The baby in rashomon

Hi guys, i started seeing Kurosawa films a short time ago, like a month, and i’ve seen redbear, 7 samurai, ran and rashomon, acctualy i’ve seen rashomon today, about 3 hours ago and i was wondering if the baby on the movie wasn’t in first place a son of the woodcutter abandoned by him, and if he wasn’t in rashomon’s temple guarding his son until someone finds him, he defended the baby’s parents arguin with the other guy (the one who stole the kimono) and he mentioned that the parents left the baby with an amulet… could it be that this is the amulet that was inside the “amulet case” that the woodcutter mentions on the begining of the movie when he tells what did he found on the crime scene?

I know this is really crazy and i don’t have a solid argument but i post this to hear your opinions not to make a point, so please post your opinions!!

I gotta be honest – I dont see on what basis you can think the baby is the woodcutters son? when the film starts he is sitting with the priest, both presumably having arrived at the same time. Why would he deny knowledge of the child when he starts crying?

if you go back in the threads there is an interesting discussion on the symbolism of the child.

Well i think he denied aknowledge of the child because he wanted the priest to beleave in humanity, and he wanted to as well… but is not like i really beleave this theory… its just like thinking out loud so don’t think i’m gonna be hurt if you don’t think this theory is wrong, cause i don’t think is right! i just posted this to most likely know your opinion and to hear (or read ehehe) why i could be wrong…

The fact is that i think there’s something more about the baby than the movie shows, maybe the couple left the baby? because the baby seemed to have expensive things on himself (his clothes and amulet) and we never got to know what wass doing the couple on that travel… maybe the went there to left their baby, why? i don’t know… but the woman was not happy with her husband, and he wasn’t happy with her neither… i’ts all speculation i know… but i think thats the beauty of the fil in first place, right?

Thanks for your answer, i already read what you said!

You do raise the interesting possibility that the ‘point’ of the baby at the end of the film is that the Woodcutter is actually using it to reassure the Priest that humanity will win out after all, rather than a genuine act of selflessness. It would be an interesting twist to the end, indicating that we can only remain optimistic about human nature by engaging in deceit. However, I have to say that if this was AK’s intention, it wasn’t signaled very clearly, at least according to my memory of the film.

Sorry about the late response. I actually never realised that there is an amulet case both at the beginning of the film as well as at the end. If I were writing the script, it would be something that would either have to be important or would need to be changed one way or another so as not to mislead the viewer. So, I assume that there could be a meaning of some sort there. But I have no idea what it might be.

In any case, I agree with Ugetsu that I cannot really see how the baby could be the woodcutter’s. Neither would I buy the explanation that the samurai couple left the baby there, for the baby would certainly have died by now.

It’s an interesting observation, though.