«Rashomon» is the most interesting,
for me, of Kurosawa’s Films. That and the «Throne of Blood». Those two stand
out the most. «Throne of Blood» was more accessible because most
non-Japanese Audiences at least knew the basic Story of «MacBeth». This was
more creative because I don’t think we’d seen anything quite like this.
The main Thing here is that when one sees
a Film you see the Character on the Screen. It’s not like Reading or you
imagine certain Things. You see very specific Thing, you see a Tree, you see a
Sword. So you take that, one takes that as Truth. But in this Film,
you take it as Truth, then you find out it is not necessarily the True and you
see this various Versions of the Episode that has taken place that these People
are talking about and you and you’re never told which is True and which isn’t
True, which leads you to the proper Conclusion that it is all True and none of
it is True. So it becomes a Poem and it cracks these visual Things that we have
in our Mind that if we see it, it must be a Fact. In other [Medium], Reading or
Radio where you don’t have these specific Visuals your Mind is making it up. So
what my Mind makes up, what your Mind makes up, or what your Mind [the Audience] makes up, is never the same.
The Trial or the
Testimony Scenes that keep going back, you see the two figures behind the
Person giving the Testimony. We never see the Interrogator. So this Person is
speaking to the Audience as if the Audience were the Interrogator. If I, the
Audience, were saying, What happened? I saw, this other guy told me something
else. You get a different Version. There’s one Fact that
takes place in all of them, and that’s the Death of this one Man. It’s a
Poem and it’s dramatic and it works. It certainly changed my Perception about
what is possible in Film and what is desirable. You just have to be able to let
the Audience come to that Conclusion and say, Oh, that isn’t what happened, and
everybody you would talk about, [have them] sit down, make the Person see the
Film, ask him Questions, you would not get the same Answers from anybody, which
is the Art of Art. That’s what Art is. It penetrates your Intellect, your Mind,
and your Experience and History have to react on this new Information. You’re reacting
from your own persona on it and that’s what give it Power, I think.
The Trial or the
Testimony Scenes that keep going back, you see the two figures behind the
Person giving the Testimony. We never see the Interrogator. So this Person is
speaking to the Audience as if the Audience were the Interrogator. If I, the
Audience, were saying, What happened? I saw, this other guy told me something
else. You get a different Version. There’s one Fact that
takes place in all of them, and that’s the Death of this one Man. It’s a
Poem and it’s dramatic and it works. It certainly changed my Perception about
what is possible in Film and what is desirable. You just have to be able to let
the Audience come to that Conclusion and say, Oh, that isn’t what happened, and
everybody you would talk about, [have them] sit down, make the Person see the
Film, ask him Questions, you would not get the same Answers from anybody, which
is the Art of Art. That’s what Art is. It penetrates your Intellect, your Mind,
and your Experience and History have to react on this new Information. You’re reacting
from your own persona on it and that’s what give it Power, I think.
The Camerawork was fantastic. You
were always under these leaves so it wasn’t clear. The look of the Film tends
to diffuse it. It’s like Painting and you paint
impressionistically. Had he
shot that whole Film under the open Sky, it
would be quite a different Film. But putting into that dapple, you never knew where you were or
where you weren’t. And the Thing that stays most in my Mind are the Shots of
the Sun through the Trees and that Movement, constant Movement.
It is said that Kurosawa was
the first Person who had pointed his Camera at the Sun. [Mnemotechnique] I
was shooting Television. When I saw that I went out and worked the very next
day and absolutely emulated one of those Shots. I don’t
remember what the Piece was even but I remember someone had me in a swing
and I kept swinging with the Camera, I’d swing, I’d swing up and see all that
Stuff through that, I was fascinated with that and I’ve done that
ever since.
The Rain, I love the Rain. Rain is
the real emotional trigger that works in any Film. I love Weather: the Rain;
extreme Heat; the Wind; anything that’s excessive because it gives you another blanket, so to speak, it gives you another layer that the Audience can relate sensually.
To me, every Element in that Film was part of that Film, part of the Poem.
The Actingstyle of Mifune /mifooni/ and the
Japanese Actors are quite different from the English-speaking, European styles
of Acting. It served me. The Woman particularly I thought was good. The Mifune
Character I might have felt a little exagerrated but that’s the Music of that
Culture. Japanese Person will never see the Film the same as the non-Japanese
Person. The Japanese Culture knows that History of Samurai like we do the
American Western. Every Culture has [its] own what you grow up as Children, so
we miss a lot of that in this Film because we just don’t have the Background
but the best Thing about it was for non-Japanese Audiences was there was not a
lot of Dialogue. It was a visual Film. The Titles are [enough] to keep you up
with it. It’s the visual Stimulation that hits the Audience. That’s the Reason
for Film, otherwise we should just turn the light off and call the Radio. So it’s a great Film, it certainly had its Influence and
continues to have an Influence on me.
