Ozu Yasujiro
‘The Extraordinary in the Ordinary’
Very Short Biography
• Ozu Yasujiro - b. in Tokyo
12 December, 1903 - d. in
Tokyo, 12 December,
1963
• Born as a son of the head
clerk of a wealthy
merchant.
• Brought up in Matsuzaka,
where his father comes
from.
• Wild childhood and love
of cinema.
Very Short Biography
• Failed in university
exams but found
employment in a local
primary school.
• Through his family
connection, he entered
Shochiku Studios as an
assistant cameraman in
1923.
Very Short Biography
• Since The Sword of Penitence (1927) to An
Autumn Afternoon (1962), Ozu made 54 films
(only 36 survived).
• No films during WWII
• After the war (1947), he made one film a year.
Ozu’s Films
• Ozu survived
transformations of cinema silent  talkie  colour
• Two phases roughly divided
by WWII
• Prewar phase – metteur-enscène phase:
• comedies, farces, genre
films (sho-shimin geki =
‘common people’s drama’),
even detective films.
Ozu’s films
• His distinctive themes and styles began to emerge
around 1936. Ozu returned to Japan in 1946 after
spending war years in Singapore, and his themes
and styles were his fixed signature in the post-war
era.
Ozu’s Mature Films
• The Late Spring (Banshun: 1949) - Story about the
relationship between a widowed professor and his
only daughter who is reluctant to get married
because she would rather stay with father looking
after him. The professor successfully devises a
trick to entice his daughter to get married, though
this inevitably means their separation.
Ozu’s Mature Films
• Early Summer (Bakushu’u: 1951) - Story about
Noriko who is 28 years old and generally considered
that she has passed her prime time for marriage. Her
family and family friends try to introduce some men,
but to everybody’s surprise, she suddenly announces
that she will marry a widower with children.
Ozu’s Mature Films
• Tokyo Story (Tokyo Monogatari1953)- An elderly
couple visit their children in Tokyo but are rather
unkindly treated by them. Only their daughter-inlaw (war widow) provides them with genuine care
and spiritual relief. On their way back home, their
mother is taken ill and dies without recovering her
consciousness.
Ozu’s Mature Films
• Equinox Flower (Higan Bana: 1958) - a successful
middle-age businessman has two daughters. He
proposes an arranged marriage for his elder daughter
with a man from a politically influential family. The
younger daughter declares that she only marries out
of love. Despite of his progressive statement about
relationship, their father refuses his consent to the
marriage of her elder daughter to a man that he does
not know.
Ozu’s Mature Films
• An Autumn Afternoon (San’ma no Aji:1962) - a
widowed father lives with his only daughter who has
reached a marriageable age. His colleague
approaches him with a prospective match but he
delays mentioning it to her. His chance meeting
with his former high-school teacher and his daughter
who remains unmarried in order to take care of her
father makes him decide to spare his own daughter
from falling into the same miserable fate.
Ozu’s Themes and Motifs
• Plot is almost completely eliminated; his
narrative centres on domestic relationships,
events in a family - birth, growing up, falling in
love, marriage, aging and death, and character
studies. (Plot = a narrative devise to render a
strong emotional or artistic effect.)
• Assemble similar characters - middle-class, lower
middle-class parents or (widowed) parent,
children in their late twenties or thirties, who are
ready for marrying.
Ozu’s Themes and Motifs
• Hirayama (father’s sir name) - An Autumn
Afternoon, Equinox Flower, Tokyo Story,
• Noriko (daughter’s first name) - Early Autumn,
Tokyo Story, Early Summer, Late Spring
• Akiko (daughter’s first name) - An Autumn
Afternoon, The End of Summer,
• Koichi (son’s first name) - An Autumn Afternoon,
Tokyo Story
Ozu’s Themes and Motifs
• Similar narrative settings - a household in
which parents and children live together.
Children are ready to marry. Parents and
children face the problems of separation and
aging. Their settings are Tokyo or its
suburbs (Kamakura). Working in office and
commuting.
Ozu’s Themes and Motifs
• Ozu’s mature films - a record of slow, gradual
metamorphosis of the Japanese society and family.
- the slow disintegration of family
- the gradual decline of national identity
• MILD criticism or regret against social, economic
and cultural changes and western influence.
• Subtle nostalgia - from distanced and
dispassionate positions his films depict what
Japan has lost or is losing.
Ozu’s Themes and Motifs
• His films examine the struggles in the cycles of
birth, growth, aging and death so essential to
human beings;
• Pains in the transition from childhood to
adulthood;
*Small conflicts between the young and the old;
*The tension between tradition and progression
• Universality of Ozu’s themes and motifs
Ozu’s films very Japanese yet very universal.
So Japanese and
So Universal
• “If in our century, something sacred still existed,
if there were something like a sacred treasure of
the cinema, then for me that would have to be
the work of the Japanese director, Yasujiro
Ozu…
So Japanese and So Universal
• For me never before and never again since
has the cinema been so close to its essence
and its purpose: to present an image of man
in our century, a usable, true and valid
image in which he not only recongnises
himself, but from which, above all, he may
learn about himself.”
• Wim Wenders, Film Director
So Japanese and So Universal
• Admiration and accolades from film directors all
over the world
• Influence on a large number of people
• Considered as one of the greatest film directors
and auteurs in the 20th century because of his film
contents and film styles
• British Film Institute Sight and Sound Directors’
10 Best Films of All Time 2012
• Critics’ 10 Best Films of All Time
So Japanese and So Universal
• Aki Kaurismaki, Finish film director tribute 1
• Hou Hsiao Hien, Taiwanese film director tribute 2
Ozu as Auteur
• Complete grip on filmmaking in every stage
• Mr. Ozu looked happiest when he was engaged in
writing a scenario with Mr. Kogo Noda, at the
latter’s cottage on the tableland of Nagano
Prefecture. By the time he finished writing a
script, after about four months’ effort, he had
already made up every image in every shot, so
that he never changed the scenario after we went
on the set. The words were so polished up that he
would not allow us even a single mistake.
Ozu as Auteur
• The same crew - Ozu gumi (Ozu team)
• Noda Kogo (scriptwriter)
• Atsuta Yuharu (photographer)
Ozu as Auteur
• Hara Setsuko (1920 - ) Ozu’s favourite actress
• Ryu Chishu (1904 - 1993) - Appears in most of
Ozu’s films from The Only Son to An Autumn
Afternoon
Ozu as Auteur
• Other actors frequently appeared in Ozu’s
films
• Sugimura Haruko and Yamamura So