1. Yui Saotome
Period 3
March 7, 2012
Subjective Truth and Reality
The movie “Rashomon” by Kurosawa clearly shows the different realities each person has.
The movie is based on one samurai dead, and four witnesses and four different stories. The bandit,
wife, woodcutter, and the dead samurai all tell a different story of how the samurai died, and they all
claim to be the murderer. The movie can be interpreted in different ways, one from Errol Morris and
another from Roger Ebert. Morris believes that the truth is objective, therefore there is only one truth
and one reality. On the other hand is Ebert, who believes that truth is subjective and reality and truth
are different depending on each person. In “Rashomon”, all the witnesses have their own perception
of reality, and tell different stories. Although both views of reality and truth are acceptable, Ebert‟s
belief of subjective reality gives the answer to the movie of “Rashomon” than Morris‟ belief.
Ebert believes that the truth is subjective; everyone sees the world differently, and it is all
reality. I agree with Ebert because if there were only one truth and one reality, so many of us would be
living in a lie. Truth is subjective and can differ from one another and this belief fits with the movie
“Rashomon”. He states that in “Rashomon”, there are only subjective truths and no objective truth.
His belief of subjective truth is that every person has his or her own truth and own perspective of the
incident. What is true to that person is a truth and what is true to oneself is a truth. Ebert believes that
the flashbacks in “Rashomon” are “both true and false”(Ebert). True in a sense that all the flashbacks

2. are what the witness believes had happened, but false in a sense that humans cannot be true to
themselves. Ebert states, "Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves.
They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing" (Ebert). Though people cannot be honest
about themselves, what they believe they saw is a truth.
Ebert‟s idea supports the theory of common-sense realism. Common-sense realism is the
idea of „What you see is what is there‟, in other words, what you see is the truth. This relates to the
movie “Rashomon” because each witness tells a different story of the incident and confesses they are
the murder due to their vision of the incident and what had happened. They believe that what they say
is right because the truth to each is from their perception. The perception, which comes from the five
senses; sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch, is what makes their reality and the truth. For example, the
bandit explains that he is who killed the samurai because he wanted to keep his wife. However, the
wife states that she is the one who killed her husband because she could not handle the shame of being
raped. All the witnesses have a different story and this then connects to the theory of the eyewitness
testimony. As stated before, Ebert believes that "Human beings are unable to be honest… talk about
themselves without embellishing" which shows how humans cannot be unbiased on telling the truth
(Ebert). The eyewitness testimony supports this idea how there may be more than one truth relating to
a situation.
Ebert states that motives are considered to be a justification in Plato‟s equation of
knowledge, K=JTB. This equation states that in order to have knowledge, you must believe in it, have
a justification and it must be true. From Ebert‟s belief and relating to “Rashomon”, each witness
believes that they are the murderer, what they saw was their truth, and their motives is what becomes

3. the justification. This then brings up the question whether motive is considered to be a justification.
From Ebert‟s point of view, motives are considered to be a justification and belief. Physical evidence
only shows what happened and does not show any more than that, however by knowing the motive,
you can know why it happened which becomes a justification of the physical evidence. It also
becomes a belief because there is always a reason to believe in something, and the reason for each
murder is the motive. Since truth is subjective, the witnesses‟ belief of what happened is a truth. Their
motives to killing the samurai are their justification, which leads to knowledge.
Ebert‟s view will fit more with the movie “Rashomon” because even at the end of the
movie, it does not tell the viewers who the real murder was. Therefore, we must find the true murderer
through relationships with the dead samurai, each story, and background information of each witness
in order to decide. For example, the viewers may think that there is a high chance of the bandit being
the murder because he does not have a real relationship with the samurai, his motive can justify his
belief of being the murderer therefore he may be the murderer. In reality, humans do this in many
different situations. We tend to decide based on motives, relationships and other aspects in order to
know or find something out. If truth is objective, as Morris believes, this way of decision is not
acceptable. The stories of the witnesses are true to themselves and are his or her reality. Truth is
subjective and reality differs from one another, we all have a truth in ourselves and have our own
reality.