カズオ・イシグロ氏、リメーク版 『生きる』を語る

【ロサンゼルスＡＦＰ＝時事】２０１７年にノーベル文学賞を受賞した日本出身の英国人作家で大の映画ファンでもあるカズオ・イシグロ氏（６８）は、半世紀以上にわたり黒澤明監督の名作『生きる』の魅力に取り付かれてきた。（写真は米ハリウッドで開催された映画祭に出席したイシグロ氏〈左〉と俳優のビル・ナイ〈中央〉）
　イシグロ氏は、がんを宣告され単調だった人生の意味を探し始める初老の公務員を描いた同作への思い入れが募り、１９５０年代という時代はそのままに、舞台をロンドンに移してリメーク版を製作してはどうかと夢想するようになったという。
　イシグロ版の『生きる ＬＩＶＩＮＧ』はすでに、主演のビル・ナイがゴールデングローブ賞と放送映画批評家協会賞にノミネートされたほか、アカデミー賞でも脚色賞の最有力候補と目されている。
　イシグロ氏はＡＦＰに対し、第２次世界大戦後の復興期にあった１９５０年代の日英文化には「多くの類似点」があり、リメーク版にもそれが反映されていると話した。
　黒澤版の主人公と同様、イシグロ版の主人公でナイが演じる「ウィリアムズ」も、機械的な役所仕事を数十年間続ける中で、自分が何も成し遂げていないことにはたと思い至る。
　命の期限に直面し、家族にも言い出せずにいるウィリアムズは、ささやかな児童公園を整備してほしいと長年嘆願を受けてきた主婦グループに力を貸そうと思い立つ。
　イシグロ氏は、努力をすれば「取るに足らない窮屈な人生を送っていたとしても、それを素晴らしい、誇れるものへと転換してくれる何かを見つけることができるかもしれない」ということが、作品のテーマだと語った。
　さらに、同作は現代人の生き方のメタファーでもあり、特に職場で多くの人が何かとつながるという感覚を持てない現状に警鐘を鳴らすものだとしている。
　「職場での貢献が廊下の向こう側にいる人とどう関係しているのかさえも分からない。バーチャルな世界や新型コロナウイルスの影響もあり、われわれの世界はこうした傾向が強まっているように思う」と同氏は述べた。

■「自分が死ぬことにさえ謝罪する」人々

　主演のナイは、映画『ラブ・アクチュアリー』などで見せた粋で社交的な役で広く知られる。
　先月、米ハリウッドで開催されたアメリカ映画協会（ＡＦＩ）主催の映画祭「ＡＦＩ Ｆｅｓｔ」でのプレミア上映会でＡＦＰの取材に応じたナイは、「ごく抑えた演技で非常に大きなものを表現する」という点が、面白い挑戦だったと語った。
　また、「あの時代に英国と日本で人々が自らに課していた抑制の強さに興味を引かれた」というナイは、当時の人々について「精神科であれば、極めて不健康だと診断されるだろう」とし、ウィリアムズのような几帳面な男たちは「死ぬべき時が来たようだ、誠に申し訳ない」などと言って「自分が死ぬことにさえ謝罪する」だろうと述べた。
　イシグロ氏はナイについて「偉大で優れた俳優の一人でありながら、一作品全体で圧倒的な存在感を発揮するチャンスがなかったように常々感じていた。もし主役で適した役さえあれば、皆がその偉大さを知るはずと思っていた」と話し、ナイを念頭に脚本を執筆したと明かした。
　これについてナイは、「私は前世で良い行いをしたに違いない」と冗談で応じた。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2023/01/04-13:02）

Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro has been obsessed for half a century with Ikiru, a classic Japanese film about an aging bureaucrat who after being diagnosed with cancer races to find meaning in what remains of his monotonous life.
The Japanese-born British novelist and movie buff, 68, began to imagine a remake of Akira Kurosawa's heartbreaking masterpiece, still set in its original 1950s era, but transplanted to London.
I'm one of these terrible people who come up to filmmakers and say 'Look, here's a great idea for a film, please go and make it, and let me know when you've done it,' joked Ishiguro.
But when he pitched the idea of a remake that married the material of the old Kurosawa movie to a certain study of Englishness and particular kind of English gentleman, Hollywood producer Stephen Woolley quickly persuaded the author to pen the screenplay himself.
The result is a critically adored drama which has already earned Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards nominations for its star Bill Nighy, and is a frontrunner for the best adapted screenplay Oscar.
The film plays on the many parallels between Japanese and English culture, particularly in the 1950s when both countries were rebuilding from the ruins of World War II, Ishiguro, who won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature, told AFP.
Echoing Kurosawa's original, Living follows the sudden realization of Nighy's Mr Williams character that he has achieved nothing in his decades of robotic, bureaucratic stasis.
Facing his own mortality, and unable to open up to his family, the London civil servant finally decides to help a group of housewives who have begged him for years to help construct a modest playground for their children.
The film is about how, with an effort, even if you've got a small, stifling life, you might be able to find something... that tips it over into being something magnificent, that you can be proud of, Ishiguro said.
But Ishiguro said Living is also a metaphor for modern life -- in particular, a warning about the sense of detachment many people feel in their jobs today.
Not being able any more to connect up the contribution you make at work to anything out there in the real world... You don't even know how it links up with a guy down the corridor in your office, said Ishiguro.
I think our world has become even more like that now with a virtual world, after the pandemic.
- 'Terribly sorry' -
Nighy, most widely known for playing rakish, extroverted characters in movies such as Love Actually and About Time, puts in a deeply restrained performance.
The interesting challenge was having to express quite big things with very little, Nighy told AFP during the film's AFI Fest premiere in Hollywood last month.
That degree of restraint that people required of themselves in both countries during that period, I find fascinating, he said.
In a psychiatric establishment, they would probably declare it deeply unhealthy, said Nighy, noting that buttoned-up men like his character would even apologize for dying.
You know what I mean? 'Terribly sorry, but I think I have to die now.'
Ishiguro has tackled similar themes in The Remains of the Day, a Booker Prize-winning novel about an overly stoic, self-sacrificing butler at an English stately home, wistfully reflecting on his earlier life.
That book became an Academy Award-nominated film starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson.
For Ishiguro, it is high time that Nighy gets spoken about in the same terms as those Oscar-winners.
He's one of our great, brilliant actors, but I always felt he'd never had a chance to dominate a film, said Ishiguro.
I always felt, if you give him a central big part that's the correct part, we will actually know definitively that he is one of the great actors of our generation.
Ishiguro wrote the screenplay with Nighy in mind, even naming the lead character after his dream actor.
I must have been very good in a previous life, joked Nighy.
Living is released in US theaters Friday.