Kyoko Kagawa, Reflecting the Sign of Eternity - An Actress's Journey in Search of the Breath of Her Role (1950s-1960s)

Kyoko Kagawa, Reflecting the Sign of Eternity - An Actress's Journey in Search of the Breath of Her Role (1950s-1960s)

Kyoko Kagawa placed great importance on the method of putting herself in realistic situations and absorbing the atmosphere of those places in her body in order to give depth to her roles. In a bar in Ginza, she observed the interaction between customers and waitresses, the intonation of their voices, and the direction of light and shadow. In a school staff room, she tried to portray her character as a "living person" by being aware of the teacher's movements and even the scuff marks on the desk. This attitude toward acting echoes the trend toward realism that spread throughout postwar Japanese cinema. Audiences demanded a real sense of life rather than pretense, and the portrayals of ordinary people by Yasujiro Ozu, Mikio Naruse, and Keisuke Kinoshita met this demand. Kagawa's physical preparation was precisely in response to the demands of this era. Director Kenji Mizoguchi repeatedly taught her to "reflect and move," instilling in her the importance of capturing the role wi
th her body rather than her head. As a result, she was able to naturally express the subtleties of emotional swings and pauses in silence in "Chikamatsu Monogatari" and other films. In addition, he sensitively sensed the shadows of lighting and the timing of his co-stars on set, and learned how to convey emotions without dialogue. The fact that he was given a free pass to work in the film industry by his uncle Ichiro Nagashima also helped him broaden the range of his roles. The act of walking through Ginza and schools was not mere imitation, but a training of sensitivity, and as an actress, Kyoko Kagawa successfully embodied the reality of her roles while responding to the demands of the times and the audience.