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Eight years after her death and six decades following her quiet retirement from the film world, Setsuko Hara arguably remains the best-known twentieth-century Japanese actress. Audiences worldwide remember her unique beauty (she was often suspected to be of partial European heritage)1 and the humane performances she gave in the films of Yasujiro Ozu. “Decidedly unglamorous,” wrote Stephen Harvey in a 1974 issue of Film Comment, “this least histrionic of actresses relied on little more than an irrepressible half smile and decorously hushed voice. Yet her performances are invariably so moving that no pyrotechnics were needed.” Cementing Hara’s status as a film icon was her premature disappearance from cinema screens in 1963 the year of Ozu’s death and not long after her swan song in Hiroshi Inagaki’s 1962 Chushingura. Per film historian Donald Richie, she withdrew from the public eye claiming to have never enjoyed acting,2 and secluded herself in Kamakura, south of Tokyo.

New yorkUnited statesSmithsonian institutionDistrict of columbiaNei mongolUnited kingdomTakako hitomi setsuko haraToshiro mifuneKen ueharaYasujiro ozuMark nornesMikio naruseKaneto shindoDonald richieJosephl andersonDavida akira