The Best American Poetry

Beethoven and My Father

My father Joseph Lehman was born today in Furth, Germany, ninety-nine years ago. Ludwig Van Beethoven was born in Bonn on the same date in 1770. When my father had his fatal heart attack in December 1971, I flew home from Paris, where I was studying, arriving too late to see him alive one last time. The fourth movement of Beethoven's Ninth, not only the major theme but the entire movement, from instrumentals through vocals, from development to coda, went through my mind in the following days. I could hear the singing at the funeral, at the cemetery, at home, and in the sickbed that awaited me in Paris upon my return there weeks later. I didn't know then that my father and Ludwig Van shared a birthday. In Paris, Ludwig Van Saul and I spent hours listening to to a recording of the symphony, he doing his best to educate me. Two friends form that time remember my saying, of my father, that he was "a holy man." I believe it. That was also the year I read Dostoyevski, and my head was full of Raskolnikov, the gambler, the Karamazovs, and certain saintly fools. -- DL 

 

Ozu7 by Lewis Saul

*52. Akibiyori (Late Autumn) (11/13/60) (125 min.) [Sound Color] [buy it here]

A girl lives with her mother. Though she has had opportunities to marry, she refused, preferring to stay at home. The widowed mother, however, feels that her daughter is sacrificing herself and attempts to find her a suitable husband. The daughter opposes this until she comes to believe, mistakenly, that her mother is motivated by a desire to remarry. The mother goes back to the apartment and begins her life alone.

• From the Late Ozu set on Eclipse.
• A remake of Late Spring with the mother threatening to remarry rather than the father.
• Three men make up an important unit in this film -- all splendid actors completely at ease with the Ozu style:
  • Mamiya (Shin Saburi)
  • Taguchi (Nubuo Nakamura)
  • Hirayama (Ryuji Kita)

As previously mentioned, sound (1936) and color (1958) were just two additional tools which Ozu used to create his masterpieces. In this instance, Ozu wants to take us from the memorial service to the post-service eating and drinking. Notice the number of pillow shots (six, more than usual) and how sound and color serve his purposes.

Also, note how this film uses green throughout, similar to the way he used red in Equinox Flower and Good Morning.

• Mamiya is late for the service. He finds his way through the various rooms into the main room and joins his friends (who have saved a spot for him). 
• 0:09:03: He completes a medium three-shot as he kneels next to Hirayama. (Sound: Bhuddist chanting) Taguchi: "You're late."
  • Mamiya: "Yes, a bit."
  • Hirayama: "It just started."
  • Mamiya: "Then I'm too early."

Ozu6 by Lewis Saul

In 1951, Keisuke Kinoshita's Carmen Comes Home became the first Japanese film in color. Two years later, Kinugasa's Gate of Hell became an international hit. Ozu did not like the way red turned out on Eastman Kodak film. It wasn't until he was satisfied with the Agfa red looked that he proceeded to make a color film.

Kurosawa waited even longer. In his first color film, Dodesukaden, made in 1970, he was so dissatisfied with the way "reality" looked that he painted most of the sets with loud, garish colors so as to mute the harsh natural colors of his locations. Five years later, Dersu Uzala was made in beautiful 70mm widescreen; and finally in 1980 and 1985 we get the splendid gorgeous colors of Kagemusha and Ran.

And so the rainbow bursts ... 

*49. Higanbana (Equinox Flower) (9/7/58) (118 min.) [Sound Color] [buy it here]

A daughter wishes to marry the man of her choice, but her father objects. Her mother understands her feelings, however, as does her friend from Kyoto. Eventually, the father is won over.

• From the Late Ozu set on Eclipse.
• The credits themselves are gorgeous to look at -- bright red, white and black lettering.
• This is a large ensemble with a fantastic cast. The president of Shochiku himself more or less ordered Ozu to make this film in color to show off their latest beauty, Fujiko Yamamoto (Yukiko, daughter of Hatsu Sasaki [Chieko Naniwa]).
• Interestingly, Ozu doesn't give her the star role of Setsuko (Ineko Arima), but that of Yukiko, Setsuko's mirror image character ...
• Nothing has changed in Ozu's basic style, other than the complete elimination of any camera movement -- even pans and dolly shots. These introductory pillow shots are typical -- yet in color, they seem to visually reverberate with weight:
  • 0:03:00: The railway station, clock at 2:50 PM.
  • 0:03:09: Wider view
  • 0:03:16: The automatic timetable which we've seen so frequently in the past few B&W films
  • 0:03:25: A wedding party; beautiful clothes
• 0:03:31: Two porters, sitting on a bench taking a break. They're rating all the brides they've seen this day.
• 0:04:18: This is the first shot we have of the wedding, but Ozu has already started the sound of a monk chanting during the last cut -- a transition shot of the railway ...

Ozu5 by Lewis Saul

*45. Ochazuke no aji (Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice) (10/1/52) (115 min.) [Sound B&W] [buy it here]

A middle-aged, middle-class couple experience a crisis in their marriage. With no children to create a bond, married life has lost its meaning in routine. They both attempt to improve and hence create a stronger marriage.

• All-regions DVD.
• This somewhat unusual film is sandwiched between two great masterpieces, Early Summer and Tokyo Story. Hopefully this pic is being considered as a Criterion Collection candidate. It is not in the same league as the above-mentioned films, but it is a very good film.
• Ozu pulled this script out of the drawer -- it is the same one that the Japanese censors rejected in 1941. The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family took its place.
• In the original script, the husband was going off to war. "Rather than the customary rich ceremonial food, they decide on a dish that is among the most simple, the most Japanese. It was to have been a gentle, intimate, reflective film, filled with observations of Japanese character in times of stress" (Richie, p. 227).
• Obviously, the script had to be radically altered in this 1952 version. The husband is going to Uruguay on business instead of going off to fight the Americans. The simple dinner happens as a reconciliation between a quarrelling couple.
• Nevertheless, the denouement here always brings tears to my eyes.
• Shin Saburi (Mokichi) is quite good as this rather subdued character. He made four other films with Ozu.
• Michiyo Kogure (Taeko) likewise, who is here asked to make a fairly major character transformation. This is rare in Ozu -- most characters never go through such dramatic changes. This is her only appearance in an Ozu film.
• Keiko Tsushima (Setsuko) also makes her only Ozu appearance.
• The score is by Ichirô Saitô -- 147 IMDb credits! He scored two other Ozu films (Record of a Tenement Gentleman [1947] and The Munekata Sisters [1950]) as well as three great Mizoguchi masterpieces, Life of Oharu (1952), Ugetsu (1953) and A Geisha (1953).
• His score here is very fitting. Like the film, it moves and sweeps and is certainly more upbeat than most Ozu scores.
• For example, the overture, played over the opening credits, is most unusual for an Ozu film, containing dramatic ups and downs, big crescendi, deceptive cadences -- until it finally settles on a major chord -- pause -- (director's credit) -- he puts the third of the chord on top ...
• Taeko and Setsuko are in a big touring car (jaunty, almost jazzy piano)

Some outstanding moments:

• Aya, the "modern girl" (Chikage Awashima) owns her own dress shop.
• 0:08:27: Aya and Taeko have hatched a conspiracy to go away -- girls only -- to a spa. Taeko calls her husband at work, ready to lie to him, but he isn't there. Where is he? Ozu shows us his empty desk ("Machinery Dept.") ...
• 0:08:34: The workplace; filing cabinets, backs of men working, windows ...
• 0:08:42: Through a window, looking down on the street ...
• 0:08:50: Sign: "Echo Bar" ...
• 0:08:58: Man drinking -- but it's not Mokichi, it's his friend, Noboru (Koji Tsuruta) ...
• 0:09:19: Mokichi arrives.

 The characters sing a lot in this film:

• 0:11:29: Noboru sings, Mokichi keeps time with his fingers ...
• 0:22:11: Aya begins a song at the spa ...
• 0:44:21: Ryu sings a wartime song ...

Ozu wants to take us into the Satake home from the previous bar scene.

• 0:12:02: Left of frame: a cabinet; right, a table, a few cups. Ozu gently pulls back the camera just a wee bit to take in the room ... then we follow the maid through the house as she brings a tray to Taeko ...
• 0:13:23: As usual, there is a mirror for the previous camera movement. Now he moves it gently forward, following the couple down a hallway ...
• 0:17:57: Camera fixed outside train -- in this film, these shots have flashier impact than in other films. The telephone poles and bridge supports seem to barely miss hitting the camera! (another great train shot occurs at 1:22:14.)
• 0:21:35: At the spa, Taeko lies to her husband on the telephone. She hangs up on him and then immediately picks up the receiver again, and -- thinking she is talking to the operator -- says, "More sake, please." She realizes he is still on the line. The women don't make much of it -- but "Mr. Thick-head" would certainly have figured that one out. (In the end, we learn that he knew exactly what his wife was doing.)
• 0:32:18: More parallel camera movements. Here, back at the house (from a baseball game) we see the empty room and hear the door buzzer as the camera pulls back. Taeko arrives home to find Setsuko there. "I'll never call my husband Mr. Fat-head" ...
• 0:35:36: And the camera pushes forward on Mokichi at his desk ...
• 0:36:00: More parallelism: The President wants to talk with Mokichi. The meeting is interrupted, but The President tells his father-in-law, who had come to visit, that he'll probably send Mokichi abroad soon. At 1:23:23 he tells him ...
• 0:40:14: Chishu Ryu is Sadao Hirayama, who runs the pachinko parlor ...
• 0:48:12: From Early Summer: Identical pillow shots leading into the Kabuki theatre scene. Identical pan down the aisle, except here we the camera stops on Taeko and a man we've not seen before (Setsuko's suitor) ...
• 1:08:05: Mokichi brings things to a head with Taeko: "If you force her (Setsuko) to marry, she'll end up like us." Taeko is a bitter and angry woman. Her transformation is staggering ...
• 1:28:20: Airplane taking off ...
• 1:35:33: From here on, Ozu does an amazing job with stillness of character. With no dialogue, Taeko sits at Mokichi's desk and begins to regret her behavior ... some gorgeous interior pillows ... and the clock strikes eleven bells. Mokichi is back (plane trouble).
• The rest of the film is both filled emotional resonance and just the right amount of humorous interplay. As they make the Ochazuke, we hear the clock strike twelve.
• 1:55:00: The film ends with Setsuko and Noboru playfully courting.
• This film was released the day after my birth.

Ozu4 by Lewis Saul

*41. Kaze no naka no mendori (A Hen in the Wind) (9/20/48) (90 min.) [Sound B&W] [buy it here]

A destitute woman is awaiting the demobilization of her husband when her child falls ill. She prostitutes herself to pay the hospital. When her husband returns, she tells all. He knocks her down the stairs but later apologizes, suddenly realizing all she has been through.

• The DVD is all-region.
• Kinuyo Tanaka is excellent as the wife.
• Once again, we have the sick child and the wife freaking out because there is no money for the hospital bill. (Health care debate, anyone?)
• The melodrama reaches a boiling point. The screen time between his pushing her down the stairs and the end where all is forgiven and they embrace is just a few short minutes.
• However, if we contemplate the situation deeply, we might come to the conclusion that this man -- who probably committed, or at least witnessed, some pretty terrible atrocities himself in recent years -- has realized that his wife's transgression is petty in comparison -- even honorable!
• The print is in excellent shape.

*42. Banshun (Late Spring) (9/1949) (108 min.) [Sound B&W) [buy it here]

A young woman, somewhat past the usual marriage age, lives with her father in Kamakura. She is happy with him, and when she hears of one of his friends remarrying, she disapproves. The father, however, feels that he is keeping her from marriage. She refuses several offers. Then her aunt tells her that her father is thinking of remarrying. She is disturbed, but believing that this is what he wants, she agrees to get married herself. Father and daughter go on a final trip together to Kyoto. When they return, she is married. The father, who had no intention of remarrying, is left alone.

• This Criterion release is a 2-disc set, which includes an excellent booklet with two essays; audio commentary by Richard Peña, program director of New York's Film Society of Lincoln Center; and -- best of all -- Wim Wender's tribute to Ozu: Tokyo-Ga (1985).
• One of a half-dozen or so Ozu films universally considered a masterpiece.
• I cannot find any real information about how Ozu and Setsuko Hara actually met, but there can be no doubt that he saw her work prior to 1949 -- including her star turn (one of the very few "female" pics) for Kurosawa in 1946 in No Regrets for Our Youth.
• Just as we had a "Kihachi" trilogy, this film is the first of the "Noriko" trilogy.
• This is the only film not to use the burlap weave background behind the credits since A Story of Floating Weeds. Instead, we have what looks like an aerial view of dried, cracked mud...

Ozu begins the film with four extraordinarily beautiful pillow shots:

1. [11 sec] Sign in Japanese and English: "Kitakamakura Station." We hear the ticking of a telegraph and a bell sounds...
2. [6 sec] Railroad tracks, fence, trees and sky in background...
3. [6 sec] Unlit signal light framed between two poles; lush trees in background...
4. [7 sec] Roof of large house...

The leisurely music begins in Cut 2; birds chirping.

• Something so relaxing in this pacing.
• The camera is at one end of a hallway, facing five women in kimonos, seated in an L-shape. Another woman enters -- her back to the camera -- and kneels, bows to the other women, who return her bow with a deep unison group bow...
• Reverse angle and we get our first Ozu shot of the beautiful Setsuko Hara.
• She sits down next to her aunt, another Ozu newcomer, who will also become a "regular" in the final films: the amazing Haruko Sugimura. (Kurosawa gave her a wicked role in his 1965 masterpiece Red Beard, where she plays the abusive whorehouse madame.)
• They converse, another woman, Akiko (the gorgeous Kuniko Miyake) enters, same bowing, and then
• Ozu cuts to three more pillow shots: stone steps, flowers and the teahouse. Then back to the women. The pacing is magical...
• The tea ceremony is quite beautiful.

Ozu3 by Lewis Saul

Today:

*36. Hitori musuko (The Only Son) (9/15/36) (87 min.) [Sound B&W] [buy it here]
*37. Shukujo wa nani o wasureta ka (What Did the Lady Forget?) (3/3/37) (73 min.) [Sound B&W] [buy it here]
*38. Todake no kyodai (The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family) (3/1/41) (105 min.) [Sound B&W] [buy it here]
*39. Chichi ariki (There Was a Father) (4/1/42) (94 min.) [Sound B&W] [buy it here]
*40. Nagaya shinshiroku (Record of a Tenement Gentleman) (5/20/47) (72 min.) [Sound B&W] [buy it here]

~~~

34. Kagamijishi (6/29/36) (24 min.) [Sound/Silent B&W clip of 17:36 here]

Ozu's only documentary was commissioned by the Japan Cultural Association to promote indigenous culture abroad. Kagamijishi is a lion dance in kabuki, about a court dancer who becomes possessed by a lion mask, and transforms from coy young maid to a fierce being with flowing mane. Shot in two parts, the dancing scenes were filmed in June 1935 using synch sound by the Tsuchihashi system. The silent, second part, shot in May 1936, takes place in the dressing room and shows the celebrated leading man Onoe Kikugoro IV reciting a poem. At the preview, guests commented on the unnatural expressions of the dancer and the authorities decided to withdraw the film.

It is astonishing to watch the very first Ozu images combined with live sound! However, instead of family conversations, we have beautiful Japanese orchestral music and some really amazing dancing!

• An excellent use of eighteen minutes of your busy day... 

35. Daigaku yoitoko (College is a Nice Place) (3/19/36) (114 min.) (Silent B&W NEP]

Ozu called it "a dark film" making the title ironic. The graduates return home and begin a hopeless search for jobs.

*36. Hitori musuko (The Only Son) (9/15/36) (83 min.) [Sound B&W] [buy it here]

A woman whose husband is no help to her at all raises her only son by herself, working hard so that he can be graduated from a university in Tokyo. Later, she spends most of her savings to visit him. She finds him married and with a child, and he, in turn, spends most of his money entertaining her in the capital.

• Another excellent Criterion release; paired with There Was a Father (1942).
• First feature film with sound.
• No commentary; but excellent interviews with Tadao Sato, David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Ozu scholars.
• The song Old Black Joe is incorporated throughout the score and is used at the very end as a kind of ironic commentary on the story...
• The background behind the credits is similar to the burlap weave which he began using in A Story of Floating Weeds. He does use the traditional weave for the intertitles.
• Ozu immediately lets us know that heavy business is to follow with an initial intertitle (in his first talkie!):
  • "Life's tragedy begins with the bond between parent and child. -- Ryunosuke Akutagawa"
    • (Akutagawa wrote the short story that Kurosawa turned into Rashomon.)
• The son's name is Ryosuke.
• An intertitle gives us the place and the time: "Shinshu, Central Japan -- 1923."
• The film begins with a self-referential joke ~ in many of his silents Ozu would show two clocks with a two- or three-minute differential; here we hear nine gongs, as the women carrying boxes filled with silkworms walk by ... it is 9:00 A.M. Silence. Then another set of bells begins to chime; Ozu cuts it off after the sixth ring!

Ozu2 by Lewis Saul

Today:

*29. Dekigokoro (Passing Fancy) (9/17/33) (101 min.) [Silent B&W] [buy it here]
*30. Haha wo kowazuya (A Mother Should Be Loved) (5/11/34) (93 min.) [Silent B&W] [buy it here]
*31. Ukikusa monogatari (A Story of Floating Weeds) (11/23/34) (86 min.) [Silent B&W] [buy it here]
*33. Tôkyô no yado (An Inn in Tokyo) (11/21/35) (82 min.) [Silent B&W] [buy it here]

***

*29. Dekigokoro (Passing Fancy) (9/17/33) (101 min.) [Silent B&W] [buy it here]

A subtle and beautiful film about a boy and his father who live together in a tenement, the father working, the boy going to school. The father is attracted to a younger woman, and though nothing comes of it, the boy is worried and disappointed. Offered a new job in a distant town, the father goes off only to leave when halfway there to return to his son.

• This boxed Eclipse set also includes "I Was Born, But..." and "Tokyo Chorus" ... The Sosin score is, like the other two, a perfect compliment to this silent film.
• The first in the so-called "Kihachi" series -- named for the main character, played by Takeshi Sakamoto, who appeared in 24 Ozu films between 1928 and 1948. Chishu Ryu appeared in 33 (acc. IMDb; Ryu himself claimed he was in every Ozu picture but two, for a total of 52). Ryu would eventually pick up where Sakamoto left off in the portrayal of the Ozu alter-ego character...
• Both Sakamoto, who was Iwasaki, the boss, and young Tomio Aoki, who played Keiji in I Was Born, But... give beautiful, naturalistic performances here.
• Ryu plays the naniwabushi "singer" in the opening music hall sequence.
• There are three main gags in the scene, which is notable for Ozu's quick introduction of characters and the swiftly panning camera:
  • 1) Kihachi finds an empty coin purse and it gets passed around;
  • 2) Everyone gets attacked by biting fleas; and
  • 3) The way the barber applauds...
• A lovely transition: Tomio is helping his hungover father get dressed. His pants are torn and he smooths out the rip with his hand -- cut -- CU: Otome (Chôko Iida) is sewing the pants; cut to a medium shot where we see Tomio eating in the background...
• In a variation on a typical Ozu theme, the father plays hookey while the responsible son goes to school...
• The scene where Tomio unleashes his furious rage at his father is one of the most powerful moments in all of Ozu's films...
• Of course, no good deed goes unpunished. After making up with his son and giving him 50 sen spending money (a huge sum ~ remember the rice curry in Tokyo Chorus @ seven sen per plate?), the kid gets sick from eating too much (orange pop, jelly, cookies, fried cake, toffee, watermelon, and of course the cold sake Kihachi force-fed him).
• In the scenes leading up to Kihachi's departure, Ozu punctuates transitions with shots of exploding fireworks...
• The final scene recalls a shared father-son joke and ends on a fermata of swaying trees...

*30. Haha wo kowazuya (A Mother Should Be Loved) (5/11/34) (73 min.) [Silent B&W] [buy it here]

A family film about the relations between two half-brothers who have different mothers; good character delineation, somewhat spoiled by melodrama.

• The DVD requires a region-free player.

Ozu1 by Lewis Saul

"I think that Ozu is the greatest director ever to work in the history of cinema, and if I had to choose his competitor it would be Mizoguchi and if I lived on a desert island I would just take all their films with me and that would be fine. That's cinema as far as I'm concerned.

And I think he's making great films from almost the start of his career. I don't think we find a steady ascent towards perfection and then a falling off like we do find in some directors. I don't think we find that zigzag up and down that we find in many great directors like John Ford. I think this guy had the hottest hand of anybody. I can't imagine a film of Ozu that I would actively call 'bad'" (Ozu scholar David Bordwell, interview from The Only Son [1936] DVD).

How often have you heard someone refer to a film as being "poetic"? Googling "poetic film" took me here. These posts were made over a period of 14 months (8/09 to 10/10) and mention about 50 films. Not one Ozu film was proposed.

Michael Radford's brilliant Il Postino was mentioned several times; an obvious choice because the movie is about an actual poet (Neruda). So were such "dreamy" films as Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre, Tarkovsky's The Mirror (just about all of Tarkovsky's films feature the poetry of his father, Arseny), Benigni's Life is Beautiful and Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. All these so-called art films do in fact have either a dreamy, poetic quality about them or attempt to pretty much literally transform written poem to visual image (see most Tarkovsky, esp. Andrei Rublev)...

In these seven posts I will attempt to emphasize the particulars underlying my own personal assertion that the films of Yasujiro Ozu (1903-1963) are Poetry in Moving Images -- works of art eternal in their splendor which inspire one to decipher meaning, probe form, and observe the cosmic humor and tragedy on display.

Of course, there is nothing else remotely like Ozu in the history of cinema (though many now copy him) -- this uniqueness alone requires close investigation.

I have a pretty massive DVD collection (2000+). When I buy DVDs, I have only one criterion: is this a film that I will want to watch more than once? When I re-watch an Ozu film, I feel like an old friend has dropped by. We'll talk about the same old stuff and enjoy each other's company and that's the plot!

A typical Ozu film has very little going on, plot-wise. But because the story is presented to us with such unassuming realism; familiar characterization, meticulous set design; rock-solid steady and invisible camera; and the acting so completely void of artifice, the end result is something startlingly transcendental. (It is said that Ozu treated his actors badly ... he made them do so many takes, some thought it cruel -- but it was his way of beating out the "performer" in the actor and obtaining something very "real").

If you've already seen some or all of Ozu's surviving films, I hope you'll enjoy re-watching them, perhaps grokking anew with some of my more unusual bullet-points in mind. If you are new to Ozu, I hope my writing makes you interested in seeing these masterpieces. Imagine how gratified I will feel if you become an Ozu-nut, like myself.

Yasujiro Ozu was born in Tokyo on December 12, 1903. His father was a fertilizer salesman. He and his brothers -- as was the custom in middle-class families at the time -- were sent to the countryside to be educated. Ozu was a rebellious, undisciplined student. He matriculated no further than middle school, preferring his twin passions of watching American films and drinking. He rarely saw his father between 1913 and 1923, but forged a potent relationship with his loving mother -- Ozu never married and lived with her until her death in 1962 at the age of 87. Ozu himself died just a year later -- the day before his 60th birthday, December 11, 1963. Carved on his tombstone is a single Japanese character -- mu -- the Zen nothingness that is everything.

(For more detailed biographies, go here, here and here.)

Ozu's uncle got him his first job in the film industry as an assistant cameraman, which basically involved schlepping heavy cameras from place to place. He worked his way up to become an assistant director to the both now and then obscure Tadamoto Okubo, who "specialized in a kind of comedy which was called 'nonsense-mono' -- a running series of gags held together by a slight story line, a succession of chuckles intended to make the time pass" ["Ozu" by Donald Richie, p. 200] (must reading for any serious fan).

Ozu was quite satisfied with the position. He could drink to his heart's content (he was a heavy drinker, all his life) and had none of the responsibilities and worries that he quickly realized were the domain of the director.

Nevertheless, his friends urged him on and an incident (a waiter at the studio cafeteria insulted him) provoked him to overcome the inertia of his non-ambition. Besides, he had always loved film (almost all American -- at his job interview, he admitted to having seen only three Japanese films!) and probably felt the confidence to strike out on his own.

Ozu directed 54 films between 1927 and 1962.

• Thirty-seven survive in at least abbreviated form.
• Thirty-five are silent, 19 talkies.
• Forty-eight are in B&W and six in color.
• By decade:
  • 1921-1930: 19 films
  • 1931-1940: 18 films
  • 1941-1950: 6 films
  • 1951-1960: 18 films
  • 1961-1962: 2 films.
• Of the 37 surviving films, 27 are available on DVD -- most of them on the Criterion Collection or their budget label, Eclipse -- but some of the earlier films are available only from Asia, and require a region-free DVD player (which are quite affordable these days). Naturally, the quality of the Criterion releases is extraordinary.

Of the surviving completed films, I will discuss four in the first two posts; five in the third; four in the fourth and fifth; and three in each of the final two posts (the six color films) ...

Today:

*8. Gakusei romansu: Wakaki hi (Days of Youth) (4/13/29) (103 min.) [Silent B&W] [buy it here]
*22. Tokyo no gassho (Tokyo Chorus) (8/15/31) (91 min.) [Silent B&W] [buy it here]
*24. Umarete wa mita keredo (I Was Born, But...) (6/3/32) (100 min.) [Silent B&W] [buy it here]
*28. Hijosen no onna (Dragnet Girl) (4/27/33) (100 min.) [Silent B&W] [buy it here]

Lewis Saul's Sonatina

 

The Seven Most Meaningful Compositions That I Will Love Forever -- VII. BERIO: Sinfonia

One day during my short stint at Juilliard, the composer Milton Babbitt came to guest lecture one of my composition classes.

Mr. Babbitt gave us all a nice lecture on 20th century music and how serial music (12-tone) was here to stay and it shouldn't be "our" problem if people don't enjoy it or "understand" how to react to it...

I recall that my friends and I were horrified at such elitism. Although I had learned a great deal of serial technique my senior year in high school at IAA, my own personal inclination led me to reason that music should always sound interesting and should completely engage an audience. Certainly, we all toyed around with trying to write "interesting" 12-tone music.

And then one day ...

**