The first reason why I got interested in this film is that I learned Rashomon, written by Akutagawa Ryunosuke, in the high school, because it is in the literature textbook in Japan. When some people applied the mimetic hypothesis to Rashomon, they often came to conclusions about the current state of affairs in Japan or about the immutable Japanese national character. But many reviewers saw Rashomon as conveying information about the character of humanity itself, not just the Japanese. They saw Rashomon as a humanist document which crosses international boundaries because it reveals something about the human condition. Assuming this, Rashomon is about innate selfishness, heartlessness and meaning, the frailty of the human animal, or the tendency to describe things the way we want them to appear. This film shows how people are incapable of being honest with themselves about themselves, which is a human nature in general and not only for Japanese people. Rashomon became clearly a gateway for Kurosawas entry into the international film world and to the world of human nature which shows their incapability of talking about themselves with total honesty.

1.      Inazo Nitobe. Bushido. Japan: Iwanami Shoten. 1899. P.72-78 ‘Meiyo’ Bushido is a word in Japanese which means ‘Way of a warrior’ and is a Japanese code of conduct first introduced as a book ‘Bushido- The Soul of Japan’ by Nitobe Inazou. It was like a bible for Japanese warrior and tells about a way of living. It originated from the samurai moral code and stresses frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery and honor unto death. The sources of the virtues most admired by his people: rectitude, courage, benevolence, politeness, sincerity, honor, loyalty and self-control.

The film clearly shows that people at the time had this way of thinking ‘bushido’ in some of the confessions people make. Through a medium (e7+e%3 miko), the deceased samurai, claims that he killed himself with his own dagger. The woodcutter is startled, and claims that the dead man must be lying, because he was killed by a sword.  This lie was in order to show his pride thinking that it is miserable for men to be killed by his wife after having the wife raped by somebody else. He saved face of ‘Bushi’ by not telling the truth of his wife’s commitment and told the story of him killing himself. This shows Japanese men’s nature of following the principles of ‘Bushido’, but it also shows men in general’s nature of pathos compared to the more desired to live women.

5. Mark Schilling. Contemporary Japanese Film. New York: Weatherhill, 1999. P56-61 Here, the author explains about Mifune, who had been in all the Kurosawa movies until ‘Akahige’ in 1965. The range of acting styles in the film received much comment, but most of the commentary was reserved for Mifune's flamboyant performance. Time describes Mifune's bandit as "an unforgettable animal figure, grunting, sweating, swatting at flies that constantly light on his half-naked body, exploding in hyena-like laughter of scorn and triumph." ("Rashomon," Time, 1952: 88)  Many of the critics saw Mifune's performance in terms of animal imagery, which may be interpreted in various ways. Kurosawa reports that he encouraged Mifune to convey the ferocity of a lion in his performance, and so one could consider this directorial intention particularly well conveyed to the audience.

This suggests that Mifune is incarnating an ogre, a folk figure considered to be a depiction of a foreigner. It can be argued that Rashomon is a Japanese attempt to come to terms with their defeat at the hands of the foreigner. Mifune's antics, which seemed to astonish the Western press, may be construed as an attempt to depict the West for the Japanese. Or one could situate the animal imagery invoked in Mifune's performance as an invocation of the bestial imagery of the Pacific War conflict. The Japanese "beast" may be read by Westerners either as dangerous animal or as the charming antics of a mimicking monkey, depending on the circumstances. Westerners understand Mifune's animalistic performance in terms of a large history of racist depictions of Japan. Applying the mimetic hypothesis to Rashomon, people often came to conclusions about the current state of affairs in Japan or about the immutable Japanese national character. However as the thesis says, many reviewers saw Rashomon as conveying information about the character of humanity itself, not just the Japanese. They saw Rashomon as a humanist document which crosses international boundaries because it reveals something about the human condition.

4.      Tadao Sato. Currents in Japanese Cinema. New York: Harper & Row Publishers. 1982. P116-124 The ‘Rashomon’ was the largest gate in Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan. It was 106 feet wide and 26 feet deep, and was topped with a ridge-pole; its stone-wall rose 75 feet high. This gate was constructed in 789 when the capital of Japan was transferred to Kyoto. With the decline of West Kyoto, the fate fell into bad repair, cracking and crumbling in many places, and became a hide-out for thieves and robbers and a place for abandoning unclaimed corpses. The film starts with the scenes with this ‘Rashomon’ and ends with it. The story starts with people waiting out a rainstorm in a ruined gatehouse. This crumbling, rotted structure of the gate suggests the decay of people's trust in each other or even the dying notion of an absolute truth. But also in the last scene the camera goes back to the gate and show goodness of humanity. After the priest gives the baby to the woodcutter, saying that the woodcutter has given him reason to continue having hope in humanity, they film closes on the woodcutter, walking home with the baby with the background of Rashomon. Therefore, Rashomon, the building itself plays an important role in showing the overall theme of the film.

8.  Beverley Bare Buehrer. Japanese Films A Filmography and Commentary, 1921-1989. USA: McFarland & Company. Inc. publishers. 1990. P.43-47 This chapter tells me that there is a cinematically beautiful awareness of nature in Rashomon. Nature is a common and often haunting theme in Japanese art, and especially in its films. The torrential rains cascading off the ruined gate contrast with the sunlight piercing through the forest’s canopy. For the rain especially, Kurosawa put a lot of efforts on it to make it look heavy by putting black inks with the rain and using 5 big hoses. The sunlight attempts to penetrate these shadows, but in doing so, it uncovers a world so imbued with subjectivity could be one of bleakness, but Kurosawa is not a director of hopelessness. The epilogue-type ending in which the baby is found is typical of the way in which Kurosawa seeds hope into a movie. Compassion has become a hallmark of Kurosawa films.              In the film, the rain seems to symbolize the chaos of the period and the dark and evil outlook on life adopted by men living then. Moreover, sunlight symbolizes evil and sin in the film, arguing that the wife gives in to the bandit's desires when she sees the sun. However, there is a controversy to this and some people say that light symbolizes "good" or "reason" and darkness to symbolize "bad" or "impulse". The final scene appears optimistic because it was too sunny and clear to produce the effects of an overcast sky. Therefore, these nature effects introduced in this chapter are really important in showing chaos of the period and human’s evil and sin.

2. Ryunosuke Akutagawa. Rashomon and Other Stories. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 1952. P17-31 ’In a Grove’ In a Grove is a short story which is about a chapter length by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, who also wrote ‘Rashomon’ which first appeared in the January 1922 edition of the Japanese literature monthly Shincho. The story consists of seven varying accounts of the murder of a samurai. Each section simultaneously clarifies and obfuscates what the reader knows about the murder; eventually creating a complex and contradictory vision of events that brings into question humanity’s ability or willingness to perceive and transmit objective truth.              Akira Kurosawa used this story as the basis for the film, ‘Rashomon’ despite of its name from Akutagawa’s another short story. This provided the symbolic background atmosphere and went into the depths of the human heart as if with a surgeon’s scalpel, laying bare its dark complexities and bizarre twists. These strange impulses of the human heart were expressed through the use of an elaborately fashioned play of light and shadow. The setting was moved to a large forest in the film showing people wandering in to a wider wilderness. Also the script from this story ‘In a Grove portrays human beings who cannot survive without lies to make them feel they are better people than they really are. It shows how human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves.

This book is the original version of ‘Rashomon’ written by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, who was regarded as ‘the father of short story’ in Taisho period Japan. Despite its name, it provided no direct plot material for the film, which was based on Akutagawa's 1921 short story, In a Grove. However, the framing sequence of the film reflects certain elements of the story, such as the theft of a kimono and the discussion of the moral ambiguity of thieving to survive. The story itself is about a servant and an old woman in the dilapidated Rashomon. The man, a lowly servant recently fired, is contemplating whether to starve to death or to become a thief to survive in the barren times. He encounters the woman, who is stealing hair from the dead bodies in the second floor. He is disgusted, and decides then that he would rather take the path of righteousness even if it meant starvation. He is furious with the woman. But the old woman tells him it’s to survive and the body she is robbing cheated people in her life by selling snake meat and claiming it was fish. The old woman says that this was not wrong because it allowed the woman to survive -- and so in turn this entitles her to steal from the dead person, because if she doesn't, she too will starve. The man responds "You won't blame me, then, for taking your clothes. That's what I have to do to keep from starving to death." He then brutally robs the woman of her robe and disappears into the night.              The setting which we can see in the film is the three guys finding an abandoned baby under the gate, and the third man steals some of the items left with the child and leaves. Kurosawa changed the old lady to the baby. The priest fears for the baby’s safety, but the woodcutter states he already has several children and offers to care for this one as well. These deceptions and lies shake the priest's faith in the goodness of humanity. The priest gives the baby to the woodcutter, saying that the woodcutter has given him reason to continue having hope in humanity. The film closes on the woodcutter, walking home with the baby. The rain has stopped and the clouds have opened revealing the sun in contrast to the beginning where it was downcast.

10. Akira Kurosawa. Something like an autobiography. New York: Random House Inc. 1983. P.180-187 After World War II, Japan eagerly investigated and pursued options to increase its prestige abroad. This chapter talks about a president of the company ‘Daiei’, Masaichi Nagata, who especially had been continually baffled as to what the movie was about, and was extremely reluctant to send the film to abroad. However, Guilliana Stramigioli, the head of the Italifilm branch in Japan, screened several possible candidates and took a liking to Rashomon. She suggested it be sent to represent Japan. Kurosawa hadn’t even known that it was entered so it was so surprising for him to have several awards including Golden Lion in Venice Film Festival. After he got the prize, Nagata changed his attitude suddenly and was proudly taking full and exclusive credit for its success. What is interesting about this is that Kurosawa later talks about this in his autobiography that he was back in Rashomon all over again. It was as if the pathetic self-delusions of the ego, those failings he had attempted to portray in the film, were being shown in real life. People indeed have immense difficulty in talking about themselves as they really are. However, Japanese people in general had a hard time understanding the film, and Kurosawa says that it is hard because the human heart itself is impossible to understand. He also says that if you focus on the impossibility of truly understanding human psychology and read the script one more time, you will grasp the point of it. 

6. Jim Dwyer. “Word for Word/Rashomon in Blue; Memories of the Louima Case: 1 Meeting, 4 Trained Observers”. The New York Times. 2001. April 10^th 2008. <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B05E2D7133EF93AA2575BC0A9679C8B63> This article is about a social science test of witness’ memories of Louima case. This took place in one of the colleges in Berlin when a professor had a noisy and violent confrontation in front of the class and after that students write down who did what and when. Hugo Munsterberg, a German-American scholar at Harvard University, recorded the results that the essential parts of the tragi-comedy were completely eliminated from the memory of a number of witnesses.  Each human mind takes a different stamp from an instant of existence. More proof came last week, when lawyers revisited a key moment in the Abner Louima brutality case. The author put the name of this article ‘Word for word/ Rashomon in blue; Memories of the Louima case.              People both in Asia and also in west sometimes use ‘Rashomon’ for a case in which multiple witnesses have different saying. This means that the film influenced world a lot and that there are a lot of cases like this because it showed human nature in general. The film showed not only that human beings are unable to be honest with themselves, but also this sinful need for flattering falsehood going beyond the grave-even the character who dies cannot give up his lies when he speaks to the living through a medium. It tells people that egoism is a sin that human being carries with him from birth; it is the most difficult to redeem.