Background
Setsuko Наrа was born on 17 June 1920 in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan.
Setsuko Наrа was born on 17 June 1920 in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan.
She was discovered in 1935 and cast in a German-Japanese venture, The New Earth, Mansaku Itami, and Arnold Fanck). By the time Japan entered the war, she was a star and the perfect war-movie heroine in such films as The Suicide Troops of the Watchtower (Tadashi Imai) and Toward the Decisive Battle in the Sky (Kunio Watanabe). When the war ended, she made two important movies: Kurosawa’s No Regrets for Our Youth, in which she is a politically committed idealist who embraces the life of her peasant in-laws, clawing away implacably in the fields; and Kozaburo Yoshimuras Ball at the House of Anjo, a Chekhovian drama of an upper-class family down on its luck in the postwar world—and the critics’ best picture of the year.
She made one movie with Kinoshita, A Toast to the Young Miss; and four with Naruse—his comeback film, about a failing marriage. Repast; Sounds from the Mountains, Sudden Rain, and Daughters, Wives, and Mothers. And there was a second (misguided) film with Kurosawa, The Idiot, in which she was cast against type. But it was her work with Ozu that dominated.
Their best-known film in the West is Tokyo Story, in which she is the widowed daughter-in-law of the old couple who comes to Tokyo to visit their children—the emblem of feminine duty and love, redeemed from sentimentality by her grave understanding and acceptance of the sadness life brings. In 1949, she had been the daughter in Late Spring, content to live on with her widower father until he realizes that she must marry—that fife must go on—and gently tricks her into abandoning him. Remarkably, only eleven years later Ozu remade tins film as Late Autumn, this time casting Kara as the sacrificing parent, a widow who maneuvers her daughter into marriage. Together, the films justify Ozus belief in the continuities of life. Their other films together were Early Summer; the uncharacteristically melodramatic Tokyo Twilight; and The End of Summer.
A Toast to the Young Miss
1949Sounds from the Mountains
1954Daughters, Wives and Mothers
1960The End of Summer
1961The two things said about Setsuko Наrа are that she was Ozus favorite actress and the Garbo of Japan. Certainly, she was Ozu’s favorite—she appeared in six films for him between 1949 and 1961, and they were close offscreen as well. And, like Garbo, she retired at the height of her popularity: in 1962, she announced that she had never enjoyed making films and secluded herself in an elegant suburb of Tokyo. She is still there, spending time with family and school friends and remaining an object of curiosity and affection for the public. Like Garbo, Нага came to represent an ideal of womanliness, nobility, and generosity.
Less versatile than Kinuyo Tanaka, less erotic than Machiko Kvo, less provocative than Hideko Takamine, Hara, with her long face, broad shoulders, and sorrowful eyes, her outward modesty, and inner strength, stands as the epitome of Japanese womanhood.
Quotes from others about the person
As Ozu said of her, “Every Japanese actor can play the role of a soldier and every Japanese actress can play the role of a prostitute to some extent. However, it is rare to find an actress who can play the role of a daughter from a good family.”