Akira Kurosawa Symbolism Essay

In 1950, Akira Kurosawa came up with a film that dispersed all over the world. The film went on to win the US Oscar for Best Foreign Film and Golden Lyon at the Venice Film Festive, Rashomon. For today, a film just has 88 minutes can be called the short film, but compare to some blockbuster’s plots, it has a more strong clear claim and quirky twist plots, otherwise, this film can not win so many awards in international. On the surface, it isn't a picture of the sort that we're accustomed to at all, being simply a careful observation of a dramatic incident from four points of view, with an eye to discovering some meaning—some rationalization—in the seeming heartlessness of man, but it is true that Roshomon concern about all of dishonest of human

Kurosawa's use of "dappled" light throughout the film, which gives the characters and settings further ambiguity. The film (unusually) uses sunlight to symbolize evil and sin in the film, for instance, the wife gives into the bandit's desires when she sees the sun. The film conventionally uses light to symbolize "good" or "reason" and darkness to symbolize "bad" or "impulse". In this film, light like people tell story to suggest audience what will happen in next second. The wife gives herself to the bandit when the sun slowly fades out. In order to shoot the final scene in which the woodcutter takes the abandoned baby home, Kurosawa was waiting for a big cloud to appear over Rashomon gate, Kurosawa wanted to show that there might be another dark rain anytime soon, even though the sky is clear at this moment. Unfortunately, the final scene appears optimistic because it was too sunny and clear to produce the effects of an overcast sky. From that, dark is always with despaired atmosphere，but light means hope atmosphere. For the sound and shots of Roshomon, maybe the most striking is the sequence the woodcutter’s walking through the forest before he finds evidence of the crime. The sequence is composed of fifteen shots, all of which are tracking shots, so it becomes an extended essay on the capabilities of the moving camera. Kurosawa intercuts low-angle tracking shots of the trees, through the sun sporadically peeps, high-angle tracking shots of the woodcutter moving through the forest, and extreme close-ups of the character with the camera following from both the front and the rear. These are among the most sensuous moving camera shots in cinema history, and the entire sequence has a hypnotic power. The sound. Much of this effect is due to the "silence," to the absence of dialogue and ambient sound. Fumio Hayakawa’s percussive, rhythmic score is the only accompaniment to the images....Kurosawa, in fact, intended Rashomon to be a