When Takashi Shimura rehearsed his singing of "Song of the Gondola," director Akira Kurosawa instructed him to "sing the song as if you are a stranger in a world where nobody believes you exist."
The song sung by Kanji Watanabe in the bar is called Gondola no Uta, "The Gondola Song." Written in 1915, it is a song about women and how they should find love before their time has run out.
The script was partly inspired by Lev Tolstoy's 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.
The literal translation of Ikiru is "To Live." The script's original title was "Watanabe Kanji no Shougai," which translates to "The Life of Kanji Watanabe," but this was changed at director Akira Kurosawa's suggestion, which co-screenwriters Hideo Oguni and Shinobu Hashimoto respectively supported and found pretentious.
Akira Kurosawa: [weather] Rain is present during the construction site scene. The swing scene, on the other hand, is calmly accompanied by snow.