s Kurosawa: he is concerned with truths which are ordinarily outside pragmatic Japanese morality and, being concerned with them, he questions them.” This statement sheds much insight into Kurosawa's use of social structure in his films. He is very concerned with the behaviour of humankind in relation to each other. Rashomon’s main plot shows Kurosawa's interest with the goodness of humankind from one person to another. Rashomon’s story is the compilation of the same story told by many different sources. The focus of this idea is that there is never the absolution of truth and although we would like to believe in the good of humankind, there is always more than one side to every story; in this case, seven sides to one story. Coupled with those ideas we have the concept of redemption for the characters that have displayed traits worth redeeming. We see throughout the film there are a number of characters who have redeemable qualities, namely the woodcutter, the woman and even the priest. These characters are granted salvation by Kurosawa in the film whereas in the original text they were not. This shows us that although there was an original story, Kurosawa used the possibility of authorship to create a personal stamp on his film. Zemeckis is a filmmaker that has had many hits and although his films are enjoyable and successful, it is difficult to find a common theme the way an audience is able to in Kurosawa's works. Zemeckis’ films harbor some similar elements, however that is always going to happen on some level when viewing a filmmaker’s works all together. Much of the inconsistencies that we witness have to do with Zemeckis’ inconsistency in social themes. Early on in Zemeckis’ career the much of his focus concentrated on social and political concerns. This is clearly evident in Back to the Future; more specifically when Marty (Michael J. Fox) is sent back into the 1950’s...
