In the film, Rashoman unravels a crime that had to do with the rape of a woman and the murder of her husband that originally takes place in a forest. Throughout the movie, there are flashbacks from four different people and each of their versions of the incident that took place. As the film goes on the narrator puts bits and pieces together, but doesn’t review what the actual truth is.
The main symbols of the film are/is the gate the forest, the animals, and the dagger. The gate represents the outside world and then the world within the gates. At the beginning of the film, the man talks about how there are unclaimed dead bodies over the gate, and one murder shouldn’t raise any concerns. The forest is an important setting because that’s where the crime took place so many people have different interpretations and views about what happened within that forest. The animals were able to represent the characters. Certain animals were able to depict and portray some of the characters, emotions, feelings, or how they were as a person which I didn’t realize till the end of the movie. The dagger was a very important tool because it was valuable to the culture. The dagger was jeweled and was a significant piece in every story. it represented a symbol of status and we can infer that is how the wife’s husband had died.
The structure of the film is important to the storytelling because it gives us four different points of view and four different sides to the same story. We are then able to make our own interpretation of what actually happened. It keeps the audience engaged and really wondering what’s the truth. The structure of this specific film was able to grasp the veiwers attention and to teach an overall lesson at the end and made it feel like an actual story as to a movie.
How does the Rashomon effect manifest in politics, especially regarding the interpretation of political speeches, actions, and policies by different factions and media outlets? Give examples. — The Rashomon affect happens pretty often and our society. Many different people can interpret the same situation in different point of views. The effect can also manifest into politics. The audience or the viewers can interpret a politicians, speech, actions, tweets, letters, or anything that they make public in different ways. Politicians are mainly opinion based. They share what they beleive is best and try to help improve the status of any given siuation. They say what they believe in, they offer ideas that they think can improve society, and the public either agrees and supports or disagrees and bashes or ignores them. For example, during the presidential debate. The same question is asked to two candidates, both of the candidates have two completely different answers, the reason why they are opponents is because they don’t agree with each other and their supporters agree with them and not the other opponent for a reason. The reason why there are so many candidates is for example, running for president is due to all the different ideas and opinions politicicans have and why they are the best person to become president, and the citizens are divided, amongst who they agree with. They support a particular party/group. Social media also plays a large influence on people. Social media is known to exaggerate and italicize, events, celebrities, and situations. There are multiple factors that play into the Rashomon effect that can highly manipulate and manifesting to politics. Overall, this phenomenon is able to alter the perception, interpretation, understanding, and ideology to basically anything, people tend to forget that. There are so many variations as to what the truth actually is, that all a person is left to is what they truley believe is the best, just like a presidential election.