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ESSAYS |
Yasujiro Ozu - Donald Richie
Yasujiro Ozu began seeing films while still young. He used
to cut classes in order to go to the theatre near his primary
school. Kogo Noda remembers him saying: 'If it hadn't been
for that theatre, I might not have become a movie director'.
There he saw Lillian Gish and Pearl White and later the pictures
of Rex Ingram and King Vidor. Like many of the schoolboys
of his time, he saw few Japanese films. Instead, he saw all
the new American pictures that he could.
He failed to enter the prestigious Kobe Higher Commercial
School because, he used to say, when the examination was being
given he was watching The Prisoner of Zenda. Though later
to be known as the most Japanese of Japanese directors, a
part of this Japanese-ness is certainly the strong American
influence on his work. Another is the amount of covert biography
in his pictures. The role of his father in his pictures-despised,
later idolised-some critics have found in Ozu's own parental
attitude. Certainly he, unlike a number of his characters,
never married and thus never experienced the necessity of
leaving a parent alone. He lived with his mother until her
death-and he himself died one year later. Perhaps one of his
most salient characteristics might also be called Japanese-the
ability to take from various sources, to mix genres, and then
to so purify the result that it becomes of a personal strength
that transcends boundaries. Or perhaps this is the way that
all of the most personal artists work.
Whatever-Ozu now belongs to the world. At his request, his
tombstone bears the single character mu-an aesthetic term,
a philosophical expression, one that is usually translated
as 'nothingness' but that suggests the nothing that in Buddhism
is everything.
A modest extravagance: Four looks at Ozu
- David Bordwell
The film comes to us calmly, not trying to overpower us or
even wheedle us: just a simple story that seems to tell itself.
First there is the daily routine of people arising, going
to work or school, greeting acquaintances, labouring at their
desks, meeting friends at a bar or teahouse or coffeehouse.
Gradually, as one character mentions or meets another, we
are introduced to them, and then we discover another network
of people, also linked through everyday action and little
courtesies. This movie, it seems, could slip-slide from group
to group forever, eventually taking in the population of Japan.
Slowly, a plot coalesces. Someone is in love; someone is
unhappy; someone must pass an exam; someone must get married
to oblige a parent. Now everything that we have seen starts
to crystallise into a drama. But the narrative flow is so
unpredictable, even diffuse, that we can scarcely imagine
what the climax could be. Sometimes the action is just put
on hold, and an idyll shows a character recalling days of
prior happiness, or imagining recalling today as a moment
of consummate peace. Suddenly, a crisis descends. Someone
we have come to care about falls ill, or decides not to marry,
or decides to marry someone else, or makes a serious mistake.
And soon we are truly overpowered, with a climax that seems
radically contingent. Why this? Why now? The characters may
ask along with us, but they resign themselves to things. The
epilogue is like a farewell. These people who have come to
matter to us drift away to an uncertain future.
In all, here is a story that achieves its power through simplicity.
But that's at a first glance. Take a second look, and you
see a subtle architecture. The distantly connected characters
actually form a table of contrasts. For every wilful father,
a tolerant one; for every cheerful daughter, a morose one;
for each flirtatious boss, a kindly widower. Long ago, Donald
Richie pointed out the importance of parallelism in Ozu: every
person or circumstance is echoed or inverted elsewhere. Into
these parallels Ozu inserts prefigurations of future action,
motifs that connect characters (gestures, lines of dialogue,
props such as watches or cups), and daring ellipses that skip
over important events. (Once he has us hooked, he can tease
us by withholding what we want to see.) And the ending and
epilogue have the inevitability of the final grand lines of
a poem. Look more closely, and each Ozu film has a magnificently
filigreed structure, and everything that happens seems quietly
destined from the start.
Third look: The simplicity of style. What could be easier
than to shoot each scene with a master shot, followed by medium
shots? Each character, no matter how minor, gets their single,
and no cut interrupts a line of dialogue, ever. A few establishing
shots will link one scene with another. The camera is set
low in nearly every shot, as if to eliminate any decision
about where else it might be put, and it almost never moves.
This, surely, is Moviemaking 101.
Look again, and it all becomes staggeringly complicated.
Each shot is composed meticulously, down to the arrangement
of food on the table. The compositions mirror each other uncannily:
every medium-shot single puts the person's face in the same
part of the frame, so that the eyes of one character weirdly
match those of another. Indeed, Ozu's bold play with graphic
qualities, lines, masses, and colour from shot to shot are
without peer in mainstream filmmaking. Camera position doesn't
mimic a seated person's view (it's obstinately low even in
train corridors and on sidewalks); it subjects the entire
visible world to a precise patterning. Thanks to this maniacally
repeated framing, layers of space bristle with tantalising
possibilities, and mundane bits of setting, like a red tea-kettle
or a hanging sock-tree, come alive. And the intermediate spaces
that link scenes often don't establish space very clearly.
Instead, they hook one area to another by visual rhymes. The
transitions also play games with our expectations: we may
think we are going one place, but something, perhaps only
the shadows of rippling water cast on a screen, swerves us
to a different locale.
Thanks to his apparently simple stories and easily grasped
technique, Ozu has captivated and moved audiences for seventy
years. But this humble artisan who compared himself to a tofu-seller
created a cinema of which no other director dreamed. Modest
in effect, yet extravagantly precise in execution, Ozu's films
are at once directly enjoyable, emotionally powerful, and
artistically experimental. He tests his characters, his medium,
his audience, and himself. His films show us how rich a genre-
and star-driven movie can be; at the same time they open up
a vast realm of purely cinematic possibilities. No filmmaker,
to my mind, has come closer to perfection.
Is Ozu slow?1 - Jonathan Rosenbaum
I was recently having dinner at one of my favourite Chinese
restaurants in Chicago, where the waiter happens to be a passionate
cine-phile. While taking my order, the waiter was telling
me about his enthusiasm for Tsai Ming-liang, and when I mentioned
that I would be speaking about Yasujiro Ozu in Tokyo shortly,
he said to me, 'I don't know about Ozu. His films are so slow'.
The following remarks are an attempt to respond to his comment.
My first response is to say that some of Ozu's silent films-in
particular I Was Born, But…, one of my favourites-aren't
very slow at all, and it's symptomatic of the limitations
of global film culture today that silent cinema is often ruled
out of order in advance. But my second response is to ask
what we mean when we call a film 'slow'-an adjective that's
frequently pejorative, even when it's used in relation to
films by Robert Bresson, Carl Dreyer, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Abbas
Kiarostami, F.W. Murnau, Ozu, Jacques Rivette, Jean-Marie
Straub and Daniele Huillet, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Jacques
Tati, among others. And to pose this question with particular
reference to Japanese culture, I'd like to introduce a couple
of hypotheses.
One of these hypotheses comes from a provocative short essay
by Karlheinz Stockhausen called 'Ceremonial Japan' that I
first read in the Times Literary Supplement a quarter of a
century ago2. Exploring his fascination with a diverse variety
of Japanese ceremonial forms-the Noh theatre, Omizutori (the
Water Consecration Festival), Sumo wrestling, and the tea
ceremony-Stockhausen has the following to say about what he
calls Japanese timing: 'Where timing is concerned, the European
is absolutely mediocre. Which means he has settled down somewhere
in the middle of his range of potential tempi. It is a very
narrow range, compared with the extremely fast reactions that
a Japanese [person] might have at a certain moment, and to
the extremely slow reaction that he might show on another
occasion. He has a poor middle range compared to the European'.
Stockhausen also implies that this distinction is in danger
of being effaced or at least eroded by the Westernisation
and Americanisation of Japan. This is a delicate matter, because
we know from the persuasive arguments in Shigehiko Hasumi's
book on Ozu, Yasujiro Ozu,3 that Ozu's work also reflects
to some degree the impact of America on Japanese culture.
But because Hasumi is a Japanese critic looking at American
influence and I'm an American critic looking at Japanese elements,
we see things with a somewhat different emphasis. In any case,
I would like to suggest-and this is my second hypothesis-that
the fast reactions in Japanese spectators implied in Ozu's
filmmaking practice often correspond to standing and walking,
and that the slow reactions implied in his filmmaking practice
often correspond to sitting.
What do I mean by this? The elements in I Was Born, But…
that I identify as fast-in particular, the brevity of certain
still shots of locations and the speed of certain camera movements-can
be linked to either an implied standing spectator or an implied
walking spectator, and when the camera movements follow characters
who are walking, the speed of the characters and the implied
speed of the spectators watching them are clearly linked.
Furthermore, the elements in the film that I identify as slow
mainly occur when characters are seated.
Now, it's obvious that most of us watch films while we're
seated. But just because it's obvious doesn't mean that it
isn't worthy of some reflection-and reflection, after all,
is something else that's often best done while we're sitting.
Yet the artificial sensation of speed that characterises so
much of contemporary commercial cinema, American cinema in
particular-the speed of fast cars and explosions and what
we call 'action', not to mention the speed of much TV editing,
all of which tends to make Ozu seem 'conservative' and 'old-fashioned'
by comparison-tends to deny this fact, to operate as if we
were literally watching films on the run, without any opportunities
for reflection. Ozu's acknowledgment that we watch films while
sitting seems to me a fundamental aspect of his style, and
a great deal that is considered difficult or problematical
or simply 'slow' in his style derives from this essential
fact.
As a rule, characters in Ozu films are seated when they eat
and when they converse. In I was Born, But…, the two
little boys who are the central characters are mainly seen
on their feet, but early in the film they are seated when
they have breakfast, when they put on their shoes before leaving
their house, and then when they decide to skip school and
have their lunch in a field. They are also seated when they
attend school the following day, when they watch home movies
at the home of their father's boss, and later, after their
fight with their father, when they refuse to eat. All of these
occasions might be described as times of relative reflection.
But this is a film in which social behaviour and social conditioning
are at least as important as reflection, and the issue of
speed is relevant to all three activities. Early in the film,
after the boys skip school out of fear of getting beaten up
and have their lunch in the field, one of the brothers reminds
the other: 'We're supposed to get an A in writing today'.
Soon afterwards they both stand up to finish their lunch on
their feet, an action that implies, as much else in the film
does, that getting ahead in the world requires alertness and
motion, both of which are usually more obtainable from a standing
position.
As if to demonstrate this point, the film then cuts to the
other boys at school standing at attention in the school yard
and following the instructions of a teacher to turn and then
to march in a military fashion. The camera remains stationary
during most of this activity, but then, as the boys march
briskly past the camera from right to left, the camera begins
to track rapidly in the reverse direction, from left to right.
Then there is a cut to another rapid left-to-right track in
the office where the boys' father works-a famous shot moving
at the same speed past workers at a row of desks, some of
them seated and some standing. Each worker yawns as if on
cue just as the camera passes him, except for one, until the
camera moves back to him in the reverse direction, stops,
and waits for him to yawn as well; as soon as he does, the
camera resumes the same rapid left-to-right movement past
other workers, all of whom yawn on cue. This is a rather exceptional
modernist moment in Ozu's work because it equates his own
position of power as a director with the power of the state-specifically,
with the power of the school and the office, the two principal
zones of authority in the film, apart from the more indeterminate
zones of the field (ruled by the boys) and the house (ruled
by the father). Significantly, it is in the field and in the
house where conflict breaks out in the film-not in the school
or in the office, where the laws of behaviour are more absolute-and
by drawing a parallel based on speed and motion between the
school and the office, and focusing comically in both locations
on individuals who fail to conform, Ozu is providing a particular
context for the conflicts that arise elsewhere. Furthermore,
by drawing an explicit parallel between the authority exerted
by his camera and the authority exerted by the school and
the office, Ozu is explicitly positing an important relationship
between cinematic forms and social forms, a relationship that
carries a great deal of meaning throughout his work.
Performance in the films of Yasujiro Ozu
- Donald Richie
One of the most moving sequences in any Ozu film is the Noh-drama
sequence in Late Spring. The director wanted to show a daughter
(Setsuko Hara) becoming aware of the interest her father (Chishu
Ryu) supposedly has in marrying an acquaintance (Kuniko Miyake).
Since some very delicate feelings are involved, Ozu did not
want to use dialogue. He wished to show rather than state,
and so he chose to set that scene at a Noh-drama performance
and the only sound during this sequence is the sound of Noh
itself.
In turn father, daughter, acquaintance, and the Noh itself
are shown. The action is merely the father's nodding a greeting,
the woman's polite response, and the daughter's suspicions.
This sequence runs for approximately three minutes and is
composed of twenty-six separate shots. It is one of Ozu's
most beautifully edited segments. There is not one wasted
moment and each scene follows the next with a perfect visual
logic. At the same time, it transforms what we are shown.
One may imagine how another director might have done this
sequence-probably five shots or so, one for each character
and two for the play itself. The central point, that Hara
does not want her father to marry, would have been rapidly
made and we would have rushed to the next sequence. By the
end of the film, we would have forgotten the entire incident
or else would have remembered it only as a plot complication.
This sequence in Late Spring is unforgettable, however, and
the reason is entirely in Ozu's presentation. By insisting
that we comprehend and hence appreciate the Noh, by making
the scene long and yet integral to the sequence itself, he
creates a nexus that transforms his material.
The Noh context lends a dignity to a plot point that seen
in any other way might have perhaps seemed slight. By entwining
his three characters with the Noh itself, he transforms their
concerns. Noh is about things more important than getting
married-it is about things like dying, like the after-life.
The Noh play we are seeing is one that shows that the mundane
human dancer is really a deity in disguise. The transcendental
quality of mujo, a celebration of the transience of all things,
thus becomes an extension of this family anecdote. Its reverberations
illuminate their complications-something Ozu himself acknowledges
when, in the final scene in the sequence, we leave the theatre
and watch a tree in the wind as the music of the Noh continues.
The effects of this sequence are many, but among them is
a display of Ozu's respect for the Noh, his refusal to cut
it short in order to merely forward the plot. This show of
respect is common to many of his pictures. He respects everything
in his films. He refuses plot because, as he once said, plot
uses people and to use people is to misuse them. The very
way we are shown his people respects them-a quality that,
as Sato Tadao has said, makes us feel like guests and encourages
us to behave properly. This respect is also shown in the extraordinary
length given to scenes of performance (such as the Noh) in
his films.
This may be a bit long, says Chishu Ryu at the end of Early
Autumn, and then launches into a formal kodan recitation-all
of it. Even when the performance is less imposing, we still
watch most of it. The naniwabushi recitation at the beginning
of Passing Fancy is given full screen time, as is the lengthy
and delightful hayashi rendition (again sung by Chishu Ryu)
in Record of a Tenement Gentleman.
There are many Kabuki performances in Ozu's films, each accorded
full attention. There are trips to Kabuki theatre in What
Did the Lady Forget? and Early Summer; there are stretches
of provincial Kabuki performance in both The Story of Floating
Weeds and the later Floating Weeds. Then there is the half-hour
Kagamijishi, a rendition of an actual Kabuki dance.
The geisha dances in What Did the Lady Forget? go on for
much longer than their plot-point use would indicate, and
even other motion pictures, when shown, are shown at length-the
home movies in I Was Born, But…; the Lubitsch episode
from If I Had a Million, seen in Woman of Tokyo; long scenes
from Willy Forst's Leise Flahen Meine Leider, shown in The
Only Son. Even the televised baseball in Good Morning is shown
at a respectful length, which few other directors would have
allowed.
Amateur performances are treated with the same respect as
those more professional. The delightfully spontaneous singing
among the mah-jong players in Early Spring, the war songs
executed in An Autumn Afternoon, and the long and unforgettable
final scene of Equinox Flower, showing the reformed father
(Shin Saburi) humming to himself as he sits in the train going
off to meet his forgiven daughter-all of these scenes of performance
are given a dignity that is rare in any cinema. We pay proper
attention, and through this we come to an accord with the
character.
When we couple this with an emotional understanding of the
import of a scene, then the performance (the drunk father
singing the Navy March at the end of An Autumn Afternoon,
the sober father peeling an apple at the end of Late Spring)
allows us to look deeper and to detect a kind of mutability-mujo.
Ozu and the West4 - Nick Wrigley
Remarkably, Ozu's films were rarely seen in the West until
the early 1970s (there had been a small tour of his films
in the United States in the 1960s). His bare-bone narratives
and idiosyncratic style never appealed to distributors at
the time, who felt they were just 'too Japanese' for Western
audiences. These distributors never accused Bresson of being
'too French', however, and it seems that they alone were responsible
for Ozu's delayed exposure to the West. Maybe they thought
Ozu's themes and titles were too similar and thus confusing?
After all, most of Ozu's later work (1950s-1960s) centred
on the same motif: the marrying off of a loyal daughter so
that she could begin to live her own life. When Ozu's films
did start getting shown in the West, art-cinema aficionados
of Bresson's, Bergman's, and Antonioni's formal styles were
ecstatic to find a Japanese master whose films spoke as eloquently
about Japanese life as their favourite European films did
of their respective homelands.
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