I realized my acting was better then.
In fact, he shot only when it was just right.
I was reassured. There just aren't directors like that now.
"The Loyal 4 7 Ronin" 194 1-42
Mizutani: set designer Shindo: architect
You did a marvellous job for this film.
I'm not sure, but you couldn't do it today...
especially just for a film set.
For the first time we used a blueprint.
It was for the palace sequence.
We were amazed.
We'd never seen the like.
Everything was authentic...
we used real props.
Mizoguchi raised the level of authenticity for the screen.
It may sound too pragmatic,
but Mizoguchi sometimes said that faked props were fine,
and used the props which he had rejected in the beginning.
I suppose he changed his mind because he had already...
reached the level of concentration necessary to shoot a good film.
He was confident enough without authentic props.
We started with reading the original story.
We gathered all the volumes of "The Loyal 47 Ronin" and tried to...
figure out how to make a scenario.
There were 20... or at least 10 people.
I was leading the meeting.
I gave everyone blue and red pencils for the marking.
We marked the parts which should not go into the script version.
Mizoguchi got furious.
He wanted to keep the episode with Seika Mayama.
I asked him if he planned to make a 3-day-long film.
Each episode takes 2 hours on stage.
There are 7 or more of that.
How can he make such a long film?
He was an honest man. Incapable of falsehood...
in his work and to himself.
He was domineering, yes, but above all...
he was sincere.
That made him question the theme of "The Loyal 4 7 Ronin": loyalism.
His anguish started then.
Yet it became a loyalist film.
Alas!
He couldn't carry on. He was...
disgusted.
I understood.
Everything halted.
His wife...
suffered an attack of madness.
He felt himself to be responsible.
In spite of this guilt he managed to finish "The Loyal 47 Ronin".
The morning his wife was stricken...
we were on the set.
We thought he would stop shooting.
But he came in the afternoon and we started.
It took all his strength to find the courage.
When his assistant went to him...
he was quietly weeping.
His wife fell ill. They asked me...
to halt the day's shooting.
I went to his house and found him weeping.
I couldn't leave him.
He was miserable.
I called a halt.
Tatsuo Sakai: assistant director
It was the palace scene.
It was December 20, 1941.
She came back to Kyoto.
Was she still well?
Yes. They had been apart for some time.
That evening, while she was awake...
he thought she was all right. She fell asleep...
and it happened.
I stayed with them at the time. I worried about her.
In the middle of the night...
he wakened me and asked how I thought she was.
I told him she seemed quite strange.
"It is worse than that."
I understood.
Sakai and I went to see her in hospital.
She scarcely recognized us.
That's all I know. There was a lot of talk though.
Did Mizoguchi think he had given her the disease?
No, it wasn't him...
there is proof of that.
Absolute proof.
Yet he insisted on believing it was him.
In spite of tests?
After the blood test he knew it wasn't him.
He had a very strong character.
After "The Loyal 47 Ronin" he wasn't the same man.
It was the turning-point of his unhappy life.
I don't know the truth on the medical side.
But he thought it was his fault.
He felt he was guilty.
He was overwhelmed by remorse.
And he threw himself headlong into his work. To forget.
I visited her with Tazuko Sakane.
-At the hospital? -Yes.
We went against Mizoguchi's wish, and came back weeping.
-Was she OK? -Physically, yes.
She asked us if we came to work on Mizoguchi's project.
She couldn't tell...
-Who you were? -No. Why we were there.
She said we came to do some work for director Mizoguchi.
I said, "Yes."
I wish I knew, now that you came all the way.
The wife of director Mizoguchi was hospitalized here.
Isn't Mizoguchi dead?
Is Mizoguchi still alive?
He is dead, his wife isn't.
I don't believe it.
I thought he remarried.
What do you want to know about her?
Her hospital room was there.
We often took walks together. Mizoguchi and I.
As we walked there...
he would look up at the window...
and ask, "What is she doing?"
She was in good health.
Her Nurse at the Time
When we spoke to her, she replied quite willingly.
She went to the baths...
with her nurse.
Was she composed?
Yes. At the baths... she washed by herself.
We were told that you were the head nurse for Mrs. Mizoguchi back then.
I was the head nurse.
I worked at that hospital for a long time.
But I hardly ever tended her.
I was mostly working in the outpatient section.
Though of course I remember her face.
She was not a talkative person. She was quiet.
I heard that she used to speak about film studios a little bit.
She said something like, "Someone from Tokyo has come to clean the house,"
although it did not make sense.
On the Yangtze River at 45
He followed the army to the Chinese front for...
a film on Sino-Japanese...
friendship.
[ Skipped item nr. 141 ]
[ Skipped item nr. 142 ]
[ Skipped item nr. 143 ]
I don't drink, so I found it creepy.
Imagine putting salted fish guts in hot sake and stir.
It looks like phlegm!
He drinks that disgusting liquid and tells me...
to eat a soft-shelled turtle. But it's not the real turtle,
its essence sold at a drug store. It's like mixing medicine in rice.
Didn't he buy turtle soup, though?
While the soup was available, yes. Later he'd go to a pharmacy...
and get the essence meant for the sick.
He'd put it in rice, add soy sauce and cook.
He'd give that rice gruel to me and Sakai. The taste was disgusting.
When the war ended he was back in Japan.
He couldn't adjust to the democratic life...
of the postwar era.
I think he exaggerated in believing he must...
change as radically as the times.
The worst moment was when he became a union leader.
The unions then were rather strange.
Up until the Toho strike, everything was based on a prearranged plan.
Unions were fashionable...
He didn't grasp the situation...
and thought humanism wasn't the solution.
He fretted with the notion...
that he must change his idea of traditional values.
This break can be seen in "Women of the Night".
Is it with this film you two made a new start?
Not exactly.
But thanks to it, we were as they say...
back in the saddle.
Prostitutes were the theme of the film.
"The scenario must be well researched!" he said.
Toshio Itoya: producer
He ordered a lunch box meal at the hotel.
Slipping on his army boots...
and his army cap, he took the lunch box and set off investigating.
Rigged up like that, he appeared...
to be quite the scientist.
Yoda went too, dressed the same way.
They visited a hospital in the red-light district.
The hospital was full of whores all excited...
by their presence.
"There is a film director here."
"You're kidding!" "But it's true."
"I saw his picture on a magazine!"
They swarmed around him.
The hospital director asked for silence and...
Mizoguchi began to talk.
"If you are here, it is the fault of men."
"They are responsible."
"It is my fault too," he said suddenly.
His eyes were full of tears...
and his head down.
He was thinking of his wife.
"My Love Burns" 1949
It was Mizutani's idea that...
Sugai play the left-wing politician in the film.
He thought he would do.
The role itself was difficult and Sugai didn't...
quite grasp it.
Not knowing how to advise him, Mizoguchi said...
"You aren't normal."
"You haven't got syphilis, have you?" he asked.
Sugai was so under his influence, he thought...
Mizoguchi was speaking seriously and immediately...
had himself examined in hospital.
He was quite all right.
" A Picture of Madame Yuki" 1950
At first I didn't take it seriously.
I played the star.
Michiyo Kogure: actress
I was panic-stricken for three days.
The third day he said, "You can relax now."
"I understand your character."
"Your role is an aristocrat in decline; you must act..."
"the aristocrat off-stage too."
"Treat everybody like subjects."
Each shot was 5 or 6 minutes long.
But whenever I made a slightest mistake...
he knew right away and reshot the entire scene.
Now I am quite thin...
I was stouter then.
He dressed me with great care...
He brought me this from France.
He had a voile kimono made of Noh costume material.
It was woven on a pine needle loom.
It is a special cloth...
but too delicate to wear with an obi.
It was worth a fortune then.
Eijiro Yanagi: actor
He didn't give much direction for love scenes, did he?
There was a bedroom scene.
He told me,
"There is a space between you."
I knew, but I was acting...
with Miss Kogure.
I wasn't afraid of her...
but I couldn't press close to her.
"I'll do it for the take."
"Right, but watch out for the space!"
"Squeeze tight."
"Don't worry. I'll do it."
Before the take I moved over, and excusing myself...
held her very close.
When the shot was over...
I asked if it was all right. He laughed and said, "Yes."
"Miss Oyu" 195 1
Nobuko Otowa: actress
He always stayed on set even for lunch.
As he didn't even go to the bathroom I asked...
the crew how he managed.
It seems he had a urinal on the set.
I couldn't see...
why he went that far.
At last I understood that it was his personality.
I believe he didn't wish to lose his concentration.
And therefore didn't go out.
It was after watching him work, I understood...
his stubbornness, his way of working, all that.
Doing exteriors we lunched together.
He wasn't at all like he was on set.
He was completely changed!
He listened, smiling to Kinuyo Tanaka.
I told him "You are..."
"a devil on set and an angel on location."
Everybody roared.
He was entirely different.
After I found out why. He was in love with Tanaka.
Many scenes were "one-scene, one-shot."
In this scene, there was a lot of acting.
We rehearsed it all morning.
Camera and microphone placement was complicated.
Finally we were ready...
to start shooting. When he said, "Not yet!"
I couldn't see why.
Going over it so often made our acting stale.
So he made us do it...
all again, for that reason.
"Lady Musashino" 1951
"The Life of Oharu" 1952
"Even as a beggar she must be feminine."
"Femininity reduced her to this."
"Yet, she is still from a good family."
"Your body movements must show that..."
"and rise above the ordinary."
"Throw your hatred in their faces."
The Grave of Saikaku (author of "Oharu")
"To understand that..."
"you must know the violence of women."
It sounds pretentious, yet I found it striking.
I think that without his own experiences...
he could never have expressed through Oharu...
the bitter struggle between a man and a woman.
Curiosity led him to eat things that gave him diarrhea.
On location...
you could see by his walk he wanted to "go."
One day he asked me to ask for the use of a bathroom...
in a large villa.
"Go along, say it is for me."
I went and they said they didn't know...
who Mizoguchi was. They lent him the bathroom however.
He slipped over saying, "You thank them for me."
If he was timid in private life...
once he began shooting...
his boldness knew no limits.
He made unreasonable demands.
For the scene when Oharu runs off with the clerk...
There wasn't a proper background for the scene.
So he decided to set it up...
on the main road between Osaka and Kyoto.
So we built the set:
Behind was a riverbank:
Beyond, on the Yodo River...
the sail of a ship appeared.
In the foreground we built a set.
There was a lot of traffic...
But Mizoguchi insisted on shooting there...
with his set.
The Osaka police said it was all right...
on one condition, the set had to be built at night...
and taken down the next morning...
by 9 or 10 o'clock at the latest.
It was midwinter.
60 or 70 carpenters built the set at night.
They were shooting the scene...
when Oharu and the clerk are captured...
as they are eating.
After several trials Mizoguchi called me...
to say we must move the set forward 2 metres.
I replied that...
it was impossible.
But Mizutani agreed with Mizoguchi.
We went back to the police. The next night, we rebuilt it...
as he had asked.
We got up at 5, thinking to begin at 7.
We were lighting up the set...
when he called me to say...
the image wasn't right and that we must move back the set.
"The feeling isn't there" In such cases...
he called over his closest collaborators...
Mizutani, Arai and me and the discussion began...
in front of the actors.
It never took place in private.
I knew it was all part of his way of directing.
These quarrels created tension.
Kusune Kainosho: painter
He never left us alone.
As soon as we got home he would ring up...
asking us to come back.
Weren't you also a dresser?
Yes. I designed costumes and dressed...
the actors.
I improved costuming a lot.
"Ugetsu" 1953
He had no intention of making...
an anti-militarist film...
but it was one in spite of him.
Women in wartime.
He wanted to depict this pure world...
an atmosphere particular to Akinari Ueda ...
author of "Ugetsu".
"Ugetsu"
No, I won't let you go.
Come, we'll go home together...
now...
You had the part of an enchantress in the film.
Machiko Kyo: actress
He gave me a small part in '44 when I was still...
working in a revue.
This was my second role with him since.
I wasn't afraid of him.
I struggled to do my best...
with what he asked for...
without being too tense.
Mori often acted with you?
Quite often, yes.
A good combination?
I don't know, but when I saw the rushes...
I thought he was fantastic, like Tanaka and Mito.
I found myself childish.
The scene when Mori comes back after my death...
I was a ghost but...
the meeting with my husband had to be real...
and that was very difficult.
Mori was a great actor.
I awaited the shooting of that scene...
with both joy and anxiety.
We rehearsed and finally shooting began.
We did it. After...
Mori seldom smoked.
When you worked with Mizoguchi...
we were so tense...
and so absorbed in our work that no one had...
the time to smoke.
When the scene was done, look who asks for a cigarette.
He is given one.
Realizing it was over I suddenly felt...
quite faint.
Mori didn't have a match...
and was looking for one.
Mizoguchi quickly came over...
holding out his flaming lighter.
In 10 years no one had ever...
seen him light an actor's cigarette.
And what is more, while we were shooting.
He hated that.
When he saw Mori's face lit by his lighter...
what joy on Mizoguchi's face.
I never saw the like.
Perhaps I exaggerate...
but it was the only time I saw him treat an actor with respect.
Kazuo Miyagawa: cameraman
I met him when...
his irritability and legendary aggressiveness...
had given way to a profound gentleness.
For him a film was like a picture scroll...
the successive, changing images depicting a story...
that moved steadily forward.
Once the story is told, it should evoke...
a feeling of indescribable satisfaction.
He wanted his films to be like that.
The fog is thick.
You see, it's a lake.
Beautiful isn't it?
All goes well now.
We are safe.
The crew were in the icy water...
hidden behind the boat pushing it.
They really worked hard.
And the camera?
It was on a crane.
He wanted a subdued effect... with little contrast...
as delicate as a Chinese ink painting. It was difficult...
and we didn't entirely get it.
We couldn't get a warm grey...
and it was flat because of that.
From experience I knew...
that in the case of black and white, the negative must be...
slightly over developed to obtain...
the effect we wanted, and shooting done...
with little light...
and, as far as possible towards sunset.
He let us rehearse ourselves...
and left us alone...
saying we should study the scene.
And Mori, Tanaka and I rehearsed.
Eitaro Ozawa: actor
Although cameraman Miyagawa rehearsed with us...
Mizoguchi would direct the actors without positioning...
the camera which meant...
changes during shooting.
Some actors can't achieve...
a required pace or rhythm...
in spite of their talent.
If they have that sense, it comes across quickly.
It isn't a question of ability...
nor of talent, but temperament.
Harmonizing the actors' various rhythms is the director's problem.
To me the signature Mizoguchi films...
are: "The Life of Oharu", "The Woman of Osaka",
"Osaka Elegy".
Films such as " A Story from Chikamatsu" and "Ugetsu" are...
too refined to convey his real strength, I think.
"Gion Festival Music" 1953
Ayako Wakao: actress
It was useless to tell me I had a big part with him...
as I was too inexperienced to understand.
Knowing this, he...
no doubt was less hard on me.
Wakao's performance was superb.
Chieko Naniwa was also in the cast.
It seems that Mizoguchi was able to exude strength in a relaxed manner.
It's like a pitcher throws better when he is not tense.
I still remember every cut.
"Sansho the Bailiff" 1954
I was his drinking friend.
We liked to talk about writers like Ogai Mori or...
Akinari Ueda over a few drinks.
Mizoguchi had a lot of respect for you.
To tell the truth, I think he was irritated by me.
My themes were period and his contemporary...
Was the idea for "Sansho the Bailiff" yours?
To tell the truth, it was. He scarcely knew about Mori.
"The Woman of Rumour" 1954
" A Story from Chikamatsu" 1954
Go back home.
Do you think I could live without you?
You aren't a clerk.
You are my husband.
Forgive me!
I shall never leave you.
Kyoko Kagawa: actress
It was the first time I played a married woman...
and I had to speak in Kyoto dialect.
I had never walked in a kimono with a train.
It was all new to me.
He entrusted me to Chieko Naniwa, the actress...
who is no longer alive.
She had just built an inn but it hadn't...
opened yet.
I begged her to teach me everything.
I moved into her inn, and taped the script...
I borrowed the costume and learned how to walk in it.
Naniwa taught me everything.
Mizoguchi didn't give any advice.
"Go ahead, move about," he said.
I didn't know what to do.
I felt quite helpless.
I did as I was told, like a robot.
Never have I suffered as much.
I never worked so hard in my life.
Are you ready?
Forgive me...
for having made you...
die for me.
What are you saying?
I am happy to die with you.
It is our last hour, I shall be forgiven.
Before I die, I must...
confess.
I have always...
loved you.
Loved me?
Yes... cling to me.
Lake Biwa at Katata, Ukimido Kenichi Okamoto
It was extremely difficult.
We shot only one cut here.
One cut in the dusk...
How much lighting did you use?
About 50 kilos in total, I think.
He left the shots to cameramen and lighting technicians.
Mizoguchi did not order about lighting.
He didn't?
No. So cameraman Miyagawa and I worked out the shooting plans.
Yoshikazu Hayashi: Ukiyoe specialist
Did he borrow prints?
Yes, erotic prints for love scenes.
I can't recall our first meeting but...
he didn't have any material on erotic habits of the past.
He asked me to...
find prints he could study.
Principally for "New Tales of the Taira Clan" and...
" A Story from Chikamatsu".
I got together some old books and...
old erotic...
prints of the late 17th century...
and I took them to him.
He used them for the boat scene...
in "Chikamatsu"...
Yes and also...
for the scene when she enters his bedroom by mistake.
"The Empress Yang Kwei-Fei" 1955
On the set he studied the dialogue...
on a blackboard. Then he looked it over again...
correcting it all. Saying, "this line is no good", or...
"Here the feeling isn't right."
"Kyo, don't say this line that way" he'd say,...
red in the face.
I was paralyzed. I couldn't...
make the slightest gesture without thinking about it.
That happened every day...
and for every take.
I was stiff as a board.
I swore I would never work with him again.
He hurt his back moving a water barrel...
while shooting "The Woman of the Rumour".
His back hurt...
deep in the bones.
When he left for the USA...
for "Yang Kwei-Fei", his back was in a cast.
When the cast came off, he felt better.
Did he have a nurse?
Yes. She went everywhere with him.
He lived alone.
He rented a room in a restaurant...
near the Tokyo Daiei studios.
The restaurant made his meals.
It was the owner who found him the nurse.
He had just had the cast removed and was still quite weak.
She was a plump woman, about 30.
Was he intimate with her?
I believe so.
Were you embarrassed by so many tests?
During shooting I stumbled, but he did not stop the take.
I thought that strange...
I realized I had made a mistake.
But he gave his OK.
I felt it odd that he would say I was doing well.
I knew he wanted to let me go...
I didn't want to be a burden.
So I, myself, asked to be dismissed.
I was working with another crew...
but I protested.
Sacking an actress is like giving a death blow to her career.
I told him, "How can you be so heartless?"
He didn't mean any harm, I'm sure.
Perhaps not.
Being friends, it was...
Yes, may be there were other reasons.
I had never heard of such a thing.
I told him, " An actress's life is at stake."
"Why did you do it?"
He replied, "I have another part for her. The empress's sister."
" As he left for America, producer Nagata told me..."
"we must start shooting the 28th."
I thought it would make things simpler...
if I myself asked to be released.
It was the second time he changed actresses.
She was crying on the enormous set.
Seated all alone.
I went over to where she was weeping.
"Frankly speaking you were his boss..."
"when he worked at Irie Productions."
"You hired him as a director."
"Instead of crying, pluck up your nerve."
"Take a grip."
"Be strong and fight back," I told her.
Mizoguchi had told her in front of everyone...
"You can only play a cat-ghost. You can't play a princess."
At that time she was known for...
her cat role in horror films.
He was a realist.
Yasuzo Masumura: director
He could depict only the world and society and people he knew.
He was baffled doing "Yang Kwei-Fei"...
or "The 4 7 Ronin".
The samurais were easier going but not much.
"Yang Kwei-Fei" took place in Tang period China.
And not knowing anything...
He was completely at sea. He didn't know where to begin.
To hide his discomfort...
he rebuilt the set and sacked the leading actress...
while struggling to grasp the difficult theme.
As an assistant I can say he did nothing for 15 days.
Faced with a story he didn't understand, he wasn't afraid...
to show his uneasiness and do whatever he liked.
It was just like him.
In fact it is the story of a noble who becomes empress.
He makes her a common woman who...
goes to a market with the emperor.
That way he could deal with common people...
with whom he was at home.
But it was just a desperate excuse.
And not the answer.
The scenario didn't work.
His suffering was dramatic.
Irie was just a minor victim...
compared with all the others, like propmen etc.
Did his arrogance attract people?
He was infantile, absurd, violent.
Never intimidated and imposed...
his ideas shamelessly.
This directness is the mark of an artist.
He was incapable of lying.
So everyone put up with his shoddy quibbling.
Everyone understood and loved him.
They forgave him because he was a great director.
Was he an artist?
Yes, I think so.
When he was sure of what he was doing, he was...
quiet, didn't make a fuss about details and filmed.
If he didn't, he got...
carried away, even lost in panic.
In location for "The Taira Clan", he was completely distracted.
Rather than directing the actors in the foreground, he worried...
about those far away, hardly visible...
running over shouting at them.
You see to what point he was distraught.
"New Tales of the Taira Clan" 1955
"Street of Shame" 1956
I was just starting out...
and knew nothing.
The life of those women was a mystery to me.
Mizoguchi taunted me so much...
that I couldn't take any more...
and my performance...
was just a chance effect.
They stopped shooting because of me.
What grieved me most...
was keeping the other actors waiting.
As my acting was poor, he said...
even my face was wrong.
After work he loved to have a drink.
Once at dinner he said that alcohol had lost its appeal.
He must even then have been ill.
He often went into a drunken frenzy.
When he became high, he often lost reason.
I think that's why it happened.
Mizoguchi showed interest in women with...
a miserable background. Women at the bottom of society.
He had affairs with such women.
Then that woman was his type, too.
I think so.
He invited me to dinner.
Four of us had dinner together.
And the mistress would say things that would offend Mizoguchi's wife.
Mrs. Mizoguchi tried...
to stay calm, but I could tell she was mad.
I could tell that Mrs. Mizoguchi was upset.
The atmosphere got tense.
Naturally, I'd say.
So I just kept silent, drinking sake.
Mizoguchi was not...
he was not an insensitive man.
I think he sensed...
what was going on.
Do you think he let such a crisis happen so as to use it for his work?
Yes. At least unconsciously.
Mizoguchi often surprised us that way.
Everything he did...
contributed to his work.
Whether he suffered or had fun, the experience enriched his filming.
Venice Film Festival 1953
We traveled together one month.
In France...
we went to the Louvre. He paused before the Mona Lisa...
and began to cry before us all.
He broke down...
seeing the Mona Lisa for the first time.
Then there was also...
...van Gogh!
Point-blank, he said to Yoda and me: "Imagine that!"
"For his art Gogh went mad."
"To become a real artist..."
"one must go that far."
"I'm nothing compared to him."
They say he prayed before a Buddhist painting.
He wanted the prize.
He was in his room.
I went to call him.
As there was no answer...
I peeked in; I smelled incense in the air.
I told him I had come to get him, it was time.
He fixed me with a terrifying look.
"What day do you think it is?" he said.
"You roam about without caring."
He began to curse at me.
I was aghast.
He added, "If I don't win the prize..."
"I won't go back to Japan, I'll stay in Italy..."
"and start all over."
Although his films were always about women, they say...
he never had a really great love affair.
What is the real truth? I really don't know even now.
I believe...
and I was after all his friend...
that he was in love with you.
I'm glad you have given me this chance to explain...
It was serious for him.
You said...
he never talked about himself while at work.
He was very shy as you know.
Although he may never have told you so...
you were the great love of his life.
There you exaggerate.
Everyone made too much of it.
No, I am not joking.
Working with you...
he admired you.
You went to see him just before he died?
Of course.
You know how much he admired you, don't you?
I'm happy to say...
that for the cinema we were a couple.
It can't be denied.
When I say I knew nothing about him...
you won't believe me...
but I knew very little about his private life.
If he really felt for me...
as you say, it was for the actress...
who played Oharu or Ochika. That is what I think...
and not for Tanaka.
He loved through me...
the women I played.
He was in love with them.
That I quite understand.
While shooting "The Life of Oharu"...
he was terribly lonely.
He even asked me to dine with him...
although it wasn't at all like him to invite people.
That day he said...
half joking: "You know, I'm in love..."
"with Tanaka. What to do?"
He was drunk, no?
Not at all.
He told Ozu too and many others.
Whenever we met, Ozu loved to mention it.
I thought, "Oh dear! Not again."
There was a reporter who believed the story.
He rang me for an interview.
When I asked why, he said,
"I heard a rumour that..."
"you and Mizoguchi have decided to become engaged."
I was astonished.
"That again!" I said. I was still young.
I was the star of Mizoguchi's troupe.
That went with it.
Once again they were wrong about me.
The reporter came to my house.
"When is the big day?" he asked.
"I'm afraid you are mistaken," I said.
I was so tense...
I said what popped into my head:
"I love the way he directs, but..."
"he isn't the right husband for me." That was...
youthful impertinence.
That is what I said.
The reporter then rang Kyoto...
and repeated it to Mizoguchi.
"The day is fixed but listen to what Tanaka said."
"What do you make of it?"
"She doesn't want me," he said.
He thought it, no?
I admired his restraint.
I hurt him...
and he did nothing back at me.
Mizoguchi could have said...
"I never said that."
He never told me he loved me.
It wasn't his style.
I don't know.
After that...
I didn't know how to ask his forgiveness...
for ages after.
Then I slowly...
began to feel something for him.
Perhaps the time had come. To say it now...
is a bit odd, perhaps.
Had I loved him, I would have married him.
But I was rather old-fashioned still...
and had some strange ideas about art.
I felt I hadn't the right to keep for myself alone...
a great director whom everybody so admired.
I also feared that if we lived together...
it wouldn't work out professionally.
And I didn't think I was capable of being the wife...
of so difficult a man.
As a husband, obviously...
He wasn't very amusing.
He was only interested in art. That's perfect.
But he lacked humour.
Frankly...
his daily life did not attract me.
He thought only about work.
It is like a western film...
The husband works, his wife takes a lover.
To me he was that sort of man.
As you worked with him then...
your affection grew?
I kept my feelings separate.
I would do anything...
to secure world-wide recognition for Mizoguchi.
That was my strongest wish.
There were as well many...
difficult times for me during the 17 years of working together.
Because of his charm...
I could, during and after the war, give up my family...
without the slightest hesitation.
I put my entire life into his work.
My passion for work was unequalled.
Of course I had my pride as an actress...
but I hoped above all...
he would become one of the great men of world cinema.
I would like to say...
if he really wished to make me his wife...
it is because he thought of me as a woman...
and not only as an actress.
Also, I can think of myself as a woman...
worthy of the name, though I never married.
Don't you think so?
He really loved Tanaka.
Once for a PR shot of the star and director...
he dared only glance shyly at her costume.
After just this quick check...
he blushed scarlet.
For a mere photo!
The hell of shooting hadn't started yet.
Once that started, there was no blushing!
I personally think he loved her.
But I don't know if Tanaka realized it.
She was a talented actress, but she failed to understand...
how he felt about her.
She alone he loved. With deep pure feeling.
She acted the roles of ideal women for him...
but during the shooting he said things to her...
that were scandalous.
Scenario of " An Osaka Story"
I wish he could have made this last film.
It would have been...
his greatest.
Death approached...
the film was already planned in his head.
What a pity!
It was dreadful to see him burdened with...
suffering before he died.
May 1956, he falls ill and enters hospital in Kyoto.
I remember him very well...
He was at top form...
making his last films.
I am happy to have had the honour...
to act in Mizoguchi's best films.
I regret he died just when...
he hoped to completely change his way of life.
He longed to change it.
I can't say...
too much. He still has family alive.
But I must say that...
the last years of his private life were not peaceful.
He wasn't happy.
He wanted to make a new start.
He really wanted to change completely.
Because of his illness he didn't succeed...
but if he had lived 3 more years...
I could hold my own...
topics of general culture and learning...
but not when faced with his unquenchable thirst...
for truth and honesty.
He hated cheating of any kind.
I went to see him in hospital.
He knew what he liked in flowers.
Even one had to be carefully chosen.
It was the Feast of the Dead, and those flowers wouldn't do.
I went to see him at noon: it was the visiting hour.
I sat at his bedside.
He seemed pleased.
We didn't speak: like a real silent film.
We had nothing left to say.
I asked what was wrong with him.
He replied, "They don't know yet."
"They are studying the test results," and...
"I want to start working again soon."
I remember his saying, "There is no place left..."
"for another injection."
It was dreadful to see him so I'd take...
a drink before going. One day he noticed...
and asked why I was so jolly.
Did he know the end was near when...
he blurted out,
"This is torture!"
It was the only time.
As if he knew it was all over.
I had gone to a lot of trouble...
to find something he really wanted.
He sat up in bed to thank me most sincerely.
I turned away so he couldn't see my tears.
I found it overwhelming.
Three days later he died.
I was ill.
They rang to say he was a little better.
As I too felt better I went to see him. That evening...
he died.
I was the only one there. The others went home...
believing him better.
What did he say?
Almost nothing.
He suffered terribly.
I took his hand and said my name.
He stared at me...
as if he wished to tell me something...
and he died.
What did he want to say?
Motohisa Ando: assistant director
He took to writing and it became a will of sorts.
He wrote his impressions.
He described the last scene of " An Osaka Story"...
and gave his opinions on a book of Yoda's poems...
and said he wanted to work with us all again.
Writing this...
"The chill of autumn already I want to work with you again."
He broke into sobs.
"The chill of autumn already."
"I want to work with you again."
Mizoguchi would have said...
of these remarks:
"They are not mine. Lies."
"Dying man cannot be so sentimental."
Mizoguchi's house no longer stands.
It has been replaced by a filling-station.
THE END