Torntanat (Jump) Cheng

Senior Seminar P.6

November 22, 2011

Rashomon Essay

The film Rashomon, produced by Akira Kurosawa was an interesting film,

which is commonly known all over the world. This film is commonly studied in

many Theory of Knowledge classes around the world. The film can be examined

under the topic of perception. Perception is the process in which we use to

understand our environment and experiences. This is done by organizing and

interpreting information from our senses. The film is based on a murder dealing

with four characters that testifies with a judge. The four characters are, the samurai,

the wife, the bandit, and the woodcutter. The case deals with the death of the

samurai, the rape of his wife done by the bandit. When these characters testify, their

stories contradict, creating a contradicting conclusion of the case for the judge and

the audience, which has been gathered through their different perceptions toward

what has happened. This film, with its connection to one of the four ways of

knowing, perception, creating arguments of truth and reality that can be viewed

differently. The two critics that come into play when arguing about the truth behind

Rashomon are Errol Morris and Roger Ebert. Errol Morris believes in an absolute

truth where reality and perception are motives for all, where as, Roger Ebert

believes that it is subjective and relative to each other. Morris believes in one truth

regardless of the different perceptions there is, as for Ebert, he states that more than

one truth can exist because the different perceptions creates incomplete

information. Even though both critics have viewpoints that make sense, the Roger

Ebert’s idea of a subjective reality and relative truth correlates more with the movie

Rashomon since in the movie, there are multiple events from contradicting

perceptions of the event.

Errol Morris believes that there is an absolute truth and that reality is an

objective and that only one truth can exist, a truth where everyone agrees. His point

in believe that truth is not subjective is because the fact on that just thinking

something is the truth does not make it so. Morris also disclaims that subjective

reality stating that the idea that there is no reality and that truth is subjective is

foolish. He believes that even though there are many different perceptions about a

situation, only one truth will exist. When Morris critics Rashomon, he state that this

story is a story about self interest, wishful thinking and self deception where people

are just imagining a variety of scenarios with the truth. Even when knowing that this

film is not a film to solve the mystery of who is the murderer, he still insists that the

truth exist but the people people are not interested in knowing it. This means that

the characters perceptions are limited to what they believe they want to perceive

rather than observing the actual reality. This concludes that Errol Morris believes

that this film is about how the characters perceive the situation differently with

different experiences, which contradicts Errol Morris’ concept of absolute truth.

On the other hand, Ebert makes a claim that truth is all but not absolute,

where it is only relative. With the belief that truth differs from person to person

asked on their perception of truth, people cannot perceive different events at

different times making truth to be relative to an individual. Ebert believes that

multiple truths can exist due to the fact that different individuals perceive different

truths because of their different perceptions of the truth. He makes a statement that

all of the flashbacks are both true and false. This is due to the fact that none of the

characters have a motive to lie, because they all claim that they are the murderer.

This statement is made and supported even after Ebert acknowledges that the

stories are in radical disagreement. In the film Rashomon the idea of subjective

reality is apparent in Eberts perspective he declares that the woodcutter is

travelling into another realm of reality. This proves that Ebert does in fact support

the idea of multiple realities.

Rashomon is a film that centers on the contradicting perception of each

individual with relative truth, which causes Ebert’s idea of subjective reality to be

more efficient than Morris’ idea of absolute truth. Each story presented by a

character tells the perception of each individual, what they can remember of the

murder and the events before that. The Rashomon effect is apparent in this film,

considering the fact that its name is Rashomon. In conclusion, between the two

critics, Roger Ebert and Errol Morris, Ebert’s view of subjective reality is best to be

applicable in the movie Rashomon where there are multiple truths and perspectives

of one incident.