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Truth in Rashomon, A Gateway to Injustice

“Rashomon”, a movie written and directed by Akira Kurosawa, shows the perfidious retelling

of the murder of a samurai by different people. Each of the four characters present at the

crime scene provide their own versions. The bandit ,Tajomaru, claims that he duelled the

Samurai to death with a sword. Samurai’s wife believes that she killed him with her precious

dagger. The Samurai, through a medium, states that he was so humiliated after his wife’s

assault that he committed suicide using his wife’s dagger. The woodcutter, who found the

body, claims that the Samurai was killed by Tajomaru using a sword and not a dagger.

Giving a verdict on the basis of different accounts by these eyewitnesses could actually be

detrimental to society, wrongful convictions could result in disbelief in the justice system.

This paper aims to analyse how this movie is a commentary on the philosophy of truth and

justice and further evaluate the justice system juxtaposed to contradicting human opinions.

“Rashomon” conveys the unfathomable value of embracing ambiguity which lies within its

polarising subject and proceeds to raise the question ‘what is truth anyway?’

The camera in “Rashomon” is swayed not only by the words of the teller but also the

characteristics. Tajomaru is shown stalking the samurai’s wife from a tree like he’s a predator

is a testament in itself, making the viewers anticipate the upcoming assault, this portrays how

the conception of a story is not solely dependent on how the viewer sees it but the manner it

is shown. Eyewitnesses painting a picture by their words is also affected by how they paint it

and let me assure you, painting out of memory is not that easy or accurate.

The movie revolves around the key theme of why human beings lie, the statements made by

the commoner upon hearing each testimony point towards the conclusion that people lie to

protect and preserve their honour based on their conception of the society, to gain power or in
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the pursuit of self preservation. The Commoner is the only character in the story who is not a

part of the incident, he signifies the audience. Much like the audience he is unable to come to

a firm conclusion regarding the identity of the killer, furthermore he has nothing but the

testimonies for his reckoning. He hears a second hand account from the woodcutter and the

priest, the fact that the woodcutter concealed that he had witnessed the rape and murder until

later in the story simply implies that he is not beyond lying to protect his personal interests.

This gives him a motive to easily present each testimony in a way that it affects how the

audience perceives it.

Truth, with its plethora of discrepancies, remains an enigma in “Rashomon”. An experiment

conducted in 1978 demonstrated that the degree of a person’s confidence in an estimation

about an event they can’t completely recollect only increases over the times the story is told,

guesses bring additional details to an abstract memory, the ramifications of these statements

are how interrogation and other courtroom processes are carried out (Hastie 8). How many

times does a person make an effort to discern reality and what is the outcome of this

disregard and is it possible to come to a final judgement in the case?

Revolutions have started on words, words that people believed to be true, but more recently

in 1976 an innocent man was sentenced to death on the basis of words. In Randall Dale v.

State of Texas a cop was shot and murdered. Harris, the actual killer, was given immunity

from prosecution for testimony against Randall, who was innocent. Randall got convicted on

the basis of his testimony and alleged eyewitnesses. Later a documentary “The Thin Blue

Line” revealed how Harris bragged “I offed a pig” and got away with it, a probe into the

claim actually revealed incriminating evidence. Conflicting testimonies were given by

Randall and Harris but the court chose to believe Harris (Randall Dale Adams, Petitioner, v.
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State of Texas 1989). A realist will always try to ascertain if their truth is perceptually

justified (Weiss 59). This was the outcome of not discerning reality from what the witnesses

believe to be the reality.

“Rashomon” depends on the principle that often witnesses are mistaken about what they have

witnessed. In People v. Lerma wherein there were two witnesses, the victim and his

girlfriend. Victim before dying blurted out “Lucky”, the name of the killer. The girlfriend

who was right outside the house apparently heard the victim saying the name of the

perpetrator and got a glimpse of the murderer, she also identified him as Lucky. Later her

account contradicted the grand jury testimony with minute details. The psychologist in the

case stated that misidentification is a common occurrence where the perpetrator is not an

unknown witness, resulting in dissociation (Shapiro 60). Eyewitnesses don’t build on

evidence rather, by being less than reliable, attack the assertions made by the system. Every

system of justice depends on some witness, admission of eyewitness testimonies can be used

to empower circumstantial evidence and result in wrongful convictions (Shapiro 61).

According to “Veil of Ignorance”, a theory proposed by John Rawls, for a person to make

decisions impartially, they must be unaware about who benefits the most from their

judgement in order to give a rational judgement (Vermeule). For instance, if a person has to

give a verdict about their family members, the parties to the case shall remain anonymous to

them, otherwise one’s decisions will be affected by a number of factors. Everybody in the

movie has given their own account and believes what it should be on the basis of personal

projections.
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Testimonies can also be corrupted by “weapon focus effect” where the witness is unable to

focus and identify the perpetrator and the focal point remains on the weapon. If the wife’s

testimony is infallible, perhaps the “weapon focus” effect occurred resulting in her fainting

after standing over her husband with a dagger in her hands and why she couldn’t remember

anything in her surroundings apart from her precious dagger (Flowe).

In 1984 Kirk Bloodsworth was sentenced to death, with absolutely no physical or

circumstantial evidence linking him to the crime, more than five eye witnesses testified

against him. After spending nine years in jail on a death row the person who was responsible

for the crimes Kirk was convicted for confessed and he was exonerated. Regardless of the

discrepancies in testimonies, there are limitations in place that restrict the elimination of

admission of eyewitness testimonies, lack of evidence being one of them (Rakoff). Despite

all the factors, eye-witness testimony remains critical to trials like that of Rashomon where

no other evidence is present. As portrayed by Kurosawa, people have different interpretations

of the same event thereby consequences of taking it into account without physical evidence

can be precarious.

It was revealed in an experiment that Poor lighting, fast movement and presence of others

often affects the efficient working of the attention process. In the experiment, a murder was

re-enacted and photographed the same night, the witness identified the perpetrator charged

with murder in a dark doorway. Taking a measurement of the lighting and the brightness cast

from various angles a diagram was formed. The reflection of light and the eyewitnesses' view

were taken into account. Combining the photograph and the diagram, the result cast a doubt

upon the accuracy of the identification by the witness (Buckhout 174). This could perhaps be
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similar to the case of the woodcutter as he didn't witness the murder as closely as the other

characters.

Before taking such assertions into account for criminal trials, the judicial system should

acknowledge that misleading information provided by individuals is not uncommon.

Credibility of claims is influenced by several factors like pressure, social expectations, visual

characteristics, personal biases and ulterior motives among several things. This can further

result in “memory distortion” (Johnson). The altercation of a memory may occur consciously

or unconsciously depending on certain factors pertinent to the scenario, this is denoted by the

commoner himself. Everyone involved in the murder explains their perspective, the

commoner uses his prejudices but arrives on the conclusion that everyone is lying. After

Tajomaru’s story he denotes “It’s because men are weak that they lie, even to themselves” .

Upon hearing the wife’s story he claims that women “use their tears to fool everyone”.

Finally after hearing the Samurai’s story he comments that “Men often lie to protect their

honour.” Everyone felt a pressure to conform to societal norms which is possibly why their

memories got altered to fit with the social expectations around them.

Taking the evidence into account, the justice system should strengthen its safeguards against

testimonies. Teaching the jury or the judge how eyewitness testimonies are not an exact and

they should be taken into account after extensive investigation only. Convictions should only

be given alongside corroborative physical evidence, not solely based on testimonies, this is

why a judgement can’t be given in “Rashomon”. If a judgement is passed on the basis of the

four perspectives, the sanctity of justice will be compromised. Wrongful convictions in

“Rashomon” is also wrongful acquittal. This might even result in an increased crime rate

(Fon and Schäfer).

The Rashomon effect has come to represent subjective truth and the idea that different people

may possess different renditions of the same event, but the reality can be different from what

people believe to be true. Eyewitnesses should only recount their memories alongside

physical evidence, paint a picture of the reality with integral interconnected subject matter,

which can further be cross checked. As established previously, decisions based on conflicting

testimonies are compounded by how they are presented. Highly convincing testimonies

should also be treated with caution through open ended questioning which is a good measure

to cross examine.

Eyewitness testimonies can be used as a basis for investigating but not to come to a

conclusion, as seen in “Rashomon”, there should be another investigation as poor memory

and external influencing factors can only result in wrongful convictions as seen in the case of

Adams. The Rashomon effect and erroneous eyewitness testimonies depict the significance of

understanding how susceptible human vision and memory are to error. It is critical to take

action to lessen the impact of these problems since both ideas might have substantial effects

on criminal proceedings and the administration of justice. “Innocent until proven guilty”, but

the standards to prove someone guilty remain ambiguous which is why eyewitness

testimonies are taken as an appropriate measure, which can cause a miscarriage of justice.

In actuality there is no mechanism like Pinocchio’s elongating nose for the verification of

facts or perhaps to even punish a liar. Not everything is black or white, a person can never tell

a truth, it is always what they believe to be true, which might coincide with reality

(Rasmussen). An assertion may sometimes seem inconsequential in our daily lives but it may

end up having life threatening outcomes. Thus, there is value in embracing ambiguity.
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