Ikiru based on The Death of Ivan Ilyich
Ikiru (生きる, "To Live") is a 1952 Japanese drama film directed and co-written (with Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni) by Akira Kurosawa. The film examines the struggles of a terminally ill Tokyo bureaucrat (played by Takashi Shimura) and his final quest for meaning. The screenplay was partly inspired by Leo Tolstoy's 1886 novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich.
The major themes of the film include learning how to live, the inefficiency of bureaucracy, and decaying family life in Japan, which have been the subject of analysis by academics and critics. Ikiru has received widespread critical acclaim, and won awards for Best Film at the Kinema Junpo and Mainichi Film Awards. It was remade as a television film in 2007, and adapted into English as Living in 2022.Production
The film marked the first collaboration between director Akira Kurosawa and screenwriter Hideo Oguni. According to Oguni, the genesis of the film was Kurosawa's desire to make a film about a man who knows he is going to die and who wants a reason to live for a short time. Oguni was an experienced writer and was offered ¥500,000, and co-writer Shinobu Hashimoto was offered ¥150,000. Initially, Kurosawa told Hashimoto that a man who was set to die in 75 days had to be the theme and that the character's career was less important, with the director saying criminal, homeless man or government minister would be acceptable.The screenwriters consulted Leo Tolstoy's novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich, and Oguni envisioned placing Watanabe's death halfway through the film. Kurosawa dictated the scene where Watanabe is on the swing and mentioned the beginning lyrics of "Gondola no Uta." Because none of the men were familiar with the song, they consulted their eldest receptionist on the rest of the lyrics and the song title.Kurosawa renamed the draft The Life of Kanji Watanabe to Ikiru, which Hashimoto found pretentious, but Oguni supported. The screenplay was completed on 5 February 1952.
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