Shinobu Hashimoto | |
|---|---|
 Hashimoto in 1967 | |
| Born | (1918-04-18)18 April 1918 Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan |
| Died | 19 July 2018(2018-07-19) (aged 100) Tokyo, Japan |
| Occupation(s) | Film director,screenwriter,film producer |
Shinobu Hashimoto (Japanese:橋本 忍,Hashimoto Shinobu; 18 April 1918 – 19 July 2018) was a Japanese screenwriter, director and producer. A frequent collaborator ofAkira Kurosawa, he wrote the scripts for critically acclaimed films such asRashomon andSeven Samurai.[1][2][3][4]
Shinobu Hashimoto was born inHyōgo Prefecture on 18 April 1918. In 1938 he enlisted in thearmy, but became ill withtuberculosis while still training and spent four years in a veterans' sanitarium.[5]
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 withAkira Kurosawa,[6] from 1950 to 1970 writing eight screenplays Kurosawa directed.[5] He often worked withHideo 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 ofBlue Ribbon Awards andMainichi Film Awards, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s.[7] Hashimoto wrote more than eighty screenplays,[8] includingRashomon,Ikiru,Seven Samurai (1950),Throne of Blood (a 1957 adaptation ofMacbeth set in Japan),[5] andThe Hidden Fortress (1958). He also directed three films.[8]
Achieving international acclaim, Hashimoto's scripts inspired notable films abroad, includingThe Magnificent Seven (1960 and then remade again in 2016), a remake ofSeven Samurai, andStar Wars (1977), which George Lucas has described as inspired byThe Hidden Fortress.[5]
In 2006, he authored a memoir entitledCompound Cinematics: Akira Kurosawa and I. In 2008, Hashimoto wrote a screenplay forI Want to Be a Shellfish, a second full-length film adaptation of thepost-World War II-based television series he wrote forTokyo Broadcasting System Television in 1958.[9]
Hashimototurned 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 directorAntoine Fuqua expressed his respect for Hashimoto as a screenwriter stating: "(Hashimoto's) … working withAkira Kurosawa andHideo 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]
Hashimoto is credited in the making of at least 85 films.[21]
