Compound Cinematics: Akira Kurosawa and I

263 Pages·2015·2.24 MB·English

by  Shinobu Hashimoto

Jacket photo of Akira Kurosawa © Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS
“Rashomon” © KADOKAWA 1950
Motion picture “Ikiru” © 1952 Toho Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Motion picture “Seven Samurai” © 1954 Toho Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
This publication is not sponsored or otherwise endorsed by Toho Co., Ltd.
FUKUGAN NO EIZO Watashi to Kurosawa Akira
by HASHIMOTO Shinobu
Copyright © 2006 HASHIMOTO Shinobu All rights reserved.
Original Japanese edition published by Bungeishunju Ltd., Japan
English translation rights reserved by Vertical, Inc., U.S.A., under the license granted by
HASHIMOTO Shinobu, Japan arranged with Bungeishunju Ltd., Japan Published by Vertical,
Inc., New York, 2015
e-ISBN 978-1-93913058-7
Vertical, Inc.
451 Park Avenue South, 7th Floor New York, NY 10016
www.vertical-inc.com
v3.1
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue Tokyo March
Chapter One The Birth of Rashomon
My Comrade at the Disabled Veterans’ Rehabilitation Facility
My Lifelong Mentor, Mansaku Itami
Chapter Two The Man Called Akira Kurosawa
Rashomon
Ikiru
Seven Samurai I
Seven Samurai II
Chapter Three The Lights and Shadows of Collaborative
Screenplays
The “Writer Leading Off” Approach
The Straight-to-Final Draft
Chapter Four Hashimoto Pro and Mr. Kurosawa
Two Assistant Directors
Kagemusha
Ran
Chapter Five What Followed for Mr. Kurosawa
Epilogue
Ryuzo Kikushima
Hideo Oguni
Akira Kurosawa
About the Author
PROLOGUE: TOKYO MARCH
Shall we to the cinema? Shall we tea?
Perhaps run away on the Odakyu?
Changing Shinjuku, that …
I was born and raised in the countryside in Hyogo Prefecture in the
Kansai region.
My first awareness that a private rail line by the name of Odakyu
existed in metropolitan Tokyo came not through my employment with
the Japan National Railway (as JR was once known), but by way of the
light, lively melody of a popular song from 1929 or 1930, “Tokyo
March” (lyrics by Yaso Saijo, music by Shimpei Nakayama), each line of
which was a conductor’s announcement, an information board telling me
of a Tokyo on which I had yet to set eyes.
But when I finally saw Tokyo with my own eyes more than ten years
later, it wasn’t the “Maru Building of love,” “Urbane Asakusa,” or
“Changing Shinjuku” of the song’s lyrics, but a desolate, burnt-out
wasteland.
I enlisted for active duty with the Tottori army regiment in 1938, but
tuberculosis resulted in my discharge and, after army and Red Cross
hospitals and four years spent in a disabled veterans’ rehabilitation
facility, I eventually regained my freedom. I couldn’t return to my job at
the National Railway with such a blow to my body, however, and I
became a salaryman at a munitions company and there welcomed the
end of the war. Immediately afterwards, I was dispatched to Tokyo on
business, and so it was that I set foot for the first time on the soil I had
so yearned after.
My destination was the annex of Isetan Department Store in Shinjuku,
where the Ministry of Munitions—similar to today’s Ministry of
Economy, Trade and Industry—was headquartered. The elevator was out
of service, so I laboriously climbed the staircase to the sixth floor,
stopping now and then on a landing to catch my breath, surveying the
burnt ruins of Tokyo that stretched out under a clear blue sky as far as
the eye could see. I found myself wondering if this Isetan might have
been the department store of the “Tokyo March” lyrics: “Changing
Shinjuku, that Musashino / moon shines over your department stores …”
Shortly thereafter, my company opened a branch office on Showa
Street near Okachimachi Station in Taito Ward that served as a foothold
for all of my subsequent business trips.
There’s a line in “Tokyo March” that goes, “Big Tokyo, cramped for
lovers,” and, indeed, even I had one acquaintance in Tokyo: Kiyoshi
Saeki, a filmmaker at Shin-Toho. Mr. Saeki had been an assistant
director under my screenwriting mentor, Mansaku Itami, and together
they had departed Uzumasa, Kyoto’s JO (a studio) to work at Toho in
Tokyo. When Mr. Itami was invalided with tuberculosis a few years
later, he went to work for Daiei to return to a familiar life in Kyoto, but
Mr. Saeki remained at Toho and, when Shin-Toho was established, he
was promoted to the position of director.
Mr. Saeki lived at Karasuyama in Setagaya Ward. Taking the
Yamanote Line from Okachimachi to Kanda, the Chuo Line to Shinjuku,
and transferring to the Keio Line for Chitose Karasuyama, or opting for
the Yamanote Line to Shibuya, the Inogashira Line to Meidai-mae, and
transferring from there to the Keio Line, I often visited him (those of us
who were close to Mr. Itami called Mr. Saeki “Saeki-niisan” [big brother
Saeki], while others referred to the rising filmmaker as “Saeki no
anchan” [“bro” in the non-related sense]). And so it was that I spent a
considerable amount of time riding the Keio and Inogashira Lines on my
trips to and from Mr. Saeki’s home but never once took the Odakyu.
It was early spring in 1949.
Over the houses along Showa Street growled the last winds of winter,
the gusts blowing from the direction of Ueno awfully biting.
Wearing an overcoat and carrying a briefcase, I headed out from the
Tokyo branch office of my company and took the outer loop of the
Yamanote Line from Okachimachi. I got off at Shibuya and transferred to
the Inogashira Line. Just before arriving at Shimokitazawa, along the
intersecting line under the elevated bridge an outbound Odakyu train
passed by like a stranger, its broad top leaving an impression on me.
Getting off at Shimokitazawa, and after much glancing about and the
help of an information board, I descended to the Odakyu platform and
waited to board the next outbound train. This was my first time on the
Odakyu. I was headed for Komae, two stops after Seijo Gakuen, and the
home of a Mr. Kurosawa, in Komae along the Odakyu … the film
director Akira Kurosawa, on whom I was paying a call.
It had been decided that Mr. Kurosawa would film my script Shiyu
(“Male and Female,” later retitled Rashomon), and the producer, Mr.
Sojiro Motoki, wanted me to meet Mr. Kurosawa. Today would be our
first face-to-face, our first planning session.
What kind of person was Mr. Kurosawa? It wasn’t as though I didn’t
have some sense that this might be a fateful meeting, but I wouldn’t
know until I met him. Either way, it didn’t do to dwell on it, so I just
turned my attention to the scenery racing past the window of the
Odakyu train.
Vacant plot, crop patch, grove, house, house—the air raids hadn’t left
many scars along this route—crossing, station, shopping street,
apartment building, vegetable field, harvested black rice field, house,
house, vacant plot, crossing, another new apartment
building … Endlessly sprawling out as far as I could see, house, house,
house … A vague something was niggling at the back of my mind,
gradually coming clear. Big Tokyo, cramped for lovers, urbane
Asakusa … As I looked out at the scenery through the windows of the
first Odakyu train I ever rode, a song that had been popular over twenty
years earlier played over and over like a tape recording in the back of
my mind. “Tokyo March.”
Shall we to the cinema? Shall we tea?
Perhaps run away on the Odakyu?
Changing Shinjuku, that Musashino …
CHAPTER ONE: THE BIRTH OF RASHOMON
The author at the time of his admission to the Okayama Disabled Veterans’
Rehabilitation Facility circa 1941.
My Comrade at the Disabled Veterans’ Rehabilitation Facility
It was great luck surpassing coincidence, eventuality, or even inexorable
fate that brought Mansaku Itami-sensei and me together.
It was a hot day. Even now, I cannot forget the searing heat of that
day.