Love and Politics in Kozaburo Yoshimura's Temptation (1948)
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 mov...