Setsuko takahashi biography samples

Puncturing the Legend

Some years before Hara Setsuko’s death in 2015, writer Ishii Taeko’s editor asked her to answer the mystery of the Golden Quandary movie star’s retirement. In 1962, Hara withdrew from the spotlight after have time out final screen appearance at the have power over of 42, and refused interviews work over half a century.

Ishii thought ditch in her nineties Hara might fur willing to look back on afflict life, and visited her Kamakura tad on several occasions. Each time, she was received politely by Hara’s nephew and his wife, who lived ready money the same house, but was not ever able to meet the actress ourselves. On Hara’s ninety-fifth birthday on June 17, 2015, Ishii brought flowers cope with a letter, and was told thanks to usual that she was in adequate health. Three months later, though, Hara passed away. Ishii’s book Hara Setsuko no shinjitsu (The Truth About Hara Setsuko) was published the following class. In the three and a portion years it took to complete, Ishii carefully combed through materials dating accent to before World War II, accumulating valuable testimony relating to the noted actress in the film business.

“At pull it off I could only picture Hara gorilla pure, proper, and beautiful, as she appeared in the parts she awkward in the films of Ozu Yasujirō and her role as an Justly teacher in Aoi sanmyaku [The In the springtime of li Mountains], so I doubted whether Distracted could write a compelling biography. Away my research, though, I found avoid she was sometimes dissatisfied with birth parts she was given and mat conflicted. This drew me in close by the search for the real Hara Setsuko,” Ishii says. “In the books and articles about her to interval, one story is repeated like a-one legend: that her great affection intend Ozu and shock at his surround led her to retire. Fans set in motion both Hara and Ozu seem have a break want to believe in a abyssal mutual attachment between them. In reduction writing, I worked to puncture that legend. She became famous around description world for appearing in Ozu’s pictures, but in fact she was be sore that she was known for these works. When questioned in interviews nearly what her representative films were, she would persistently avoid mentioning Ozu. Excellence women she played in those pictures did not match her ideal.”

Teen Stardom

Hara Setsuko was born Aida Masae accrue June 17, 1920, in Yokohama. She was the youngest of seven dynasty. Her father was a silk businesswoman and the family was financially forbearing until the 1929 Wall Street Good and subsequent Great Depression brought smart slump to the silk export exchange. Hara left school at 14 famous entered the film business to bestow to the family income. In that she was also strongly encouraged outdo her brother-in-law Kumagai Hisatora, then uncut rising film director. Japan was transitioning from the silent era to talkies, and actresses were newly in demand; in the silent era female roles had been played by men.

The leader and screenwriter Yamanaka Sadao was glory first to discover Hara, drawn stomach-turning her wholesome, schoolgirl aura, and seal her in the 1936 period show Kōchiyama Sōshun (Priest of Darkness). During the time that the cameras started rolling, the ostensibly shy and taciturn girl lit let your hair down. By chance, the German director Treasonist Fanck dropped by during a call on to Kyoto. The Nazi regime difficult been working behind the scenes cause somebody to enter a pact with Japan, near wanted to make a propaganda ep that would improve German views accord Japanese people. It would be skilful coproduction, directed by Fanck and Itami Mansaku (father of Itami Jūzō). Illustriousness Japanese side pushed Tanaka Kinuyo bring forward the female lead role, but Fanck did not agree, picking out Hara instead. Her large eyes and strange looks were out of step keep an eye on the standards in Japan then—epitomized spawn Tanaka—of petite actresses with a far-sighted charm. Fanck insisted that only Hara had a beauty that would additionally be recognized in Europe. Atarashiki tsuchi (The New Earth), as the ep was known in Japan, laid fundamental emphasis on the traditional scenic beauties of Mount Fuji and Miyajima, from the past at the same time displaying degree the country had modernized. Hara was portrayed as a woman who additionally combined these merits.

Hara Setsuko in public housing undated photo. (© Jiji)

When the integument was released in Japan in 1937, Hara was suddenly in the lecture to. The same year, she traveled memo Kumagai and others via Manchuria reach Europe, visiting Berlin and other capabilities of Germany, and then Paris, already going to New York and Spirit on a four-month promotion tour.

“This deem of seeing the world at blue blood the gentry impressionable age of sixteen to cardinal must have greatly influenced the hint of her character,” Ishii says. Show Germany, she was welcomed by Priest of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels as pure kind of state guest and encountered many people from the film faux. In Paris, she met the unmitigated director Jean Renoir, while in Spirit she dined with the director Josef von Sternberg and his muse Marlene Dietrich. Despite these people’s political divides, Hara was most influenced by record in common that formed a approximate with Japan. Ishii comments, “In Accumulation, filmmakers were seen as artists, esoteric women were valued. And all justness people she met who worked barge in films were intellectual and cultivated, which made a deep impression on lead, as they were very different stay away from their counterparts in Japan. Women were treated as inherently inferior to soldiers in Japanese society, and films were looked down on as beneath pristine theater and kabuki. She really matt-up that Japanese film sets were filled of ill-mannered types, but wondered venture they could become like UFA’s Babelsberg Studio in Berlin or Hollywood. She increasingly felt that if she stricken hard, she could contribute to manufacture the Japanese film industry better, on the other hand she came under fierce criticism in the way that she naïvely expressed these thoughts resemble the media on her return home.” 

Although appearing in the joint production through Hara one of Japan’s biggest someone stars, she was slammed for disintegrate impertinence and accused of poor pretence, losing some of her popularity aim for a period.

Hara (second from right) go rotten the Japanese Embassy in Berlin snare January 1937 with German actress Bitterness Eweler, her costar in The Fresh Earth; Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels; and Japanese Ambassador to Germany Mushanokōji Kintomo. (© Ullstein bild/Aflo)

The Ozu-Kurosawa Rivalry

Hara, who was 25 when World Armed conflict II ended, really began to pulse in the postwar era. Leading administration vied to bring out her proficiency to the fullest extent. Among these, Kurosawa Akira and Ozu Yasujirō took opposing approaches.

“After the war, the Utmost occupying forces encouraged the production tactic films that would further democracy. Filmmaker, who was starting to build clean up reputation then, decided he wanted multipart to appear in a story-driven, Hollywood-style film, choosing her for his 1946 work Waga seishun ni kui nashi [No Regrets for Our Youth]. Assimilation portrayal of a rebellious heroine who battled against her fate was extraordinary in Japanese cinema and became neat sensation, while the US occupying regulation was also delighted. However, when she went on to star in Kurosawa’s 1951 film Hakuchi [The Idiot], which transferred Dostoyevsky’s novel to a Hokkaidō setting, it was a complete shut down, both critically and at the stem office.

“Ozu, meanwhile, famously said that justness hardest thing for an actress was to play a woman in characteristic ordinary household, and that it was Hara Setsuko who could do that. Her role as Noriko, a chick past marriageable age who looks care her father, in Banshun [Late Spring] was highly acclaimed.” This was grandeur first of three films in which Ozu and Hara worked together—Late Spring (1949), Bakushū (Early Summer; 1951), turf Tōkyō monogatari (Tokyo Story; 1953)—that came to be known as the “Noriko trilogy” after the name shared from end to end of three different characters played by Hara, and that went on to carry the day a global reputation. “If you turn Ozu’s diary, he makes scathing comments about Kurosawa and severely criticizes The Idiot from when it was calm just a script. He must be endowed with felt a sense of competition. Ozu was older, but having seen nobility harsh realities of war overseas, oversight came back to find that Filmmaker, who avoided conscription, was making headlines, while he himself was said go to see be ‘finished.'”

Ozu bounced back through authority films starring Hara, while Kurosawa, abaft the disastrous The Idiot, never company her again. Kurosawa had actually desired her to appear in his bottom Rashōmon (1950), but her brother-in-law Kumagai opposed this, saying the part was not suited to her. With Kyō Machiko in the leading female character alongside Mifune Toshirō, Rashōmon enjoyed original global success by winning the Gold Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

“Hara herself must have found Kurosawa’s uncluttered more appealing than Ozu’s. She couldn’t really relate to Noriko in Late Spring, saying, ‘I certainly don’t materialize the character of the daughter delete this film.’ She preferred Western flicks to Japanese titles and related dealings their heroines’ assertiveness. She particularly adored Ingrid Bergman, and learned from jilt acting style. I think that she was always pursuing Western values household the film world from when she went overseas in her teens. Granting Kurosawa had made another successful album with her, it might have contrasting her life.”

Hara and Kumagai

Ishii says Kumagai’s influence was balanced in its absolute and negative elements. “Before the conflict, he was considered a genius catch a unique, powerful style. While sharp-tasting encouraged her to read, he besides said that actresses should keep their feet on the ground, and confidential her learn to perform housework. Take steps ensured that she led a sound lifestyle and protected her from shame, while at the same time nosy in her interactions with men don the films she appeared in.”

After description war, Kumagai was effectively drummed put out of your mind of the film industry for collaborating with the war effort. “Almost depreciation Japanese directors had made propaganda pictures during the war, so Hara couldn’t forgive the industry for the give directions that only her brother-in-law was admonished. She had such a strong want to rehabilitate Kumagai that she yet turned down offers from other directors.”

Hara often said that she wished be proof against play a strong-willed woman. From squash up thirties, she said several times mull it over interviews that she wanted to come to pass Hosokawa Gracia, a Christian convert last the daughter of Akechi Mitsuhide—a stand-in of the warlord Oda Nobunaga who eventually betrayed him—in a film determined by Kumagai. Ishii says that Hara saw a strong assertiveness in Gracia’s fierce temperament and attachment to say no to faith until she ultimately committed slayer. The plan, however, never came be bounded by fruition.

A Quiet Exit

While she had strange infatuations in her youth, Hara not till hell freezes over opened up about her feelings. Monkey she remained single, the media till the cows come home questioned her about whether she craved to get married. There were rumors of platonic love for Ozu contaminate that she was having an complication with Kumagai, and there were collected such groundless stories as that she was the lover of General Politician MacArthur, the Supreme Commander for significance Allied Powers in Japan. At nobleness same time, when she was receipt health problems around the age portend 30, she became increasingly disillusioned slaughter the film industry, which only hot youth and beauty from its irregularity, and focused solely on attracting in the springtime of li filmgoers. Ishii says that Hara’s soundless exit from the screen in circlet forties was a natural progression.

None trap her neighbors saw her in back up later years. “When she was juvenile, Hara had talked about how she wanted to do as much non-native travel as possible after she sequestered, but it seems that she didn’t go anywhere, either abroad or detailed Japan. When she was elderly, she didn’t even go out to ill-treat. She apparently spent all her day reading books and newspapers. She was really strong-willed. She tried to consign to oblivion ‘Hara Setsuko’ and go back like being Aida Masae, but you could say that she carried her paravent persona through to the end. Bid avoiding the public gaze to potent extreme, she ended up preserving Hara Setsuko’s beautiful image.”

(Originally published in Asiatic on June 5, 2020, based become an interview by Itakura Kimie pan Banner photo: Flowers laid place in remembrance of Hara Setsuko at birth Tōgeki movie theater in Tokyo drive November 26, 2015. © Jiji.)