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.

• There is no score; you have to use your imagination. Plus:
• The print is missing the first and final reels. The first reel takes place eight years before the surviving footage, in which the father dies. The final reel takes place three years after the events of the film and concerns the reconciliation with the mother.
• Intertitles fill in the gaps at the beginning and end. They begin:
  • A very nice house in a residential area. At the breakfast table, father promises to take his sons to Shichirigahama on Sunday. After the father and children leave, his high school friend, Ozaki, calls to see if he will join the class reuinion. Mother receives a disturbing phone call, informing her that he has collapsed. She calls her sons' school to bring them home.
• And so the surviving film begins with the teacher telling young Sadao (Seiichi Kato, who was so good as Taro, the boss's son, in I Was Born, But...) to go home.
• The kids are soon adults.
• I might be overreaching here: but at 0:20:11 we see the two grown brothers together for the first time, helping their mother move into a new house in the suburbs. A door on the right creates an indented vertical which compresses the frame. The brothers are, at first, framed in this space, until they move to sit down, turning their backs to the camera. Sadao (Den Obinata) is on the left and Kousaku (Kôji Mitsui) on the right -- but he is split in half by the door's right angle, and we only see his left side. Half brothers?
• This is one of Ozu's first film with little or no filmic punctuation, other than the straight cut.
• In addition, the camera is now almost always placed slightly above the ground.
• The only "Ozu signature" yet to come is the straight-on shot -- here, he is still using the conventional sideways glance...
• Ozu never once used a flashback. He always elides, as he does here in the scene where we learn that "Uncle" (Okazaki) (Shinyo Nara) had died a year ago ... even with all the exposition missing because of the lost first reel, Ozu makes it simple and natural to "catch up" with past events. The information may come in trickles sometimes ... and often some things are left completely unexplained.
• The commercial success of I Was Born, But... gave Ozu more directorial power, including the privilege of using as much film stock and time as necessary to get something right. Mitsuko Yoshikawa (Mother) is quoted in Richie as remembering "a full if nonconsecutive twenty-four hours spent on a single shot in [this film]. She was supposed to turn away from tea-making (0:26:28); the tempo of turning had to be precise, and her glance was not to move ahead of her face. 'Why,' she finally cried after some hours of this, 'do I have to do it this way?' 'Because,' Ozu explained, 'you are not a skillful actress and you must be directed.'"
• Amazingly, she continued to work with Ozu through the late 40's.
• Ozu continues to show his love of American films. He uses a poster of Joan Crawford in Rain (1932) (where she played a prostitute) as a transition between two scenes as Sadao "rescues" Hattori (Chishu Ryu) from the whorehouse.
• At 0:47:30, he again uses the poster to introduce the prostitute.
• The bar at the whorehouse: Two prominent film posters on the walls:
  • Poil de carotte (The Red Head) (1932); and
  • Pabst's Don Quichotte (or Don Quichotte).
• 1:06:25. Ozu hasn't completely given up moving the camera. Here, he slowly pulls back on Sadao and Mother through a row of people and their floppy kimonos, keeping them framed. Lovely.
• The final (surviving) reel takes place at the whorehouse and Ozu keeps things moving quite naturally. When the prostitute leaves with her friend to get something to eat, Sadao is left alone with the old cleaning woman. They share cigarettes and she quietly but firmly condemns him for not being a "good son." Prostitute comes back with her food; offers some to Sadao who lies there, unresponsive...
• Though somewhat too melodramatic to be sublime (as most of Ozu's later pictures are!), this film definitely has its moments.
• The intertitles which serve to explain the final reel:
  • The eldest son (Sadao) eventually returned home, and all the various problems with each other were solved. Three years later, they moved to the suburbs. There, they began a new life.
  • The next film will make up for any deficiencies here. It is a definitive masterpiece.

*31. Ukikusa monogatari (A Story of Floating Weeds) (11/23/34) (86 min.) [Silent B&W] [buy it here]

The head of a small troupe of traveling players returns to a mountain town and meets his son, fruit of a casual affair some years before. A magnificent film that won the Kinema Jumpo first prize.
 

This beautiful, lyrical film was given the ultimate Criterion treatment. Paired with its sequel, Floating Weeds (1959), this is a very special 2-disc DVD, giving the buyer the wonderful opportunity to see two nearly identical films made 25 years apart.

Ozu had already made many pictures about the Japanese family. However here, we find a much more potent statement about what will truly become Ozu's central concern throughout the rest of his career: the dissolution of the Japanese family.

• Richie provides the commentary (as well as a new translation) for this film; Roger Ebert does the talking over the '59 version.
• Donald Sosin again provides the fabulous score. Like Ozu himself, Sosin rides the crest of the strong undercurrent of melodrama, only to pull back at just the right moment, keeping things balanced...
• Ozu loosely based the story on George Fitzmaurice's The Barker (1928) (Richie misspells his name as "Fitzgerald" [p. 150]).
• This is the first film to use the plain "burlap weave" background behind the opening credits. Of the remaining films chronologically, only a few will use a different type of background.

One of Ozu's best introductions:

• [9 sec] A hazy, out-of-focus, dimly-lit shot of the interior of the railway station. Look carefully at the lower left and you can see a man moving...
• [5 sec] An unusual shot; the camera is placed right behind two window-like frames, with a vertical beam cutting through the left side. We see a sign, a lantern and a clock...
• [4 sec] Ext: railway signs and signals; the one on the right flicks downwards...
• [9 sec] Medium shot of man (railway employee) in profile, sitting on bench, smoking...
  • Note how the length of this cut relaxes the tempo...
• [4 sec] 90° turn, close frontal shot, smoking, flicks ash, looks up...
• [2 sec] Cut to 2nd rr employee, lifting a wicker basket...

Having established the railway station, the remainder of the scene plays out very naturally, as we see the train pulling into the station.

• They get off the train in this order:
  • Kichi (Seiji Nishimura), Kihachi (Takeshi Sakamoto), Otaka (Rieko Yagumo, in her sole film credit. Perhaps she disliked getting slapped around so much!), Maako (Yagamasa Yamada) [the fat guy], Otoki (Yoshiko Tsubouchi), two actors uncredited, and finally Tomibo's father (Reikô Tani) with the sleeping Tomibo (Tomio Aoki) draped over his father's back.
• Tomibo is introduced to the station master as being nine years old, the exact age of Aoki during the filming...
• 0:05:19. This shot shows a train map on the left-hand side of the frame. We won't see it again until the very end, where it immediately reminds us of where we are...

Ozu has reached a fully mature style here, with discernible structure and form, brilliant characterizations, simple camera set-ups, and the consistent calm "fermatas" -- or pauses -- which occur between scenes, as everyday objects appear in their stillness and reinforce our magical reverie...

The pillow shots are sublime in this film, and occur with regularity as refreshing pauses in the narrative (such as it is). Here is where they occur and what they are:

• 0:02:06: [Opening]: Train interior; sign/lantern/clock; railway signals.
• 0:05:41: [Troupe leaves railway station]: Large white banners, swaying gently in the wind with the mountains in background; a poster advertising the troupe: "Kihachi Ichikawa's Troupe! Opens July 7!"
• 0:07:18: [Maako distributing fliers]: POV through window bars: the large banner; inside, an altar (?), paper charms (?)
  • Note the timing of these still visual transitions: After these last two still shots, we move fairly swiftly through 1) Tomibo eating watermelon; 2) Kihachi getting a moxa treatment; and 3) Kihachi leaving to visit a "patron."
• 0:11:37: [Kihachi and and Otsune (Chôko Iida) have reunited and she has just asked him if he wants a drink]: Hanging kimono, waiting; CU of something I can't identify (socks?); and the sake bottle heating up.
• 0:20:06: [Shinkichi (Kôji Mitsui) comes home. Ozu cuts right to the horse rehearsal]: Another altar-type structure I can't really identify. A small rectangular boxlike structure sits on top of the vertical; in the next cut the box is open. There are crinkly strips of white paper, which I understand to mean that it is a "holy" or "sacred" place. Perhaps this is like a marquee theatre sign, dunno...
• 0:24:03: [The performance; it begins to rain]: A cup, a few open books and rain falling on the tatami mats; out-of-focus shot with light bulb; the boxlike thingie again; theatre floor, rain falling...
• 0:25:01: [Kihachi and Tomibo, bowing, apologizing for the rain]: ECU two buckets; another bucket, several cups with Kichi and Tomibo's father in the background -- axial cut on close of two men...
  • At 0:29:25, Ozu cuts directly from the conversation between Otaka and Timibo's dad (she's offering him money) to Otsune, calmly peeling a piece of fruit.
• 0:37:54: [After the Kihachi/Otaka scene in the rain]: The light bulb shot from above...
• 0:40:45: [Otaka/Otoki scene]: A sign; bowls to catch the rain in the foreground, the theatre audience (smaller) in the foreground; a box hanging from a tree; bottom of tree, surrounded by little white flags. (In the commentary, Richie says this indicates that the tree is a "sacred" place.)
  • These four shots take us from the theatre to somewhere outside with amazing economy...
• 0:42:39: [Otoki meets Shinkichi on the road. He leaves on his bicycle, camera remaining stationary while he moves off]: the bicycle, indoors; his clothes, hanging on a line.
• 0:45:07: [they meet late at night]: tall white banners; bars, indoors...
• 0:46:43: [Otoki has returned. She turns out the light to an amazing natural FTB]: clothes hanging on the laundry line, swaying in the wind (probably the most common pillow shot throughout the films).
• 0:48:09: ["Where is Otoki?"]: CU of bicycle.
• 0:51:04: [Otoki/Shinkichi scene by railroad tracks]: bicycle (indoors); clothes hanging (almost identical to previous shot); his desk.
• 0:59:27: [after the fight with Otaka]: a tea kettle, placing us at Otsune's...
• 1:01:33: [Kihachi and Otsune worry about the situation]: a clock {midnight}
• 1:03:34: [after the bankruptcy]: a left-to-right pan of the troupe's packed baggage; the light bulb.
• 1:08:22: [the troupe sings together, but sadness reigns]: stacked tatami mats; and the bicycle, looking like it's being stored for the long term (Shinkichi has outgrown it)...
• 1:22:13: [long, bitter scene with Otoki, Shinkichi, Kihachi and Otsune]: the sculpture on the shelf; the smoking mosquito coil by the shoji... (we leave Otsune's)
• 1:25:43: [railway station]: final shot of the train moving away...

The gorgeous location is deep in the mountains.

One of the funniest gags occurs at 0:07:24. Tomibo is eating watermelon. His father warns him that he'll have Otoki give him a moxa treatment (which Kihachi is undergoing at that very moment) if he wets his pants again. Tomibo thinks about it, looks over at Kihachi and says:

• "Did the boss wet the bed last night?"
  • Direct scarring moxibustion places a small cone of mugwort on the skin at an acupuncture point and burns it until the skin blisters, which then scars after it heals.
• Ozu moves the camera only four times in the entire film, each movement having a corresponding echo:
  • At 0:20:14 he dollies past the threatre audience; and again at 0:21:15.
  • At 1:01:38 he dollies past the troupe, now audience to the bankruptcy dealer.
  • The echo occurs at 1:03:34, as Ozu dollies past the packed luggage of the bankrupt troupe.
• Chishu Ryu makes his cameo during the initial performance scene. Right after Kihachi appears on stage, Ozu cuts to Ryu who shouts, "Finally!" (his only line in the film!) ...

32. Hakoiri musume (An Innocent Maid) (1/12/35) (87 min.) [Silent B&W NEP]

For the New Year season, traditionally a money-making time for the Japanese film industry, Shochiku wanted to begin a series about girls in various situations. This was the first and Ozu and his staff worked day and night to finish it. Diary entry: Jan 4 1935. "This was a very ordinary, routine script. Not a good omen for beginning a new year." It was not particularly good (thoughgtful friend ruins marriage to save innocent young bride, etc.) and, in any event, Shochiku decided not to continue the series.

*33. Tôkyô no yado (An Inn in Tokyo) (11/21/35) (82 min.) [Silent B&W] [buy it here]

A proletariat father (Kihachi) and his two young sons look for a job and eventually find transient companionship with a widow and her little girl.

• It is likely that this film was one of the very few silent films still being made in 1935; talkies were the norm rather than the exception by this point. Ozu still said "no" to sound for various reasons you can read about in the biographies. (He would later say "no" to color, years after most films were being made that way...)
• However, there is a contemporary soundtrack, by Keizo Horiuchi. Long stretches of the film have no musical accompaniment.
• Third and final film in the "Kihachi" (Takeshi Sakamoto) series.
• This film might have been an inspiration for De Sica's 1948 Bicycle Thieves (recently given the Criterion treatment!) -- the masterpiece of the nascent Italian neo-realism movement.
• Tomio Aoki had just turned twelve. For the first time, he gets to play the older brother, Zenko.

Notice how Ozu develops a simple plot point:

• Father asks the kids if they are hungry and they respond in the negative. However, the youngest soon breaks down crying and admits that he is "really hungry."
• After two short reaction cuts, Zenko seems to see something, turns to his father and says:
  • "Dad, 40 sen!"
• A series of cuts shows Zenko approaching a stray dog, motioning to Father, who puts the little one on his back and then they are chasing down the road after the dog.
• Cut to CU of a poster: "Rabies Prevention Day. Bring stray dogs and earn 40 sen a dog."
• The next cut takes us to a sign: "Banseikan Inn."

Such wonderful economy and respect for his audience! We quickly deduce that this down-and-out threesome caught the dog and used the money to get a room at the inn.

Again, take notice of how carefully and naturally Ozu develops his characters -- especially the children:

• The kids see a boy with a really cool military cap.
  • "We'll get a dog and buy one," says the little one...
  • Zenko responds with wisdom beyond his years: "With dogs it means you can get a meal."
• Later, they see a dog and chase it. Ozu elides a bit ... next we see Zenko approaching his brother with something hidden behind his back. He has bought the cap!
• The boys think their father will be furious, but he scolds them rather mildly.
• Later, at the inn, they discover they have no money. Zenko rues spending the money on the cap instead of a meal:
  • "I shouldn't have bought this."

Kihachi has a big heart. The kids think Dad should beat up the gatemen who keep refusing him work. Zenko can't understand it:

• "You asked them so politely..."
• "Don't blame the gatemen."

Zenko knows that Dad wants a drink. A long scene where he pantomimes serving sake to his father and rice and tea to his younger brother ...

• Ozu now formally introduces us to the mother (Yoshiko Okada) and daughter Kimiko (Takayuki Suematsu) who we have seen twice previously (at 0:14:26 they walk by and stop for a moment near where Kihachi and his boys are sitting; at 0:18:26 they enter the inn -- the boys stick their tongues at Kimiko; she meekly responds in kind...
• 0:49:50.and 0:50:04: Unique pillow shots of overhead clouds which fill the entire frame...
• 0:53:21: Gorgeous shot of the boys sitting atop one of those large spools (the first image in the film), wondering where Kimiko is...

In my opinion, this lovely film is ruined a bit by the excessive melodrama. After an excellent bit of parallelism (Kihachi was a happy drunk when Zenko pretended to serve him sake; but here, drinking the real thing, he is mean and abusive towards the mother because she has become a prostitute), things break down rather conventionally. She cries, he tells her to stop, she finally admits that Kimiko is desperately ill, he reacts with concern, etc.

Perhaps because Ozu has shown us this "sick child scenario" so often by now, it doesn't quite resonate here, particularly when you compare it with the powerful denouement in Tokyo Chorus (the pattycake scene) ...

• As in Passing Fancy, Ozu again uses shots of bursting fireworks to underscore a character's emotional turmoil. In the latter film, Kihachi was going off to Hokkaido to seek work; here he is upset by Kimiko's illness and determined to do something about it ...
• 1:10:31. This is only the second time I've seen this: Kihachi turns off the light creating a natural FTB ...
• Otsune (Chôko Iida) -- whom Ozu and Iida molded into such an interesting character in the previous film (A Story of Floating Weeds) -- is here reduced to being at first disagreeable and hostile towards mother and daughter (she suspects Kihachi is up to no good), and then extremely apologetic and upset when she learns that Kihachi has been trying to help the sick girl. The melodrama is pushed to the breaking point ...
• However, Ozu allows ambiguity to work in his favor:
  • We never learn what or from whom Kihachi stole. We never see any actual money -- he gives Zenko something that seems to be wrapped up in paper...
  • He asks Otsune where the nearest police station is. In the final shot, he is wandering off somewhere -- we have no idea whether or not he went to prison.
• Ozu leaves us with this final intertitle:
  • "Thus has a soul been saved."
• Chishu Ryu's cameo: a policeman.

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Comments

[David L]

Beautiful -- meticulous commentary that can only be the product of a sustained labor of love. -- DL

[Lewis Saul]

I don't mind the labor. The love is something so difficult to express via that massive toolbox of yours -- WORDS!

I do love these films. I hope my scribblings will at least pique a bit of curiousity in those who think this might interest them.