:Shinobu Hashimoto
{{Short description|Japanese screenwriter (1918–2018)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2018}}
{{Infobox person
| image = Shinobu Hashimoto.jpg
| caption = Hashimoto in 1967
| name = Shinobu Hashimoto
| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1918|4|18}}
| birth_place = Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan
| death_date = {{Death date and age |df=yes|2018|7|19|1918|4}}
| death_place = Tokyo, Japan
| othername =
| occupation = Film director, screenwriter, film producer
| yearsactive =
}}
Shinobu Hashimoto ({{langx|ja|橋本 忍}}, Hashimoto Shinobu; 18 April 1918 – 19 July 2018) was a Japanese screenwriter, director and producer. A frequent collaborator of Akira Kurosawa, he wrote the scripts for critically acclaimed films such as Rashomon and Seven Samurai, as well as the Samurai films Harakiri (1962) and Hitokiri (released in the US as Tenchu!) (1969).{{cite web | title='Rashomon', 'Seven Samurai' writer Shinobu Hashimoto dies | website=GulfNews.com | date=22 July 2018 | url=https://gulfnews.com/news/asia/japan/rashomon-seven-samurai-writer-shinobu-hashimoto-dies-1.2255386 | language=lt | access-date=24 July 2018}}{{cite web | last=Bergan | first=Ronald | title=Shinobu Hashimoto obituary | website=the Guardian | date=22 July 2018 | url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jul/22/shinobu-hashimoto-obituary | access-date=24 July 2018}}{{cite web | title=Shinobu Hashimoto, Writer of Towering Kurosawa Films, Is Dead at 100 | website=The New York Times | date=20 July 2018 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/movies/shinobu-hashimoto-dead-screenwriter-for-kurosawa.html | access-date=24 July 2018}}{{cite web | last=Schilling | first=Mark | title=Shinobu Hashimoto, Scriptwriter for Akira Kurosawa, Dies at 100 | website=Variety | date=20 July 2018 | url=https://variety.com/2018/film/asia/shinobu-hashimoto-scriptwriter-akira-kurosawa-dies-dead-at-100-1202879323/ | access-date=24 July 2018}}{{Citation |last=Kobayashi |first=Masaki |title=Seppuku |date=1964-08-04 |type=Drama, Mystery |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056058/?ref_=nm_knf_t_4 |access-date=2025-05-08 |others=Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Ishihama, Shima Iwashita |publisher=Shochiku}}{{Citation |last=Gosha |first=Hideo |title=Hitokiri |type=Action, Biography, Drama |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0200710/ |access-date=2025-05-08 |others=Shintarô Katsu, Tatsuya Nakadai, Yukio Mishima |publisher=Daiei, Fuji Television Network (Fuji TV), Katsu Production}}
Early life
Shinobu Hashimoto was born in Hyōgo Prefecture 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.
Career
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.
Hashimoto was a frequent collaborator with Akira Kurosawa,{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9E01E6D61431E53ABC4852DFB4668389679EDE|title=Screen: Kurosawa's 'Lower Depths':Japanese Version of Gorky Play Opens 5-Year-Old Movie at the Bleecker Street|author=Crowther, Bosley|author-link=Bosley Crowther|date=10 February 1962|work=The New York Times}} from 1950 to 1970 writing eight screenplays Kurosawa directed.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/movies/shinobu-hashimoto-dead-screenwriter-for-kurosawa.html|title=Shinobu Hashimoto, Writer of Towering Kurosawa Films, Is Dead at 100|last=Fox|first=Margalit|date=20 July 2018|work=The New York Times|access-date=21 July 2018|language=en}} He often worked with Hideo Oguni, Ryūzō Kikushima as well as Kurosawa himself on the scripts for those projects. Hashimoto won numerous awards for his writing, including a succession of Blue Ribbon Awards and Mainichi Film Awards, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s.{{Cite web|url=http://www.allcinema.net/prog/show_p.php?num_p=4672#3|title=橋本忍(Shinobu Hashimoto) のプロフィール: Awards|website=Allcinema.net|language=ja|access-date=2018-07-22}} Hashimoto wrote more than eighty screenplays,{{Cite news|url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/shinobu-hashimoto-dead-screenwriter-seven-samurai-rashomon-was-100-1128623|title=Shinobu Hashimoto, Screenwriter on Kurosawa's 'The Seven Samurai' and 'Rashomon,' Dies at 100|last=Blair|first=Gavin J.|date=21 July 2018|work=The Hollywood Reporter|access-date=21 July 2018|language=en}} including Rashomon, Ikiru, Seven Samurai (1950), Throne of Blood (a 1957 adaptation of Macbeth set in Japan), and The Hidden Fortress (1958). He also directed three films.
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.
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.{{Cite news|url=https://variety.com/2018/film/asia/shinobu-hashimoto-scriptwriter-akira-kurosawa-dies-dead-at-100-1202879323/|title=Shinobu Hashimoto, Scriptwriter for Akira Kurosawa, Dies at 100|last=Schilling|first=Mark|date=20 July 2018|work=Variety|access-date=22 July 2018|language=en-US}}
Later life and death
Hashimoto turned 100 in April 2018.{{cite news |title=Japanese screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto dies at 100 |url=https://www.newindianexpress.com/entertainment/english/2018/jul/20/japanese-screenwriter-shinobu-hashimoto-dies-at-100-1846029.html |date=20 July 2018 |access-date=23 July 2018 |newspaper=New Indian Express |author=Ani}} He died in Tokyo on 19 July 2018 at the age of 100. 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".TIME magazine obit notice by Antoine Fuqua. August 6, 2018. Page 16.
Awards and honors
- 1950: Blue Ribbon Award for Best Screenplay for Rashomon
- 1952: Mainichi Film Award for Best Screenplay for Ikiru{{Cite news|url=https://mainichi.jp/mfa/history/007.html|title=毎日映画コンクール 第7回（1952年） - 毎日新聞|work=毎日新聞|access-date=22 July 2018|language=ja-JP}}
- 1956: Mainichi Film Award for Best Screenplay for Mahiru no ankoku{{Cite news|url=https://mainichi.jp/mfa/history/011.html|title=毎日映画コンクール 第11回（1956年） - 毎日新聞|work=毎日新聞|access-date=22 July 2018|language=ja-JP}}
- 1956: Blue Ribbon Awards for Best Screenplay for Mahiru no ankoku
- 1958: Mainichi Film Award for Best Screenplay for Summer Clouds, Stakeout and Night Drum{{cite web|title=1958 Mainichi Film Awards |url=http://mainichi.jp/mfa/history/013.html |access-date=24 August 2021 |language=ja}}
- 1958: Blue Ribbon Awards for Best Screenplay for Summer Clouds and Stakeout{{Cite web |url=http://cinemahochi.yomiuri.co.jp/b_award/1958/ |title=1958 Blue Ribbon Awards |language=ja |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090207075535/http://cinemahochi.yomiuri.co.jp/b_award/1958/ |archive-date=2009-02-07 |access-date=24 August 2021}}
- 1958: Kinema Junpo's Best Screenwriter Award for The Hidden Fortress{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f7o8pq6G_dYC&pg=PA152|title=The Toho Studios Story: A History and Complete Filmography|last=Galbraith|first=Stuart IV|date=16 May 2008|publisher=Scarecrow Press|isbn=978-1-4616-7374-3|pages=151–52|language=en}}
- 1960: Mainichi Film Award for Best Screenplay for Black Art Book (:ja:黒い画集){{Cite news|url=https://mainichi.jp/mfa/history/015.html|title=毎日映画コンクール 第15回（1960年） - 毎日新聞|work=毎日新聞|access-date=22 July 2018|language=ja-JP}}
- 1962: Blue Ribbon Award for Best Screenplay for Harakiri
- 1966: Mainichi Film Award for Best Screenplay for Shiroi Kyotō{{Cite news|url=https://mainichi.jp/mfa/history/021.html|title=毎日映画コンクール 第21回（1966年） - 毎日新聞|work=毎日新聞|access-date=22 July 2018|language=ja-JP}}
- 1974: Mainichi Film Award for Best Screenplay for Castle of Sand{{Cite news|url=https://mainichi.jp/mfa/history/029.html|title=毎日映画コンクール 第29回（1974年） - 毎日新聞|work=毎日新聞|access-date=22 July 2018|language=ja-JP}}
Filmography
{{Main|Shinobu Hashimoto filmography}}
Hashimoto is credited in the making of at least 85 films.{{Cite web|url=http://www.allcinema.net/prog/show_p.php?num_p=4672#1|title=橋本忍(Shinobu Hashimoto) のプロフィール: Works|website=Allcinema.net|language=ja|access-date=2018-07-22}}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{IMDb name|id=0368074|name=Shinobu Hashimoto}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hashimoto, Shinobu}}
Category:Japanese men centenarians
Category:Japanese screenwriters
Category:Japanese male screenwriters
Category:Writers from Hyōgo Prefecture