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Wow. Care to elaborate on her "total rejection of her movie world persona?"

Shortly after Ozu died, Hara abruptly retired (stating she had always hated acting, and had done it only because her family needed the money, and now she and they were financially secure) and resumed her original name Masae AIDA. She did not become a hermit, but rather lived the life of an ordinary (though very well to do) citizen in Kamakura, surrounded by protective neighbors. After her retirement news conference, she adamantly refused to have anything to do with her movie past (not only no interviews, but no further social contact with associates from her past career).

Michael Kerpan wrote:(not only no interviews, but no further social contact with associates from her past career).

I can well understand not wishing to do interviews, but breaking off "social contact" with people? I don't know much about her outside of appreciating her performances, but it seems as if she really did not enjoy her time in filmmaking.

Most of Hara's colleagues were leftists (of one sort of another) and, insofar as she was political at all, she appears to have been decidedly right wing. This would have made it easier to cast off her former movie colleagues, I suspect. But I think one does have to assume that she, in fact, did not much like acting. Her shyness and discomfort is almost palpable in the earliest films I've seen her in (Kochiyama Soshun and The Samurai's Daughter/The New Earth). I suspect she found it easier to act for Ozu than for anyone else, because he did not push her pretend to be something she was not -- but neither did he force her to (expressly) reveal anything about her inner self that she did not wish to reveal.

otis wrote:Guardian obit for Hara

A number of inaccuracies in this, I think.

Michael Kerpan wrote:

otis wrote:Guardian obit for Hara

A number of inaccuracies in this, I think.

I just skimmed it, to be honest. What are the inaccuracies?

Among other things ...

Hara is not a single woman in all of her Ozu films. She is s a deeply unhappy married woman in Tokyo Twilight.

The description of Samurai's Daughter/New Earth is pretty weird.

Kurosawa's No Regrets did not make Hara a star. She was already a star, but one with a somewhat damaged reputation (due to her involvement with some especially extreme propaganda films made towards the end of the war). No Regrets did give her some essential post-war "liberal" bona fides..

She did not really become a superstar until 1949-50 -- with Kinoshita's Cheers to the Young Ladies, Tadashi Imai's Blue Mountains and Ozu's Late Spring. This was when she got her first awards.

Hara did not first play a non-serene (frightening or "bad)" woman in The Idiot -- she had already portrayed a smuggling/pirate gang moll in the 1948 Woman of the Typhoon Region and a totally unhinged firebrand (albeit, supposedly a good thing at that point) in a 1945 war propaganda film.

He fails to note that in 2 of her 4 Naruse films, Hara actually handles roles that involved a fair amount of humor (even if she usually maintained a poker face). He also misses the fact that her character in Late Spring spent a fair amount of the film annoyed/angry -- rather than serenely smiling.

At least they spelled her name right!

Criterion Collection:

Our tribute to the heartbreaking, life-affirming actress Setsuko Hara: http://ow.ly/V4SF0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Eldar Ryazanov, 'Soviet comedy film giant'.

Mosfilm put several of his movies on YouTube with English subtitles, for anyone interested. I've been meaning to watch Beware of the Car for ages (mostly because I adore Andrei Petrov's music from it so much) so maybe this is a good time.

Anthony Valentine.

I've always thought Valentine was a really interesting actor.

In Colditz, as the sadistic officer, he had a strange quirk of looking like
a little boy about to cry every time his character was insulted or threatened.

And in his portrayal of Raffles, despite the character's flippant, devil-may-care
attitude, he always seemed to inject a slight undercurrent of menace which
provided a really good tension.

Manga master Shigeru Mizuki
https://www.drawnandquarterly.com/blog/ ... -1922-2015" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Early news coming in that former Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland has passed away.

A list of Polish film people who have recently died.

Most of these will be unknown outside Poland, and the big names such as Tadeusz Konwicki, Krzysztof Krauze and Marcin Wrona have been mentioned in this thread already (those links lead directly to the mentions in question), but it's a useful round-up.

flyonthewall2983 wrote:Early news coming in that former Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland has passed away.

If true, I can't really say that's a surprise.

Fred Holywell wrote:Gabriele Ferzetti

I'm torn on which role to admire Ferzetti for the most - most probably Sandro spilling ink, spending money and making love in L'Avventura. But his disabled railway baron Morton in Once Upon A Time In The West is also a great character, acting as the brains behind the hired killers and using his own train as a kind of giant technological crutch. There are a couple of fantastic menacing conversations with Henry Fonda's character as the power shifts back and forth between them, and eventually Morton gets a brilliant death sequence to befit his name as he tries to painfully crawl away from Frank through pools of mud, now suddenly being outside of his train for the first time in the film.

Ferzetti's also in The Night Porter as the head of the group of ex-Nazis doing 'therapeutic' interview panels in order to tie up loose ends from the war. And he plays Draco, the father of Diana Rigg's character in On Her Majesty's Secret Service!

Yeah, he'll always be James Bond's father-in-law to me.

Where's John Francis Lane with his Ferzetti obit?...