Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
Subject: Re: thoughts on rashomon
From: gunthar@vax1.mankato.msus.edu
Date: 22 Jul 92 13:48:50 -0600
Distribution: rec
Organization: Mankato State University

In article <1992Jul20.1489.24316@channel1>, eric.walker@channel1.com (eric walker) writes:
> 
>      NOTE: Spoilers for "Rashomon" are mentioned below.
> 
>           What I found strange about this movie was the way three of the
>      four witnesses to the murder - the thief, the wife, and the husband -
>      each convicted himself (or herself, in the case of the wife) as the
>      murderer.  I'm no expert on feudal Japanese customs, but I would
>      guess that it would be considered a mark of honor for a person to
>      admit his (or her) crime, after he has been caught.

It wasn't that it was considered honoable to confess the crime.  Each of the
three altered his or her story to conceal their dishonoralbe actions.  

The bandit, knowing that his previous crimes would condem him anyway, confessed
to the murder in order to brag about his swordmanship. "We crossed swords
twenty-three times before I killed him.", brags the bandit, "I had never met a
man before who could cross swords with me more than twenty times."  He can't
reveal that his legendary prowess as a swordsman is based on his ability to hit
someone from behind.

The wife lied to cover up her weakness for not taking her own life and
disloyalty  to her husband.  She didn't pin the murder on the bandit in order
to rob him of the glory of killing her samurai husband.

The husband's testimony shows the real character of human ego.  Although dead,
he still retains the pride to cover up his cowardly actions.  The shame of a
noble samurai being killed by a ragged bandit was too much for him.

>           A thought: it would be easy for people to be frustrated with this
>      movie because it doesn't tell us exactly "whodunit."  Just as
>      audiences became enraged at David Lynch because he didn't tell them
>      who killed Laura Palmer in "Twin Peaks," so "Rashomon" deliberately
>      refuses to tell the truth as well.  Of course, in both cases,
>      "whodunit" is not what the story is trying to tell us.

I disagree.  The final witness, the woodchoper finally reveals the real
culprit.  His honor is not at stake so he can tell the truth, yet even he lied
at the trial so as not to "get involved".  

Back at the Rashamon gate, the graverobber (the guy in rags) is delighted by
the story of the four witnesses.  The triumph of Pride and Self over Truth fits
his cynical world veiw to a T.  The abandoned child they find proves his point
beyond any argument.  Honor, ethics, family are all hollow pretences to be
abandoned at the first inconvience.

However, the woodchoppers offer to adopt the child shows us that while world
may not live up to the optimistic ideals of the preist, humanity is not quite
so unredemable as the graverobber would have it.  We are left with at least a
glimmer of faith (tarnished and ragged, perhaps) in the human race.

If you get the chance, see Rashomon preformed by a live theater group.  The
emotional undercurrents which are so important to the three characters at the
gate are unfortunately lost in translation.

G.
 
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