"We are not living to die"By comparing between the book and the film, there are several commonalities and differences in throughout the story.
Commonalities
1. purpose of the work
According to the book John, T and Naomi (1996), both Ibuse, the author of the original book, and Imamura, the producer of the Black rain made their work to represent “the normal lives of normal people in abnormal times” (John, T. & Naomi, 1996, P.219 )and not for the political aim. they both preferred to understatement and irony to direct statements. Ibuse claims that his novel is not aiming for making political statement or objecting to the use of atomic bomb or rather the world peace. As well as Imamura who seems more focused on to draw "a quiet voice"(John, T & Naomi, 1996, p.204).
Moreover, these two works draw the destruction of Hiroshima by using humor and irony. Thoguh Ibuse seems more likely to make serious situation more ambiguity, than that of Imamura.
2. Based on the actual document and record
Original book was written based on the existed diary which was written by one of the survivors of atomic bomb. Their names are Shizuma Shigematsu and Iwatake Hiroshi, the Japanese military doctor whose name are directly used as character in both novel and the film. Shizuma and the author Ibuse are fishing friend, and one day Shizuma told Ibuse about his niece and showed him his diary to write. Even though the portion of the diary in the story is different, both book and the film are narrated by Shizuma's subjective which is based on the actual journals
Differences
1. More detail depicted
The original book has more detailed description of those injured people who directly hit by the bomb in Hiroshima. It describes those people from various ages that suffering from radiation sickness such as burn, headache, and surface wound, internal disease. As well as Yasuko, she becomes one of the hibakusha; atomic bomb victim gets maggots and pin worm from her tumor on her hip. Though the film also has those scenes, the book constantly illustrates those people throughout the story and depicts more intensely.
2. Absent characters
Some of the characters are added on the film who don’t exist on the original book: Yuichi, Fumiko, her mother, and priestess. Yuichi has feeling on Yasuko and so does she as the later of the story.He has mental illness from the war so people in the village see him insane. One of the reasons why Imamura, the producer of the film put Yuichi is that he wants to put love romance between him and Yasuko to capture women’s audience. And the other is because he wanted to express the voice of those lower class people represented by Yuichi. This character is by the way comes from other Ibuse's novel called Lieutenant Lookeast in 1950, who plays in the novel with exactly the role and the name. Imamura is famous for making his with dealing with those people who are normally people do not pay attention to otherwise. Other characters, such as Fumiko, working at the cabaret and her mother who is sexually active in the Tabaco shop are one of the comic scenes inserted from Imamura.
3. Different story narrative
How the story goes and the ending is different from the book. Firstly, while the whole story of the book is about the days after the bomb dropped in Hiroshima and many descriptions of those people dead, the film has this part only in the beginning and the rest is almost all about present life which is five years after. The film has more focus on the Yasuko’s life and her marriage. Both of them use diary as a device to tell the story that what happened in Hiroshima on the 6th of August in 1945, however, the portion that diary comprise in the story is different.
Secondly, though the book clearly mentions that Yasuko is likely to die, the film leaves the audience question that whether if she is going to die or not. This can be seen by this line
「どうせ叶わぬことと分かっていても、重松は向うの山に目を移してそう占った。」
: So he told himself, with his eyes on the nearby hills, though he knew all the while it could never come true.
While the book illustrates many of the scenes by using colors such as white rainbow, dark purple iris, golden carp, the film is made in black and white. According to John and Naomi, this is because the producer emphasized on the death and alive as well as to represent the journal which is written by writing brush with black ink with white paper.
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/elmikamino/20091130/p2
References:
Ibuse, Masuji. (1969). Black Rain. Tokyo: Kodansha. (Trans. John Bester)
Broderick, M. (1991). Narrative Strategies of Undrstatement in Black Rain as a Novel and a Film. John, T. Dorsey. & Naomi, Matsuoka. (1996). Narrative Strategies of Understatement in Black Rain as a Novel and a Film. London: Kegan Paul International.
In: Dorsey, John T., Matsuoka Naomi. Hibakusha Cinema: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Nuclear Image in Japanese Film
Masuji, Ibuse. & Akatsuki, Kanbayashi. (1999). Ibuse masuji Kanbayashi Akatsuki Shu. Toko: Chikuma Shobo.
By Ai
