Colonel Tom Edwards: This is the most fantastic story I've ever heard.
Jeff Trent: And every word of it's true, too.
Colonel Tom Edwards: That's the fantastic part of it.
- Plan 9 from Outer Space
"I don't want to hear it. No more horror stories."
- The Priest, Rashomon
I told you I like my double-features strange, so today I watched what is considered one of the greatest films ever made - Rashomon - followed by what is considered one of the worst films ever made - Plan 9 from Outer Space. I thought it would make an interesting exercise; for one thing, I'd never seen either of them, and as a student of film and culture, it makes sense to watch a pair of movies that have been vastly influential, albeit for very different reasons.
Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon (a.k.a. In the Forest) is famous for being the first film to use the plot device of recounting a story in flashback from multiple points of view - stuff like The Usual Suspects and Hero are children of Rashomon. In this story, a shell-shocked priest and equally shell-shocked woodcutter are waiting out a torrential storm in the burnt-out ruins of a temple and making references to a horrible story they heard that day when some vagabond comes in out of the rain and wants to know what they're talking about. We learn that the priest and woodcutter had just testified that day as witnesses to a rape and murder, and after their recollections of events, their memories of the trial yield the story of the bandit accused of the murder, the dead man's wife (the rape victim), and what could be described as a surprise witness. In the end, what really happened is presented with disturbing clarity - there's no ambiguity as to how things went down, because that's not the point of the film.
I've always heard this film described as being about the nature and pursuit of truth. I would now suggest that this description misses the entire point of Rashomon. As the nature of the murder is gradually revealed, along with the ways in which the players reveal it, Rashomon turns out to be an exploration not of the nature of truth, but the nature of shame - what happens when we refuse or embrace it, and how our responses to shame shape events. Toshiro Mifune's bandit is a man who has built his life on refusing to feel shame. The dead man's wife has been bound by her views on shame associated with rape. Her husband's reaction to his wife's shame, and his refusal to feel shame himself, shapes events even further. I'd love to dissect this film right here and now, but I also don't want to give it away. It's a powerful, masterful, freakin' brilliant piece of work, not to mention a harsh exploration of the philosophy of justice, as it brings into question just who is responsible for the husband's death, for it could be said that, because each of the people involved incites another to some form of violence, be it sexual, psychological, or physical, through how they respond to their shame.
Rashomon was made in 1950, just five years after Japan lost a war, and remains one of the best films you'll ever see, guaranteed. There's a reason Kurosawa - who had, by 1950, directed twelve films, not to mention how many he'd worked on as an A.D. or writer - is regularly labelled as brilliant and visionary. At a time when countries with far older film industries, like the U.S., still hadn't worked out the concept of non-linear cinematography and continued to make movies based the philosophies of stage productions, Kurosawa was using his cameras to do things like follow characters as they walked. The two fight scenes in Rashomon are the direct ancestors of the style and method refined in the Bourne films, and even though I knew how the fights would end, they were so visceral and intimate that I actually had a physical reaction of fear and anxiety while watching. Intimacy is a key word for Rashomon. When I had my photography classes, I was taught that for portraiture, you fill your frame with the subject's face and shoulders to keep it focused and intimate, and Rashomon is full of such shots. It's of a much smaller scope than other Kurosawa films I've seen, which have been teeming with people and using wide, sweeping shots, and its scope suits its story to a tee. That being said, it's still one of his older films, and so the kabuki (traditional Japanese theatre) presence is more distinct than in his later ones...and yet, with all the other components at work, I wonder if that was intentional, to further maintain the film's power in its intimacy.
...Which brings us to what I watched less than an hour later: Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space. Yes, I can now say that I've seen the Plan. I'm glad that I have, because I maintain that it is an important part of American film history. It's also hilarious, though, of course, not by design. It's probably safe to say that all the stories you've heard about Plan 9 are true. The dialogue defies logic on a scale even greater than that of those old Flash Gordon serials, as does Wood's flagrant disregard for little things like night/day continuity. The DVD I watched included interviews with stars Bela Lugosi, Vampira, and Ed's wife, Doris Fuller, which was particularly interesting. Even more interesting was the fact that my strange double-features continue to correlate. I meant this one purely as contrast, for the entertainment value of a great film followed by a really bad one, but, like many of my combos, it became something more. As I said, Rashomon is a story about man's varied responses to shame...and shame is something that Ed Wood spent a career defying, and pushing on in the face of, by doing whatever it took (even if what it took was a pretty big compromise) in order to finish films on very tight budgets. It could perhaps be said that Wood eventually succumbed to shame, as after Plan he struggled for work and descended into alcoholism, relying mostly on porn to make ends meet, until his death by heart attack at the age of 54. Who knew that, with the right set-up (in this case, Rashomon), such a ridiculous film could take on such serious and tragic overtones?
Akira Kurosawa: he even makes Plan 9 interesting!
Rashomon, the Criterion Collection release, runs 88 minutes, has been so well-restored that it doesn't show its age, and comes with a mini-documentary about the cinematographer as well as a look at the paintings that served as Kurosawa's storyboards. It even has an English dub track, which, as usual, I don't recommend unless you suffer from a visual impairment or reading disability. Plan 9 from Outer Space runs around 90 minutes and is, well, Plan 9 from Outer Space, for better or ill a significant influence on American film (and two generations of aspiring filmmakers who live by the idea that if Ed Wood can make a movie, anyone can), not to mention quite unintentionally entertaining - I had a good time watching it. Honestly, if you've had the misfortune of watching Bring it On, House on Haunted Hill, Dude, Where's My Car?, or anything by Uwe Boll, you've seen a worse movie than Plan 9 from Outer Space. This one, at least, is fun to watch, and did not at any point incite me to thoughts of poking myself in the eye repeatedly with a pencil in order to end my torment. Go on - you know you want to be able to boast that you've seen it. And then we can speculate as to what plans 1 through 8 were!
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