Rashomon as a Shakespearean set

A black and white photo…

Beatrice: What’s this?

Nausicaä: Rashomon. The opening scene. Kurosawa’s film. 1950.

Beatrice: I remember now. Pretty bleak. How did it begin? Rain. What rotten weather. Didn’t have to say that. You could see it. 

Nausicaä: No, the first words by the woodcutter are,”I don’t understand.” And then commoner arrives, seeking shelter, and wants to know what it is that’s not understood. And so the stories are told. The different versions of what happened between the samurai, his wife and the bandit.

Beatrice: What was the function of the gate, Rashomon?

Nausicaä: It was a stage setting. And well chosen.

_______________

Voice-over

Japan has dramatic weather. Just as the rain lashed Rashomon, every year there are floods. Fewer bandits and lawlessness there may be, but natural disasters still cause havoc and take lives. Like the Atami mudslide.

And at the moment… the rain it raineth every day.

"He that has and a little tiny wit / With heigh-ho, the wind and the rain / Must make content with his fortunes fit, / For the rain it raineth every day.” 

Fool in King Lear. William Shakespeare: Act 2, Scene 3.

Rashomon had a Shakespearean air.

One-word Story Openings?

You SURE about that?

Ayanti and Una, in their room full of books, misquote…

Ayanti: Stories must begin well. The first line must be a story in itself. For example, David Copperfield begins, “I was born.”

Una: You sure about that? As I recall the first chapter was called “I Am Born,” but the first sentence actually goes something like, “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life…” and on into a Dickensian discourse. If you’re looking for a short sharp sentence to begin a novel, how about Akutagawa’s Rashomon? I think it opens with one word. “雨” (ame)… meaning “Rain.” Such a wet beginning.

Ayanti: I don’t recall that as the first sentence. More like, “A man was waiting under the Rashomon Gate in the rain.”

Una: Peut-être. The memory plays tricks.

__________

Voice-over

The first line of a story may be short or long.

I cannot find any one-word sentences beginning a story.

But some are short as in, “I am an invisible man." Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man. (1952).

Or longer as in, “I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.” Edith Wharton: Ethan Frome. (1911).

Akutagawa might have begun Rashomon in a similar way as Wharton. This is also known as the Rashomon Effect which is his exploration of four people's interpretations of a violent crime.

Peut-être. The memory plays tricks.

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