By Donald Richie
Translation: Aliens
Proofreader: Wil Xiaoqin
This article was included in the Late Spring DVD, which was released with Critterion in 2006, and was originally published in April 2011.
Setsuko Hara is always inseparable from the image she portrays in Ozu Yasujiro's films, so she is often seen as a typical "Ozu girl", and people often overlook her other roles. In fact, her acting career is as colorful as other actresses.
Setsuko Hara was born in 1920. In 1935, he was introduced by his brother-in-law Kumagai Hisahu, who was the director, and entered the Nissho Co., Ltd. But it wasn't until she starred in the German-Japanese co-production of Shinto (1937) that she gradually came to prominence. In the film, she plays a japanese girl with a pure heart who tries to sacrifice herself to an active volcano (unsuccessful).
Heartland (1937)
She gradually became the typical female representative of Japan's crisis, playing poor victims in many wartime movies. It wasn't until Akira Kurosawa's first post-war film, I Have No Regrets about Youth, in which she appeared, that she showed independence and individuality, which almost became the mark of her image.
I Have No Regrets about Youth (1946)
In later films, such as Yoshimura's "Anjo Family's Ball" and Keisuke Kinoshita's "Big Miss Cheers", she created an optimistic and positive image of a "new" Japanese woman. At the same time, however, she also created the typical image of a Japanese woman who has long endured pressure from the male world.
Of the "women's films" she has participated in, the most prominent roles are the various women she played in Naruse's films; the most interesting roles are her role as the motherly sun goddess in Hiroshi Inagaki's film Birth of Japan.
The Birth of Japan (1959)
The collaboration between Setsuko Hara and Ozu began in 1949 and lasted until 1961– a 12-year partnership. Given the roles that director Ozu assigned to Setsuko Hara, it is possible that the differences in her acting career—those who express themselves and those with traditional family values—have inspired the characters she later played in Ozu's films.
In their first collaboration, Late Spring (1949), her role is undoubtedly the best interpretation of this dramatic conflict. She plays Noriko, a conflicted daughter who fears marriage and the adult world and prefers to continue to live with her father. The contradiction between the pressure from society and her own will forms the typical dilemma in which she finds herself, complex but interesting.
Late Spring (1949)
In Mai Qiu (1951), we see Noriko (Ozu and his royal screenwriter Takao Noda) in such films giving the same name to a series of characters played by Hara, making the connections between the characters obvious. Growing up and wanting to enter into a married life, even without the consent of the family, I have the courage to do so.
Mai Qiu (1951)
Compared with "Mai Qiu", Noriko in "Late Spring" is more conservative, and in "Mai Qiu", she began to focus on personal independence - but the contradictions still exist, which is also Ozu's interest. These contradictory emotions are accurately expressed by Hara's superb acting skills. Presumably Ozu's films would have been a little different without her.
Ozu himself said that writing a script without choosing a good actor is like painting without choosing a good paint. Hara, like the subtle shadows and bright highlights produced by the finest pigments, not only fit Ozu's "paintings", but also contributed to the characters that Ozu created.
In the next Ozu film Inotsu (1953), in which Hara appeared, She was widowed after marriage and did not have to do filial piety to her deceased husband's family at all— but she was the only descendant who still adhered to the tradition of filial piety to her parents. This contradiction between social responsibility and personal choice has once again been deeply expressed.
Tokyo Story (1953)
In Tokyo Twilight (1957), the heroine played by Setsuko Hara leaves her husband and once again becomes at odds with her social status. In the end, she is determined to return to the family and try to make up for the marriage.
In Autumn And (1960), Setsuko Hara transforms into a mother, and her daughter is reluctant to leave home to start her own family. Her daughter is like Noriko in "Late Spring", but now Thatki is older, she has taken on the role of a parent. She knows that her children will have their own lives sooner or later, so she insists on having them marry, even though it means great self-sacrifice for her.
Autumn And (1960)
In her last film with Ozu, The House of Hayakawa (1961), her character was a widowed daughter-in-law, as in Tokyo Story. This time, however, she wanted to remarry and insisted on choosing the partner of her choice. The contradiction between social pressures and individual choices continues.
Of course, it is absurd to simply and crudely reduce those delicate balances in Ozu's films to the opposition between social responsibility and personal choice (borrowing the opposing structure of righteousness and human feelings in the core of Kabuki and the early slash-and-slash samurai films). But at the same time, this structure reflects the theme of Ozu's film and the face of Hara's acting career.
In any case, "Kohayakawa House" announced the end of their cooperation. Two years later, Ozu passed away, and Setsuko Hara chose to take shadow. She was only 43 years old when she died, and this sudden decision did not seem to come as a warning.
The House of Kohayakawa (1961)
The company that used her as a golden sign would make all kinds of threats and inducements; film critics lamented infinitely; and some even denigrated her as "not like a woman" ("女らしくない", a great insult), and she still did not look back. She has her own reasons. She's no longer Hara Setsuko—she's Aida Masae. For many years, the well-known Hara on the screen was nothing more than the stage name given to her by the Film Corporation. Now, she says, she wants to return to herself.
She gave this "original festival" reason very "originally", first a little hesitant, and then with a smile to break all doubts, but this is a "original festival performance" that is not appreciated. For the first time since she left the film in 1935, she has been so violently attacked, not for the fact that she wants to retire, but for the way she expresses her desire to be in the shadow.
She didn't politely make up excuses such as health problems, mental needs, and running a charitable cause. She retired and moved to a small house in Kamakura (where she worked on many films), where she "evaporated".
The beloved Setsuko we know, the Japanese idol "Forever Virgin", can only exist on the screen now. The woman who moved to Kamakura was largely forgotten, and occasionally there would be curiosity about her life, but also in the minority.
In retrospect, her decision seemed justified. Noriko on the screen, who has been pulled by the social needs on one side and the personal will of the other side for so many years, finally has her own decision. She's going to do what she wants. She did the same.
Off the screen, all the attempts to lure her out of the mountains over the years have failed. She refused to appear when people made documentaries about Ozu, and likewise, she did not attend his funeral when Ozu died. Eventually, the original knot became the "original knot".
The author of this article, Donald Ritchie (1924-2013), has written several books on Japanese cinema, including Centennial Japanese Cinema, Akira Kurosawa's Film, and Ozu.