1. Sarah Cano
Mr. Clover
Senior Seminar Period 5
18 November 2011
Rashomon
Rashomon is an award winning film directed by Akira Kurosawa, which examines how
human perception affects reality and truth. Perception can be defined as the way people interpret
the information gathered from our senses to understand our environment. To illustrate the
complexity of perception, reality, and truth, Kurosawa centers the movie on the testimonies of
four eye-witnesses to the murder of a samurai, and the raping of his wife. The perplexing feature
in Rashomon is that all four testimonies given by a woodcutter, a bandit, the samurai’s wife, and
the samurai’s mandate all confess to the murder, and Kurosawa leaves it up to the viewer to
decide who the real murderer is. Many critics have given their opinion about the movie, but two
of the most notable are Errol Morris and Roger Ebert. Errol Morris’s overall view is that
perception and reality are objective, and that truth is absolute. Roger Ebert, alternatively,
believes that both perception and truth are subjective and relative for each individual. Regarding
the film Rashomon, Ebert’s view on perception and truth reflect the film better than that of
Morris, due to the disparity of the testimonies, and the abundance of murder confessions.
As stated earlier, Errol Morris believes reality is objective and truth is absolute. He
mentions this in an interview where he says he does “not believe that truth is subjective,”
because “just thinking something does not make it so” (Morris). His ideas about truth are similar
to Plato’s theory of truth. Like Morris, Plato believed that there may be different perceptions of
the same situation, but ultimately there is only one truth. Morris continues on the absurdness of

2. subjective truth by claiming that the “idea that there is no reality, that truth is up for grabs, or that
truth is subjective, I find foolish and unappetizing” (Morris). He further argues that “truth exists,
but people have a vested interest of not knowing it” (Morris). This illustrates that in the film
Rashomon, all characters use selective perception: they only observed what they chose to see,
rather than viewing reality. Ultimately, Morris believes Rashomon is a movie about the different
perceptions people have, all of which do not reflect actual reality.
Unlike Morris, Ebert believes that truth is relative, and reality is subjective. He believes
that each individual had their own perception of the world, and although there are multiple
perceptions of the world, it does not make one right and one wrong. He states in his movie
review of Rashomon that the “flashbacks disagreed about the action they were flashing back to,”
but that “all of the flashbacks are both true and false,” which emphasizes his theory of a
subjective reality, and relative truth (Ebert). In the film Rashomon, all of the testimonies
contradict each other. In two stories the bandit is accused of killing the samurai, in another the
samurai confesses to committing suicide, and lastly, the wife believes she also killed her
husband. With such different stories, it is hard to believe that there is only one reality. Moreover,
it can be assumed that because each individual has their own perception of the environment
around them that differ from another person in the same environment, the reality both people are
living in both exist; therefore, there are multiple realities, and reality is subjective. This is Ebert’s
argument, and Rashomon clearly demonstrates his theory by having an array of testimonies
which cannot fit in one reality.
However, for Ebert’s theory to work in the film Rashomon, every character must be
telling the truth. For if they are not fully explaining the scenario with precise, accurate detail,
then perhaps there is only one reality like Morris claims. The one way we know for certain all of

3. the characters are not lying is because they all confess to the murder. Ebert states that “it is
unlike any of the original participants are lying for their own advantage, since each claims to be
the murderer” (Ebert). Since all of the character have no motive to lie, then their recollections of
the murder of the samurai and rape of his wife must be true. Ultimately, Ebert’s theory ties in
with Rashomon because there are multiple testimonies which appear to be true, and all cannot
exist in the same reality, proving that reality can be subjective.
Overall, both Morris and Ebert have good arguments relating to truth and reality. Morris’
belief that truth is absolute, and reality is objective correlates with the film Rashomon because
Morris believes that people have the ability to view reality, but they chose to “avoid it” (Morris).
This belief can be applied to the characters in the film because it can be assumed that they all
chose to view slices of information from actual reality, also known as selective perception.
Although this theory is possible, it is unlikely that all of the testimonies would vary this greatly,
and selective perception would affect reality that significantly. However, Ebert’s theory of a
subjective reality and a relative truth correlates with Rashomon better. Because reality can be
subjective, it means the movie is correct in having the stories all differ. Ultimately, Ebert’s
theory ties in with Rashomon, more so than Morris; but despite both theories, I believe
Kurosawa’s main goal when creating the film was to illustrate how each individual has a
different perception of the world.

4. Works Cited
Morris:
http://www.believermag.com/issues/200404/?read=interview_morris
Ebert:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20020526/REVIEWS08/205260301/1
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