Quotations from Rashômon
Rashômon is a mystery crime-drama film about a murder and its effect on several different people. Directed by Akira Kurosawa. Starring Toshirô Mifune, Machiko Kyô, Takashi Shimura, and Masayuki Mori. Based on the stories "Rashoman" and "In a Grove" by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa.
Rashômon was nominated for the Best Art Direction Oscar award. The movie is considered one of Kurosawa's masterpiece and the introduction of Japanese cinema to the Western world. Read some quotes from Rashômon below.
Commoner: No one tells a lie after he's said he's going to tell one.
Woodcutter: I'm the one who should be ashamed. I don't understand my own soul.
Commoner: But is there anyone who's really good? Maybe goodness is just make-believe.
Priest: What a frightening...
Commoner: Man just wants to forget the bad stuff, and believe in the made-up good stuff. It's easier that way.
Priest: A man's been murdered.
Commoner: So what? Only one? Why, up on top of this gate, there's always five or six bodies. No one worries about them.
Priest: If men don't trust each other, this earth might as well be hell.
Commoner: Right. The world's a kind of hell.
Priest: No! I don't want to believe that!
Commoner: No one will hear you, no matter how loud you shout. Just think. Which one of these stories do you believe?
Woodcutter: None makes any sense.
Commoner: Don't worry about it. It isn't as if men were reasonable.
Priest: I, for one, have seen hundreds of men dying like animals, but even I've never before heard anything as terrible as this. Horrible, it's horrible! There's never been anything, anything as terrible as this, never! It's worse than fires, wars, epidemics, or bandits!
Commoner: It's human to lie. Most of the time we can't even be honest with ourselves.
Commoner: Well, men are only men. That's why they lie. They can't tell the truth, even to themselves.
Priest: That may be true. Because men are weak, they lie to deceive themselves.
Commoner: Not another sermon! I don't mind a lie if it's interesting.
Priest: I don't want to hear it. No more horror stories.
Commoner: They are common stories these days. I even heard that the demon living here in Rashômon fled in fear of the ferocity of man.
Priest: Dead men tell no lies.
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