Storytelling in the Rashomon Gate: Kurosawa, Konjaku monogatari-shu, and Buddhism
0
조회
0
다운로드
0
인용
0
참고문헌
키워드
초록
This article is concerned with the relationship between Kurosawa Akira’s Rashomon and Konjaku monogatari-shu, an anthology of anecdotes from the Heian period. Kurosawa’s film is adapted from two short stories by Akutagawa Ryunosuke, which are in turn based on three Konjaku tales. This article consists of four parts. In the first part, plot summaries of the three Konjaku tales are provided, and the role of the narrator is examined in each. Special attention is paid to the elements of reflexivity in the commentaries by the Konjaku narrator. The second part of the article investigates the narrative structure of Rashomon and then discusses a striking affinity between the medieval storytelling conventions and the verbal interactions among the three characters in Kurosawa’s frame story. The extensive role of the monk-narrator in Rashomon is analyzed in light of the didactic use of the Konjaku tales in a Buddhist temple in late Heian society. The third section relates Kurosawa’s concern with the enigma of human nature to the Buddhist doctrine of emptiness. The epistemological issues raised in Rashomon are defined as the results of each character’s selfdelusion. In cinematizing the interrelated subjects of elusive reality, epistemic crisis, and indeterminacy of meaning, Kurosawa makes brilliant use of his fluid camera. The last section of the article reviews the critical controversy surrounding the foundling sequence and also the problematic association of this episode with Kurosawa’s espousal of Western humanism. Three pieces of evidence are presented to argue that the sequence can be more coherently and meaningfully understood when it is contextualized in the Japanese Buddhist tradition rather than Western humanism.
Abstract
This article is concerned with the relationship between Kurosawa Akira’s Rashomon and Konjaku monogatari-shu, an anthology of anecdotes from the Heian period. Kurosawa’s film is adapted from two short stories by Akutagawa Ryunosuke, which are in turn based on three Konjaku tales. This article consists of four parts. In the first part, plot summaries of the three Konjaku tales are provided, and the role of the narrator is examined in each. Special attention is paid to the elements of reflexivity in the commentaries by the Konjaku narrator. The second part of the article investigates the narrative structure of Rashomon and then discusses a striking affinity between the medieval storytelling conventions and the verbal interactions among the three characters in Kurosawa’s frame story. The extensive role of the monk-narrator in Rashomon is analyzed in light of the didactic use of the Konjaku tales in a Buddhist temple in late Heian society. The third section relates Kurosawa’s concern with the enigma of human nature to the Buddhist doctrine of emptiness. The epistemological issues raised in Rashomon are defined as the results of each character’s selfdelusion. In cinematizing the interrelated subjects of elusive reality, epistemic crisis, and indeterminacy of meaning, Kurosawa makes brilliant use of his fluid camera. The last section of the article reviews the critical controversy surrounding the foundling sequence and also the problematic association of this episode with Kurosawa’s espousal of Western humanism. Three pieces of evidence are presented to argue that the sequence can be more coherently and meaningfully understood when it is contextualized in the Japanese Buddhist tradition rather than Western humanism.
참고문헌 (23)
- Barbarow, George, "Rashomon: Akira Kurosawa", pp.145~148 (1987), Rutgers UP
- Barthes, Roland, "Image-Music-Text" (1977)
- Billingham, Jimmy, "Film-Thing and Narrative Indeterminacy", Alphaville:Journal of Film and Screen Media, 4(2), pp.1~15 (2012)
- Chatman, Seymour, "Coming to Terms: The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film" (1990), Cornell UP
- Covell, Stephen G, "Japanese Temple Buddhism: Worldliness in a Religion of Renunciation" (2005), U of Hawaii P
- Galbraith IV, Stuart, "The Emperor and the Wolf: The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune" (2002), Faber and Faber
- Goodwin, James, "Akira Kurosawa and Intertextual Cinema" (1994), Johns Hopkins UP
- Hashimoto, Shinobu, "Rashomon: Akira Kurosawa", pp.31~91 (1987), Rutgers UP
- Iser, Wolfgang, "The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response" (1978), Johns Hopkins UP
- Kamir, Orit, "Framed:Women and Law in Film", pp.43~72 (2006), Duke UP
- Kelsey, W. Michael, "Konjaku Monogatari-shū" (1982), Twayne
- Kurosawa, Akira, "Akira Kurosawa: Something Like an Autobiography" (1982), Knopf
- Martinez, Dolores, "Remaking Kurosawa: Translations and Permutations in Global Cinema" (2009), Palgrave Macmillan
- Mellen, Joan, "The Waves at Genji’s Door" (1976), Pantheon
- Prince, Gerald, "Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-Structuralism", pp.7~25 (1980), Johns Hopkins UP
- Prince, Stephen, "Rashomon Effects: Kurosawa, Rashomon, and Their Legacies", pp.122~136 (2016), Routledge
- Prince, Stephen, "The Warrior’s Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa" (1991), Princeton UP
- Richie, Donald, "The Films of Akira Kurosawa" (1996), U of California P
- Shirane, Haruo, "The Demon at Agi Bridge and Other Japanese Tales", pp.1~9 (2011), Columbia UP
- Ury, Marian, "Tales of Times Now Past: Sixty-two Stories from a Medieval Japanese Collection" (1979), U of California P
- Veja, Morris, "Film and Literature: An Introduction" (1979), Longman
- Watson, Burton, "The Demon at Agi Bridge and Other Japanese Tales" (2011), Columbia UP
- Yu, Beongcheon, "Akutagawa: An Introduction" (1972), Wayne State UP