Eiji Okada

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Eiji Okada ( Japanese 岡田 英 次 , Okada Eiji ; born June 13, 1920 in Chiba , † September 14, 1995 in Tokyo ) was a Japanese theater and film actor. In his film career he acted in over 80 feature films of all genres, mainly in dramas. He became known to a wide audience through his leading roles in Alain Resnais ' Hiroshima, mon amour (1959) and Hiroshi Teshigahara's The Woman in the Dunes (1964).

Life

Eiji Okada was born in Chiba Prefecture, near Tokyo, in 1920. He attended the renowned Keiō University , where he studied economics . During World War II he served as an officer in the imperial army. After his release, he made a living as a street vendor and miner before developing an interest in acting. From 1946 to 1954, Okada was a member of Tomoyoshi Murayama's Shinkyo Geki-dan group as a theater actor , which was followed by further collaborations with the Geki-dan Seinen Haiyu Club , Gendaijin Gekijo and Gekidan Geki-kukan Kakuteru groups. Trained as a theater actor in the modern Shingeki style, he made his feature film debut in 1949 with Minoru Shibuya's Hana no sugao . A year later he became known to a broad Japanese audience as an honest and intelligent student in Tadashi Imai's romantic anti-war film Mata au hi made (1950). The long kiss he exchanged with his co-actress Yoshiko Kuga was considered a scandal in Okada's second film . Nevertheless, Imai's film was awarded the most important Japanese film prizes Blue Ribbon , Kinema-Jumpō and Mainichi Eiga Concours .

With his western appearance, the tall Okada shaped the image of the "silent philosopher" in post-war Japan, while Toshirō Mifune or Takashi Shimura successfully took on the role of the combat-ready samurai . Okada joined the left independent film movement around Satsuo Yamamoto and Tadashi Imai. He was soon considered a serious actor who was often used in films with socially critical undertones. After Mata au hi made , Imai also used it in the episode film Nigorie and the anti-war film The Tower of Lilies (both 1953), in which a Japanese class of girls goes to war against the USA as the last reserve.

Hiroshima movie poster , mon amour.

Okada first became known to an international audience through the male lead in Alain Resnais ' debut feature film Hiroshima, mon amour (1959). The drama, about the brief love encounter between a French film actress, played by Emmanuelle Riva , and a Japanese architect in Hiroshima , was a great success with audiences and critics, who praised Okada and Riva for their outstanding acting. Although the New York Times noted in its contemporary film review that the actor, as a confused and mysterious lover, with a strong Asian accent in French-language films, had been used in the apparently smaller role compared to Riva, the Japanese nonetheless brought characterization to the characters " Sublimity and understanding ” . Okada himself hardly spoke French, he had to dub his dialogue after filming in France and learned the text phonetically.

The success of Hiroshima, mon amour made Marlon Brando aware of Okada. Three years later, the Japanese starred in George Englund's production The Ugly American (1963) at the side of the well-known actor. In this, Okada plays a Southeast Asian people's leader who is supposed to be appeased by a new US ambassador and old friend from the war days, played by Marlon Brando, but who switches to the side of the rebellious communists. Considered too pessimistic and unspectacular for the general public, The Ugly American became Brando's fourth financial failure in a row and at the same time Okada's only Hollywood film.

In the same year, the Japanese drew attention to himself as the film husband of Sachiko Hidari in Susumu Hani's award-winning film Sie und Er (1963). In the drama he is seen as a well-to-do resident of a comfortable high-rise Tokyo estate who, unlike his wife, pays no attention to the barracks of the poor people in the immediate vicinity. Okada was again successful with the lead role in Hiroshi Teshigahara's The Woman in the Dunes (1964). The “existentialist parable” is about an entomologist who gets lost in a lonely dune landscape. Thereupon he is imprisoned by villagers in the poor hut of a widow at the bottom of a sand hole to share the hardship and loneliness of their lives. The woman in the dunes is still rated as a “film aesthetic avant-garde sensation” and in 1965 was nominated for an Oscar abroad .

Although over fifty other Japanese film productions were to follow in his career, including Keisuke Kinoshitas Koge (1964) and the renewed collaboration with Hiroshi Teshigahara on Tanin no kao (1966), Okada later concentrated increasingly on his work in the theater. Together with his wife Aiko Wada, he founded a theater group. With this he supported young actors and appeared in films by young directors. His last film works included Kaizo Hayashi's drama Stairway to the Distant Past (1995). Okada did not live to see the completion of Masako Matsuura's romantic film Secret Liaisons . He died of heart failure in a Tokyo hospital in 1995 at the age of 75. Described by the film critic Michihiro Kakii as a “pioneer of his generation” who gave the Japanese film a “modern, future-oriented face” of that time, Okada was buried in a private ceremony at his own request.

Filmography (selection)

  • 1949: Hana no sugao
  • 1950: Mata au hi made
  • 1951: Fusetsu ni ju-nen
  • 1952: The mother ( Okāsan )
  • 1953: The Tower of the Lilies ( Himeyuri no tō )
  • 1954: Horoki
  • 1954: Okuman choja
  • 1955: Koko ni izumi ari
  • 1955: Kao no nai otoko
  • 1956: Christ in bronze ( Seido no Kirisuto )
  • 1956–1957: Shonen tanteidan
  • 1957: Mitsuko - Story of a Young Love ( Jun'ai monogatari )
  • 1959: Hiroshima, mon amour ( Hiroshima mon amour )
  • 1963: You rififi à Tokyo
  • 1963: The Ugly American ( The Ugly American )
  • 1963: She and He ( Kanojo to kare )
  • 1964: The woman in the dunes ( Suna no onna )
  • 1964: Ghidrah - The Three-Headed Monster ( San daikaiju chikyu saidai no kessen )
  • 1964: The Scarlet Camellia ( Goben no tsubaki )
  • 1965: Judo Saga ( Sugata Sanshiro )
  • 1966: The Face of Another ( Tanin no kao )
  • 1967: Guila - Frankenstein's Devil's Egg ( Uchū daikaijū Girara )
  • 1967: Portrait of Chieko ( Chieko-sho )
  • 1968: Stormy Era ( Showa no inochi )
  • 1968: Tunnel to the Sun ( Chikadō no taiyō made )
  • 1969: Vixen ( Jotai )
  • 1969: Bullet Wound ( Dankon )
  • 1970: This Transient Life ( Mujo )
  • 1971: Yomigaeru daichi
  • 1973: Shin Zatōichi monogatari: Kasama no chimatsuri
  • 1976: Daichi no komoriuta
  • 1976: Paamenento bruu: Manatsu no koi
  • 1978: Lady Ogin ( Ogin-sama )
  • 1982: Ningyo Girai
  • 1983: Taro and Jiro in Antarctica ( Nankyoku monogatari )
  • 1983: Yogoreta Eiyu
  • 1989: Sen no Rikyu
  • 1995: Stairway to the Distant Past ( Harukana jidai no kaidan o )
  • 1995: Secret Liaisons ( Hito de nashi no koi )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e cf. Eiji Okada. In: James Vinson (Ed.): Actors and actresses. (The international dictionary of films and filmmakers, Volume 3). St. James Press, Chicago et al. 1992, ISBN 1-55862-039-7 , pp. 755-756.
  2. ↑ a b cf. Jean Michel Frodon: Eiji Okada: L'interprète d'Hiroshima mon amour. In: Le Monde . September 22, 1995.
  3. ↑ cf. Hiroshima, mon amour. In: film service . 18/1960.
  4. ↑ AH Weiler : Hiroshima, Mon Amour: French-Japanese film opens at Fine Arts. In: The New York Times. May 17, 1960.
  5. ^ Richard John Neupert: A history of the French new wave cinema. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin 2007, ISBN 978-0-299-21704-4 , p. 305.
  6. ^ A b Ronald Bergan: Obituary: Eiji Okada. In: The Guardian . September 29, 1995, p. 18.
  7. ↑ The Ugly American. In: The large TV feature film lexicon. (CD-ROM). Directmedia Publ., 2006, ISBN 3-89853-036-1 .
  8. ↑ The woman in the dunes. In: film service. 35/1966.
  9. ↑ Josef Nagel: The woman in the dunes. In: film service. 4/2008.
  10. ↑ Ronald Sullivan: Eiji Okada, 75, Japanese Co-Star of 'Hiroshima, Mon Amour'. In: The New York Times. October 5, 1995, p. 23.
  11. ↑ cf. Swiss dispatch agency : The actor Eiji Okada has died. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . September 26, 1995, p. 47.
  12. ^ Film actor Eiji Okada dies at 75. In: Japan Economic Newswire. Tokyo, September 14, 1995.
  13. ^ Actor Eiji Okada Dies at 75. In: Associated Press . October 5, 1995, International News.
personal data
SURNAME Okada, Eiji
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 岡田 英 次 (Japanese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese actor
DATE OF BIRTH June 13, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Chiba prefecture
DATE OF DEATH September 14, 1995
Place of death Tokyo