Akira Kurosawa uses color symbolism and lighting techniques to convey emotion and meaning in his film Ran. Specific colors identify each son of the Great Lord and their armies. A dark and gloomy sky represents the horrors of war in a scene of battle. When the Great Lord encounters Tsutsumaru, mystical lighting helps the audience feel the emotion of the flashback. In the most impactful scene, the Great Lord walks alone under a dark cloud after losing his mind, creating a sense of loneliness and betrayal through the composition of sounds, colors, and angles.
Akira Kurosawa uses color symbolism and lighting techniques to convey emotion and meaning in his film Ran. Specific colors identify each son of the Great Lord and their armies. A dark and gloomy sky represents the horrors of war in a scene of battle. When the Great Lord encounters Tsutsumaru, mystical lighting helps the audience feel the emotion of the flashback. In the most impactful scene, the Great Lord walks alone under a dark cloud after losing his mind, creating a sense of loneliness and betrayal through the composition of sounds, colors, and angles.
Akira Kurosawa uses color symbolism and lighting techniques to convey emotion and meaning in his film Ran. Specific colors identify each son of the Great Lord and their armies. A dark and gloomy sky represents the horrors of war in a scene of battle. When the Great Lord encounters Tsutsumaru, mystical lighting helps the audience feel the emotion of the flashback. In the most impactful scene, the Great Lord walks alone under a dark cloud after losing his mind, creating a sense of loneliness and betrayal through the composition of sounds, colors, and angles.
What I noted the most from this movie is how Akira Kurosawa plays with the colors and symbols. Not only it helps us to identify some characters, but also deepening the emotions of one scene. Most of the audience would realize the usage of specific colors for each son of the Great Lord, including their helpers and the armies of each son. It helps a lot during the movie to identify who belongs to whom. Next, is when Jiro and Taro attacked the third castle; there is a sense of gloominess represented by the dark sky (although the war supposed to be starting early in the morning). The deaths and horrors of the Great Lords loyal servants and samurais are captured with the number of blood shown in this scene. Akira does not only use colors as identifier of each son, he also differentiate each with the number of stripes use in the flag and the moon in the back of each sons soldier. Another example is the scene when the Great Lord encounters Tsutsumaru, which reminds him of what he did in the past. It was quite mystical and the lighting helps to get more emotion from that scene. During the Great Lords being frightened of what he had done, it seems that the Great Lord is blending with his background. His hakama is dirty with dust and it blends with Tsutsumarus wall. It emphasize how invisible the Lord has become. The greatest color usage to emphasize the emotion in this film, in my opinion is when the Great Lord lost his rationality and walked out of the third castle. He walked under a dark cloud and dark ground color to somewhere unknown gives an impression that he is all alone, feel betrayed, and he has nowhere to go. Furthermore, the wide angle gives more loneliness to this scene. This is the best scene for me, because the composition of the sound effect, colors, and angles are perfect and those elements creates a sad, lonely scene. I also recognized the details use in this movie. One is the stripes and moon symbols for each sons symbol. Second, the sound of Lady Kaedes kimono every time she walks. Whenever she is coming in or out of the frame, it is always noticeable because of this sound effect Akira uses. Lastly, the angle of arrow, amount of smokes and every other details Akira uses during the war.