Text | Aqua
August 27 this year marks the first anniversary of the death of director Zenzo Matsuyama. Shozo Matsuyama is not particularly famous as a director, he entered Shochiku at the same time as Kiyoshi Suzuki and Yasushi Nakahira, worked with Keisuke Kinoshita, and wrote scripts for masterpieces such as "Conditions on Earth" (directed by Masaki Kobayashi) and "Proof of the World" (directed by Junya Sato), but the most widely known achievement in his life was to marry Hideko Takayama, a Japanese national treasure actress.
Hideko Takayama
Hideko Takayama began acting at the age of 5, and at that time showed amazing acting talent, known as "Japan's Shulan Temple". Her acting experience spanned the pre-war and post-war periods, and she played a stripper and a country teacher, changing freely from role to role; she was the no. 1 royal daughter of Keisuke Kinoshita and Yoshio Naruse, and she won numerous awards in her acting career and contributed countless masterpieces to film history.
But in fact, Gao Feng Xiuzi is not proud of this, whether it is the trophies she has won or the letters from movie fans, all of which she threw into the trash can. The reason why she has such complex and contradictory feelings about the identity of "actor" is not unrelated to her growth experience.
The family environment of Hideko Gao's childhood was very complicated. Hideko's old surname is Hirayama, her father has a sister who has not had children since marriage, and when Hideko was still in her womb, the aunt said that she would adopt Hideko as an adopted daughter in the future. When Hideko was 4 years old, her biological mother died of tuberculosis, so Hideko was passed on to her aunt and left Hokkaido to live in Tokyo.
An experience of visiting the set by chance, let Xiuzi knock on the door of the film industry, but unexpectedly, when she became a child star, she actually became a cash cow in the eyes of her adoptive mother and relatives, and the living expenses of the 9 members of the adoptive mother's father's family were all earned by Xiuzi alone, and acting was not fun for her, just a hard labor that could not be escaped.
When children of the same age went to school, played, and made friends, Gao Feng Xiuzi did not even finish primary school because of the full schedule of work, which made her regret for life. Seeking a life in the adult world, Gao Feng Xiuzi, who is accustomed to hypocrisy and flattery, has developed a cold personality of keeping a distance from people from an early age, not pleasing things and not taking pity on themselves.
The show business has always had the saying that "the more famous the child star, the more difficult it is to become a great instrument". However, Hideko Gao broke this iron law and has been active in the audience's sight without interruption since she was 5 years old. At the age of 25, she filmed the movie "Kanyasu Ginza" and sang the theme song, which sold 420,000 copies, and the genius child star at that time grew into a national idol in the eyes of the Japanese.
In her later years, however, Hideko Takayama referred to herself in her autobiography as "a doll who must always act with a bright and sweet smile and entertain the public." At a young age, Hideko Gao, who carries her family's livelihood, knows that actresses are a business that sells beautiful images, so she has to hide her true self deeply. At the same time, her adoptive mother squandered the money she earned, no matter how hard she worked, she was not able to fill the bottomless expenses of the family.
Hideko Takayama once said that the most important thing for an actor is to have a "heart that understands people's pain." Looking back on her upbringing, it is not difficult to feel that she knows too much about human suffering.
Before meeting Zenzo Matsuyama, Hideko Takayama had a failed first love for Akira Kurosawa when she was not yet famous. At that time, Hideko was only 16 years old and played the female lead in "Horse" directed by Kajiro Yamamoto; Akira Kurosawa, 30, was the assistant director of the film, three years before he made his debut film, "Zi Sanshiro".
"Horse" is filmed in a semi-documentary manner, the photography cycle is very long, Andeiko Takayama and Akira Kurosawa have mutual affection in the day and night, and gradually become a couple recognized by the crew. However, this love affair was strongly opposed by Xiuzi's adoptive mother, who was afraid that once Xiuzi got married, the family would lose the cash cow, so she tried her best to break the two apart. The girl Hideko's first love ended like this, perhaps because of such a past, Hideko did not appear in Akira Kurosawa's movie once in her life.
Later, when Hideko finally entered the marriage hall, she was 30 years old, and the other party was an unknown young director Zenzo Matsuyama, and the huge gap in status between the two also attracted media discussion for a while. The encounter between the two began with Hideko Takayama taking over Keisuke Kinoshita's Twenty-Four Eyes, a lyrical and reflective film that later became Hideko's masterpiece.
Zenzo Matsuyama was an assistant director at the time, and fell in love with Hideko Takayama at first sight. Seeing that the film was about to be finished, the simple and wooden Matsuyama consulted with director Kinoshita, hoping that he could convey his intentions to Hideko on his behalf. Director Kinoshita was reluctant at first, thinking that a poor boy would definitely have no drama to pursue female stars, but because of the love, he still told Takashi Hideko matsuyama's thoughts, and asked Hideko not to go to his heart while talking, as if Matsuyama was talking nonsense. Surprisingly, Hideko Takayama replied seriously, "No, please allow me to associate with him."
Twenty-Four Eyes (1954)
Not long after the relationship, Matsuyama proposed to Hideko. It is said that when faced with a marriage proposal, Hideko only asked one sentence: "Is it really good to marry an idiot like me?" This is not false, Gao Feng Xiuzi, who had not been to elementary school, at that time, even the nine-nine multiplication table could not be memorized, and did not know how to check the dictionary, everything was slowly taught to her by Matsuyama after marriage.
Keisuke Kinoshita wanted the two to marry in a beautiful way, so he called the media for a press conference (this was only the case when the royals announced their marriages), at which Matsuyama made a promise: "Even if I move bricks, I will support her." At that time, the media all bet that such an unworthy marriage was as short as three months and could not last for three years at the longest. But three years have passed, thirty years have passed, and they are still together until death separates them.
Matsuyama Zenzo Yotakamine Hideko
For Hideko, who has been out of touch with the trajectory of ordinary people's lives since she can remember, "ordinary life" is the most precious gift that Matsuyama Zenzo gave her. Due to her special upbringing, Hideko often has a "cold eye" for people and things, and Matsuyama is the only object she can open her heart to. That is the other side of actress Hideko Gao, who cannot be easily shown to the public.
For example, Hideko Gaofeng never watches the movies she has made, and she always says lightly that "after acting, she has acted". The film "Floating Clouds" is considered to be the highest masterpiece of directors' film careers, Akio Naruse and Hideko Takayama, but It took Hideko 45 years to watch the finished film of "Floating Clouds" for the first time, and it was also recorded on television by her adopted daughter for her to watch. After watching it, her adopted daughter asked her how she felt, and she replied, "It's a good movie." Miss Gao Feng acted well." As if for her, the actor Hideko Gao has nothing to do with her.
Floating Clouds (1955)
For example, Gao Feng Xiuzi is actually a person with a bit of a boyish personality, and often has informalities. Although she is good at cooking and has come up with recipes, if she eats alone, she will cook some ramen in a small pot and eat the noodles in the pot.
Another example is that she learned to smoke at the age of 22 for the film "Love よ星と共に", and has been able to smoke ever since. At the age of 86, Hideko Gaofeng passed away, and the cause of death was lung cancer.
Unlike some actors who regard filmmaking as a noble art, for Hideko Gao, acting is nothing more than a family-supporting craft. She felt that actress was a profession full of vanity and narcissism, and how many times she wanted to leave the industry but failed, so she could only ask herself to do the job with a clear conscience. If she hadn't been forced to take over the role by her adoptive mother at a young age, she might have had a carefree childhood and an ordinary life, but the history of Japanese cinema would have lost one of the greatest actresses.
The only thing that can comfort fans is a sentence she said to film critic Saburo Kawamoto : "I am very happy to work with the best directors in the best time of Japanese cinema."