In the movie Rashomon, we see how the character the
Woodcutter is the root of all the lies. Throughout the movie we see the bandit,
the wife, and the samurai, and the woodcutter all having different stories on
what happened to the Samurai who was found dead. With all of these different
stories we are left guessing on who is telling the truth.
Deceit
is the whole theme throughout this entire movie, throughout the whole movie we
look at the Woodcutter and believe that he is telling the unbiased truth about
what has happened to the Samurai and about his finding of the body. But we see
that the woodcutters’ story often changes leading us to question if he is
telling all of the truth. For example, when the woodcutter gets out of the
trial he tells the commoners that the Samurai’s story was a lie and that he
witnessed the rape and murder but did not want to become involved. He then continues to tell the commoner
a new story explaining that Tajomaru wanted to marry the wife but she instead
wanted to free her husband and wanted them to fight for love. The woodcutter
proceeds to tell the commoner that Tajomaru took the dagger with him and fled
the scene.
Then
the story takes another turn, during a discussion with the priest, woodcutter
and the commoner they are interrupted by the sound of a crying baby. As the
commoner picks up the baby, the woodcutter reapproaches the commoner because he
believes that he is stealing the baby. The commoner makes a remark to the
woodcutter saying “a bandit calling another a bandit" because it has
been discovered that the woodcutter had stolen the dagger from the murder
scene. This comes to show that the woodcutter had been lying throughout the
whole movie.
The
woodcutter showed how lying and deceit can leave you guessing what the next
turn is in a movie. Without the woodcutters stories and a turning plot this
movie would have not been as strong. One thing I did not like about this movie
is that there are so many different characters telling lies and stories that it
make the movie very hard to follow and the plot confusing. Also with the scene
with the baby I thought that it was thrown into the movie and did not go along
with the other things going on in this film.
Overall
I found that the main focus of lying and deceit in this movie made it confusing
and hard to follow.
Overall, this was a good summary of the events in the film. It's clear that you saw the movie, but not that you understood the message. It's a little disappointing that the conclusive paragraph of this blogpost ends with your reiterated state of confusion. I can agree that, at times, the movie's story was hard to follow; however, it's important to look beyond shallow observations to critical questions which should result from serious viewing.
ReplyDeleteIt would have been nice to see you question something. For example, you spend a lot of time telling us that the theme of the story is lying/deceit. Perhaps instead of merely telling us about deceit being the theme, you could relate why the director decided to make this theme so prevalent, or, at least, your best guess as to why. Overall, I understand that sometimes the movie isn't so interesting, or even well-made enough to enjoy. But even I, though not a big fan of the movie, was able to see clearly the message of the film. Furthermore, I was able to formulate an argument from a standpoint of analysis, and not merely summary.
Finally, I see that your "argument" is that the film was about deceit and lying. What about the final scene when the baby is taken in by the woodcutter? Though it "did not go along with the other things going on," why do you think it was pertinent enough to include in the story? We see that it confused you, and most viewers, including myself, were confused by it too. But that's why, as an analyzer of the film, we should discuss it and ask questions, rather than just state our uncertainty.
Taylor, group 3