendency to alter the truth to suit our needs. To break this down, "Rashomon" appears to be telling a bigger story, possibly pointing out how often people twist the truth to suit what they want or believe. In doing so, it not only highlights how tricky it can be to pinpoint the 'real' truth, but also takes a deep dive into the human tendency to be self-centered and the natural urge to look out for oneself. It smartly shows how folks can change stories, either on purpose or without realizing it, to save face or make their point stand strong. So, I'd say it's not just about the 'unreliability of truth' but also a deeper commentary on human egoism and self-preservation. I would say it's one of those movies that gets you to reflect on the complexities of human nature. In conclusion, the ending leaves you with numerous questions, creating a level of engagement that, while potentially may be frustrating to some, adds a layer of mystique and allure to the film. This captivating style has allowed "Rashomon" to resonate profoundly with generations of viewers, turning what could be moments of confusion into a journey of profound appreciation that stands out with many movies nowadays.
ReplyDeleteKael makes a point relative to the perceived truth of each character as they give a re-telling of events from their perspective. Rashomon reveals a deeper insight about truth which is subject to change based on perspective. As seen in the film, the story was told from multiple different perspectives, which was true to how each person viewed the events. However, this also reveals that changing minute details can lead to a staggering difference in how a person or event is portrayed. From each perspective, true motives, interests, or desires will change to best fit the person re-telling the story. Oftentimes, these small details will change to paint the picture that the narrator was taken advantage of or had committed some heroic act, to not paint them in a bad light. Within this, it goes even deeper, human nature. People will crumble under pressure and will instinctively lie in order to keep them out of trouble and help them seem innocent. Perhaps, in these situations, people believe they committed an act when in actuality they had not. Their mind had filled in the missing pieces for them, instinctively. Thus knowing a story’s inner workings can be used for or against someone and discloses that truth is what someone makes of it. Whether to believe what is said or not, is all up to the listener and that there is not a definitive truth. That is what this movie creates, multiple accounts that could all be realistic accounts of what happened but left it up to the viewer to determine what or if there is a truth behind the chaos.
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ReplyDeleteWhile following the journey of the narrators in the movie, one can find that each character is selfishly motivated in their actions and truth. Each character has something to gain from the story being told: the farmer his dagger, the bandit his immunity and justification. The movie’s premise hinges on the “unknowability of truth” yet there is much more to be found when watching. Each character’s story is wildly different, however, that does not mean it is far from the truth. For example: when the bandit and the dead husband explain they had a fight during the events. Even though the details were different, the main plot points and locations were generally agreed upon in the testimonies. Following this trend, there might be some areas where the interviewed characters truly believe they are telling the truth, while others may be intentionally skewing ideas. The character’s stories may also only be diversions from the truth, and not solely against it. In other words, the characters may be telling portions of sections of the truth throughout their story, even though the interviewers would never be able to differentiate the gaps. The movie explains that even as truth is thought of as un-subjective, human knowledge is inherently highly subjective. A recollection, even in an attempt at truth, will always be flawed in some way. Human nature creates an atmosphere where the brain would automatically fill in the missed gaps without making anyway for truth. In this way, Kael is correct in saying there is an unknowability of truth as there is no possible way of ensuring every item of the characters’ stories. However, she should have also mentioned why that is. Each character told their story to benefit themselves: a clear description of egotism. This movie utilized the egotistical ways of these characters to lead them into telling a twisted story with their best available knowledge.
ReplyDeleteI think that there is some definitive truth to all the characters’ retelling of what happened. I also think it is largely based on perspective and how it seems to “warp” the truth. I think the film is putting you in the place of the judge but by the end of the movie, it is still difficult to choose who is telling the “truth.” The warping of perspective can change things such as personality, much like how the personality of the woman had changed from fierce to more timid. It is hard to tell who is purposefully warping the truth and who isn’t, and if they are it may be even harder to know why. The one similarity is that in all the characters’ retellings, they are the victims. I think this plays more into the egoism aspect of the movie. The truths were all warped in the characters’ favor to make them be perceived in a certain way. For example, Tajomaru made himself to be the victor of the story and a great warrior, whereas the woman made herself seem more helpless or defensive to possibly make the judges pity her. As the judge, it must be impossible to know which truth is “true”, even when we the audience found out the woodcutter had seen it all, even though his truth was portrayed in the same fashion as the others; it wasn’t portrayed to be the absolute truth. I think the “unknowability of truth” is a reasonable claim because I think the movie leaves the audience feeling that way.
ReplyDeleteAs a lawyer, I often find parallels in eyewitness testimony. Though events vary due to human fallibility, but not always with malicious intent. What gives "Rashomon" its power is the characters' motives. Each of them distorts the story to cast themselves in a positive light. While this makes for a compelling narrative, it isn’t exclusively the norm. A more optimistic perspective suggests that people are not always burdened by guilt to the extent that every statement they make should be questioned. People may lie on occasion, but it is rare for the truth to remain elusive through other means. Moreover, the concept of truth itself varies. Is it simply about determining "who committed the murder," or does it delve into deeper existential questions like "what is the meaning of life?" The latter requires a more comprehensive answer that goes beyond the testimonies of the usual suspects. Are these questions as distinct as they appear?
ReplyDeleteThe film begins with its characters facing a minor existential crisis. As the flashback unfolds, the audience is prompted to contemplate how such events would affect their own mental stability. The commoner abandons the baby, convinced that people are fundamentally self-interested. Conversely, the woodcutter takes it upon himself to raise the child. I believe the film excels in leaving us somewhere in the middle, allowing viewers to align with either the commoner or the woodcutter. Is this a definitive stance? No, but because it resonates with so many people, it likely holds some semblance of truth.
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ReplyDeleteRashoman very elegantly portrays the way that truth is so easily corruptible by our own human nature. “The unknowability of truth” as renowned American film critic Pauline Kael called it,stems from the corruptible nature of truth that the film helps us to investigate. Rashoman is the recounting of one event. Albeit it is a very complicated event, but it is nonetheless, one event: a man’s death. We see this event take place four times throughout the story, and each time the story is slightly altered. These alterations, of course, always portray the narrator in a more favorable light. This format leaves the viewer ignorant as to what truly happened. This is intentional as it reflects our own reality. The film uses the story as a way to demonstrate the point that there is no one universal truth because no story tells one hundred percent of the truth. In every retelling there will be details omitted that another may include. In every retelling there is the possibility of a human mistake such as incorrectly remembering certain events or details. In every retelling there is a motivation to lie whether that be to make yourself out to be more honorable like the dead man or to hide your bad deeds like the bandit. Rashoman challenges us to think more critically about the truth that surrounds us, and it forces us to reconsider the way that we understand truth. If truth is truly unknowable then it is simply what we believe to be reality, and we must be cautious with what we choose to believe.
ReplyDeleteI believe Kael is incorrect when she says that the film Rashomon is arguing that the narrators are each sharing the truth as they saw it and not lying because the accounts of what happened are too dramatically different to be mistaken as the truth. One thing I paid a lot of attention to at the end of the movie was that we, as the audience, do not really know the truth about what happened. I think Kael is correct in saying that we are getting subjective truths, but I also believe the characters are bending the truth to benefit themselves during their testimonies. There are a few key details that tell me somebody had to be lying. For example, in every story, excluding the final one told by the woodcutter, the samurai died in entirely different ways. In the Bandits story, he killed the samurai after an epic battle to the death. In the wife's account, she 'passed out,' but the samurai died next to her after he was frozen with disappointment. In the samurai's story, he kills himself after the wife and bandit leave him alone in the woods. There is consistency in the bandit's story and the woodcutters, but that is about it. In the first three stories, the wife, bandit, and samurai are all in very different places physically and emotionally. One time, the samurai dies with all three characters present. Another time, there are only two, and in his own account, he dies all by himself after being emotionally driven to commit suicide. There are many aspects of the characters' stories that are too different to just be personal truths.
ReplyDeleteI fundamentally disagree with Pauline Kael's idea that our reality has no "objective truth"; there absolutely is. However, as we are not omnipotent spectators in our own lives, it is impossible for us to find the one true set of events, only an approximation of such. It is also important to establish that people have to understand each other in order for them to interpret a situation the same way. Our language and posture can easily be misinterpreted and give people the wrong idea, which will cause them to act differently than they would if there was no such misinterpretation.
ReplyDeleteKurosawa's Rashomon illuminates these problems by using a public institution (the courts) as a medium to demonstrate how this effect dictates our perception of reality. The trial in Rashomon is a battle of hearsay. The era in which the film takes place means there is little evidence to support the case other than testimony. This presents the main conflict of the film: our society’s institutions need to know the objective truth, yet human nature violently twists it. We interpret things differently due to infinitely many factors such as our personal biases or even mishearing the words of another. Most importantly, people are inherently egoistical when retelling stories. We will omit details or directly distort the truth of our stories in order to put ourselves in the limelight. (everybody has their side of the story) The differing testimonies provided to the court highlights the fact that we are unreliable narrators, and that reveals a central issue with the institutions in our society. Since we do not know the objective truth regarding the murder, the court can not know how to appropriately punish Tajomaru without falsely charging him. Rashomon’s involvement of the court clearly suggests that objective truth is required for true justice, however objective truth cannot be obtained, so nor can true justice.
Another interesting thought to consider is that the very retelling of the testimonies could be flawed as we take them for granted. But much like those involved in the trial, the three men at Rashomon gate may also not be telling the truth, even if such lies are unintentional. Much like in our own lives, we are not omnipotent spectators in Rashomon. We have to take the entirety of the movie with a grain of salt because the scenes are retellings of court testimony. Like a game of telephone, the “truth” that the audience is getting is likely even more distorted than what the court really heard.
It is hard to place a definite judgment on Kael's interpretation of Rashomon. The claim of no definite truth could easily be proven false with the capabilities of deriving the truth from modern-day technology, yet, in a world of just human-to-human interaction, this same certainty begins to fragment.
ReplyDeleteThe film attempts to depict the murder of a samurai and the depredation of a wife from four individual perspectives. However, with seemingly the same series of events with minor tweaks, each version of the story held vastly different psychological stances, shifting or eliminating the blame from one person to another. With each individual told their story verbatim as they are questioned adds to why there are evident differences between the four perspectives. As they partook in the event, each person shifted their perspectives in hopes of uplifting their position in the situation, making their actions seem heroic and honorable, or if they were being pushed to do XYZ by a third party. While not saying one specific party was lying or not, the compilation of four different versions muddles up the possible truth of the situation. Perhaps there may be some truth in each version, but how much is intertwined with bias is hard to tell. The film Rashomon attempts to test a world in which much is built upon trust and honesty from human to human. The perfect world of trust and humanity strays far when compared with each person's selfishness and self-centeredness.
Hence, I believe that Rashomon does not simply aim to explain that there is no definite truth. Instead, it attempts to focus on the inner characteristics of a human and how with new perspectives, there could be a different subjective truth.
Rashomon highlights that truth can be subjective and malleable, as the conflicting accounts of the same incident by the four characters present demonstrate their own selfishness and egoism. In other words, each character's story is heavily influenced by their own self-interest rather than the characters just telling their own subjective truth. The film implies that the truth is often skewed by the narrators' own egos and that no one can be certain of the objective truth. The film's depiction of the four characters' conflicting accounts of the same event further demonstrates egoism and selfishness. The bandit, for example, is motivated by his own self-interest and ego, as he claims the woman was willing to be with him, despite the fact that this is a flat out lie. The woodcutter similarly gives an account that is heavily influenced by his own ego, as he claims he saved the woman from the bandit, even though he was too afraid to intervene at the time. The Samurai's version of the story paints him in a more heroic light and portrays him as a noble victim of a crime rather than an aggressor showing he stretches the truth to keep his nobility. Lastly, The Pope's version of the story is seen as egotistic, as it is heavily biased towards his own perspective and attempts to vindicate his own honor. The film's central theme of the unknowability of truth can be seen as a warning about the consequences of individual egos and selfishness. By showing the conflicting perspectives, the film demonstrates how individual egos can distort the truth and prevent people from seeing things objectively.
ReplyDeleteIn the sense that the depiction of the truth is subjective, Kael is correct. Every person will have a different kind of view, and then when re-telling that view, the truth will be affected. I disagree with Kael in how Kael says there is no objective truth. Saying that the real truth relies on people’s depictions of it is not true; as even if people talk about what happened in a different way, it doesn’t diminish the fact that there was a solid thing that happened. In Rashomon, the film shows multiple people’s perspectives on the same murder of a samurai, from the killer, the wife, the samurai himself, and a bystander. Every person has a different perspective on the situation, until the story isn’t the same at all with each person’s new version of it. However, Kael saying that there is no definitive truth at all is untrue; as even with every re-telling of the story there continues to be parts of the story that remain the same, the undeniable fact that a man killed the samurai in front of his wife.
ReplyDeleteIn Rashomon, we are told that the last story, the bystander’s story, is the correct one, however even that story contains lies, as the bystander hides the fact that he stole the woman’s dagger to sell it. While it is believed by many that this means that humanity innately lies, I believe that it actually means that human nature is defined by perspective. Through the film, we are introduced to the theme that everyone who has seen the actual truth is bending it to their own wants, yet the common theme amongst all of them in their own stories is that they are painted in the light they wish to be seen in. In conclusion, Kael’s statement is true to only the extent of how people treat perspective, and how they re-tell the truth.
In the film Rashomon I believe it expresses a similar meaning as to what Kael states. Kael is stating that there is no definitive truth. There must be a truth as to what exactly happened, however the fact they all tell such different stories is where it gets bumpy. Essentially, I agree with part of her view that she says each narrator shares their subjective truth. We can confirm this because we see multiple sides and views of the story throughout the entire film. If this wasn't true there would be no point to the story and the name “Rashomon” would be useless. Going off of that, I think the film portrays it perfectly, everyone depicts how they want to tell the story to the others. Depending on who is telling the story, certain parts will change in order to make the person telling the story not look like the bad guy or the one who is the problem. We can conclude that there is a definitive truth but whether or not the characters decide to be honest and truthful tell the story is where it can get controversial. Once the movie started to wrap up and things began to align, you can tell that the film is trying to send a message out about truth and knowledge. As we know, if they told the truth this would not have happened but it also has to do with knowledge. Depending on who truly knows what, or who was an eyewitness is also where it gets sticky. Being an eyewitness is better than hearsay, however, people who are eyewitnesses can still lie and twist the story. The film just over exaggerates real life everyday situations of people who have strong egos wanting to always be right or have their voice heard over others.
ReplyDeleteKael's statement is correct as each character retells the story using their own believed truth. Roshoman unveils a deeper understanding of truth, which is subject to change based on different perspectives. In the film, viewers can see this with the multiple retellings of the story of the thief and the couple. All of which were likely true based on how each individual character viewed the events. From this effect, viewers can see that even when the smallest of details are changed, the unfolding and outcome of the story become drastically different. With each different perspective, interests and desires all change to fit the perspective of the one telling the story. For example, when the thief tells his version of the story, the audience is led to believe that he is a great warrior and an honorable man as he “bests the husband skillfully in combat, winning over the girl.” However, in the woodcutter's story, he is displayed as clumsy and scared as he trips and falls everywhere while fighting. In the bandit’s story, we are led to believe that he is a powerful and great man who has never lost a battle before, and on the other hand, from the woodcutter’s story, we are led to believe that he is weak and frigid. With these differences, the movie discloses that the truth depends on what someone makes of it. The choice to believe or not is subjective to what a viewer might think, and the movie paints this idea clearly with four different stories to choose from.
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