Ran: Use of Abstract and visual metaphor

After watching Ikiru, i was hooked on Kurosawa. I am now doing a presentation on Kurosawa at college and need to make some primary research.

I was wondering how else do you feel Kurosawa makes use of abstract ideas in Ran apart from the colour and the banners of the sons and their soldiers?

As a former university teacher, I have a thing or two about the internet doing students’ homework, 🙂 but since you have disclosed the fact that this is for a school project (which I really appreciate), here are some thoughts to get you started:

The first thing that came to my mind was: pay close(r) attention to the soundtrack. 😉

Also, consider some of the key scenes and their relation to the main character — what does the burning castle mean? How about the windy grass fields? How is this meaning arrived at?

Kurosawa also places the characters in many interesting combinations on the screen, and there are some especially interesting and telling seating arrangements. Look for instance at the shapes that these arrangements form — circles, opposing lines, triangles… these are all very meaningful, but still quite abstract.

However, the most abstract question currently in my own mind has to do with the world that the characters in Ran inhabit. You can see more about it here.

I hope that this helps, mattpo! Good luck with the presentation, and do let us know how it went!