TCM Schedule for Thursday, August 19, 2021 -- Summer Under the Stars: Setsuko Hara

Today's Star is an actress I have never heard of -- Setsuko Hara. From her IMDB mini-bio:

Setsuko Hara became one of Japan's best-loved stars over her 30-year film career. Her signature character type, variations on a daughter devoted to her parents and home, inspired the nickname that stayed with her until retirement: the Eternal Virgin. To some extent, reality mirrored her roles in these films. In a society that considers marriage and parenting almost obligatory, she remained single and childless, something of a controversy in Japan in the 1950s. Fortunately she was popular enough to avoid criticism, but the 1950s were still a hard decade. She was plagued by ill health, missing out on several top roles as a result, and she witnessed the death of her camera-man brother in a freak train accident on set.

In 1963, shortly after the death of her mentor, director Yasujirô Ozu, she suddenly walked away from the film industry. At age 43, and at the height of her popularity, she bluntly refused to perform again, angering her fans, the industry, and the press. She implied acting had never been a pleasure and that she had only pursued a career in order to provide for her large family; this explanation is seen as the cause of her popularity backlash. She moved to a small house in picturesque Kamakura where she remained, living alone (though apparently sociable with friends), and refusing all roles offered.

She is undoubtedly known mostly for her work with Yasujiro Ozu, making six films with the great director, including the so-called Noriko trilogy, of which Tokyo Story (1953) is probably the best-known. She also worked with Akira Kurosawa, Mikio Naruse, Hiroshi Inagaki, and many others.

Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- Here's to the Young Lady (1949)
Comedy
No Description available
Director: Keisuke Kinoshita
Cast: Shûji Sano, Setsuko Hara, Sugisaku Aoyama


7:45 AM -- No Regrets for Youth (1946)
1h 50m | Drama | TV-PG
A woman flees society after seeing her father and lover destroyed by government oppression.
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Cast: Denjiro Okochi, Eiko Miyoshi, Setsuko Hara

Filming in 1946, just after the war, many of the cast and crew were living very poor lives, going hungry quite often. One of the actors recalled a personal story of his stomach growling during filming, causing the scene to have to be shot again.


9:45 AM -- Repast (1951)
1h 37m | Adaptation
No Description available
Director: Mikio Naruse
Cast: Yasunari Kawabata, Masao Tamai, Yukiko Shimazaki

This film revived the shomingeki sub-genre in which lower middle class and struggling families are depicted.


11:30 AM -- Sound of the Mountain (1954)
1h 36m | Drama
A businessman investigates the sources of his children's unhappiness.
Director: Mikio Naruse
Cast: So Yamamura, Setsuko Hara, Ken Uehara

The same cinematography crew shot the original Godzilla that same year. Masao Tamai was one of Toho's top cinematographers and shot all of Naruse's films in the 50s. Tamai only accepted the job on Godzilla on the condition that the rest of Naruse's crew was hired along with him and that he was given authority on that film's final look.


1:30 PM -- Late Autumn (1960)
2h 9m | Adaptation | TV-G
A widow tries to marry off her daughter with the help of her late husband's three friends.
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Cast: Setsuko Hara, Yoko Tsukasa, Mariko Okada

Official submission of Japan for the 'Best Foreign Language Film' category of the 33rd Academy Awards in 1961.


3:45 PM -- Early Autumn (1961)
1h 43m | Drama | TV-PG
A brewery manager tries to manage his daughter's affairs in the wake of his wife's death.
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Cast: Ganjiro Nakamura, Setsuko Hara, Yoko Tsukasa

This is Ozu's first and only film made at Toho studios. Setsuko Hara and Yôko Tsukasa were under contract at Toho and in order for Ozu to cast them in his prior film Late Autumn (1960), he agreed to make a film for Toho in exchange.


5:30 PM -- Tokyo Twilight (1957)
2h 21m | Drama | TV-MA
Two sisters reunite with the mother they thought dead.
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Cast: Setsuko Hara, Ineko Arima, Chishu Ryu

This film is included in the "Eclipse 3: Late Ozu" box set, which is part of the Criterion Collection.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: SUMMER UNDER THE STARS -- SETSUKO HARA



8:00 PM -- Late Spring (1949)
1h 47m | Drama | TV-G
A spinster makes a change in her life with the help of her sister.
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Cast: Setsuko Hara, Jun Osami, Haruko Sugimura

Most of the movie takes place in Kita-Kamakura, about 30 miles from downtown Tokyo. Several years after the release of the film, the director, 'Yasujiro Ozu', moved with his mother to the area and spent the rest of his life there. (His tomb is also located there.) Furthermore, the film's star, Setsuko Hara, also eventually moved to the area and, as of May 2013, reportedly still lived there under her birth name, Masae Aida, until her death in 2015.


10:00 PM -- Bakushu (1951)
2h 5m | Drama | TV-G
A family chooses a match for their 28-year-old daughter, but she has her own plans.
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Cast: Setsuko Hara, Chishu Ryu, Chikage Awashima

According to Ozu, the concept of this film required an unusual approach to story and plot structure. As he wrote, "I wanted in this picture to show a life cycle. I wanted to depict mutability (rinne). I was not interested in action for its own sake. And I've never worked so hard in my life... I didn't push the action at all, and the ending, in consequence, should leave the audience with a poignant aftertaste."


12:15 AM -- Tokyo Story (1953)
2h 19m | Drama | TV-PG
An aging couple visits their children in Tokyo only to find heartache and rejection.
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Cast: Chishu Ryu, Chieko Higashiyama, Setsuko Hara

Japanese critics for Kinema Junpo (Japan's oldest and most prestigious film magazine) ranked this film no.1 on their list of the greatest Japanese films ever made.


2:45 AM -- Hakuchi (1951)
2h 46m | Drama | TV-PG
A former mental patient's romantic involvements lead to tragedy.
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Cast: Setsuko Hara, Masayuki Mori, Toshiro Mifune

Akira Kurosawa in his autobiography describes this film - which was heavily edited from the director's original four-hour-and-twenty-six-minute version, by order of the studio, Shochiku - as "ruinous" to his career. Upon release, reviews of this film in the Japanese press were, according to Kurosawa, universally "scathing." ("It was as if [the reviews] were a mirror reflection of the studio's attitude toward me," he writes.) Not surprisingly, therefore, in the annual Kinema Junpo critics' poll for films released in 1951, The Idiot (1951) appears way down in the list, ranked at #18. Of all twenty five Japanese-language films that Kurosawa released from the end of the Second World War to the end of his career, this film is the only one that failed to place within the "Best Ten" list of films in the Kinema Junpo poll of its release year. In fact, it has been claimed that only the immense popularity of the film's star, Setsuko Hara, prevented the film from being a complete commercial disaster.