Remembering Shinobu Hashimoto, Japan's Greatest Screenwriter--and the 20th Century's
Shinobu Hashimoto and Akira Kurosawa in the 1950's
Few centenarians' deaths come as a shock, but last Thursday's announcement of Shinobu Hashimoto's passing at 100 marked the end of an era. Hashimoto, whose blazing career with Akira Kurosawa began with "Rashomon" and continued through the decades with such classics as "Ikiru," "Seven Samurai," "Throne of Blood," "The Bad Sleep Well," and "Dodes'Ka-Den," was a giant of cinema, and not just in Japan. His screenplays, whether written alone or in collaboration, have resonated throughout the world since 1950, their relevance unfaded by time and trends.
Takashi Shimura as Kanji Watanabe in "Ikiru"/Courtesy Toho Films
Though deservedly famous for the samurai films that brought fame to Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune, his most important leading man, Hashimoto was equally renown for his contemporary films. Poverty, wartime devastation and existential dread were his themes, and he explored them with compassion and an unsparing eye for everyday cruelty. In "Ikiru," my favorite film of all time (if I had to choose just one), Watanabe, the dying bureaucrat, not only finds life's meaning in his remaining two months but does so in secret because his doctor has withheld his fatal diagnosis, as was the Japanese custom until recently. Watanabe's only son treats him with disdain and his daughter-in-law regards him as a nuisance; neither will listen as he tries to break the news of his impending death. So Hashimoto, after granting the abstemious Watanabe a brief period of hedonism, sets him on a path to greatness: creating a park from an urban swampland, against almost insurmountable odds.
In "I Live in Fear," Nakajima, a foundry owner, is so convinced of a coming nuclear war that he decides to move his family to the safe haven of Brazil. His family responds by having him declared incompetent. "Dodes'kad-den," explores the daily lives of impoverished shantytown residents, including a boy who lives in a fantasy world in which he imagines himself a tram conductor.
Beyond his work with Kurosawa, Hashimoto wrote for other major directors of his time. His screenplays for "Summer Clouds" and "Whistle in My Heart" became two of Mikio Naruse's best late-period films. "Harakiri," for Masaki Kobayashi, is considered a masterpiece.
Still, it's not necessary to have seen any of these films to know Hashimoto's work well. "Seven Samurai" became "The Magnificent Seven;" "Ikiru" spawned "Breaking Bad;" "Hidden Fortress" inspired "Star Wars." And even the least cinematically inclined are familiar with "Rashomon," which has entered the English language as a word for conflicting yet true accounts. It's hard to imagine life without these touchstones, all of which sprang from the pen of Shinobu Hashimoto, who survived World War II and tuberculosis to forge an unparalleled and unforgettable body of work.
Toshiro Mifune and Machiko Kyo in "Rashomon"
My related articles: https://underthehollywoodsign.wordpress.com/2014/01/26/the-japanese-masterpiece-at-the-heart-of-breaking-bad-akira-kurosawas-ikiru/
https://underthehollywoodsign.wordpress.com/awakened-by-impending-death-the-transformational-heroes-of-ikiru-and-breaking-bad/