The Human Condition in Kurosawa's Rashomon

Date of Award

2006

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Hassold, Cris

Keywords

Rashomon, Kurosawa, Akira, Human Condition

Area of Concentration

Humanities

Abstract

Kurosawa�s Rashomon has usually been interpreted as a film about relative truth in which the viewer is invited to determine whom among the various characters is telling the truth about the events that happened deep within the forest. However, this thesis holds that the film is about the human condition and a person�s existential possibilities to behave either authentically or in bad faith. My review of the literary sources that Kurosawa used shows that Kurosawa takes two different stories and fuses them into a significantly different whole that refuses the essential pessimism of Akutagawa�s original tales. I show that Kurosawa uses a number of strategies that make the viewer conscious of the hyperbolic and self-serving nature of the several narratives told in the police court by the bandit, the samurai and his wife. I conclude that it is in Kurosawa�s frame story, told at the Rashomon Gate to the commoner by the woodcutter and the priest, that we discover the director�s existential preoccupations with man�s freedom to choose. I develop Sartre�s understanding that it is up to the individual through his/her freedom of action whether or not to be authentic or inauthentic. It is through the final gratuitous act on the part of the woodcutter that the priest�s faith in man is restored, in spite of the chaos that is evident everywhere in the film.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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