Sachiko Hidari

Sachiko Hidari, 1952

Sachiko Hidari ( Japanese 左 幸 子 ), Hidari Sachiko ; Born June 29, 1930 in Asahi , Shimoniikawa-gun , Toyama Prefecture ; † November 7, 2001 in Tokyo ; actually Sachiko Nukamura ( 額 村 幸 子 , Nukamura Sachiko ) was a Japanese theater and film actress and director . In her film career she has acted in over 30 feature films of all genres, mainly in dramas. She became known to a wide audience through her leading roles in Susumu Hanis Sie und Er and Shōhei Imamura's Das insect woman (both 1964).

Life

Sachiko Hidari was born as Sachiko Nukamura in 1930 in Toyama Prefecture on the Sea of ​​Japan . She was the oldest daughter of an antique dealer and had seven other siblings. Hidari attended after high school in Tokyo , the Tokyo Women's Physical Education College and trained as a teacher. She worked as a physical education and music teacher at a Tokyo high school before developing an interest in acting and joining a theater company. In the early 1950s she began to appear as a film actress and had first major roles in Heinosuke Gosho's An Inn at Osaka and The Cock Crows Again . For her supporting roles in Masahiro Makino's Jinsei tonbō gaeri and Seiji Hisamatsu's drama Ofukuro , she won the 1956 Mainichi Eiga Concours .

An international audience was Hidari first time in 1957 by the renewed collaboration with Seiji Hisamatsu of The Crime of Shiro Kamisaka (1956) known for her Best Actor Award at the film festival in the Irish Cork received. Other film roles in award-winning works such as Yūzō Kawashima's comedy Bakumatsu taiyoden (1957), in which she took on the role of a prostitute, or Tadashi Imai's Mahiru no ankoku (1956) followed. At the end of the 1950s she found private happiness with Susumu Hani . Although the director of the “Japanese Nouvelle Vague ” relied more and more on amateur actors in his films, he also entrusted his experienced wife with roles in his works. Hidari was granted great international success in 1964 when she interpreted the leading roles in Susumu Hanis and Shōhei Imamura, socially critical directorial work You and He and Das Insektenweib , respectively . In Hani's drama, Hidari can be seen as a well-to-do wife and resident of a comfortable Tokyo high-rise estate. She is touched by the fate of the rag collectors in the immediate vicinity and takes care of the poor residents against the will of her husband (played by Eiji Okada ). Imamura, on the other hand, staged Hidari in the life story of an exploited peasant girl, which covers a period from 1918 to 1962. Tome, a single mother, makes ends meet in Tokyo as a factory worker, cleaning lady and prostitute, before becoming the operator of a call girl ring and union spokeswoman herself . In the end, the country girl ends up in prison and finds that she remains dependent on men.

In the same year, both films were invited to the competition at the 14th Berlin Film Festival , where Hidari was the first Asian actress to be awarded the Silver Bear for best actress at the film festival. For the portraits of Naoko and Tome, the competition jury led by American director Anthony Mann preferred the 34-year-old to well-known actors such as the Italian Claudia Cardinale ( two days and two nights ) or the American Kim Novak (the bondage of the people ) . In the same year, Hidari was honored with the most important Japanese film awards Blue Ribbon , Kinema-Jumpō and Mainichi Eiga Concours for he and she and Das Insektenweib . In the following decades she remained active as a film actress and also often appeared in Japanese television and documentaries. After separating from her husband, the Japanese moved briefly to directing and producing in the 1970s. If she was already involved in the compilation film Faire l'amour - Emmanuelle et ses soeurs (1971), she made her feature film debut with Die ferne Straße , in which she incorporated elements of Japanese and Western film technology and also took on one of the leading roles. The drama, which spans a period of three decades, follows the life of a railway worker woman in northern post-war Japan. The distant road was represented in 1978 in the competition for the Golden Bear at the 28th Berlin Film Festival . In the same year the film was included in the New Directors / New Films series of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and shown. Janet Maslin , film critic for the New York Times, praised Hidari as an obvious hope of directing whose talent would be more impressive than the material in the film she was focusing on.

From 1959 until the divorce in 1977, Hidari was married to the film director Susumu Hani . The relationship resulted in their daughter Mio Hani , born in 1964 , who was to make a name for herself as an essayist and director. Hidari's sister Tokie Hidari (* 1947), who is 17 years his junior , also switched to acting as a child.

In the mid-1980s, the Japanese actress had to have part of her stomach removed after being diagnosed with cancer. In 1991 she celebrated her comeback as a theater actress on the Japanese stage. In 2001, Hidari died of cancer at the Tokyo National Cancer Center, aged 71. In 2002 she was posthumously awarded an honorary prize for her life's work as part of the Mainichi Eiga Concours.

Filmography

Actress (selection)

• 1955: Jinsei Tombō gaeri
• 1955: Ofukuru
• 1956: Kamisaka Shirō no Hanzai (Engl. The Crime of Shiro Kamisaka )
• 1957: Bakumatsu Taiyoden ( Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate )
• 1960: Jokyo
• 1963: She and He ( 彼女 と 彼 , Kanojo to kare )
• 1963: The Insect Woman ( に っ ぽ ん 昆虫 記 , Nippon konchuki )
• 1965: Kiga Kaikyo ( A Fugitive from the Past )
• 1967: Onna no Issho
• 1972: Under the banner of the rising sun ( Gunki hatameku motoni )
• 1978: Sonezaki Shinjū (English Double Suicide of Sonezaki )
• 1985: Mishima - A Life in Four Chapters (English Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters )

Director

• 1971: Faire l'amour - Emmanuelle et ses soeurs (compilation film)
• 1977: The Distant Road ( Toi ippon no michi )

Awards

Japanese Academy Award

• 1979: Nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Sonezaki shinju

Further

Berlin International Film Festival

• 1964: Best actress for you and him and Das Insektenweib

Blue Ribbon Award

• 1964: Best leading actress for you and him and Das Insektenweib

Cork Film Festival

• 1957: Best Actress for The Crime of Shiro Kamisaka

Kinema Jumpō Prize

• 1964: Best actress for you and him and Das Insektenweib

Mainichi Eiga Concours

• 1956: Best supporting actress for Ofukuro and Jinsei tonbô gaeri
• 1964: Best leading actress for you and him and Das Insektenweib
• 1966: Best Actress for Kiga kaikyo
• 1968: Best Supporting Actress for Onna no issho
• 2002: Honorary award for her life's work

Web links

• Obituary at nikkansports.com, November 2001 (Japanese)
• Sachiko Hidari in the All Movie Guide (English)
• Sachiko Hidari in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} cf. LIFE - Family leaves him all alone with antiques . In: Asahi Shimbun / Asahi Evening News, October 17, 1998, News
2. ↑ ^{a b} cf. Obituary ( Memento of the original from December 13, 2001 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at nikkansports.com, November 2001 (Japanese; accessed October 19, 2008) 
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} cf. Veteran actress Hidari dies at 71 . Japan Economic Newswire, Nov. 10, 2001, International News
4. ↑ ^{a b} cf. Maslin, Janet: 'Far Road,' Japan Film, At Museum . In: The New York Times, April 17, 1978.
5. ↑ cf. Japanese actress Hidari dead . Agence France-Presse , November 10, 2001, International News, Tokyo