22. Kurosawa and Rashomon

[@CeciliaEavesWalkerMEd]

I love the idea of the same crew, same, performers, same musicians, remaining with him and going from film to film. So Ideal. So cohesive.

[@rhianna4972]

I decided to write my coursework on Rashomon after watching this lecture and would just like to say that this lecturer is absolutely brilliant and his ideas really informed by writing and helped me get a first!

[@teaMmMate]

An amazing lecturer, his passion kept me glued to the video until the end.

[@adecakke]

Rashomon already my most favorite movie all the time just by watching this before even watching Rashomon itself because of how happy the lecturer was :D

[@pradhyumnchoudhary7383]

I liked the Linear Algebra behind!

[@rhianna4972]

Thanks to this guy for helping me pass my film module more than my own teachers

[@shubhamborde2219]

Hey are u pursuing a career in film making??? I need help Myself [e-mail] This is my bros youtube... Bt do mail me.... Plzzz... Need help n advise

[@sureshs1966]

Rashomon has expanded my mind since I watched it in an irreversible and in a humane manner.

[@jinhaozhang9397]

Great professor, great passion for teaching

[@yamamotomatu]

素晴らしい講習♪ 日本のアニメが世界で受け入れられている裏付けに、能楽や書道や剣道柔道、宗教心とは違う神社など、細かな積み上げがあるから日本文化は中々説明が難しい。 先生も大変だと思う。頑張ってください。

[@sambaprojectllc]

Excellent lecture! Many thanks!!!

[@abhinavgaur13]

An OCW lecture on Kurosawa and Roshomon from MIT. However, if you look at the board behind the guy, you might see glimpses of KKT conditions and Gradient Descent from the previous class. Strange things my eyes caught. :)

[@KeyserTheRedBeard]

astonishing video MIT OpenCourseWare. I broke the thumbs up on your video. Always keep up the high-quality work.

[@arnablahiri7023]

His slides include Satyajit Ray, but lecture didn't have any mention about him and his masterpieces of 50s like "Pather Panchali" and "Aporajito" (The second Asian Film after 'Rashomon' to win Golden Lion).

[@cinemyscope6630]

Thank you! Nice! Just a note though about 22:50. Last Man Standing was indeed a remake of Yojimbo but it was done in 1996, not in 1966.

[@sameervidroh6917]

Loved this explanation❤

[@CeciliaEavesWalkerMEd]

I would love to have seen this in this class at the time of the showing of this film!

[@mobarrett2125]

I really thought he did it all in one breath

[@AkashKumar-iq8wg]

Good to see modi talking about movies

[@chinmaykulkarni2462]

If modiji and Francis Ford Coppola had a child 😳

[@uma_r]

Yojimbo also remade as Fistful of dollars, but that's sphagetti. Ok

[@roadcrewfilms]

Great teacher!!! Thank!!

[@eyebrowlook]

Not to take away any of the accurate observations by this lecturer, the mere fact that he even considers whether the ending should be deleted shows that he has not understood the film as a whole. The ending is very essential. As noted by another comment before, "Rashomon" is not a reference to that "gate" and "society's decay" (at least not only and definitely not primarily) but it is a reference to another story, which is the other literary source for the film and in a deep sense equally as important as "In a Grove". Without that ending the viewer is left with the sense of the unsolved mystery, human tragedy and the inability to trust in humanity, because of the egoistic behaviour of each individual that makes it impossible to find out the truth. The ending however makes the most important point that, being it part of our reality, that in many cases we are unable to find out the truth about certain events in the past for various reasons, in the present moment, that becomes irrelevant and the only thing that really matters is doing the right then and there, regardless of your mistakes in the past or your beliefs.

[@alanbrown342]

The lecturer realizes this is what was intended by Kurosawa - but thinks it takes away from the message that we often can't resolve between competing versions of reality due to the narrator's ego, by adding a "happy ending". Personally - I don't think expressing hope compromises the truth/artistry of the film. It is a real part of life that people can and often do act heroically even after humanity shows its flaws so completely. So I disagree with the lecturer's opinion.

[@RanBlakePiano]

You often comment you wish you had more time .woukd you consider expand your course ?

[@sleepiyu9647]

Amazeeeeee

[@BicycleFunk]

What's up with the linear algebra in the bg?

[@aboodyabdulqadir5487]

ikr , i was like wtf is that shit doin behind this artistic lecture

[@yorgunkaptaan]

Is there any way to watch Roshman legally? KZbin contents have banned. I cannot buy CD, I need an online free-cheap platform.

[@Matt-ww3nf]

The Criterion Channel has most of Kurosawa's stuff available including Rashomon. You can get two weeks free to watch or like $10 a month.

[@sambaprojectllc]

Start with the title spelled correctly - RASHOMON !:)

[@Danetto]

this guy is funny^^

[@ecritdelajaponographie8565]

It's really weird to see a professor of film in a prestigious institution of learning like MIT give a one-hour lecture on the film "Rashomon" but completely overlook the background of the work. It's wrong to say the title is a reference to the gate -- it's a reference to the short story by Akutagawa, and the gate sequences were shoe-horned in to the film to justify the title, not the other way around as this lecture presents. The reason for this, as far as I can establish, is that in Japan the story "Rashomon" is (and was) more famous, but Kurosawa wanted to adapt an unrelated story by the same author.

[@atsukorichards1675]

Good point. I was waiting for that reference to come. The two short stories by Akutagawa Ryunosuke (芥川龍之介), Rashomon (羅生門) and Yabu-no-naka (薮の中 In the Groove), were used in the movie, but from the former only the setting of the gate and the robbery part (not clothes but hairs from a dead woman by an old woman in the story) were used. By the way, in Japan we call the conflicting witnesses situations like this movie, Yabu-no-naka not Rashomon.

[@AshPragasam]

All the best teachers are a little bit mad

[@tchappyha4034]

Why matrices and vectors on the blackboard?

[@Danetto]

last man standing is from the 90s. The yojimbo remake you are talking about is fistul of dollars... although I wouldn't necessarily call it an American film haha. I know something an mit professor doesn't^^ :P

[@godwatch-w3n]

I wаtсссhed Rаshomon full movieеее hеrеe twitter.com/b9d1b6dc35d2d2128/status/795842215608074241 22 Кurоsаwa аnd Rаshоmоn

[@xyzabc2797]

Twitter account suspended!!!

[@Verschlungen]

Just because Kurosawa once said, "Well, you see... it's about this rape" (probably just to stop someone from asking him even more inane unanswerable questions), that doesn't mean the film IS "about a rape." First of all, we don't even know IF a rape occurred: the bandit presents his act as a rather elaborate and clever seduction. And who can say it wasn't, since everyone in this film -- famously -- is lying, lying, lying? (And by the way, if it really was "about a rape," it wouldn't be a famous film, would it?) But this utterly bizarre Mr. Thorburn goes on and on and on, about rape this and rape that, even going off gleefully on a tangent to explain, condescendingly, that much of history is All About Famous Rapes -- DIDN'T YOU KNOW? (I'm generally on the extreme opposite side from SJW and PC and snowflakes and all that, but even for me, that tangent of his was just creepy and over the top.) If one insists on discussing "what the film is about": It's about a murder and the question of who committed it. That's why witnesses are being interviewed in court. Hello? This lecturer is incredibly obnoxious, like a Disney cartoon caricature of the professor from hell. And he's just plain wrong about many things in the film. For example, he thinks it's remarkable and hilarious that the two men look weak and foolish when fighting one another. Nonsense. THEY don't look weak and foolish -- those swords are incredibly sharp, and they well know that one of them will likely die in the fight. What is meant by Kurosawa to look foolish is fighting itself -- in general. There's a subtle difference there to appreciate, which goes right over the goofy old lecturer's white furry head. The one thing I got out of his lecture was [a] a desire to see the film again (I hadn't seen it since my childhood in Berkeley circa 1955) and [b] his remark about the story "above" the story -- the continual returns to the Rashomon Gate itself, where the complex 'framing' of the frame-tale occurs. That part of his lecture, at the very end, was well said. It is indeed a very interesting frame-tale, comparable to Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.

[@legofriend2278]

how is the movie about the murder, and not the rape? I'd argue that both crimes are equally important. there's no question as to who committed the murder, either

[@Verschlungen]

@@legofriend2278 No question?? It's clear that you've never seen the movie, or have forgotten what happens in it. Two live witnesses testify in court about a possible murder, and one dead witness testifies (via a medium) about a possible suicide. No conclusion is reached, and rape is not even mentioned once in the whole movie. (Even professional movie critics often cannot get the plot right, much less proceed to analyze it usefully. It's complicated.)

[@infanterambles]

The woman was raped, and the husband either killed himself or got killed in confronting the bandit. That much is clear. Also the last version, the one from the woodcutter, is likely to be the true one. All the other versions try to enhance the story to make it appear more acceptable (the bandit doesn't want to look like a rapist, the girl wants to preserve her dignity, the husband would rather say he committed suicide than admitting he got killed in combat). The woodcutter also wants to hide something, which is that he took the dagger and sold it. But other than that he has no ulterior motives, and he is presented as a redeemable character, which makes him the most trustworthy. Other than that, his version is the most realistic and less idolized. Everyone shows their true colors, (rape, misogynism, infidelity, cowardry). The story is about rape in the sense that the rape was the catalyst of the story. The last fight does make the men less stoic and more terrain. They are not fierce, fearless. They don't want to die (the husband says that much). They stumble on their feet and can't even manage to strike more than a few blows. They definitely look weak(er) and foolish compared to the other versions. Sorry to reply on a relatively old comment, but your harsh critics are unjustified. The main gripe I have with the lecturer is that He didn't mention the cinematographer, Kazuo Myagawa, who's largely responsible for the great camera work and look of the film.

[@mauricioduron3193]

@@infanterambles Thank you. A persuasive appreciation.

[@anima6035]

What?

[@gabbyhyman1246]

Can't listen to him with his nonstop uhs.

[@GOLDVIOLINbowofdeath]

How can am english "scholar" be unaware of the Greek myth of Zeus abducting Ganymede, a boy, for his sexual pleasure? Let's don't censor history.

[@ecritdelajaponographie8565]

I don't get your point -- he was not giving a comprehensive list of all the rapes of Zeus. This lecture leaves out a lot of more relevant details than that.