Rashomon is a film from 1950 that was directed by Akira Kurosawa. The film tells the story of a man who was murdered in the woods through the eyes of: a woodcutter, a bandit, a lady and a samuri. Each version of the story is ever so slightly different, and there isn't a conclusion to it, so the audience are left to decide for themselves how the film concludes. There are lots of themes explored in this film, one of the main themes is honesty. As the characters reaccount their versions of events, you can see that each persons story is in their favour, for example, the bandit makes out that he was very ferocious and strong, and fought fiercly with the ladys husband. Since every character's reaccount was so different from eachother, it makes the audience question what really happened and who to believe. Due to the way that the film is filmed, you could even say that us- the audience- are the jury, as the characters appear to be appealing directly to the camera, which gives them a connection with the audience.
Another theme that is explored in the film is manipulation. The lady in the film, in my opinion, seems very manipulative and her version of herself in her story contrasts heavily to her in the rest of the stories. She makes herself sound very victimised and that everyone was out to get her. She appears to be using her role to be the damsel in distress and seek sympathy to get herself out of trouble.
Looking at the setting of the film, the film starts off in a very decrepid monastery and all you can hear for a while is the pouring rain. The decrepid monestry and the torrential rain together is symbolic for the corruption caused by the lies that each of the characters are telling during their reacounts. All the characters are trapped in a circle of lies. When the film comes to an end the rain stops to symolise the woodcutter coming to his senses, as he protects the abandoned baby and takes it away to care for it as his own. He takes the baby to make up for the lies which he told during his reaccount to help ease his heavy conscience. Not only does the monestry show the broken truth in the film, but due to the time it was filmed, it could also be there to show the effect that the nuclear bombs had on Japan and to physically show the destruction. The reason why I think this is because some parts seem to have been charred by fire- or an explosion- which is where this idea came from.
Another theme that is explored in the film is manipulation. The lady in the film, in my opinion, seems very manipulative and her version of herself in her story contrasts heavily to her in the rest of the stories. She makes herself sound very victimised and that everyone was out to get her. She appears to be using her role to be the damsel in distress and seek sympathy to get herself out of trouble.
Looking at the setting of the film, the film starts off in a very decrepid monastery and all you can hear for a while is the pouring rain. The decrepid monestry and the torrential rain together is symbolic for the corruption caused by the lies that each of the characters are telling during their reacounts. All the characters are trapped in a circle of lies. When the film comes to an end the rain stops to symolise the woodcutter coming to his senses, as he protects the abandoned baby and takes it away to care for it as his own. He takes the baby to make up for the lies which he told during his reaccount to help ease his heavy conscience. Not only does the monestry show the broken truth in the film, but due to the time it was filmed, it could also be there to show the effect that the nuclear bombs had on Japan and to physically show the destruction. The reason why I think this is because some parts seem to have been charred by fire- or an explosion- which is where this idea came from.
ScreenPlay Inspired By Rashomon
After watching Rashomon, we were tasked with writing a short screen play based on the film, where you have a story lot through 4 different characters. I brainstormed some ideas in my notebook:
I found that I really liked the idea of someone getting hurt. My idea is that a group of teens are doing a dangerous stunt/prank and one of them ends up seriously injured and you hear each person involved's perspective on what happened on that night. Here is the screenplay: