'Based On' will be
posts about book to film adaptations. If I am not too lazy they will
become a regular feature. Warning: sometimes the book's plot is
slightly different from the film, and if you don't want it spoiled
for you, do not read this post (I mean that in the nicest way). First
up:
Ryunosuke
Akutagawa's 'Rashomon' and 'In a Bamboo Grove'; and Akira Kurosawa's
Rashomon
Akira Kurosawa's
Rashomon (1950) is a cinema classic based on two short stories
by Japanese author Ryunosuke Akutagawa: 'Rashomon' and 'In a Bamboo
Grove.'
Rashomon is the
gate of Kyoto, a city which has recently undergone a several severe
calamities. A young servant with a festering pimple on his cheek is
sitting under the gate taking refuge from the persistent rain. He
decides to become a thief in order to survive. He has an encounter
with an old woman who is plucking hair from corpses in order to make
wigs to sell.
'In a Bamboo Grove'
presents seven separate testimonies and confessions relating to
circumstances surrounding the death of a man in a bamboo grove (what
a surprise). Four of these are different versions of the events in
the grove, and the reader learns very quickly that no one is telling
the exact truth.
If you have seen
Kurosawa's film you will have noticed that the screenwriters stuck
very closely to 'In a Bamboo Grove.' So why call it Rashomon?
The film keeps the
torrential rain from 'Rashomon' but has three disparate people, a
woodcutter, a priest and a commoner, take shelter underneath the
Rashomon. The commoner retains some of the servant's characteristics
from the short story: near the end of the film he steals trinkets
from a baby abandoned at gate. He also berates the woodcutter, who
may have inadvertently killed the dead man, for being a hypocrite.
In the short story
the servant is morally disgusted at the sight of the old woman
plucking corpses' hair, but she attempts to justify it, explaining
that she had known the dead person, and they had sold dodgy fish to
survive when alive. The old woman says 'I think she'd understand what
I'm doing to her.' (8) The servant responds by stealing the old
woman's clothes, and before he runs off into the night replies
'That's what I have to do to keep from starving to death.'(9)
This world that
Agutagawa presents is clearly an amoral one, and for the majority of
Kurosawa's film the audience is presented with the same world. People
will do anything to protect themselves: lie, cheat, steal.
Ryunosuke Agutagawa
committed suicide at thirty-five, and spent much of his life fearing
he would suffer from mental illness like his mother. This partially
explains his pessimistic view of human behaviour, a view which leaves
a reader without a morally upright character to lean on.
Kurosawa's film
ends quite differently. The baby, as babies often do, stands as a
symbol of hope for the future. It acts as a reprieve for the
woodcutter, who tells the priest that he will look after it, as he
has six other children at home; it is a place is will be cared for
and loved. The film's final shot is the woodcutter walking home with
the baby. He is able to go home because the rain has stopped; his way
is now clear.
Kurosawa and the
screenwriters could have chosen to tell only the story of 'In a
Bamboo Grove.' It is a very clever story but it the audience leaves
mistrusting the characters. The reason for the more uplifting ending
is likely to lie with the historical context of the film.
It is five years
after World War II, and we all know Japan had suffered and inflicted
lots of pain in that war. People would have felt that society was in
a decay similar to the decay represented by the flooding rain at the
film's beginning. The positivity about the future at the end, with
the passing of the rain and the return of sunshine reminded the
viewer that just like climate with its changing seasons, the world
goes through decay and re-growth.
If you haven't read
Agutagawa's short stories I would highly recommend doing so. It is
interesting to note that Kurosawa's Rashomon is not
technically a 'faithful' adaptation of its source material, and a
good argument against that approach to book-to-film adaptations.
