i'm all about complicating things, but i don't much see what you're driving at, here. is it that kurosawa cannot represent un-representability? that is patently false, and since, for example, theology -- in certain forms, at least -- already does that with language, i don't see any reason it couldn't be done with film. but have i misunderstood and there's something else you're after, with that?
i think you're basically right about the human horrors point, but even there you haven't said what human horrors are, in your understanding of the film. it's been a while since i've seen it, but as i recall, the point about horror is largely about human honesty, trustworthiness, and, ultimately, sense of responsibility. in the end, even when the woodcutter stops lying and admits he saw the whole thing, why would we believe his account over the others? so we're left wondering whether he's lying (as he accuses all three of the others of doing) or whether his account ought to be understood as the account against which the others are judged, because he's somehow "neutral". i think the latter option not compelling and the former probably as true as his own accusation against the other three.
moreover, the irreconcilable differences in the miscellaneous accounts are not *simply* reducible to different subject positions, so clearly there's something like lying going on, even when that includes our witnesses lying as much to themselves as to everyone else. and that's where the horror comes in and in part hooks up with chuck's original point and our discussion of strauss and kimball. that is to say, the lies all derive from an imposition of some self-conception onto the "facts", whatever those facts are. it's not that there were no facts. it's that we can't reliably know what they were. as kelley pointed out a long time ago, talking about social constructionism, it's a very different thing to say nothing happened than to say that we can't reliably know what happened. and one of the many questions raised by the film is precisely whether or not we can trust our own selves in such situations. at a certain level, practically speaking, we have to, but on another, the caveat is not trivial . . .
finally, the faith in mankind point is important, but, again, it's a monk who makes it. maybe he isn't the most clued in to lived reality. i'm only saying that i don't think the monk is the proverbial voice of the author, here, and we have to understand him in the context of the film, as well. one gets the feeling that he's clapping his hands over his ears and screaming "lalalalalalalalapeoplearehonestlalalalalapeoplearegoodlalalalala".
my five cents,
j
-----Original Message----- From: Ted Winslow <egwinslow at rogers.com> Sent: Oct 14, 2003 11:16 AM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: [lbo-talk] Rashomon
Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
> watch the movie.
>
In the scene representing the the priest's account of the medium's account of the man's account of his own death, the man is shown stabbing himself with a dagger. In the scenes representing the accounts of the bandit and the firewood dealer, the bandit is shown killing him with a sword. There might be "subject positions" from which film representing a man stabbing himself with a dagger would be misperceived as representing someone else stabbing him with a sword, but that wouldn't be because human experience is necessarily a construction that makes it impossible to know truly from watching it whether a filmed representation of a man stabbing himself with a dagger is in fact a filmed representation of a man stabbing himself with a dagger.
The firewood dealer's is the only version represented as a first-hand account. The others are reports by the dealer and the priest of the accounts of the bandit, the woman and the medium channeling the man. The dealer and the priest are represented as present together in the prison courtyard witnessing these accounts. There is no indication from their reporting that they don't agree with each other about what they've witnessed together let alone that such disagreement is inevitable because human experience is a construction that makes reality an unknowable thing-in-itself.
It seems to me that the point of the movie is to explore whether, given human "horrors," there is any rational basis for hope, for "faith in mankind" as the priest puts it at the end.
The answer hinges on the insights into personality provided by the four different versions of the original event and by what goes on between the firewood dealer, the priest and the commoner during and after the story telling.
Ted
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