Statistical Analysis of Kurosawa’s Rashomon (1950)
...lay claim to the longest average shot lengths at 20.75 and 17.25 seconds per shot respectively. However, each has a completely different effect on the viewer. The first section at the court, for instance, lasts 5:32 and has sixteen separate shots with almost no camera movement to speak of. Kurosawa stages the scene at the court so that the viewer is situated in the same place as the investigator would be. He lets the testimonies develop so that we may judge their stories for ourselves as though we were the ones investigating the murder. The last scene at the gate, on the other hand, lasts 9:12 and has 32 separate shots. While similar in average shot length, these two sections are vastly different in terms of dramatic effect. In the last scene at the gate there are not many camera movements. However, whatever movement there happens to be is extremely expressive and intensifies the already emotional nature of the scene. Especially beautiful and suggestive of emotion are the panning movements and the movements that involve panning and tracking simultaneously. The sections at the gate are interesting because although there is not a lot of movement and the shots lost for a relatively long time, they are still extremely dramatic due to the tight framing and closeness of the camera to the film’s characters. Kurosawa seems to have an excellent mastery over the pace of his films, and this one is no exception. The first two sections of the film, the first scene at the gate and the woodcutter’s journey, both consist of 29 shots. However, the opening sequence lasts almost six minutes and the Woodcutter’s journey lasts just less than four minutes. Thus, with the same amount shots, Kurosawa has heightened the intensity of the film and begins to prepare the viewer for the much quicker cutting and camera movements of the forest sequences later in the film. A comparison of the four accounts of the murder is also interesting to look at. The bandit’s story consists of 77 camera moves, 31% of the camera movements in the entire film, lasts 19:36, or 23% of the film’s running time, and has 138 separate shots, 33%. The sequence is mostly comprised of pans, 45, and some tracks, 18. This would suggest that the camera was mainly used to follow the action, with little attention paid to the emotions of the character. This is also indicative of the hunter instinct of the bandit, being that his prime objective is to win the woman from her husband. The woman’s story lasts 9:56, 12%, consists of only 16 camera moves, 7%, and is made up of 36 shots, 9%. The emotional and dramatic intensity of this sequence is far greater as opposed to the bandit’s story. The camera movement is far more suggestive than during the bandit’s account of the murder. There are several beautiful panning motions tracking shots that almost seem to hug the woman while she sways back and forth feeling almost worthless at the sight of her uncaring husband. Kurosawa also uses several tracking shots that also simultaneously pan and form a sort of force field around the woman as she becomes more and more emotional. Not as emotional as his wife’s confession, it still is more so than the bandit’s account. It lasts 10:09, 12%, consists of 24 camera moves, 10%, and has 44 shots, 11%. These numbers are close to those of complied for his wife’s story, which could explain for the similar emotions that Kurosawa illustrates in these sequences. In the man’s story, however, the camera movement more closely resembles the bandit’s story than with the woman’s. It would seem that Kurosawa has used formed in order to depict the much more sensuous nature of the female gender. The final version of the murder comes from the Woodcutter himself, who admits to seei...