The relevance between literature and movie－A study on “RASHOMON”

The comparison between the two novels “RASHOMON” (Ryunosuke Akutagawa, 1915), “IN A BUSH” (Ryunosuke Akutagawa, 1922) and the movie “RASHOMON” (Akira Kurosawa, 1950) is mainly investigated in this thesis. The researches in the past have focused on the novel “IN A BUSH” while looking into the relationship between Ryunosuke’s two novels and adaptations; however, the influence by the novel “RASHOMON” should not be neglected and it will be emphasized in this study as well. In addition, the mechanism through pictures in the movies to present and transform the topics of these two novels will also be addressed.

In the novel “RASHOMON”, “the gate” delivered the implication of “boundary”. The servant in this novel met the old woman and had a conflict at the gate. Through this path, this servant escaped from an atmosphere of death then entered what Ryunosuke called space that far apart from the real world. Furthermore, the expression of “boundary” in the novel can also be observed in the movie. The gate in the novel implied “real world” and “other spaces”; however, the gate in the movie only indicated “real world”, that is, one’s state of mind. The evidence supporting this thesis can be proved though the pictures in the movie: the servant who believed in egoism left the “RASHOMON” after taking the kimono off from the baby then walked into the pouring dark night. Instead, the firewood dealer and the priest who both awaked at the end and trusted humanity saw the sunny sky.

Comparing the novel “IN A BUSH” to the movie “RASHOMON”, the difference can be definitely clarified by the two main points: one was the places confessed by the defendants in the murder case, and the other one was the allowance of the outsider to involve or not. Moreover, the egoism was stressed by the individual different opinions in the novel “IN A BUSH”. In contrast, the movie offered the firewood dealer’s confession as a basis of other confessions. Although the firewood dealer was on the sidelines, he could not honestly accuse who the murder was at the end. Akira Kurosawa used the techniques of “pictures” to examine the firewood dealer’s lie and accentuated the ugly humanity further.

From the novels “RASHOMON” to “IN A BUSH”, the “nihilism” and passivism were highlighted. In the novel “RASHOMON”, the forwardness to fight the real world, which is full of egoism, can be noticed through the conflict between the servant and the old woman. However, this forwardness disappeared in the novel “IN A BUSH”, and left with the atmosphere of darkness. Opposite to the novel, the attitude of forwardness was significantly shown after discovering the ugly humanity in the movie. The sunlight shining in gate in the final part of the movie delivered the idea that believing in the humanity can overcome any obstruction no matter how ugly the real world is. Therefore, the major difference between the movie and the novel was clearly addressed. This difference was verified from several techniques by the narrator in the novel as well.

The novels “RASHOMON” to “IN A BUSH” were originally from the classical literature “The Konjaku Tales”. According to Ryunosuke, the spirit in “The Konjaku Tales” was the beauty of brutality by drawing evil and ill and human’s nature without modification. In summary, this thesis concludes the comparison and discussion about the beauty of brutality showing in the novels “RASHOMON” to “IN A BUSH” and the movie “RASHOMON”.