Absolutism Versus Relativism in Kurosawa’s Film Rashomon

Knowledge is personal and we have a personal understanding about what we have perceived.

We are connected to how we perceive reality through our six senses. In an article “Interview with the

Believer,” Director, Errol Morris believes that there is only one reality; if one wants to know truth one

needs hard evidence. There are many points of views, but they do not mirror reality, which is absolute.

Viewpoints are not hard evidence. However to the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert,

there are many view points of truths, and all are true to the perceiver; therefore, there is more than one

reality. Both state their position on human perception using Akira Kurosawa’s 1950’s film Rashomon

as an example of their point of view. In the film a samurai is murdered and supposedly a bandit rapes

his wife. The bandit is arrested, and at the trial, four people tell the jury what each one witnessed. Both

critics are persuasive in their arguments, but Ebert’s opinion is more convincing.

Morris is an absolutist who believes that truth lies in reality and reality is objective, not based

on personal biased, and can be proved through objective facts or observable phenomena

(Braincrave.com). There is an absolute reality behind every event, such as who killed the samurai in

Rashomon. Someone did kill the samurai. It is up to the jury to find who that someone is by using hard

evidence. Morris also believes that “people have a vested interest in not seeing it” [the absolute truth].

Each has a personal motive of some kind that distorts the absolute truth. The woodcutter withheld

information from the court because he had stolen from the crime seen; therefore, it is not in his best

interest to tell the truth. Morris says critics, like Ebert, believe there is no reality, absolute truth, that

truth is subjective, “up for grabs…A truth for you, a truth for me.”(Interview with the Believer) In

Rashomon each witness is telling the truth—their own personal truth. “The commoner: “Men are only

men. That’s why they lie. They can’t tell the truth, not even to themselves.” Priest: That may be true.

But it’s because man are so week. That’s why they lie. That’s why they must deceive themselves.”

(Rashomon script) Morris believes that critics are missing the point, “…the claim that everybody sees

the world differently is not a claim that there’s no reality” (Interview with the Believer). The whole

focus of Rashomon is that it is a story about the motives of the different witnesses and not about there

is no reality, only personal realities.

Opposing Morris’ absolutist view of Rashomon is film critic Roger Ebert’s relativist’s view in

defining what truth is. Relativism is defined as “the variations in truth as a result of individual beliefs

such as culture, religion or experience” (Ellen Mackay). He believes that each person possesses a

different truth and that there is no absolute truth, only subjective multiple truths among people, which

explain why each witness in Rashomon relates a different version of the murder. The theory of

Selectivity of Perception says, since a vast amount of data is constantly flooding our mind, our minds

overload if we did not block out some of it. This theory may explain why the eyewitness testimonies

differ. The theme of Kurosawa’s relativist philosophy about Rashomon is, “we should suspect even

what we think we have seen”. Although the three witnesses all think they are telling the truth, they are

only telling their own point of view which is misleading because as Kurosawa says “human are not

able to be honest with themselves about themselves”. They will always embellish and reality becomes

lies and their reality becomes a mixture of true and false. Points of view become “shadow play of truth

and memory”. Perceptions and emotions also influence truth “because everyone observes and feels

experiences differently.” (Ellen Mackay) Kurosawa gave his characters a heightened state of emotions,

like silent film actors, to highlight how emotions can distort truth. He also uses different frameworks

and angles in shooting his scenes for each character observing the murder to show different perceptions

of what happened. Also each person has a different relationship with the samurai and these different

feeling also influence their perception of the truth. The wife and the bandit relationships with the

samurai are very different, and so are their testimonies. The Theory of Expectations states that

expectations can influence how we perceive things. Also, belief influences the truth. Before one can

state the truth one must believe it to be the truth. Each witness believes he/she is relating the truth of

the murder.

If a judge used Morris’s way to solve the mystery, he would never find the killer of the

Samurai because there is not enough hard evidence to solve the case. Scientific realism may explain

that the world exists as an independent reality but is different from the way we perceive it. This will not

help to get closer to the truth of who killed the samurai. However if we use Ebert’s method and look at

the viewpoints of the eye witness accounts, the case become closer to the truth because motives in this

case are more important because revealing reality is to complex when figuring out different views on

perception. Also Morris uses deductive reasoning. He believes hard evidence is needed to find the

killer. Ebert also uses deductive reasoning. Both Ebert and Morris are correct but it will not work with

Morris in this film because Kurosawa’s intention is to confuse the truth. He is giving four points of

view that are different from each other. Each witness confesses to killing the samurai, which shows

Ebert approach is better because it is looking at the motives of the witnesses. If Kurosawa wanted the

audience to find the truth he would have not confuse the plot and introduce more hard evidence to

solve the case.

In conclusion to the opposing viewpoints of Morris and Ebert on perception and truth in the

film Rashomon, Ebert’s relativist viewpoint is more reasonable because truth depends on an

individual’s perception. The Absolutist, Morris, believes there is only one reality or truth which can

only be found through scientific realism, hard evidence. On the other hand Ebert, a Relativist, writes

that there are multiple viewpoints on reality, or truth. Kurosawa’s intentions in making the film were

from the beginning to focus on human’s motives. Kurosawa wanted to break the mold of revealing the

truth at the end of the movie in this film genre in his Rashomon. Even in the first lines of the movie

Kurosawa foreshadows his intentions by having the priest say “I don’t understand”. In the film

Rashomon it is clear that human motives and points of view are more significant than absolutism.