Monotonous Perfection: A Closer Look into Ozu’s Early Films
Because of the reinvention or the addition to the form of non-linear narrative in a film, Yasujiro Ozu is considered one of the Japanese greatest director. The first impression his films give is that his subjects are the Japanese Family and the stoic construction of the patriarchal figure of the father as a pillar of the Japanese identity. However, I wonder what one can discover if Ozu’s early works are paralleled and scrutinized with different perspectives. Yasujiro Ozu´s films are rooted in the genre of daily lives called by film scholars “shomin-geki”, and thus, it gives a monotonous feeling, but according to Catherine Russell who wrote for Cineaste, the seeming monotony and “passing …show more content…
“The long shot is used to show solitude, precisely because it isolates; or humor, for it isolates and makes apprehendable; or aesthetic beauty, because it gets us far enough from it to see it all” (Richie 12). When he utilized the word ‘apprehandable’, Richie structurized all the descriptions ascribed to Ozu’s cinema and its purpose as “more metaphysical reason of its being circular” a balanced, continuous geometrical form congenial to the human mind” (12). Something I found peculiar and odd while watching Late Spring and Woman of Tokyo was the dialogue and the body language that required more than just a glimpse to analyze or understand. There were many scenes within the first half an hour of the film Late Spring with the Noriko (Satsuke) smiling at her father, Somiya, or expressing her thoughts with a smile that neutralizes her mien (appearance). She did not seem affected by anything; the Noriko only smiled or giggled nervously. Richie amplified this oddness by explaining that when editing, Ozu usually liked to place a cut after an emotional point, avoiding the anecdotal points of the scene; which meant that Ozu rarely cut directly from dialogues or actions (Richie 14). Instead, he “tactfully” waited for his characters to fall into repose (Richie 14). In other words, in moments of great emotion like the weeping scenes between Noriko and Somiya in Late Spring and Woman of Tokyo are directly cut due to what Richie attributes as a morally scrupulous Ozu who “refuses to ‘take advantage’ of his characters in the way most directors are only too delighted to do” (14). Personally, as a viewer I was unaware of time in both films and even forgot about the limitation of time although there were clocks visible in Late Spring specifically in placing shots. Richie points out the importance of time in Ozu’s films because of its “psychological effect−the
Because of the reinvention or the addition to the form of non-linear narrative in a film, Yasujiro Ozu is considered one of the Japanese greatest director. The first impression his films give is that his subjects are the Japanese Family and the stoic construction of the patriarchal figure of the father as a pillar of the Japanese identity. However, I wonder what one can discover if Ozu’s early works are paralleled and scrutinized with different perspectives. Yasujiro Ozu´s films are rooted in the genre of daily lives called by film scholars “shomin-geki”, and thus, it gives a monotonous feeling, but according to Catherine Russell who wrote for Cineaste, the seeming monotony and “passing …show more content…
“The long shot is used to show solitude, precisely because it isolates; or humor, for it isolates and makes apprehendable; or aesthetic beauty, because it gets us far enough from it to see it all” (Richie 12). When he utilized the word ‘apprehandable’, Richie structurized all the descriptions ascribed to Ozu’s cinema and its purpose as “more metaphysical reason of its being circular” a balanced, continuous geometrical form congenial to the human mind” (12). Something I found peculiar and odd while watching Late Spring and Woman of Tokyo was the dialogue and the body language that required more than just a glimpse to analyze or understand. There were many scenes within the first half an hour of the film Late Spring with the Noriko (Satsuke) smiling at her father, Somiya, or expressing her thoughts with a smile that neutralizes her mien (appearance). She did not seem affected by anything; the Noriko only smiled or giggled nervously. Richie amplified this oddness by explaining that when editing, Ozu usually liked to place a cut after an emotional point, avoiding the anecdotal points of the scene; which meant that Ozu rarely cut directly from dialogues or actions (Richie 14). Instead, he “tactfully” waited for his characters to fall into repose (Richie 14). In other words, in moments of great emotion like the weeping scenes between Noriko and Somiya in Late Spring and Woman of Tokyo are directly cut due to what Richie attributes as a morally scrupulous Ozu who “refuses to ‘take advantage’ of his characters in the way most directors are only too delighted to do” (14). Personally, as a viewer I was unaware of time in both films and even forgot about the limitation of time although there were clocks visible in Late Spring specifically in placing shots. Richie points out the importance of time in Ozu’s films because of its “psychological effect−the