Talk:Rashomon

what does the gate represent in the story

what does the gate represent in the story? Is it the same in the film? Is the meaning constant? Who speaks for the law of the jungle in the story and the film? How has the film changed the character and role of the priest? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.215.104.49 (talk) 06:37, 4 July 2005 (UTC)

Hiroito/Tojo/McArthur allegory

This interpretation is interesting, but it seems to be original research as defined by Wikipedia. If this interpretation has been published, it would be nice to add a reference. Otherwise the section should probably be trimmed a lot.

BTW, I deleted the conjecture about Takehiro being a mixed English/Japanese wordplay "take Hiroito" as being too far-out. The other guess Tojomaru = "Tojo zero" sound quite bogus too. Jorge Stolfi 00:55, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

By the way, which spelling is correct after all: "Tojomaru" or "Tajomaru"? Jorge Stolfi 11:25, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

It's Tajōmaru. And besides, why would a piece of fiction written in 1922 (Ryunosuke Akutagawa's actual story "In a Grove") be an allegory for something that occurred nearly 20 years after the author's death? I think I'm going to have to dispute this. --Julian Grybowski 17:14, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Considering the lack of real evidence cited by the editor who added the first allegorical explanation, I went ahead and deleted it, and did some cleanup on the other sections (I think I got rid of all the "Tojomaru" spellings). I have my doubts about the second allegorical explanation as well, but since it's sourced, I just added in a little disclaimer explaining that any allegorical readings would have to be the result of the director's influence, rather than the story itself (which is Akutagawa's and dates to 1922). I trust there are no objections. --Julian Grybowski 03:26, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

ISTR there was an account given by the arresting officer after the priest and before the wife. Ralphmerridew 00:31, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Spoiler End?

This page needs a spoiler end warning. Sunspeck 15:54, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

The ending has several interpretations. No one posted any yet? -- Zhixiong 13:08, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, Wikipedia does not give spoiler warnings. And as pointed out ... interpretations of what happened vary .. that is rather the point. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rifter0x0000 (talk • contribs) 22:53, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Hero

The wikilink leads to the 2002 film, but I don't really see any resemblance. Was the 1992 film the one intended? --74.102.135.249 20:23, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

No, this and the 2002 Hero deal with different tellings of the same event from different people, aka the Rashomon effect. Doctor Sunshine 20:55, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

No, alhough Hero 1992 also has some characters lying, Hero 2002 tells stories over long sequences that are character subjective, as "invented" with Rashomon. -MURGH ^disc. 22:03, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Farscape

An episode of Farscape also had a Rashomon framing device, where the characters are on trail and each must recount their recollections of an event, with each recollection at odds with the others. Compared to some of the other examples, it is very close to the spirit of the film. RoyBatty42 08:42, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Although I'm now reading this after I've already done it, Farscape has been added. :) (Tsukiakari (talk) 00:26, 14 September 2011 (UTC))

Military film?

I saw a recent film in the last 5 years that was of military theme, in which a group of young officers recount their accounts of an incident which has put some in the hospital (and I believe killed others), with each different account enacted in the film. In the end it turns out that some of the soldiers (army, if I recally correctly) end up being "double agents" as it were. I know it's a vague description, but I've never been able to remember the name of the film. Anyone recall it? TheHYPO 20:09, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

That would be "Basic" with John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson. 128.180.181.110 (talk) 04:14, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Kurorasho.jpg

Image:Kurorasho.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 23:39, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Note about names

Kurosawa did not include in his movie the 'Testimony of an Old Woman under Questioning by the Magistrate' of the Akutagawa's story. The names of killed samurai and his wife - which I removed from the text - are coming from that testimony. We shall not mix the story and the movie this way. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.252.101.51 (talk) 21:50, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Unsourced statements

I have removed the statements lacking inline citations to this page until sources can be found for them. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 04:20, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

• The head of the company did not understand what the film was about, and the company was reluctant to support the film so they gave the director only a small budget, roughly $5,000 USD. However, despite their doubts, the company gave the film a two-week premiere, twice as long as usual.
• Most Japanese critics called the film a failure: It failed in "visualizing the style of the original stories," was "too complicated," "too monotonous," and contained "too much cursing."
• According to documentaries on Kurosawa and Rashomon, Japanese audiences were shocked at two places in the film. The first occurred when the medium speaks using the dead man's voice and words. The other shocking scene occurs when the woman begs her assailant to kill her husband and safeguard her own honor. That level of blatant self-preservation was not previously depicted in Japanese films.
• The film is also notable as an instance in which the camera "acts" or plays an active and important role in the story or its symbolism.
• The movie Hero has also been compared to Rashomon.
• In the film Inside the Edges, German filmmaker Werner Herzog said that Rashomon is the closest to "perfect" a film can get.
• In Taiwan, press used to refer to a case in which each party involved is having different versions of what actually took place (ex. a crime or a meeting between politicians) as "a Rashomon."
• His knowledge of modern art helped him balance the complication of sound films by making images simpler.
• Miyagawa stated in an interview that the forest setting was symbolic of the mystery shrouding the actual details of the dramatic events.

Jackson 5ive

In the "Influence outside Japan" section, there are several TV shows listed. I know that such lists can often stay incomplete indefinitely, and lists are somewhat discouraged on Wikipedia, but I wanted to point out that there was an episode of The Jackson 5ive called "Rasho-Jackson" which used the multiple-POV device.

Also, the list includes Star Trek: TNG, and I've seen every episode of that series several times, but I'm having trouble figuring out which episode is being referred to. - 70.75.182.168 (talk) 05:23, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Story an Allegory for WWII Assertion

Could someone spell out what the possible or imagined allegory is between this film and the Japanese defeat in WWII? Does the woman represent the Japanese public and the bandit the Japanese military? How does the U.S. and the a-bomb figure in to this? I don't quite follow. A working link to the cited articles would be helpful.122.1.97.94 (talk) 06:04, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Motivation

Does this section have any sources? Some of this material smells strongly of OR.

I also see problems with the explanation of the (dead) Samurai's motivations behind his account. Under the first presumption (that the account is indeed from the dead samurai), having lost to a bandit and failed to protect his wife's honour would have been reason enough for the Samurai to commit Seppuku, so there isn't a clear explanation why he chose to slander his wife as unfaithful/promiscuous.

Under the second presumption (that the account is a fabrication by the necromancer), the motivation of damage-limitation again fails to explain why the woman has been accused with lack of loyalty and love for the husband. The account portrays her in truly bad light, and she would have to live with this soiled reputation.

Anyone? Ankurtg (talk) 06:55, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

X-Files

Yet another Rashomon-inspired TV episode was "Bad Blood", from Season 5 of The X-Files. This is the episode where Mulder and Scully go to investigate a pack of vampires living in a trailer park. The story is told in flashbacks, with both Mulder and Scully recalling the events somewhat differently.

Influence in Television section

I suggest that this section be removed. It is taking over the article, and is really not relevant to understanding the film. BollyJeff || talk 03:06, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I am not sure I agree in principle that the section needs to be removed, but I do have problems with this section as it is. What is seems to have become is a list for various editors to put in any TV episode that uses the multiple unreliable narrator technique, without providing a source which shows the writers of those episodes had Rashomon in mind when penning the episodes. The use of multiple unreliable narrators goes back way before Rashomon, for instance to The Moonstone. Many of these episodes could very well have been written by people who had never heard of Rashomon. We should only list an episode in the article if there is definitive evidence that it was a deliberate homage to Rashomon, or that it was influenced by another work that was influenced by Rashomon. That might also help address your concerns by limiting the number of episodes that can be listed. For instance, only a CSI episode, a Mamma's Family episode, and a Fame episode currently have enough prima facie evidence to be considered as definitely influenced by the movie.Mmyers1976 (talk) 22:46, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

• Support removing this section - it is an example of irrelevant connective trivia which tells us nothing about the topic of the article, the film itself. JoshuSasori (talk) 11:32, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Due to lack of opposition, I've removed it. JoshuSasori (talk) 01:19, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Response in Japan self-contradiction

The article says it was no. 5 of Kinema Jumpo's list of films in 1950, so "Japanese critics were baffled; some decided that it was only admired there because it was "exotic," others thought that it succeeded because it was more "Western" than most Japanese films" seems a dubious statement. Probably this is some kind of guff, is there a better source than the Turner Classic Movies web page for this? JoshuSasori (talk) 11:42, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Woodcutter's version?

The following statement is made in this article:

"not even the final version can be seen as unmotivated by factors of ego and face"

But that statement confuses me. Why would the woodcutter's ego/face be affected by the way that the battle unfolded? His shame is the theft of the tanto, which only happens after the story finishes. His story is completely believable. I don't understand why he would have altered it. So why can the final version not be seen as unmotivated by factors of ego and face? I certainly see it that way. 24.55.17.191 (talk) 00:58, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Requested Move: → Rashomon

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved per primarytopic rationale evidenced below. --regentspark (comment) 17:51, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

• Rashomon (film) → Rashomon
• Rashomon → Rashomon (disambiguation)

– This proposal would make the film primary topic, per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. When I googled Rashomon -wikipedia, 34 of the top 40 results referred to the film, one was for the Rashomon effect, and the rest were for night clubs and other non-encyclopedic subjects. I calculate that the film gets 66 percent of relevant of traffic. The math is 78883 / (78883 + 25684 + 8507 + 5196 +1154 + 371). Since the short story and the gate don't show up in the Google rankings, many readers may be going to these articles through links to get background to the film. Kauffner (talk) 17:07, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Survey

• I would tend to Support this move. When I started editing back in 2005 we always used (disambiguation) in the title for a DAB page for any and all subjects. Then somewhere around 3 or 4 years ago some discussion took place somewhere that dropped the parenthetical from the page names. I don't know where that occurred. Things might have changed again but we might want to check with the Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation so that any move that we agree on wont be done in vain. MarnetteD | Talk 19:09, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
• Support I've just closed Talk:Rashōmon#Requested_move which the move the article about the actual gate to Rajōmon but had didn't have a clear consensus on whether the disambig page should be Rashomon or Rashōmon. There is a good case the the film is the primary topic. I think the disambig at Rashomon (disambiguation) and Rashomon for the film, is the cleanest arangement. These does leave open where Rashōmon should redirect to.--Salix (talk): 21:51, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose Named after a more notable short story from which it drew inspiration, and which is considered a seminal work of modern Japanese literature. Also, for the real-world gate of the same name. And the numerous other meanings. elvenscout742 (talk) 06:37, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

No mention of any firsts, within Japanese cinema

What firsts within Japanese cinema are known about this film, and should be added to the article? ("Rashomon marked the entrance of Japanese film onto the world stage. ") --Gazprompt (talk) 22:57, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't understand your question and I'm not sure what the problem with that sentence is.--Kmhkmh (talk) 01:55, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Its not encyclopedic. I have therefore marched the claim off the international stage (of the wikipedia page). The grandiose claim might suit a section about reviews of the movie. --Gazprompt (talk) 08:31, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

There is nothing unencylopedic or "grandiose" about it, it is a common description/general perception of the movies role and it is sourced.--Kmhkmh (talk) 10:05, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

The current change is still inferior to the original formulation as language wise it seems somewhat awkward and creates a slightly misleading impression. First of all let reiterate that the original formulation was by no means "grandiose" but simply common description. Exactly for that reason the formulation in terms of "claims" is not needed here. Nor is it particulary appropriate as it can be somewhat misleading. The term claims is used for an assessment by individuals or a group that is not necessarily shared by the rest of the academic community. However it usually not used for assessments or descriptions that are universally or at least overwhelmingly shared within the adacemic community. Those are often given without any "claims" qualifier and moreover the "claims" qualifier can be misleading as it might suggest to readers that there are significant different assessments within the academic community, but this is not the case here. That Rashomon marks the start of international recognition and the awareness of international (in particular western) audiences of Japanese cinema is undisputed to the best of my knowledge, I'm not aware of any academic source claiming otherwise.--Kmhkmh (talk) 02:18, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

I have to agree with Kmhkmh. The change is awkward and clumsy. It is a fact (and not a grandiose one) that Rashomon the first Japanese films to be widely distributed in the western world and that should be mentioned first in the paragraph. Then the mention of the awards that it won helps to illustrate the point. Donald Richie comments upon this in more than one of his writings as do others [1]. Using the word "claim" makes it read as though there are other films that preceded Rashomon in being widely seen in Europe and the US. If evidence can be provided that critics and scholars disagree with the statement that Rashomon opened the west to Japanese Cinema then that can be mentioned in the body of the article. A return to this version of the lead would be preferable. MarnetteD|Talk 03:25, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

breaks vs templates

@Beyond My Ken: Yes there is an advantage and yes the templates are necessary as indicated in WP:PLIST which was linked. Breaks are semantically incorrect and hurt accessibility for screen readers. These are actually lists instead of arbitrary elements separated by breaks and the semantics of the wikitext should reflect that. We don't use <br/> to separate paragraphs or bulleted list items so why would we do the same just because it's inside an infobox? Additionally proper html is generated when you use the templates (eg: <ul><li></li></ul>) instead of breaks. The w3c says "br elements must be used only for line breaks that are actually part of the content, as in poems or addresses. ... br elements must not be used for separating thematic groups in a paragraph." Lastly screen readers read the two differently and the list form actually reflects how the content is structured. Opencooper (talk) 07:24, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

@Beyond My Ken: Since you've declined to discuss I'm going to assume you're fine with the edit being reinstated. Opencooper (talk) 11:13, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Location

According to the article about the actual gate, nothing remains of it at all. There's only a pillar that marks where it used to be. Did it still exist in 1950 and was the film made there? That seems extremely unlikely. Or is the gate as shown in the film built as a set? But that, in turn, seems to contradict the very low budget of the film. There would be no other set built for the film at all. The forest is just a forest with nothing built and the courtroom is just a wall with no judge or jury. So where does this gigantic gate that no longer exists come from?

--Eje211 (talk) 07:58, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

The gate as shown in the film was built for the filmmaking purpose only 79.101.191.182 (talk) 19:33, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

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Title - yes, framing story - no.

I noticed this statement

with the title and framing story being based on "Rashōmon", another short story by Akutagawa

I read the Rashomon Akutagawa short story and do not see any framing story of the Rashomon movie based on the Rashomon short story. 79.101.191.182 (talk) 19:30, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

It's not about framing. See Davis B., Anderson R., Walls J.: Rashomon Effects: Kurosawa, Rashomon and their legacies, Routledge, 6. 11. 2015. end of page 14. Bocin kolega (talk) 18:50, 15 May 2023 (UTC)