Rashomon Essay

Rashomon is Japanese film from the 1950’s that won best foreign film and helped jumped start the production of Japanese films. It won many awards, and is said to be one of the greatest films ever made by numerous individuals. Rashomon is a story that tells multiple stories in itself. The main plot of the movie is the story of a murder being told from multiple points of views.

The first point of view is Tajomaru’s, the bandit. He claimed lured the samurai into the mountains and then tied him to a tree so he could seduce his wife and rape her. The bandit stated that after raping the samurai’s wife, they had a duel, he won, and the wife ran away.

The wife of the samurai had a different story to tell. She said the bandit left her to die after

He said that Tajomaru, the bandit, had indeed murdered the samurai, but not in the way he had explained. Each character has admitted to the murder being somewhat their responsibility, so who is being truthful?

Each version is unreliable because we were hearing the story from the character’s perspective. With that being said, in the film Rashomon, it is almost impossible to know the whole truth. Perspective is deemed to be the most important aspect of the movie, which is in fact what relates the film to material culture.

This film gives a perfect example of if we can truly know reality. When studying something such as an, artifact, object, or story, how does one know which interpretation of it is correct? Who and what is to believe? If there is an absence of evidence or facts, which assumption is whole-heartedly correct? All of these questions tie into the plot of the movie. We see so many varied perspectives in the film, and life, which are merely explanations. This is where theories come into play within the study of material culture. A theory is a way of seeing a specific subject matter. These theories are explanations on how we see everyday life and how everyone’s’ view, interpretation, and opinion on things can differ. Thus relating back to perspective and the film