Shinobu HASHIMOTO 橋本 忍

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Margalit Fox, Shinobu Hashimoto Is Dead at 100; writer of Towering Kurosaka Films; A love for cinema ignited by a chance encounter in a veterans' sanitarium. New York Times, July 21, 2018.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/ ... r-for-kurosawa.html

Note:
(a) Shinobu HASHIMOTO 橋本 忍 (1918-2018)  (The shinobu is Japanese pronunciation, as a noun or a verb, for kanji 忍.)
(b) He "went on to collaborate with its [Rashōmon's] director, Akira Kurosawa, on celebrated pictures, like 'Ikiru' and 'Seven Samurai' * * * [other screenwriters he worked with were] Hideo OGUNI 小国 英雄, Ryūzō KIKUSHIMA 菊島 隆三 and Kurosawa himself.  Of the writers in Kurosawa's stable, Mr Hashimoto was among the longest-serving, contributing to eight screenplays from 1950 to 1970. Their [Hashimoto and Kurosawa] other pictures together include  'Throne of Blood 蜘蛛巣城' (1957) a reworking of 'Macbeth' set in feudal Japan; 'The Hidden Fortress' (1958), an adventure film about a princess escorted in disguise through enemy territory; and 'Dodes'ka-den' (1970) about the residents of a Tokyo slum."
(i) Ikiru  生きる
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikiru
(1952)
(ii) stable (n): "2 b: a group of people (such as athletes, writers, or performers) under one management"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stable
(iii) Dodes'ka-den
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodes%27ka-den
(section 1 Film title)

was based on a 1962 book by Shūgorō YAMAMOTO 山本 周五郎 and titled A Town Without Seasons 季節のない街. (The kanji 街 has Chinese pronunciation gai and Japanese pronunciation machi.)

(b) Japanese-English dictionary:
* lumo くも 《蜘蛛》 (n): "spider"
* su 巣 【す】(n) "nest, den"
* kumo no su 蜘蛛の巣 【くものす】 (n): "spiderweb; spider web; spider's web; cobweb"
* toride 砦; 塁; 寨 【とりで】 (n): "fort; fortress; stronghold; fortification"
* shikomu 仕込む 【しこむ】 (v): "to stock"
* gama 蝦蟇, 蝦蟆, 蟇, 蟆, 蟾蜍, 蟾 (n): "toad"

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(c) " 'Seven Samurai 七人の侍' (1954), the story of farmers who hire a band of master swordsmen to rout the bandits tormenting their village * * * 'The Hidden Fortress' was acknowledged by the director George Lucas as having helped inspire his 1977 blockbuster, 'Star Wars.' "  Perhaps no film of Mr Hashimoto's has had more enduring influence than 'Rashōmon.' Set in medieval Japan, it recounts the story of the murder of a samurai and the rape of his wife from four utterly different perspectives: that of a bandit (played by Toshirō Mifune 三船 敏郎), the wife (Machiko KYŌ 京 マチ子), the spirit of the dead samurai, and a passing woodcutter.  A philosophical exploration of the malleable nature of truth, 'Rashomon' was the first Japanese film to gain wide international acclaim and is today considered one of the finest motion pictures ever made. It won the Golden Lion at the 1951 Venice Film Festival and that year received what was then called the honorary foreign-language film award at the Oscars.  The generic term 'Rashōmon' has persisted in the English lexicon, describing an event characterized by conflicting accounts."
(i) The Hidden Fortress  隠し砦の三悪人
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hidden_Fortress
(MA-KABE Rokurōta 真壁 六郎太 [roku is 六's Chinese pronunciation]; Princess Yuki 雪姫; peasants Tahei and Matashichi 百姓 [in Japanese can mean either ONE farmer or the common people] の太平と [meaning 'and'] 又七 [as in Chinese, 又 means again]); [Akizuki castle fell after the defeat 秋月の城は落ち; Akizuki clan gold stocked/hidden in sticks of firewood and dumped into a spring/river, Princess Yuki and retainers departed the fallen castle for a hidden castle in the mountains 落城後、大量の金を薪に仕込んで泉に隠し、秋月家の生き残り・雪姫、重臣らとともに、山中の隠し砦に身を潜めていた]l Yamana's general Hyō-e TA-DOKORO 田所兵衛; Hayakawa 早川 was the surname of the feudal lord, rather than the name of a province 国)

The Japanese part comes from ja.wikipedia.org.
(ii) 雪姫 is pronounced yuki-hime in Japanese, where yuki and hime are both Japanese pronunciations of respective kanji.
(iii) list of Academy Award winners and nominees for Best Foreign Language Film
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li ... reign_Language_Film

Please read introduction for "honorary" foreign films.

(d) "Mr Hashimoto was born on April 18, 1918, in the Hyōgo Prefecture 兵庫県 [capital: Kobe 神戸] in west central Japan. * * * He enlisted in the army in 1938 but contracted tuberculosis during his training and spent the next four years in a veterans’ sanitarium.  A fellow patient there happened to lend him a film magazine, and Mr Hashimoto became fascinated by the craft of screenwriting. * * * After he was discharged from the sanitarium, Mr Hashimoto went to work as an accountant for a munitions company, writing on the train to and from the office. His fellow patient had told him that the most eminent screenwriter in Japan was Man-saku ITAMI 伊丹 万作, and with the naïve bravado of youth, Mr Hashimoto sent Mr Itami his screenplay."
(i) 兵庫県: so named because a neighborhood of Kobe (present-day 神戸市兵庫区, where an armory was once located) has hosted prefecture administration; 庫 has Chinese pronunciation ko (softened to go because the syllable was not the first one in the word) and Japanese pronunciation kura -- the latter is more frequently represented by other kanji 蔵 or 倉, with all three kanji means a warehouse. ja.wikipedia.org
(ii)
(A) 伊丹万作 (1900-1946 (died of tuberculosis); birth and official name 池内 義豊; in 1928 film director 伊藤 大輔 coined the name for this scriptwriter 脚本家, who used it ever since; had one son and one daughter; daughter Yukari ゆかり married novelist Ken-zaburō Ō-E 大江 健三郎 (1935- ) who received Nobel Prize in literature in 1994)  ja.wikipedia.org.
(B) 伊丹万作's son (1933-1997; born as 池内 義弘; followed in 伊丹万作's footsteps and took name 伊丹 十三 Jūzō ITAMI; "He directed ten films, all of which he wrote himself."  en.wikipedia.org for Juzo Itami.)

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(e) Hashimoto's Rashomon "script was an adaptation of a [1922] short story, 'In a Grove 藪の中,' by the distinguished early-20th-century writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa 芥川 龍之介, in which different narrators offer conflicting accounts of a samurai’s death.
(i) 芥川 is a Japanese surname, derived from present-day 大阪府高槻市芥川町, which prior to 1929 was named 芥川村 ("摂津国島上郡芥川 [村]（高槻市）発祥の姓"). The river 芥川 passes through 高槻市. In fact, there are two other rivers of the same name in Japan. All of the above are according to ja.wikipedia.org.
(ii) 芥川龍之介 (1892-1927; born in year, month, day and hour of Dragon 辰年辰月辰日辰刻, so named; born and died in Tokyo; birth name 新原 龍之介, born to father Toshizō NIIHARA 新原 敏三 (vendor of cow milk; age 43) and mother Fuku (age 33); mother (deceased 1901) with schizophrenia suddenly worsened seven months after delivery, and he was handed over to her mother brother Dōshō Akutagawa 芥川 道章, who raised him.
あくたがわりゅうのすけ  芥川龍之介. 新カトリック大事典, undated  
https://kod.kenkyusha.co.jp/demo/catholic/honmon.jsp?id=0101690

カトリック is katakana for "Catholic."
(iii) In the end, he experienced anxiety, visual and auditory hallucinations, violent headaches, delusions and paranoia. Afraid he also had schizophrenia, he took oral barbiturate and committed suicide.  
(iv) The chance for any person to get schizophrenia is about 1%. That for one with a schizophrenic parent is about 6%.

(f) "With perhaps even greater bravado, Mr Hashimoto sent his screenplay, titled 'Shiyū 雌雄' ('Male and Female') [inspired by 藪の中], to Kurosawa.  Meeting with Mr Hashimoto for the first time in 1949, Kurosawa told him that he wanted to film the script but that it was too short. In a panic, Mr Hashimoto blurted out that he could graft another Akutagawa [1915] story, 'Rashomon,' onto the narrative.  The two stories seemed eminently incompatible ('Rashomon,' as it came from Mr Akutagawa's pen, explored the desperate lives of thieves in medieval Kyoto), and for weeks afterward Mr Hashimoto cursed his folly.  But Kurosawa * * * took his rewritten screenplay and rewrote it yet again.  The finished script, running 88 minutes and credited to both men, elegantly fuses the plot of 'In a Grove' with the setting and title of 'Rashomon,' whose name denotes a historic Kyoto gate."
(i)  Hashimoto's memoir is mentioned in (h) below.
(A) The excerpt in the English translation of Hashimoto memoir about the meeting is found in Vili Maunula, Rashomon. Akira Kurosawa Info, undated
http://akirakurosawa.info/rashomon/
("Kurosawa's approach in joining the two short stories together turned out to be different from Hashimoto's, and more functional in using only the setting from the 'Rashomon' story as a narrative framing device for 'In a Grove')

My comment: Not just the setting from the short novel Rashomon, but THEFT of the valuable dagger by the witness woodcutter also.

The excerpt is about mid page down, marked on left margin with a vertical bar.
(B) Here is the excerpt from Hashimoto memoir in Japanese:

「あんたの書いた、『雌雄』だけど、これ、ちょっと短いんだよな」
「じゃ、『羅生門』を入れたら、どうでしょう？」
「羅生門？」

「じゃ、これに『羅生門』を入れ、あんた、書き直してみてくれる？」
「ええ、そうします」

同じ不条理ではあっても、真相は分らないとするテーマから、人間とは得手勝手なものであるとするテーマへの移行が感じられ、映画全体を少し難解で分りにくいものにしている。
(ii) About the gate, not novel or film, Rashomon.
(A) 羅城門
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%BE%85%E5%9F%8E%E9%96%80

my summary: In ancient China, cities were walled. However, in Japan, there were only two cities that were walled (Japanese castles were/ walled, where the feudal lord and his family resided): Nara 奈良県奈良市 (capital 710-794) and Kyoto (capital 794-1868; where the Kurasawa's film was based). Both Japanese cities were modeled after the capital of Tang Dynasty, 長安 -- with a grid divided by a central, south-north Suzaku Avenue 朱雀大路, whose southern and northern ends were capped with city gates called 羅城門 and 朱雀門, respectively.  The Suzaku 朱雀 was a Chinese invention.
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/朱雀

Pronounced "rajō," 羅城 simply meant city wall, and 羅城門, a gate through city wall. In history the only record was found in 日本書紀 that said 天武天皇8年（679年）"難波築羅城." (難波 is in present-day City of Osaka.) But 難波羅城's existence could not be verified. "「羅城門」の元々の読みは、呉音で「らじょうもん」、漢音で「らせいもん」であったとされ、『拾芥抄』では「らせい門」と見える。" Based on 呉音 (南朝 of 南北朝時代 had its capital in 建康（南京）), 羅城門 was pronounced rajōmon; based on 漢音 (pronunciations in 長安 while it was Tang capital), it would be raseimon. From Middle Ages onward, it was pronounced rasho, and kanji was replaced with 羅生門.
(B) In present-day Japanese dictionary, kanji has two Chinese pronunciations: jō and sei, whereas 生 has two also: shō and sei.
(C) "The Rashōmon in Kyoto was the grander of the two city gates * * * Built in 789 * * * By the 12th century it had fallen into disrepair * * * Today, not even a foundation stone of the gate remains." en.wikipedia.org for Rajōmon. (The ja.wikipedia.org says there are conflicting but few historical accounts about the structures, or look.)

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(g) "He is survived by two daughters, Aya Hashimoto 橋本 綾 and Ito Imai, as well as two granddaughters, a grandson and a great-grandson. His son, Shingo [橋本]信吾, died before him."

It does not appears that he has two daughters ever -- just one (Ito Imai does not look like a Japanese name, but is composed of two Japanese surnames instead). Both the son and daughter were/ are 脚本家.

(h) "One of the most striking scenes in his memoir is his account of his fateful first meeting with Kurosawa, in 1949. The young, nervous Mr Hashimoto traveled by train to Kurosawa's home in Komae , a western municipality of Tokyo, where they discussed Mr Hashimoto's fledgling script for 'Rashomon.'  'Our first meeting ended so simply that it didn't feel complete,' Mr. Hashimoto recalled. 'We spoke for only one or two minutes, and then I put my manuscript in my bag.'  Kurosawa recalled their meeting in his own memoir, 'Something Like an Autobiography' (1982, translated by Audie E Bock), this way:  '“This Hashimoto visited my home, and I talked with him for hours. He seemed to have substance.'  Conflicting accounts? There's a name for that."
(i) Komae, Tokyo  東京(都) 狛江(市)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komae,_Tokyo
(section 2 History: "The city's name is thought to originate from the word koma [狛], referring to migrants, especially Goguryeo [高句麗; 37 BC-668 AD; also called Goryeo 高麗] from the Korean peninsula who settled here around the 5th century AD. Numerous kofun [古墳] burial mounds are located within the city borders")
(ii) 橋本忍's memoir in Japanese: 複眼の映像; 私と黒澤明. 文藝春秋, 2006.

the English translation: Compound Cinematics; Akira Kurosawa and I. Vertical (publisher), 2015 (translated by Lori Hitchcock Morimoto).
(iii) Kurosawa's memoir in Japanese: 蝦蟇の油; 自伝のようなもの. 岩波書店, 1981.
The English translation: Something Like an Autobiography. Vintage Books, 1982.
(A) literal translation of 蝦蟇の油 is Oil of Toad.
(B) The よう signifies Chinese pronounced "yō," of 様.
(C) The もの, pronounced "mono," is represented by kanji 物.