<라쇼몽>의 영화적 변용과 윤리 주제 연구

Study on the Ethical Themes in Kurosawa Akira’s Film Version of Rashomon

This study, explicating the characteristics of the conflict in Akira Kurosawa’s film Rashomon, seeks to clarify the ethical aspects of the narrative of the movie. As the popular terminology ‘Rashomon effect’ shows, studies on Rashomon have mainly focused on the epistemological aspect of the story it develops. However, considering the peculiarities of the conflicts which the director adopted and created from its original short stories, Rashomon’s two main conflicts are set up for endeavoring to solve the ethical dilemma of human beings. Through the conflicts among his film-creative characters such as a woodcutter, a priest, and a common person, Kurosa cast a question to the audience about how to behave rightly in a world where every evil act is justified by its relative validity. The ending shows the director’s message that everyone can help others and keep his/her human being status through repenting his/her evil doings.