Things about other countries

時たまウェブサイトの手伝いをしている６０代の米人芸術家がいるのだが、昨年末に訪ねた時、「 “Woman in the Dunes”の女優が亡くなった」とNYタイムズを抱えて沈痛な顔をしていた。 “Woman in the Dunes”というと、日本語題で「砂の女」だ。映画を見たことはないが、安部公房の原作は英語版でも読んでいるので、岸田今日子さんのことだとすぐに分かった。 “Woman in the Dunes”は１９６４年の映画だから４０年も前だが、１２月２８日のタイムズの記事タイトル「Kyoko Kishida, 76, Is Dead; Actress in ‘Woman in the Dunes’ 」を見ても、添えてある映画のスチル写真を見ても、欧米人にとって「岸田今日子」という女優は「“Woman in the Dunes”の女優」なんだな、という事が分かった。欧米人には「砂の女」でも、大多数の日本人には、岸田さんというと、アニメの「ムーミンの声」という印象がやはり一番強いのではないだろうか。私もほぼそうだった。
岸田今日子さんと直接お話をしたことはないが、実は２０代の前半、主催される劇団の養成所に１年いたことがある。だから舞台はいくつか見たことがあるし、間近でレクチャーを聞いたこともある。当時５０歳前後だったと思うが、当時すでにミステリアスな、ちょっと気のふれたような現実離れした赤毛の洋風おばさん、という印象だった。何のレクチャーだったのか全く覚えてない。同じ劇団の女優でも、もっと高齢の南美江さんの方が似たような洋風おばさんでも、現実味があって私の好みに近かったように思う。
なにしろ当時の私は新劇よりダンスやミュージカルが好き、というミーハーだっただけに、劇団の志向する高尚な翻訳劇、フランス演劇やらにはいっこうに関心がもてなかった。確か岸田さんがレオタード一枚の衣装で大劇場で翻訳劇の一人芝居をされたのを見たような記憶があるが、それも「見た」という記憶だけで、内容は難しくてほとんど分からなかった。
中年以降の外見しか知らないでの、若い頃の顔は想像もつかなかったが、数年前、小津安二郎監督映画のビデオで、飲み屋のおかみさんの役で出ていたのを見て、若い頃は結構美人だったことを始めて知った。日本人なんだけど、日本的な着物を着た役よりドレスが似合う、不思議な顔立ちと雰囲気の女優さんだったと思う。合掌。
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Kyoko Kishida, 76, Is Dead; Actress in ‘Woman in the Dunes’
Published: December 28, 2006

Kyoko Kishida, who starred in the landmark film “Woman in the Dunes” as a young widow consigned to a life of isolation and Sisyphean labor at the bottom of a sand pit, died on Dec. 17 in Tokyo. She was 76.

The cause was a brain tumor, a theater company she belonged to told Japanese newspapers.
Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara and released in 1964, “Woman in the Dunes” is a bleak allegory in the fashion of films by Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni. Ms. Kishida’s nameless character is trapped in a pit on a desolate shore, her sole occupation harvesting sand for the villagers who hold her. Resigned to her fate, she is joined by an entomologist who is tricked into captivity and must learn to accept the hopelessness and crushing boredom of his existence.

Beautifully filmed, with an eroticism unusual for its time, “Woman in the Dunes” appeared in the second New York Film Festival and won a special jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

“Women in the Dunes” was hardly Ms. Kishida’s first avant-garde experience. Her father, Kunio Kishida, was an important prewar playwright who helped develop modern Japanese theater. An admirer of Ibsen and Chekhov, he wrote about Japanese characters afflicted with feelings of dislocation and disintegration.

While Ms. Kishida appeared in other films, including Mr. Teshigahara’s “Rikyu,” she was best known in Japan for her voice-over work in animated films and television cartoons, including the long-running series “Moomin.”

Born in 1930 in Tokyo, she was married to the actor Noboru Nakaya from 1954 until their divorce in 1978. The couple had one child. Japanese newspapers mentioned no survivors.

A hard-working actress who appeared in films until early this year, Ms. Kishida was nonetheless a devoted sleeper, according to an obituary in Asahi Shimbun, the Japanese newspaper.

“At school, I think I slept through more than half my classes,” she wrote in her memoir, “Those Times, These Times.” When she wrote haiku, she used the pen name Minjo, which means “sleeping woman.”