The document is an essay analyzing Akira Kurosawa's film "Rashomon" through the lenses of two philosophical theories of truth - relativism and absolutism. It summarizes the plot of the film, in which four different characters provide conflicting accounts of a murder. It then examines the theories of Roger Ebert, a relativist who believes truth is subjective, and Errol Morris, an absolutist who believes in one objective truth. The essay argues that Ebert's relativism better explains the multiple conflicting stories presented in the film.

1. Miyuki Jitsuyama
March 10th 2012
Senior Seminar P.3
Rashomon Essay
In Akira Kurosawa’s award winning film “Rashomon”, the death of the Samurai was
told in four different viewpoints with different stories. Stories and motives were told by the
Samurai, the bandit named Tajomaru, the samurai’s wife and the woodcutter, and except the
woodcutter, they all claimed that they were the ones who killed the samurai. Throughout the
film, it shows how human perception can accept the truth and the reality. Perception is how
people look at things, and how people interpret the information using their own senses to
understand it. So in this film, all four stories were told as a flashback and the real murder was
not revealed in the story, so the viewer has to decide the real murder. All the motives bring up
the question, if the truth is subjective or absolute. Roger Ebert believes that reality is
subjective and truth is relative based on human interpretation. On the other hand, Errol
Morris thinks that truth is objective and there is an absolute truth. The absolutist like Morris
will say that only one person is telling the truth and others are all lying. The theory that
matches with the film Rashomon is Ebert’s theory since he is a relativist and believes that the
truth depends on people’s own point of view so it can be different just like in the film having
four different murder stories.
In Rashomon, four different people tell four different stories, so it shows that there is
no absolute truth. The bandit claimed he raped samurai’s wife and then killed the samurai.
Wife claimed she fell and when we woke up, the dagger was already stabbed in samurai’s
head, so she killed him. Samurai said he killed himself. And the woodcutter said he bandit

2. killed the samurai. The reality is that the samurai was murdered, but the truth can differ
depend on people’s point of view and this is supported by Ebert’s theory. Each character saw
different things and they all have different background, and that might have caused them to
see things in different way. But there is no true or false. The truth might be different among
people, but they might actually believe what they saw, so it is true in their own ways. And
also, it is not that every character had same relationship with the samurai, so the way they
feel about samurai or his death might differ and because of that, the truth might have changed.
Truth can depend on perception, because if people see things differently and perceive the
situation in different way, then the truth will change. So in this movie, the perceptions of
characters were different, so the truths were all different based on perception.
On the other hand, Morris does not care about individual’s own perception, and
believes that there is only one absolute truth. He does not care about people’s motives and
thinks that people lie, so the use of motives to find out the truth is just pointless and it is
never certain. He also believes that people only see things they want to see, so people just
automatically eliminate the unimportant things and only see the important aspects. Because
of that, the motives are very uncertain so if we consider motives as clues to find out the truth,
we might guess the wrong truth and never gets to the real answer to it. In this film, the real
murder is not revealed. At the court, every character faced the audience and when they talked,
they repeated the questions that were asked so the audience knows the questions and the
answer to it. So the audience is the one who has to listen to the motives and judge them.
Therefore, the Morris’ theory does not match with the film since it only believes in one
absolute truth and in this movie; there are four different kinds of truths.
“Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They
cannot talk about themselves without embellishing.” (Ebert) and this concept is shown
throughout the film. At the court, four character reveals what they saw based on their belief

3. and perception. From the four characters, audience thinks that the dead samurai and the
woodcutter are not lying for sure because how can the dead man lie, and also the woodcutter
saw everything from the third person point of view. But actually woodcutter stole a dagger
but he did not want to reveal about it, so the audience are suspicious of him lying, and also
the samurai said he killed himself because in Japan, you are honored to kill yourself, but
actually maybe he didn’t want to say the truth of what happened because he didn’t want to
get ashamed. So people have to actually lie sometimes to cover up the truth, but they actually
believe in what they think they saw, so the truth is still a truth. The relativist like Ebert will
sure accept this and still think the motives are important because it gives us some clues to
find out the murder and he accepts variety of truth because he understands the fact that
different people interpret the truth in different ways.
Among the two different theories; Morris’ and Ebert’s, Ebert’s theory fits the film
Rashomon better since he is an relativist and accepts different kinds of truth. Although the
motives are different, it is true in their own way since everyone perceives the situation
differently and it is true in their mind. The one reality is that the samurai is dead, and there
are different truths based on different people’s point of view, therefore, Ebert’s theory best
explains the film Rashomon by Kurosawa.
953 words
Work Cited
Ebert, Roger. "Rashomon :: Rogerebert.com :: Great Movies." Rogerebert.com. 26 May 2002.
Web. 11 Mar. 2012.
<http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20020526/REVIEWS08/205260301/1023
>.