Hidari, Sachiko

The early years

Born in the countryside of Toyama Prefecture, Sachiko was the eldest daughter in a large family of an antique dealer ^[2] (she had three more brothers and three sisters) ^[1] . After graduating from high school in 1947 , the girl entered the Tokyo Women's College of Physical Education. After graduating from college in 1950 , Sachiko worked for some time as a music and physical education teacher at the 5th Tokyo Municipal High School ^{[1] [2]} . In 1951, appeared as a model on the pages of the first family edition of the popular Yomiuri ^[1] .

Movie career

- From childhood I loved to watch movies, but I never thought that I myself would play. By chance, through a common acquaintance, I was recommended to one filmmaker, - so the actress recalled her arrival in the cinema ^[3] .

The filmmaker to whom she was recommended was Hiromasa Nomura , a strong professional in genre cinema. Sachiko made her debut in one of the central roles of his film "Mistakes of Youth" ( 1952 ). The role of Asako in this film, performed by a young debutant, made a good impression on the studio management of SinToho and a contract was signed with the girl ^[4] . However, the young actress was so smart that she did not agree to a long-term contract, having signed an exclusive contract with the studio, leaving the right to shoot in other film companies. Sachiko Nakamura, from her first role changing her real name to Hidari, quickly achieved success, starring in such popular films of those years as " Source of Youth " directed by Nobuo Nakagawa ( 1953 , the role of Moёko) and " Hotel in Osaka " directed by Heinosuke Gosho ( 1954 , the role of Oyone).

In the second half of 1954, Hidari began to collaborate with the Nikkatsu film company, where she was invited by the famous actor and director So Yamamura to shoot in the film Black Stream set by him ( 1954 ). In 1956, the actress achieved recognition by receiving her first award - the Mainity Film Award ^[5] . Hidari was named the best supporting actress for her 1955 roles, played in the films Home Cooking (dir. Seiji Hisamatsu) and Life A Roll (dir. Masahiro Makino ). In the same year, 1956 received the first international award - the prize for best performance of a female role in the film “Crime of Shiro Kamisaki” at the film festival in the Irish city of Cork ^{[1] [2]} . The actress’s best achievements during her work at the Nikkatsu film company also recognized the role of the prostitute Osome in one of the best Japanese comedies “The Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate ” (directed by Yuzo Kawashima ) and the role of Keiko Midorikawa, the main character in Seijun Suzuki ’s film “ Spring ” of our mistakes ”( 1958 ) ^{[1] [2]} .

The participation of Hidari in films of the independent movement, such as work with the famous representative of this direction Tadashi Imai in the film “ Darkness Among the Day ” (1956), where she played the role of Kaneko, the wife of the hero who was innocently sentenced to death, led to a conflict between the actress and the bosses of the film company Nikkatsu. Loyal to the energetic post-war women, whom she constantly portrayed on the screen, Hidari herself showed a lot of personal courage, leaving Nikkatsu, one of the main studios of the 1950s , to become a completely free actress, not bound by any studio contracts. During this scandalous departure, the actress was threatened by the Yakuza bandits, who are believed to have been hired by a film company, whose bosses were furious at this manifestation of independence ^[6] .

... And the actress and her then-husband director Susum Hani became famous worldwide for the painting “ She and He ” ( 1963 ), a sociological and psychological study of the lives of small employees living in large apartment buildings. The wife of one of these servants, Naoko, played by Sachiko Hidari, lives in a new home. She managed to save up money for both the refrigerator and the washing machine. But from the windows of her safe apartment, another world is visible - a whole town of shacks. Naoko is full of participation in her poor neighbors, but she cannot find a common language with them. Masterfully ^{[7] the} actress played the role of a man whose sincere attitude to the fate of the destitute does not find a reciprocal feeling: the inhabitants of slums and the inhabitants of new houses belong to different worlds. Hidari also showed new facets of acting talent in the famous film Shokhei Imamura “ Insect Woman ” (in the original “Japanese Insect”, 1963), in which the director told about a woman who fell into such trials that it seemed impossible to survive. But the heroine of Tome, played by Hidari, survives. She, as a viable insect, learns to derive direct benefits from the most unthinkable circumstances, forcing herself to serve the most disastrous laws of reality ^[8] . For both of these roles (Naoko in “She and He” and Tome in “Insect Woman”), the actress was awarded the Silver Bear Prize at the XIV International Film Festival in West Berlin , as well as national awards - film awards “ Blue Ribbon ”, “ Mainity ” "And" Kinem Jumpo " ^[5] .

Among the best works of Hidari made in the 1960s - 1970s : ^[1]

The role of the prostitute Yae Sugito in the film by veteran director Tomu Utida “The Fugitive from the Past ” (another name is “Shedding Hunger”, 1965 ) brought the actress the second Mainity award and the title of best actress of the year ^[5] . In the role of the modest Japanese Tamiko, who came to distant Peru to marry a man with whom she corresponded for a long time, and find peace and family happiness here (the film “ Andes Bride ”, 1966 , directed by Susumu Hani ), the actress showed how better and thinner her heroine understands the soul of the people, how she masters the habits of the Indians, their way of life, how their grief and joys become her true fate. For the role of Omin in the Yoshitaro Nomura film “The Life of a Woman” ( 1967 ), Sachiko Hidari was awarded the Mainiti Film Award for the third time (in the category Best Supporting Actress ) ^[5] . In the film of the classic of Japanese cinema Heinosuke Gosho “ Mother and Eleven Children ”, Hidari embodied on the screen a not very literate, but very ordinary peasant woman, Tora Yoshida, happily living with her husband Sadahara and raising 11 children. The tragic fate of a simple woman, in vain seeking the truth from the authorities about her husband, executed in the last days of the Second World War allegedly for desertion, is shown by the actress in the film Kinji Fukasaku “ Under the flag of the rising sun ” ( 1972 ). For playing the small role of Osai, the adoptive mother of the protagonist of the film Yasuzo Masumura's “ Suicide of Lovers in Sonezaki ” ( 1979 ), Hidari was nominated for a prize from the Japanese Academy ^[5] .

Sachiko Hidari became the third female director in Japan, after the pioneers in this field, Tazuko Sakane and Kinuyo Tanaki . In 1971, Hidari made a short story in the international project “Women's Love” ( French L'amour au féminin , English Hot Pants ; a copy of Sweden, France, the USA, Japan and Germany), which told about a modern young Japanese woman who does not have the right choose a husband for yourself and follow the traditional custom of matchmaking. The first and only full-length film in Khidari’s directorial career, The Long Road ( 1977 ), was nominated for the Golden Bear at the XXVIII International Film Festival in West Berlin . The film covers three post-war decades and talks about the drama of a woman, the wife of a railwayman in Hokkaido . The film cost its creators 120 million yen ^[6] . The production was sponsored by the Japan National Railway Workers Union ^[6] . Since the film did not pay off at the box office (to be more precise, Hidari was not even able to find a distributor for the film rental and was shown with limited screenings through film clubs, as well as with the help of trade unions at enterprises), Hidari could not find finance for her upcoming projects in the future ^{[9 ]} and on this her directorial career ended.

Personal life

Since 1959, the actress was married to the famous filmmaker, one of the masters of the new wave of Japanese cinema of the 1960s , Susumu Hani (born 1928 ). The actress starred in two films set by her husband (“She and He,” 1963 and “The Bride of the Andes,” 1966). After Sachiko Hidari convicted her husband in connection with her younger sister Kimiko Nakamura, the actress filed for divorce in 1977 .

From her marriage to Susumu Hani, the actress had a daughter, Miyo Hani (1964–2014), an actress, director and screenwriter who starred in her father’s documentary film “Fairy Song. Miyo ”( 1971 ). After the parents divorced, Miyo stayed with her father, according to media reports, the daughter did not communicate with her mother and did not even attend her funeral ^[10] .

The last years of life and death

In the mid -1980s, Sachiko Hidari had his stomach removed after being diagnosed with cancer. She starred in several films during the 1990s. But in 2001, the actress was again diagnosed with cancer, this time the tumor affected the lung. On November 7, 2001, Sachiko Hidari died at the Tokyo National Cancer Center in her seventy-second year of life ^{[1] [11]} .

At the Mainiti Film Awards 2002, actress Sachiko Hidari was awarded a special career prize (posthumous) ^[5] .

^[5]

• Sachiko Hidari on the Internet Movie Database