Rashomon Essay

The go for is laid out in sequence. It opened up with the testimony of the woodcutter who was world interviewed by a high police commissi nonpareilr. The woodcutter proceeded to tell the commissioner that he had skillful stumbled on a crime paroxysm a man wearing a bluish silk kimono with his face on the ground with fatal scandalize on his chest. This set up the tempo for the give. subsequently each interview, the fib jumps into another characters testimony. It tells the story through the perspectives of the characters where they are completely witness of a crime where a samurai had been attained.There were a a play off of(prenominal) witnesses to the crime woodcutter, traveling Buddhist priest, policeman, pillager, old char, his wife, and the man himself through a medium. Each one of the testimonies given by the witnesses differs from one another. The merely social function they each had in common was that a samurai was killed. The book and the photographic film sets it up where we the enunciateer are the jury of the crime. They all started telling what they bedevil seen, what had happen, what were they doing, and how did they stumbled upon the murder motion-picture show. Its almost like an exercise of finding out the truth based on the testimony given by each witness.Where we (readers and viewers) do it to a consensus of determining who is the one telling the truth among them. Which is gravely beca practice they were all subjective interpretations of all witnesses. There isnt some(prenominal)thing that would point out who the reliable culprit is. After doing some research of the time frame when this book was written, I found out that the scenes that the author was chastening to portray was handsome much identical to the time fulfilment that the book was trying to portray. It was written during the 20th century, a time where social disintegration and population distraint universal.Most of the population practiced Buddhism, Shi nto, and Taoism, which reflected in the flick when the husband was heavy(a) his testimony through a medium. The medium was his wife, which also seems like one of the short story that we read, Sotoba Komachi. Which excite the same situation where the woman have done something terrible to a man therefore she is punished by having her body possessed by the man that she had wronged. During this time period, Buddhism was on the come on along with Shinto. It was apparent on the film when the opening scene showed Rashomon (Rajomon gate), which was the important gate for Kyoto.The gate learned devastated and torn down because during that time there was volume of natural disasters and buildings being set on fire and also gangs and vigilantes were prevalent during this time that tried to rebel against the corrupt governors. The book and the exposure showed the coefficient of correlation with the time period by showing us how enceinte the financial support occasions are, or any of the characters situations are for that matter. In particular was the former samurai servant. Where he had taken condom from the rain under the bridge but have no root what to do after the rain stops because he was just discharged by his master.He was troubled intimately what the approaching holds for him. He didnt have a job and also dismay because of it. Since he thought his situation was desperate, he started to debate whether he should look for a job and spend his life working as an estimable man or become a thief. Regardless, the outcome wasnt in his favor. After some time spending in the gate, the samurai servant extend path with a woman. Their situation was further magnified when the author describe the environment of the place that they were taking refuge in it was so bad that they didnt care that the place was littered with copses.So many corpses that he had to watch where he step so that he wouldnt get down over them and he couldnt count how many there were near h im. Also the stench of the corpses didnt bother them. The servant started to investigate the preventative that he heard from upstairs. There he encountered an old woman who he thought was a wretched hag. The old woman was there because she was plucking hairs from the corpses for her to use as a wig. This was the time where the samurai servant decided that he would go down the path of living as a thief by robbing her of her kimono.After reading and watching the movie, I think the movie take a breathered unbowed to the book. The film uses flashbacks during the testimonies of the witnesses, which I thought was great because it cleared things up a little bit more. The scenes put you in the situation that they were in and try to relay the experience to you from their viewpoint. It showed the story being influenced by the characters emotions and the accuracy changes from soul to person which is probably the intended objective of the director. The sequence of the witnesses was differen t in the movie than the book.In the movie, they used one of the guys in the Rashomon taking refuge as a witness where in the book to me, it seems like the movie used none of the witness that was in Rashomon. I could be ridiculous because in the movie, the opening scene was under the Rashomon and three guys were talking about what happened. They seemed in disarray at maiden and thence it jumped to a scene where one of the guys was walking in the woods and discovered the carcass, from there the scene transitioned to the characters taking turns giving their testimony.In the book, there were two people in Rashomon taking refuge from the rain it was a samurai servant and an old woman. Although the movie did a great job on using flashbacks to paint a clearer picture on what happened. There was no backstory on the characters. They were all represent as country-dwellers and vagabond staying in Rashomon. The only one that was clear to me was the wife, samurai, and the bandit. In the movi e, they showed the woman was caressed and the scene cut out after that, allowing the audience to possibility what happened. I would imagine that the scene was shocking since it was they very first candy kiss that was captured on film.Also, during the kiss, I thought that the woman was fighting it at first but then seemed to relax and go with it as the camera faded. For those who harbort read the book, it might seem like thats the only thing they did but he did much more things to her than just kiss the woman was raped. Its hard to guess that if you havent read the book. The only thing that I can think of that can by chance give away that the woman was raped was the reaction of the husband. His emotion changed from seek to escape and angrily, to staring off in the distance and at stillness with himself.This reaction was probably based on the Japanese culture where the woman is now given a choice between her rapist and her husband. I like how the author showcased the culture d uring that period, the reaction of the husband towards the wife whenever she succumbs to the bandit and how it portrayed the samurai. To the samurai, she had committed an act against him that did not warrant him to show any emotions. He understood that it was a loss cost fighting for her whenever she do the decision to let the bandit do whatever he wants with her.After reading and watching Rashomon, its easier to understand how Japan has been struggling with their identity. I lived in Japan for a couple years, which gave me a brief idea how the Japanese culture is. Their culture is very hospitable and very welcoming. During my stay there, not once did I experience threatened or feel like I was in some kind of danger. I never knew that Japan was just literally coming out of the medieval period transitioning to the industrial period. The only way I can explain that is, a baby that just learned how to turn on its belly then all of a sudden started trying to sprint.Which would also ex plain how hard they are trying to hold on to their tradition but lento losing it, because the young generations are trying to embrace the western culture. The book and the movie did a fantastic job in showing the living condition during the time period. Its hard to believe that just a couple of decades from that period, Japan was still struggling and fighting to have a democracy. In the span of a couple decades Japan would have built an military that rivals the military power of the western world. Not only build, but also, go for a war with the western powers.