Philosophy:Rashomon effect

From HandWiki
Short description: Unreliability of eyewitnesses
Tajōmaru the bandit and the wife of a samurai, two characters who offer different perspectives of events in the film Rashomon

The Rashomon effect is the phenomenon of the unreliability of eyewitnesses. The effect is named after Akira Kurosawa's 1950 Japanese film Rashomon, in which a murder is described in four contradictory ways by four witnesses.[1] It has been used as a storytelling and writing method in cinema in which an event is given contradictory interpretations or descriptions by the individuals involved, thereby providing different perspectives and points of view of the same incident.

Discussion

The term addresses the motives, mechanism, and occurrences of the reporting on the circumstance and addresses contested interpretations of events, the existence of disagreements regarding the evidence of events, and subjectivity versus objectivity in human perception, memory, and reporting.

The Rashomon effect has been defined in a modern academic context as "the naming of an epistemological framework—or ways of thinking, knowing, and remembering—required for understanding complex and ambiguous situations".[2]

The history of the term and its permutations in cinema, literature, legal studies, psychology, sociology, and history is the subject of a 2015 multi-author volume edited by Blair Davis, Robert Anderson and Jan Walls, titled Rashomon Effects: Kurosawa, Rashomon and their legacies.[3]

Valerie Alia termed the same effect "The Rashomon Principle" and has used this variant extensively since the late 1970s, first publishing it in an essay on the politics of journalism in 1982. She developed the term in a 1997 essay "The Rashomon Principle: The Journalist as Ethnographer" and in her 2004 book, Media Ethics and Social Change.[4][5]

A useful demonstration of this principle in scientific understanding can be found in Karl G. Heider's 1988 journal article on ethnography.[6] Heider used the term to refer to the effect of the subjectivity of perception on recollection, by which observers of an event are able to produce substantially different but equally plausible accounts of it.

In the Queensland Supreme Court case of The Australian Institute for Progress Ltd v The Electoral Commission of Queensland & Ors (No 2), Applegarth J wrote that:

The Rashomon effect describes how parties describe an event in a different and contradictory manner, which reflects their subjective interpretation and self-interested advocacy, rather than an objective truth. The Rashomon effect is evident when the event is the outcome of litigation. One should not be surprised when both parties claim to have won the case.[7]

The vagaries of memories and how they depend on one's own identity and interests is also a theme of the unfinished 1963 Polish film Passenger (based on a 1959 radio play), in which an Auschwitz survivor and guard differently recall events in that Nazi concentration camp.

Works using the Rashomon effect

  • 1922: In a Grove - the Japanese novel upon which the film Rashomon was partly based.[8]
  • 1942: Five Little Pigs - a detective novel by Agatha Christie, in which Hercule Poirot interviews five suspects involved in a murder a number of years after it took place and must deduce the murderer based solely on the inconsistencies in their accounts.[9]
  • 1950: Rashomon
  • 1954: Andha Naal – an Indian Tamil-language film with thematic similarities to Rashomon.[10]
  • 1990: "A Matter of Perspective" – an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where Commander Riker is accused of murder and faces an extradition hearing where everyone's version of what transpired is re-created in the holodeck.[11]
  • 1992: P.O.V. - an episode of Batman: The Animated Series where a rookie Officer named Wilkes, Officer Renee Montoya and Detective Harvey Bullock give conflicting testimony regarding a botched attempt to take down a smuggling ring. The audience, however, watches events as they truly transpired.
  • 1997: An Instance of the Fingerpost – a mystery novel featuring contradicting narrators.[12]
  • 1998: "Bad Blood" – an episode of The X-Files featuring differing retellings of an investigation into vampire activity.[13]
  • 1999: "The Can Opener" – an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond where married couple Raymond and Debra Barone each describe an argument about a can opener. [14]
  • 2004: Virumaandi – the film's narrative presents two competing legal narratives, drawing comparisons to the Rashomon effect.[15]
  • 2010: “The Rashomon Job” — an episode of Leverage in which the characters recount a single theft they each believe themselves to have committed on the same night.[16]
  • 2013: "The Ashtray" – an episode of How I Met Your Mother that shows the same event from multiple characters' perspectives.[17]
  • 2014: Ulidavaru Kandanthe – an Indian Kannada-language film about five characters telling their different perspectives on a person's murder.[18][19]
  • 2014: How It Went Down – a young adult fiction novel by Kekla Magoon that tells the story of a teen shooting from multiple perspectives.[20]
  • 2015: Talvar – an Indian Hindi-language film based on the 2008 Noida double murder case.[21][22]
  • 2016: The Handmaiden – a South Korean picture adapted from Fingersmith by Sarah Waters.[23]
  • 2018: "The Immortal Hulk" #3 – three different eyewitnesses recount The Hulk's battle with Hotshot through radically different perspectives, each illustrated by a different artist.[24]
  • 2021: The Last Duel – three main characters narrating the rape of a knight's wife in three chapters.[25]
  • 2022: Vadhandhi: The Fable of Velonie – an Indian Prime Video web series.[26]
  • 2022-23: The Afterparty – an American comedy murder mystery anthology television series. Each episode revisits the central mystery of the season through a different character’s retelling and narrative lens.[clarification needed]
  • 2024: Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story – a Netflix limited series about the Menendez brothers.[27][28]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Davenport, Christian (2010). "Rashomon Effect, Observation, and Data Generation". Media Bias, Perspective, and State Repression: The Black Panther Party. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 52–73, esp. 55. ISBN 9780521759700. https://archive.org/details/mediabiasperspec00dave. 
  2. ↑ Anderson, Robert (2016). "The Rashomon Effect and Communication". Canadian Journal of Communication 41 (2): 250–265. doi:10.22230/cjc.2016v41n2a3068. ISSN 0705-3657. 
  3. ↑ Rashomon Effects: Kurosawa, Rashomon and Their Legacies. Routledge Advances in Film Studies. Abingdon, England: Routledge. 2015. ISBN 978-1138827097. https://books.google.com/books?isbn=131757463X. Retrieved 28 September 2016.  See also the citation of individual chapters.
  4. ↑ Alia, Valerie (1997). "The Rashomon Principle: The Journalist as Ethnographer". Deadlines and Diversity: Journalism Ethics in a Changing World. Halifax, CAN: Fernwood. ISBN 9781895686548. https://archive.org/details/deadlinesdiversi0000unse. 
  5. ↑ Alia, Valerie (2004). Media Ethics and Social Change. Edinburgh, UK and New York City: Edinburgh University Press/Routledge US; Routledge US. ISBN 9780415971997. 
  6. ↑ Heider, Karl G. (March 1988). "The Rashomon Effect: When Ethnographers Disagree". American Anthropologist 90 (1): 73–81. doi:10.1525/aa.1988.90.1.02a00050. http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/gleazer/291B/Heider-Rashomon.pdf. 
  7. ↑ The Australian Institute for Progress Ltd v The Electoral Commission of Queensland & Ors (No 2) [2020] QSC 174 (15 June 2020), Supreme Court (Qld, Australia).
  8. ↑ McElhinney, David (22 April 2022). "The Rashomon Effect: In a Grove at 100 Years Old". https://www.tokyoweekender.com/entertainment/movies-tv/rashomon-effect/. ""In a Grove is better known, somewhat confusingly, as Rashomon, the 1950 Akira Kurosawa film which melded In a Grove and another of Akutagawa’s short stories (also called Rashomon) into one cinematic masterpiece...From this film, which ensured Kurosawa became a global cinema darling, the “Rashomon effect” was born."" 
  9. ↑ "Five Little Pigs". https://www.meetnewbooks.com/book/247781/Five-Little-Pigs-Agatha-Christie. ""Poirot gathers the remaining suspects to recount their versions of events leading up to the crime, creating a Rashomon-style narrative."" 
  10. ↑ Guy, Randor (12 December 2008). "Andha Naal 1954". The Hindu. http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-cinemaplus/andha-naal-1954/article3023659.ece. 
  11. ↑ Davis, Blair, ed (2016). "Rashomon's media legacies". Rashomon effects: Kurosawa, Rashomon and their legacies. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. pp. 164. ISBN 9781138590663. https://books.google.com/books?id=ebXhCgAAQBAJ&q=%22A%20Matter%20of%20Perspective%22%20%2B%20rashomon&pg=PA164. 
  12. ↑ Bernstein, Richard (April 3, 1998). "'An Instance Of The Fingerpost': Many Voices Tell An Intricate Tale". https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/29/daily/pears-book-review-art.html. ""An Instance of the Fingerpost" is told "Rashomon" style, by four different narrators, each of whom has only a partial understanding of events and only one of whom makes telling the truth his primary purpose." 
  13. ↑ Handlen, Zack (June 11, 2011). "The X-Files: "Bad Blood" / Millennium : "Luminary"". https://www.avclub.com/the-x-files-bad-blood-millennium-luminary-1798168550. "This is a Rashomon episode, in which much of the running time is given over to either Mulder or Scully explaining their version of events." 
  14. ↑ VanHooker, Brian (2025-04-02). "The 10 Greatest ‘Rashomon’ Sitcom Episodes" (in en). https://www.cracked.com/article_46047_the-10-greatest-rashomon-sitcom-episodes.html. 
  15. ↑ Kumar, Radha (2021) (in English). Police Matters: The Everyday State and Caste Politics in South India, 1900–1975. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-1-5017-6106-5. https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/49454. "Online commentaries speak of this as depicting the “Rashomon effect” in Tamil cinema, but it is noteworthy that the movie makes no pretense that Kothala Thevar speaks the truth. These are not two different memories of an event, these are two different legal narratives of an event." 
  16. ↑ Garner, Jim (2010-08-23). "Leverage Review: "The Rashomon Job"" (in en-US). https://www.tvfanatic.com/leverage-review-the-rashomon-job/. "The true beauty of this episode was the 'Rashomon Effect' concept. While it was a simple concept of five perspectives on a single event from five years earlier, the delivery of those perspectives made this my favorite episode this season." 
  17. ↑ "Ryan Murphy responds to 'Monsters' criticism, says audience didn't understand" (in en-gb). 2024-09-24. https://thestreamr.com/2024/09/24/ryan-murphy-monsters-response/. "If you need an example of what a Rashomon style episode of TV would look like, the Season 9 episode of How I Met Your Mother titled “The Ashtray” demonstrates it perfectly. Critically, it’s a trope that relies on an event being told via flashback from various perspectives." 
  18. ↑ Prasad, S Shyam (28 March 2014). "Movie review: Ulidavaru Kandante" (in en). https://bangaloremirror.indiatimes.com/entertainment/reviews/pradeep-kannika-tabala-nani-sadhu-kokila-rekha-das/articleshow/32434762.cms. 
  19. ↑ Shivakumar, S. (2016-02-18). "A cult classic, and then..." (in en-IN). The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. https://www.thehindu.com/features/friday-review/a-cult-classic-and-then/article8253097.ece. "Rakshit Shetty: 'I’m a great fan of Kurosawa but I never thought of ‘Rashomon’ while writing the film.'" 
  20. ↑ Wright, David (2020-06-10). "Listening to Black voices: 6 audiobooks to learn from amid protests against police brutality in Seattle and across the country" (in en-US). https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/books/listening-to-black-voices-6-audiobooks-to-learn-from-amid-protests-against-police-brutality-in-seattle-and-across-the-country/. 
  21. ↑ Jamkhandikar, Shilpa (2015-10-01). "Bollywood's 'Talvar' does a 'Rashomon' on Aarushi murder case" (in en). Reuters. https://jp.reuters.com/article/bollywoods-talvar-does-a-rashomon-on-aarushi-murder-case-idUS1288561182/. 
  22. ↑ "Making 'Talvar' was a painful journey: Vishal Bhardwaj". The Indian Express. 28 September 2015. http://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/bollywood/making-talvar-was-a-painful-journey-vishal-bhardwaj/. 
  23. ↑ Choe, Steve (2017–18). "Park Chan-wook's Critique of Moral Judgment: The Handmaiden (2016)". Studies in the Humanities (Indiana University of Pennsylvania) 44 & 45 (1 & 2): 20. https://www.academia.edu/download/60660162/Global_East_Asian_Cinema20190921-48127-1tg43c6.pdf#page=47. "On the other hand, the very structure of The Handmaiden may be read to interrupt these pleasures and the sense of moral certitude that underpins it. Rashomon-like, the two parts of Park’s film provide the viewer with two perspectives on the same event.". 
  24. ↑ Schloss, Richard (2018-07-31). "Reality Check: ‘Immortal Hulk’ #3’s Rashomon effect" (in en-US). https://aiptcomics.com/2018/07/31/reality-check-immortal-hulk-3s-rashomon-effect/. 
  25. ↑ Sims, David (2021-10-13). "Ridley Scott's New Film Plays a Masterly Trick" (in en). https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/10/in-the-last-duel-men-are-unreliable-narrators/620377/. "The story is told in the style of Rashomon, the 1950 film in which the same murder is recounted by several different characters. But Rashomon underscored the subjective nature of truth; in The Last Duel, each new storyteller works to peel back the self-aggrandizement of the last." 
  26. ↑ Ramnath, Nandini (2022-12-02). "'Vadhandhi – The Fable of Velonie' review: Murder mystery becomes the thing it wants to avoid" (in en). https://scroll.in/reel/1038617/vadhandhi-the-fable-of-velonie-review-murder-mystery-becomes-the-thing-it-wants-to-avoid. "The show uses a Rashomon-like device of presenting Velonie from the subjective viewpoints of the men who are describing her." 
  27. ↑ "Your Guide to the Multiple Perspectives in Monsters" (in en). Netflix Tudum. https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/monsters-lyle-erik-menendez-story-perspectives. 
  28. ↑ Kelso, Abby (2024-10-17). "Reel Thoughts: ‘Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story’ utilizes the Rashomon Effect at the expense of accurately portraying the case". https://dailynorthwestern.com/2024/10/17/lateststories/reel-thoughts-monsters-the-lyle-and-erik-menendez-story-utilizes-the-rashomon-effect-at-the-expense-of-accurately-portraying-the-case/. "Monsters” traps the viewers with its expert use of the Rashomon Effect, named after the 1950 film “Rashomon,” which depicts a murder from four contradictory perspectives." 

Template:Akira Kurosawa



Retrieved from "https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Philosophy:Rashomon_effect&oldid=4240638"