Setsuko Hara (whose real name was Aida
Masae) was not only one of the most famous actresses in Japanese film
history but also one of the few Japanese film stars who got
international fame. And this international fame actually began long
after she retired surprisingly from acting at the age of 43 right
after the death of Yasujiro Ozu. And with the late discovery of Ozu
in the western world, people began to be interested in Hara. There
were a lot of speculations about her sudden return to privacy. She
refused any interviews. The public person Setsuko Hara ceased to
exist. She worked not only with Ozu but as well with Mikio Naruse,
Akira Kurosawa and a lot of other more or less wellknown directors.
She got her first role at the age of 15 in tamerafu
nakare wakōdo yo (Don´t hesistate Young Folks), 1935 and
her breakthrough was in a
German-Japanese Co-production called Die Tochter des Samurai
(The Daughter Of the Samurai) by Arnold Fanck and Mansaku Itami. Even
though a star before World war 2, it was her collaboration with
Yasujiro Ozu, most of her admirers, myself included connected her.
Might her Noriko in Tokyo Monogatari be her most famous
performance, for my side her finest performance was the Noriko in
Bakushu from 1951. Just her 6 roles in films by Ozu from which
have seen most of them around 20 times enables me to the conclusion I
have never spent more time with an actress than Setsuko Hara. It is
not that Hara was the only great actress neither from Japan nor from
the Asian continent. But I can name hardly any perfect chemistry
between actress and director than Hara´s roles in Ozus films.
And she was by far more than a muse of
Ozu. One of the typical mistakes in the reception of Ozu´s film is
the interpretation of the roles by Chishu Ryu as Ozu´s “Alter
Ego”. While Chishu Ryu and especially in the post war films was in
Ozu´s films mostly a liberal father from the middle class. Most of
his appearances in Ozu´s films are an idealized father figure. It
was Setsuko Hara´s Noriko in these three masterpieces Banshun,
Bakushu and Tokyo
Monogatari. as the absolute family woman, the sister, the
daughter, the widowed sister or mother and once in Ozu´s darkest
film Tokyo Boshoku the wife who leaves her violent husband.
Especially the daughter who does not want to get married in Banshun
is probably the perfect female pendant to Ozu himself. The chemistry
between Ozu and Hara is best described with the wonderful Da Ponte
operas by Mozart which should be enjoyed with the best possible
vocalists.
Another for my side stupid cliche about
Setsuko Hara is that some people called her the “The Eternal Virgin
of Japan”. About her love life we know not much more than about the
love life of her Norikos in Ozu´s films. What we do not know does
not mean that it does not exist. Especially in the context to her
collaboration with Ozu whose films were often labelled as asexual
lead to fatal errors as well in the reception of Ozu´s films as in
Setsuko Hara´s roles in some of them. In fact Setsuko hara´s
characters are a bit like Albertine on Proust´s “Search for the
lost Times” and with androgynous, Ozu and Setsuko Hara´s performances
are much better described than asexual.
What is so special in a lot of Asian
and especially Japanese film stars if male or female is their
characters are not really bigger than life but just like life. That
goes especially for the Japanese shomingeki-film and Setsuko Hara is
an excellent example for an actress who got famous by playing every
day like characters. The list just among Japanese actors would be
very very long. Even the Italian Neorealism had still its stereotypes
in the relationship between the genders, the Asian and especially the
Japanese cinema was probably in its sensitivity in this relation the
most advanced on this planet. Like the legendary Chinese film star
Ruan Ling Yu (1910-1936) Setsulo Hara, Hideo Takamine, Chikage
Awashima and a lot more had first of all a strong screen presence.
They played unforgettable characters, every day like but very
complex. They are less objects of male desires like the films made
much later by the so-called Japanese New Wave and despite the
patriarchic Asian or Japanese Society at the time of the 1930s and
1950s these female presence and for example the presence of Setsuko
Hara´s characters are by nature nearly subversive. Setsuko Hara´s
retreat from acting goes with a historic caesura, the decline of the
second Golden Era of Japanese Cinema.
The most complex character in the films
by Ozu ever played by Setsuko Hara, was probably the Noriko in
Bakushu from 1951. This Noriko can be rebellious , can even
mock about the subordinate role expectation in women, but this Noriko
has as well a very strong will to go her own way.. The famous scene
with her sister in law on the beach of the ocean is probably one of
the most beautiful moments in Setsulo Hara´s career. When she put
of her shoes and walks on the beach, her more conservative sister in
law follows after hesitating a moment her example and for these
seconds these women seem to be free.
And at all it is again a very wrong
simplification to think Setsuko Hara played subordinate women. The
truth is her characters were moving on the very edge between
traditional women and the rising of a new self confidence to walk her
own path.
Her retirement from acting must have
been a kind of prevision that the era of cinema in which she grew
was close to its end, a few years after her retirement. After Ozu
two other masters of Japanese every day dramas passed away, Mikio
Naruse and Hiroshi Shimizu. Once established directors like Masaki
Kobayashi or Akira Kurosawa had their most difficult time to realize
their projects.
But there still traces of the glory of
these Japanese every day like heroines like Setsuko Hara, there is
for example Chieko Baisho, a kind of working class heroine mostly in
the films by Yoji Yamada, especially in the late 1960s and 1970s. If
there is an actress today in contemporary world cinema who has this
magic of a strong presence but without implying a “bigger than
life-character”, it is probably the Bengali Actress Konkona Sen
Sharma.
Setsuko Hara died on September 5, 2015
of pneumonia. Her death was reported more than two months later, on
Novermber 25. There were speculations about her life like for example
a possible romantic involvement with Yasujiro Ozu. If there were any
secrets about the life of Setsuko Hara, she who kept her privacy as
consistent like Greta Garbo did or like Terrence Malick still does,
Setsuko Hara passed away like one of the anonymous every day-like
characters she embodied so often and whom she gave in so much films
for some hours a bright presence.
Rüdiger Tomczak
