Rashomon

Rashomon

In the film Rashomon, directed by Akira Kurosawa, a crime is committed in the forest, and there are only four witnesses to it. They each have a separate version of what transpired, no one more believable than the others. There are many different reasons for the discrepancies in their stories, such as the tendency of the witnesses to use reconstruction and confabulation to help to recall the events, and the unreliability of eyewitness testimony.

In all four accounts, the man is killed, and the woman is raped, but each tells of a different killer, and different outlook on the woman's situation. The bandit, Tajomaru, claims that he did kill the man, but that he did not rape the woman, rather she consented. He says that the woman insisted that he kill the man. In the woman's story, she claims that she was the killer, and in the man's he claims to have committed suicide. The woodcutter at first says that he didn't see anything, but later reveals that he saw Tajomaru kill the man, and the woman run off.

Reconstruction is the act of piecing together memory fragments with a general knowledge or memory, rather than a precise picture. This is also similar to confabulation. These concepts could account for some of the discrepancies in their stories. Some of the characters may not have been able to remember the exact events (either because of retrieval failure, or repression), so they guessed what they thought most likely happened. For example, there are a few different reasons given as to why the swordfight between the man and Tajomaru started. One claims that the woman said that one of the men had to die, whereas another story claims that she just encouraged the two to fight without demanding it. These differences could be explained by confabulation and reconstruction. The people were unable to remember the events exactly how they occurred, so they tell what they think probably happened.

Another key concept to look at is the reliability of eyewitness testimony. Often the responses of witness can be skewed according to how the questions are asked. Although the viewer never hears the questions being asked, it can still be assumed that this may have happened, especially in the case of the woodcutter. His story seems the least reliable, due to the fact that he lied when he was called as a witness. It seems that his view of what happened would be the one most effected by someone asking questions in a specific manner. Also, he was not directly involved in the actions that took place, which makes it more difficult for him to remember specific details, unless he experienced flashbulb memory.

Flashbulb memory is when someone is able to vividly remember details of a situation. It occurs under unusually emotionally arousing circumstances. Witnessing a murder would be an extremely emotionally arousing circumstance, therefore the woodcutter's story could be viewed as the most