Nate Vorapharuek

March 22, 2011

Senior Seminar Period 6

Rashomon Essay

In the Japanese film Rashomon, two conclusions can be drawn regarding the

plot due to two contrasting views on the idea of truth. Errol Morris, a renowned

American director believes that truth is objective. He believes that only one truth

exists. In contrast, Roger Ebert, an American screenwriter and critic believes that

there can be several truths. To Ebert, truth is subjective. In the movie Rashomon,

directed by Akira Kurosawa, characters are faced with a murder. Four characters in

which we present during the occurrence each were told to retell their recollection of

the murder. The product of this was that each character had varying stories and in

conclusion of the movie, no concrete agreement was made regarding the murderer.

Errol Morris’s concept of truth is to a significant extent more practical than Roger

Ebert’s concept of truth. Roger Ebert’s point may be supported in Rashomon as

each character has their own version of their story. This to him would be considered

to be multiple truths that are subjective. However, Errol Morris’s interpretation is to

a greater degree more reasonable as in the end, only one person could have been

the culprit. Therefore, it can be seen that only one truth exists but there factors

influence the distortion of the truth to each character.

Each individual has his or her own mental map. A mental map is an

individualistic concept, therefore it influences an individual to perceive an event

such as that in Rashomon differently, hence producing subjective truths. In our

minds, we have mental maps in which interconnect similar ideas and concepts to

those already present in our memory. This can be shown in Rashomon, the

Woodcutter, the bandit, the wife of the murdered and the victim each retold a

different story because they each have certain expectations in their mind due to

their own mental map. Individual beliefs, religion and culture have influence on

ones mental map. The concept of mental maps can be related to a position known as

relativism. Relativism is an extreme position on the continuum in which strongly

supports the idea that there is no absolute truth. Relativism explains the varying

truths in Rashomon as truths that are true to each character due to their own

personal background and beliefs. For instance, the wife blames herself for the

murder. She may have believed this due to the fact that she could have had a lot of

suppressed negative emotions regarding her husband. In a Japanese culture, often

women do not express their emotions. Since she was aware of her negative

emotions towards him, this builds her mental map and pinpoints herself as the

culprit. Whether it is true or not, we do not know but her position clearly

demonstrates how ones mental map produce subjective truths. Though relativism

and mental maps supports subjectivity of truth but it does not make the scenario in

Rashomon reasonable. This is why there is fault in Ebert’s subjectivity belief, only

one person could have been the murderer. If the truth is different per individual

then the event cannot be explained.

Emotion is a vital influence on the distortion of truth in which created

diverse stories from the characters of Rashomon. In support to Errol Morris’s view,

emotion can lead one to only see what they want to see, therefore initiating different

points of view over one incident. Primary emotions taken to the extreme of a

continuum has great influence over ones perception and reason. An emotion that

may have been present during the murder incident in Rashomon could have

included anger, fear and sadness. These two negative emotions could have

prevented characters to act and see with reason but rather with passion. If the

woodcutter is examined, he witnessed a traumatizing event, during which his

emotions were very much involved. He could have feared the bandit, as this

particular bandit was known to be notorious. Because of this powerful emotion of

fear and his knowledge of the threat that the bandit poses, he could have used

fallacious reasoning of false dilemma and distorted his point of view of truth to

support his prejudices. Similarly, the bandit could have had high emotions of anger,

therefore he may have been “blinded by rage” and distorted his point of view of the

truth. The distortion of an individual point of view through emotion explains why

there are varying stories of one incident and so it shows that there really is only one

objective truth, it is just simply deformed due to factors like emotion.

Lastly, perceptual illusions are an example of how interpretation of events

can be distorted so easily. The concept of perceptual illusions emphasizes the fact

that humans often cannot see everything or they see more than is to be seen. In the

movie Rashomon, the murder occurs on a path in a dense forest. The fact that our

sight and perception is selective makes it likely for points of view to vary because

each person may have highlight and focus on different things within the same line of

sight. The wife, the woodcutter and the bandit could have all missed elements of the

incident due to their observations, causing a distortion of the reality. This can

explain the changing stories and points of view but it indicates that overall, only one

event really occurred.

Roger Ebert believes that truth is subjective. His theory does not fit well with

Rashomon as it is not sensible to conclude in the movie that there are multiple

murderers. Though we see things differently due to our mental maps, that does not

change what actually occurs. Errol Morris’s view better explains the outcomes of

Rashomon because his theory implies that there are several points of view but only

one truth. Rashomon demonstrates how powerful the distortion of truth may be, it

can change stories to a very extreme level but there is only one real truth of what

happened, there is that one objective truth.

Works Cited

Lagemaat van de, Richard. Theory of Knowledge for the IB diploma. Cambridge

University Press 2005. Textbook.