Akira Kurosowa’s Film “Rashomon”

Do both works have the same characters? Which are different? For example, in the film, the commoner to whom the tale of the murder is told. If the main characters are the same, do they share the same traits? For example, the woodcutter. Akutogwa’s stories; “In the Grove” and “Rashomon” share several great similarities with Akira Kurosowa’s film “Rashomon”. In fact, Kurosowa’s films is essentially based on Akutogwa’s Rashomon. Among other things, they share a number of characters.

For instance, both the film and the stories are set within the court of a Police Commissioner. While both the story and the film do not have main characters, they both have the woodcutter, the priest, the bandit, the samurai and the samurai’s wife. These characters are intent on giving their own account of the murder of the samurai in manner that would portray them in good light. However, Kurosowa’s film introduces the commoner as a character who serves to introduce the story of the murder of the Samurai (Matsumura, 2015).

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The wood cutter also plays a more critical role in the films’ plot than in the story because while the woodcutter confesses to robbing from Samurai’s body, he appears and redeems himself in the last scene of the film by deciding to go home with a baby that he promised to take care of. In Akutogwa’s story, this commoner character is not present but a tool is used to introduce the story to the readers.

Besides, Akutogwa presents the account of an old woman who alleges to be the mother of the Samurai’s wife. Also, the old woman puts forth claims that she personally knew the name of the bandit who had attacker daughter and son-in-law (Greddes, 1993).

The successive points of view, which are an integral part in both works, result in. Explain the difference and why Kurosawa made these adaptations. The successive points of view presented in both the film and the story depict the involvement and the testimonies of the characters regarding the murder of the Samurai. From each successive testimony gives finer details of the murder, even though each offers a different account.

This means that the first character in the film only offers a bleak account of the events that happened, with only little detail as compared to the last character. Kurosowa presents different accounts of the characters so as not to make us unable to comprehend what really caused the death of the Samurai. This can be viewed as a mixed-use way of telling the truth hence forming a storytelling gimmick. Consequently, the film, portrays each of the characters in a melodramatic light (Matsumura, 2015).

Kurosowa made these adaptations so as to reveal the reality of how we human beings tend to use lies as a survival technique. That is, by making lies, the characters tended to feel good about themselves, even though this may in reality, not be the case. It is this fact that Kurosowa believes make it very difficult to understand the heart of human beings and the motivations that come from them. As an example, the viewer would expect trust to thrive between the Samurai and his wife. However, during the trial of the case, each of the witnesses’’ account go on to portray that trust could have been lacking in the union between Samurai and his wife (Matsumura, 2015).

Akutagwa’s story presents to the readers three accounts of eye-witnesses to the murder and the rape of the Samurai and his wife respectively. These three first-hand account of events are presented by the bandit, the Samurai and his wife in both Kurosowa’s film as well as Akutagwa’s “In the Grove”. Akutagwa presented four second-hand accounts of the eye-witnesses. However, Kurosowa presents a more dramatic narrative of these accounts as compared to the story “In the Grove”. Kurosowa adapted Akutagwa’s story to give a dramatic cinema that had a moral tale underpinned to it. Kurosowa’s adaptations are able to visualize a society in which there is little, to no trust, amongst human beings, including human beings who assumedly love each other.

Besides, Kurosowa presents a more biased opinion towards women through statements and phrases used against the Samurai’s wife such as “women use their tears to fool everyone”. Also, the film presents a longer account of the woodcutter that goes on to show how the wife may have encouraged a duel between the wife and the bandit. Kurosowa uses the woodcutter to paint the wife as being a manipulative creature even though she was only being victim of her own circumstance. This is different from the original story by Akutagwa in which the woodcutter only played a role of unravelling facts surrounding the mystery of Samurai’s death (Greddes, 1993; Matsumura, 2015).

In both the story and the film, human beings are portrayed as being ready to compromise trust as well as the truth for self-interests and to feel good about themselves. For instance, following her rape, and her assumed feeling of worthlessness and impurity, especially according to the Japanese cultural values, the wife decides to encourage both men to engage in a duel to protect her honor. Both the film and the story show how the bandit, Tajomaru, takes away the Samurai’s honor so as to let his honor reign and hence able to control both the Samurai and his wife. Akutagwa and Kurosowa use these to show how truth is sacrificed in favor of an individual’s honor. The contrasting accounts of these characters add to the conflict that is in both the film and the story (Matsumura, 2015; Greddes, 1993).