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Rashomon

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The film “Rashomon” directed by Akira Kurosawa in nineteen fifty, can give insight into the study of history and how it is written. This Japanese classic takes us through the story of a brutal rape of a woman and the murder of her husband through differing versions of the events by four different witnesses. The film begins on a rainy day in which a priest and a woodcutter sit with frightened looks on their faces without sharing a word. Suddenly, a pessimistic character appears in which he insist that they tell him what they had seen. They both refuse and the priest even states, “I may have finally lost my faith in the human soul.” Regardless of what they say, they finally agree and tell him the testimony of those involved. First they shared the …show more content…
However, in order to restore her honor she ordered Tajomaru to fight in a duel with her husband. They had a grandiose duel and crossed swords exactly twenty-three times in which the husband was killed and the woman fled. The woman however, tells the court a very different account. She stated that she attempted to help her husband but was raped and abandoned by the bandit. She begged her husband to forgive her, but instead he stared at her with a look of disgrace. His look of despair was so intense that she fainted with dagger in hand and accidentally killed him. She attempted to kill herself, but failed in all her efforts. In addition, the last anecdote that was told in court was the husband's by the source of a medium. The husband claims that after his wife was raped she agreed to leave with Tajomaru, but she had also asked him to kill her husband so she wouldn’t have to live with guilt. Astonished by her request, the bandit grabbed the woman and threw her below her husband. He then asked the husband, still tied to the tree, if he wanted him to kill her or spare her

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