What filmmaking techniques does Ran use?

CineCode breaks down 8 techniques in Ran (1985): Shakespearean Adaptation, Color Symbolism, Anamorphic Scope Composition, Tragic Inversion Structure, Strategic Silence, Human Figure in Vast Landscape, Variable Frame Rate Combat and Leitmotif.

Akira Kurosawa directed Ran, released in 1985. CineCode also covers Rashomon (1950), Ikiru (1952), Seven Samurai (1954), Throne of Blood (1957), The Hidden Fortress (1958), Yojimbo (1961).

What films are similar to Ran?

Films that share techniques with Ran include The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Sansho the Bailiff (1954), Three Colors: Blue (1993), Crimson Peak (2015).

History · Drama · War

Ran

Akira Kurosawa, 1985

An aging Japanese warlord divides his kingdom among his 3 sons, and that sets off a catastrophic civil war that destroys everything he built. Kurosawa's late masterpiece moves King Lear to feudal Japan. In it, human evil is as basic and unavoidable as the weather.

2 Narrative 3 Cinematography 2 Sound 1 Editing

At a glance

Ran is a 1985 history, drama and war film directed by Akira Kurosawa. This breakdown covers 8 techniques (2 narrative, 3 cinematography, 2 sound and 1 editing), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, The Bridge on the River Kwai uses several of the same techniques.

Narrative

Shakespearean Adaptation

Moving the plot, character relationships and themes of a Shakespeare play into a new time, place or genre. The basic dramatic structure stays, and the world around it changes.

How this film uses it

Kurosawa moves King Lear to Sengoku-era Japan, and the fit is so precise that the adaptation helps you understand both works. Hidetora is Lear without the last scrap of hope the play holds on to. The Japanese fatalism rules out any chance of redemption, and I feel like that makes the tragedy more absolute.

Where to see it

The castle massacre. Hidetora wanders out of the burning tower while armies kill all around him. He is like Lear here, with no sympathetic witness left beside him.

Cinematography

Color Symbolism

Giving specific colors to characters, groups or ideas and sticking to them through the film. Each time a color appears, it tells you something beyond what is shown.

How this film uses it

Each of Hidetora's 3 sons commands an army dressed entirely in 1 color: yellow, red and blue. The colors let Kurosawa stage battles like abstract paintings. When the colors mix and get destroyed, you're seeing the collapse of the order Hidetora divided.

Where to see it

The Third Castle assault. The armies collide in full color. The flags and armor fill the screen, and you can read it as military strategy and as emotional chaos.

Cinematography

Anamorphic Scope Composition

Using the full width of a very wide 2.35:1 frame to set small human figures against huge, empty landscapes. All that empty space makes the characters look isolated and insignificant.

How this film uses it

Kurosawa and cinematographer Asakazu Nakai use the 1.85:1 frame to keep making Hidetora look tiny inside the landscapes he once commanded. The wider the shot, the smaller the man. The film shows his fall through how little space he takes up on screen.

Where to see it

Hidetora wandering the burned plain. The widescreen frame shrinks him to a small figure in an indifferent world he destroyed.

Narrative

Tragic Inversion Structure

Structuring the story so a character's rise or cruelty is mirrored by its opposite. A parallel story shows a different outcome, or a powerful figure loses everything in ways that echo earlier wrongs.

How this film uses it

Hidetora built his empire through murder, including the blinding of Tsurumaru. The film turns each of those past acts into a consequence he suffers now. His sons make war the way he made war, and the man he blinded outlives the sight Hidetora trusted. His tragedy is his own life story reflected back at him.

Where to see it

Hidetora taking refuge in Tsurumaru's home. The man he blinded is the one who shelters him, so the reversal is right there on screen.

Sound

Strategic Silence

Removing music, background sound or dialogue from a moment where most films would fill it. The quiet forces you to sit with what is on screen.

How this film uses it

The Third Castle massacre plays almost entirely without diegetic sound, meaning the sounds that belong to the scene itself. Kurosawa takes out the gunshots and the screaming and replaces them with Tōru Takemitsu's mournful score. The silence makes the slaughter feel like myth and takes away some of its gut-level shock. You watch a tragedy from a great, sorrowful distance.

Where to see it

The castle massacre sequence. The gunfire and the deaths make no sound, and the score plays over images of total destruction.

Cinematography

Human Figure in Vast Landscape

Framing people as tiny specks in an enormous wide shot. The size gap shows how little one person's will counts against the forces of nature, geography or history.

How this film uses it

Kurosawa places armies on open hillsides in long shots where you can barely see the soldiers against the sky. When Hidetora walks alone from a burning castle, the landscape dwarfs him. The images insist that power, pride and legacy are small in the end against a world that doesn't care.

Where to see it

Hidetora coming out of the burning third castle. He's 1 lone figure surrounded by armies, and the landscape makes him look like a detail.

Editing

Variable Frame Rate Combat

Switching between slow motion and fast motion inside the same battle scene. The changing speed controls how the violence feels and how long each moment seems to last.

How this film uses it

The siege of the third castle plays with almost none of the battle's own sounds. Kurosawa replaces them with Takemitsu's mournful music. The missing sound makes the violence feel dreamlike and sad.

Where to see it

The third castle massacre. The music replaces the sound of each atrocity, so you have time to think about it as well as witness it.

Sound

Leitmotif

Repeating a short piece of music or a sound every time a certain character, idea or feeling comes up. You learn to connect the 2.

How this film uses it

A leitmotif is a musical theme tied to a character or idea. Toru Takemitsu's Mahler-style score ties a recurring motif of doom to the fall of Hidetora and the House Ichimonji. Flute themes drawn from Noh theatre accompany his madness. The music tracks a mental collapse that the images only partly show.

Where to see it

Hidetora's mad wandering. The flute themes carry his collapse, and the music falls apart the same way his mind does.

Questions

Ran: quick answers

What filmmaking techniques does Ran use?: CineCode breaks down 8 techniques in Ran (1985): Shakespearean Adaptation, Color Symbolism, Anamorphic Scope Composition, Tragic Inversion Structure, Strategic Silence, Human Figure in Vast Landscape, Variable Frame Rate Combat and Leitmotif.
Who directed Ran?: Akira Kurosawa directed Ran, released in 1985. CineCode also covers Rashomon (1950), Ikiru (1952), Seven Samurai (1954), Throne of Blood (1957), The Hidden Fortress (1958), Yojimbo (1961).
What films are similar to Ran?: Films that share techniques with Ran include The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Sansho the Bailiff (1954), Three Colors: Blue (1993), Crimson Peak (2015).

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