Summary
Shinobu Hashimoto (Japanese: 橋本 忍, Hashimoto Shinobu; 18 April 1918 – 19 July 2018) was a Japanese screenwriter, film director and producer. A frequent collaborator of Akira Kurosawa, he wrote the scripts for such internationally acclaimed films as Rashomon and Seven Samurai.[1][2][3][4]
Shinobu Hashimoto | |
|---|---|
 Hashimoto in 1967 | |
| Born | 18 April 1918 Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan |
| Died | 19 July 2018 (aged 100) Tokyo, Japan |
| Occupation(s) | Film director, screenwriter, film producer |
Early life edit
Shinobu Hashimoto was born in the Hyogo Prefecture of Japan on 18 April 1918. In 1938 he enlisted in the army, but became ill with tuberculosis while still training and spent four years in a veterans' sanitarium.[5]
Career edit
While hospitalized, another patient gave Hashimoto a film magazine. The magazine sparked his interest in screenwriting and he began a screenplay about his army experience, spending three years on the project.[5]
Hashimoto was a frequent collaborator with Akira Kurosawa,[6] from 1950 to 1970 writing eight screenplays Kurosawa directed.[5] He often worked with Hideo Oguni, Ryūzō Kikushima as well as Kurosawa himself on the scripts for those projects.[5] Hashimoto won numerous awards for his writing, including a succession of Blue Ribbon Awards and Mainichi Film Awards, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s.[7] Hashimoto wrote more than eighty screenplays,[8] including Rashomon, Ikiru, Seven Samurai (1950), Throne of Blood (a 1957 adaptation of Macbeth set in Japan),[5] and The Hidden Fortress (1958). He also directed three films.[8]
Achieving international acclaim, Hashimoto's scripts inspired notable films abroad, including The Magnificent Seven (1960 and then remade again in 2016), a remake of Seven Samurai, and Star Wars (1977), which George Lucas has described as inspired by The Hidden Fortress.[5]
In 2006, he authored a memoir entitled Compound Cinematics: Akira Kurosawa and I. In 2008, Hashimoto wrote a screenplay for I Want to Be a Shellfish, a second full-length film adaptation of the post-World War II-based television series he wrote for Tokyo Broadcasting System Television in 1958.[9]
Later life and death edit
Hashimoto turned 100 in April 2018.[10] He died in Tokyo on 19 July 2018 at the age of 100.[8] In a tribute article for TIME magazine, film director Antoine Fuqua expressed his respect for Hashimoto as a screenwriter stating: "(Hashimoto's) … working with Akira Kurosawa and Hideo Oguni, was so beautiful and poetic and powerful and heartbreaking. It was all about justice, it was all about sacrifice, and it made me want to be one of those guys".[11]
Awards and honors edit
- 1950: Blue Ribbon Award for Best Screenplay for Rashomon[7]
- 1952: Mainichi Film Award for Best Screenplay for Ikiru[12]
- 1956: Mainichi Film Award for Best Screenplay for Mahiru no ankoku[13]
- 1956: Blue Ribbon Awards for Best Screenplay for Mahiru no ankoku[7]
- 1958: Mainichi Film Award for Best Screenplay for Summer Clouds, Stakeout and Night Drum[14]
- 1958: Blue Ribbon Awards for Best Screenplay for Summer Clouds and Stakeout[15]
- 1958: Kinema Junpo's Best Screenwriter Award for The Hidden Fortress[16]
- 1960: Mainichi Film Award for Best Screenplay for Black Art Book (ja:黒い画集)[17]
- 1962: Blue Ribbon Award for Best Screenplay for Harakiri[7]
- 1966: Mainichi Film Award for Best Screenplay for Shiroi Kyotō[18]
- 1974: Mainichi Film Award for Best Screenplay for Castle of Sand[19]
- 2015: Mainichi Film Award Special Prize for screenwriting[20]
Filmography edit
Hashimoto is credited in the making of at least 85 films.[21]
References edit
- ^ "'Rashomon', 'Seven Samurai' writer Shinobu Hashimoto dies". GulfNews.com (in Lithuanian). 22 July 2018. Retrieved 24 July 2018.
- ^ Bergan, Ronald (22 July 2018). "Shinobu Hashimoto obituary". the Guardian. Retrieved 24 July 2018.
- ^ "Shinobu Hashimoto, Writer of Towering Kurosawa Films, Is Dead at 100". The New York Times. 20 July 2018. Retrieved 24 July 2018.
- ^ Schilling, Mark (20 July 2018). "Shinobu Hashimoto, Scriptwriter for Akira Kurosawa, Dies at 100". Variety. Retrieved 24 July 2018.
- ^ a b c d e f Fox, Margalit (20 July 2018). "Shinobu Hashimoto, Writer of Towering Kurosawa Films, Is Dead at 100". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 July 2018.
- ^ Crowther, Bosley (10 February 1962). "Screen: Kurosawa's 'Lower Depths':Japanese Version of Gorky Play Opens 5-Year-Old Movie at the Bleecker Street". The New York Times.
- ^ a b c d "橋本忍(Shinobu Hashimoto) のプロフィール: Awards". Allcinema.net (in Japanese). Retrieved 22 July 2018.
- ^ a b c Blair, Gavin J. (21 July 2018). "Shinobu Hashimoto, Screenwriter on Kurosawa's 'The Seven Samurai' and 'Rashomon,' Dies at 100". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 21 July 2018.
- ^ Schilling, Mark (20 July 2018). "Shinobu Hashimoto, Scriptwriter for Akira Kurosawa, Dies at 100". Variety. Retrieved 22 July 2018.
- ^ Ani (20 July 2018). "Japanese screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto dies at 100". New Indian Express. Retrieved 23 July 2018.
- ^ TIME magazine obit notice by Antoine Fuqua. August 6, 2018. Page 16.
- ^ "毎日映画コンクール 第7回（1952年） - 毎日新聞". 毎日新聞 (in Japanese). Retrieved 22 July 2018.
- ^ "毎日映画コンクール 第11回（1956年） - 毎日新聞". 毎日新聞 (in Japanese). Retrieved 22 July 2018.
- ^ "1958 Mainichi Film Awards" (in Japanese). Retrieved 24 August 2021.
- ^ "1958 Blue Ribbon Awards" (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 7 February 2009. Retrieved 24 August 2021.
- ^ Galbraith, Stuart IV (16 May 2008). The Toho Studios Story: A History and Complete Filmography. Scarecrow Press. pp. 151–52. ISBN 978-1-4616-7374-3.
- ^ "毎日映画コンクール 第15回（1960年） - 毎日新聞". 毎日新聞 (in Japanese). Retrieved 22 July 2018.
- ^ "毎日映画コンクール 第21回（1966年） - 毎日新聞". 毎日新聞 (in Japanese). Retrieved 22 July 2018.
- ^ "毎日映画コンクール 第29回（1974年） - 毎日新聞". 毎日新聞 (in Japanese). Retrieved 22 July 2018.
- ^ "毎日映画コンクール 第70回（2015年） - 毎日新聞". 毎日新聞 (in Japanese). Retrieved 22 July 2018.
- ^ "橋本忍(Shinobu Hashimoto) のプロフィール: Works". Allcinema.net (in Japanese). Retrieved 22 July 2018.
External links edit
- Shinobu Hashimoto at IMDb