Billy Egnehall analyzes the film Rashomon and the differing views of Errol Morris and Roger Ebert on truth and perception. Ebert believes truth is relative and perception is subjective, while Morris sees truth as absolute and perception as objective. Egnehall supports Ebert's view, citing theories of common sense, certainty, and beliefs to justify that perspective can differ between individuals. He argues common sense allows people to make sense of situations differently, and certainty is based on individual perception and understanding through the senses and language. Ultimately, what people decide to believe depends on their own judgment, so truth is relative between accounts rather than absolute.

1. Egnehall 1
Billy Egnehall, Grade 12
26th-Nov-2010
Senior seminar, period 8
Mr.Clover
To What Extent Do You Agree With the Views of Either Errol Morris or
Roger Ebert With Regard To Their Views of Truth and Perception In The
Film Rashomon?
I strongly support Roger Ebert’s views of truth being relative and perception being
subjective compared to Errol Morris’s views of truth being absolute and perception being
objective in regards to the film Rashomon due to the theories of common sense, certainty and
beliefs. The movie Rashomon is based on a murder and possible rape case in 12 th century Japan,
where a bandit is caught and believed to be the murderer. There are 4 witnesses to the case as
the testimony begins in the court, but everyone claims to be the murderer which is the conflict
of the movie. The perspectives of what happened by each witness confuses the audience even
more and even the dead samurai is present to tell his testimony through a spirit caller. The
truth of this story is to whichever perspective the audience decides to believe in. According to
Roger Ebert, the truth is relative and perspective subjective. Relativism is the opposite of Errol
Morris’s absolutism, and it allows different individuals to believe different things from different
cultures. What might be false for one person might be true for another and every point of view
is considered vaild. Therefore, common sense, certainty and beliefs are theories that agree with
Roger Ebert’s view of truth and perspective with regards to the film Rashomon.

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Common sense is basically vague, untested beliefs that could be based on prejudice or
blind appeals to authority (Lagemaat pg 4). We all have our own version of a mental map to
which we keep changing as our surroundings and knowledge is dynamic. It is our general idea of
what is right or wrong, true or false, reasonable or unreasonable. This is used in relativism as
we judge and acknowledge information according to our mental map’s coherence. We also use
concepts that are similar to paradox of cartography, which is the use of distorted data or
knowledge to describe given data and make sense out of it. This can be seen on many world
maps as each continent is not up to the scale or precisely shaped correctly of what it is in reality,
which is done to make the map easier to read and understand. It might be the only way to
describe a situation or truth as it otherwise would not be understood. Both the mental map and
paradox of cartography is used in common sense to figure out everyday situations. Ebert would
use this to justify the relative truth and subjective perception of what the reality in the movie is.
It would fit in our mental map and though it might be distorted perspectives that we were told,
the bandit could have been the murderer and raped the woman as his testimony told. However,
when there are problems with our understandings of the world we turn ourselves to what we
know and are certain of.
Certainty is what distinguishes knowledge from belief. It is the idea of when something
is known to be true it is definite and no doubt about it. It can be described as the total
continuity and validity of all foundational inquiry, to the higher degree of precision (certainty).
Certainty can be proved by various sources of input such as the ways of knowing. The ways of
knowing are the sources of input via perception, language, reason and emotion that makes us
certain about issues. In the movie, Rashomon, the bandit was certain that he killed the samurai

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as he claims to perceive himself do it. Perception is the awareness of things through our five
senses – sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. The characters in the movie also used perception
to claim their certainty of what they describe to have heard, seen and touched. However, what
the woodcutter might have seen may not correlate with what the wife of the dead samurai saw
or what the bandit heard the wife say might not be what the dead samurai heard. This is why
Ebert’s view of the truth is relative as it might differ for each individual. What they perceived in
the situation and each perspective is subjective as the characters of the movie have their own
certainty due to perception. Language is the way of communication that we use to make other
people understand what we want them to know. There are many forms of languages such as
speech and body language. What one might want to say may not be what the other person
perceives. Language can also be very deceiving and underhanded as words and meanings are
ambiguous and interpreted in different ways by different people. Ebert’s view on truth as
relative with regards to the film can be shown through language as each witness describes their
story through Japanese and different body gestures/language. What the characters might be
certain of and tells the judge might be misinterpret as it is ambiguous. For example from the
bandit’s movement of shaking while talking about killing the samurai might be misinterpret that
he is still angry while he was actually shaking in fear. The view of perception being subjective
plays part in language as each character might misinterpret what they are certain of. Despite
what we might be certain of, what we view as the truth or perceive is what we decide to
believe in.
Belief can be measured in various ways, such as on our judgments, or how
gullible or skeptical we are. Judgment is what we use to balance our skepticism with gullibility.

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Judging what we decide to believe in is based on our certainty and common sense. Ebert’s
belief of truth and perception in regards to the film Rashomon, is his judgment and his
perception of what happened, while someone else might judge the same scene in a different
way and perceive something else can still be as valid as Ebert’s view. That is what is meant with
relative truth and subjective perception; one can believe truth something while someone
believes it is something else and both not being wrong. Skepticism is the theory that one closes
their mind to new ideas or understandings and not believing in change. If we are too skeptical,
our intellectual progress will eventually halt, and with regards to the film, Earl Morris takes the
skeptical stance where he might believe that none of the perspectives told are true or only one
of them are absolute. Gullibility on the other hand is the theory that one is too open-minded
and willing to believe in anything told to them. This is also a danger because if everything one
was told is believed then the information will at some point contradict itself. We would
basically live in a world of lies and false knowledge of things and matters. This is the downside
of Ebert’s view on truth and perception because if everyone’s truths are true and everyone’s
perception is biased and prejudice then everything is right and there would be no order in
reality and life. Relativism is however the belief that each individual might believe in his own
truth not everyone else’s as there might be 10 billion out there. Therefore, what we decide to
believe in due to our common sense or certainty is the relative truth we know and subjective
reality we live in.
Overall, I strongly support Roger Ebert’s views of truth and perception compared to
Errol Morris’s views of it in regards to the film Rashomon due to the theories of common sense,
certainty and beliefs. Common sense is used every day to comprehend things around us with

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the use of our mental map and concepts such as paradox of cartography. There are also
different common sense’s to different individuals due to cultural differences and such. However,
when problems occur with our current understanding of things we turn to certainty to further
explore the issue. By the use of ways of knowing such as language and perception we become
more certain of things in life as we experience them, first or second-handed. As each person
might mean something else with their language or might perceive something different,
everyone’s truth is relative. Just because the interpretation is different does not mean that the
validity is. Despite of what we might be certain of, everything ends up with what we want to
believe in. Our judgment decides what we want to believe in, the skepticism is what keeps us
challenging new knowledge and gullibility is what keeps us aware of it. Ebert’s view on truth is
that everything is relative where it something may be true for one person but not for another.
His view on perception is subjective where it might mean something for someone due to their
reasoning but something else to another due to their reasoning. In the film Rashomon, this is
what we encounter. We must take a stance of absolutism or relativism where we either take
into consideration all perspectives perceived or just keep in mind; one absolute truth. Ebert
makes a stronger argument where common sense, certainty and belief can be used to justify it.
Now, is truth really relative? Is there even such a thing as truth? These are questions that one
may not be able to answer so is that an absolute?

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Work Cited
"Certainty Meaning and Definition: Meaning, Definition, Usage, Example and Sample Sentence
of Certainty from Dictionary, Wikipedia, Quotation and News | Dictionary 3.0."
Dictionary 3.0 | Real Life Dictionary. Web. 25 Nov. 2010.
<http://www.dictionary30.com/meaning/Certainty>.
Lagemaat, Richard Van De.Chapter Theory of Knowledge: for the IB Diploma. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 2005. Print.