Kurosawa’s movie Ikiru (1952) has to be one of my all time favorite movies. Every time I watch it, I feel grabbed by the movie from the very opening scene, when we are introduced to the main character, Watanabe Kanji. We are shown him working at his desk at the local municipal government office, completely disinterested in the world around him. The narrator introduces him to the audience saying,
これが、この物語の主人公である。しかし、今この男について語るのが退屈なだけだ。なぜなら、彼は時間を潰しているだけだから。彼には生きた時間がない。つまり、彼は生きているとはいえないからである。“This is the protagonist of our story. However, to tell his story now would simply be tiresome. This is because [at this point] he is simply passing his time. He has no time to live. That is, you can’t even say that he is alive.”
Sounds like a good movie. That statement is certainly something many people can relate to nowadays.
Hey Konrad, I love that movie too. I knew you had good taste :-)
i love the movie too. it’s not that he doesn’t *have* time to live; it’s that he never *takes* the time to live, right? couldn’t “彼には生きた時間がない” be more accurately rendered as “He has never at any time lived”? (not sure if that’s your translation or the subtitles in the movie.) (i hope i don’t come across as one of those moronic egoists who “fixes” translations that are perfectly good to begin with just to try and show off–in the process only making him/herself look like an idiot. i only make the comment for two reasons: 1> i related to the protagonist most in that he never *took* the time that was always in front of him to live; and 2>i’m kind of drunk and my moronic and egoistic tendencies are thus uninhibited.) cheers
Thanks for your comment! I think you are right, otherwise it would be 生きる時間がない. However, I am not sure your alternative would be correct either, though it fits closely with the grammar. The reason is that the next passage in the movie is, if I remember correctly, something like, “He wasn’t always like that” and goes on to explain his youthful days of “life” which he lost. I agree however, that my translation is unsatisfactory. I can’t remember if my translation is the same as the subtitles, but I did consult them when I wrote this posting.