One of the greatest female stars of Japanese cinema
Isuzu Yamada, who has died aged 95, was among the greatest female stars of Japanese cinema. In a career that lasted more than half a century, she shone in both Jidai-geki (period films) and Gendai-geki (films with modern settings) and was renowned for her appearances in films by such leading directors as Kenji Mizoguchi, Mikio Naruse and Akira Kurosawa.
Yamada's range was remarkable. She was fortunate to have emerged at the time that Mizoguchi, whose focus was always on persecuted women, was changing his attitude towards them from being destroyed victims of male society to characters vital enough to fight, often in vain, for survival against the social system.
She played fallen women in her first films for Mizoguchi. These included the title roles in The Downfall of Osen (1935), in which she played an ex-geisha who pays for the education of a...
Isuzu Yamada, who has died aged 95, was among the greatest female stars of Japanese cinema. In a career that lasted more than half a century, she shone in both Jidai-geki (period films) and Gendai-geki (films with modern settings) and was renowned for her appearances in films by such leading directors as Kenji Mizoguchi, Mikio Naruse and Akira Kurosawa.
Yamada's range was remarkable. She was fortunate to have emerged at the time that Mizoguchi, whose focus was always on persecuted women, was changing his attitude towards them from being destroyed victims of male society to characters vital enough to fight, often in vain, for survival against the social system.
She played fallen women in her first films for Mizoguchi. These included the title roles in The Downfall of Osen (1935), in which she played an ex-geisha who pays for the education of a...
- 7/11/2012
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
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