I could've sworn I'd seen this thread before but I guess not. I bought Floating Weeds a couple years ago and loved it. The storytelling was what stood out for me as magnificent. I'm kind of ashamed to say that I haven't seen Tokyo Story yet, but will be buying it immediately once its released on DVD in october. After viewing it, his style in filmmaking will probably be a lot more apparent to me, as I've only seen FW. One things for sure.. he was one of the great directors of the cinema who clearly had an eye for his characters and knew how to tell a good story based on that.
Well, back again 2 months later. Got the Tokyo Story Criterion in the mail and have been watching it for a little while now. The quality to the picture is excellent (as the typical Criterions are) and the writing, directing, and cinematography are great. This 2 disc film is packed with great stuff on Ozu. Every fan of foreign cinema should blind buy this.
I'll likely edit this and add more once I'm finished the film.
I love "Tokyo Story". Sad to say, it's the only movie by him that I've seen. His films are so hard to find, I'd love to see "Floating Weeds".
Quote from: classical gasI love "Tokyo Story". Sad to say, it's the only movie by him that I've seen. His films are so hard to find, I'd love to see "Floating Weeds".
Good Morning is available on DVD.
My
Tokyo Story thoughts from my blog:
"I've never seen Tokyo Story
before; the only film by Ozu I've seen is Good Morning
, a singular, inventive, and quite good comedy which nevertheless is hardly exemplary of Ozu's style or body of work. I have, however, seen quite a number of films by Robert Bresson and Carl Theodor Dreyer, both of whom I'm much more familiar with than I am with Ozu, and both of whose work I connect with Ozu's via Paul Schrader's Transcendental Style in Film
, which Tokyo Story
nudged me over the edge into purchasing (at Cinema Books, one of the few Seattle offerings I find unique and worthwhile).
Tokyo Story
does, indeed, recall Bresson's austere, meticulous visuals, systematic asceticism, simple yet vast reverence for human subjects and a need to foreground them against their environment as a way for us to get to not the "point" of the people and their situation, but to the "soul" of it, to something elemental and usually hidden by the mechanisms of drama.
As Ozu's camera elegantly and with extreme restraint (the film consists almost exclusively of medium shot compositions, with virtually no camera movement), details them for us, the everyday intergenerational travails of an extended family- an elderly, rural father and mother visit their grown, urban children, the children unconsciously neglect them, the parents forebear, with the mother's eventual death forcing things into a sort of sharp, tender relief for the adult siblings- expose a sacred, as distinct from religious, element in daily human existence. The effect is sobering but delicate; there's not a trace of heaviness."
Quote from: godardianthe film consists almost exclusively of medium shot compositions, with virtually no camera movement
you arent kidding! god, i did not like this movie very much. i didnt hate it, but it was boring. not that the story itself was uninteresting totally, but the way it was shot. there was about 3 camera moves in the whole film. (i felt like i was watching a kevin smith movie.) medium shot, cut, medium shot, cut, medium shot, cut. goddamn did that get so old, so fast. i've never seen a movie that was shot as boringly as this one. is this part of ozu's 'style' or did he really just not have a fucking clue how to shoot a movie or what to do with his camera? he seemed paralyzed to make anything interesting happen, and THIS was on the sight and sound critics list as one of the 10 best movies ever!? the last 10 minutes of the film seemed to spell out everything that the film was about in two conversations with 2 different sets of characters. "Life's disappointing isnt it?" "Yes, it is". there didn't seem to be much going on under the surface, and the story itself was just too restrained for my taste. i cant see how this is so highly regarded.
by the way, i hate doing this. i hate not liking movies that are supposed to be good. i swear.
Quote from: themodernage02by the way, i hate doing this. i hate not liking movies that are supposed to be good. i swear.
I love it! :-D
Quote from: OnomatopoeiaQuote from: themodernage02by the way, i hate doing this. i hate not liking movies that are supposed to be good. i swear.
I love it! :-D
haha, i believe it. i really dont. i never set out to be a critic, nor do i get any pleasure out of being disappointed by something that other people really like. but the more movies i see, the more i seem to have more defined tastes of what i do or dont like. i used to just love movies, but i find myself now being sucked into forming opinions on them. arghha, message board!!!!!!!
haha, i just read the title of the Tokyo Story review on imdb...
From the If-It's-Boring-It-Must-Be-A-Masterpiece school of filmmaking
Mod-age. I don't want to explode on you. I don't. You're nice but you don't read enough. I'm sorry. But you don't. If you want to go to IMDB and pick out shit to poke fun such as "From the If-It's-Boring-It-Must-Be-A-Masterpiece school of filmmaking" then maybe you should, oh I don't know, click on the link that talks about Ozu! Just maybe. Here, I've done it for you. Read it. Educate yourself. Maybe in the future I don't have to hear these ignorant rants. I mean, you KNOW you could just read up more on him instead of just asking stupid, stupid questions like "is this part of ozu's 'style' or did he really just not have a fucking clue how to shoot a movie or what to do with his camera? he seemed paralyzed to make anything interesting happen, and THIS was on the sight and sound critics list as one of the 10 best movies ever!?" ANYWAY, this is a portion of Leonard Maltin's description of Ozu:
"Ozu dealt primarily with the dynamics of middle-class Japanese family life and the subtle tensions between the generations. He planned his camera shots meticulously and focused almost entirely on compositions; he never used pans, fades in or out, and employed virtually no dollies or tracking shots. Chishu Ryu, who acted in many of Ozu's films, said, "By the time he had finished writing a script ... he had already made up every image in every shot, so that he never changed the scenario after we went on the set." Ozu's most famous shot-taken from the eye level of a person seated on a tatami, a Japanese floor mat-became symbolic of a Japanese person's "viewpoint.""
i did read that actually. and usually when i watch a movie i'll try to ATLEAST go to my leonard maltin guide, imdb (film reviews AND filmmakers bio), amazon and here to try to get some well rounded opinions on the film. so i think i try to read up on a movie after i've watched it, (especially if i didnt care for it), to see if there was something i missed. if that's his style i certainly dont care for it. i only posted the 'so boring its classic' headline, because i thought i was the only person who didnt like the movie, but reading that atleast let me know there are two different points of view on it (rather than 1. its great or 2. you dont get that its great). i also read that kurosawa didnt like ozu's films and dismissed them as 'boring' too. but i still cant find an explanation of how this ranks with the best works of all time.
Ok personally, I never understand how somebody could say "How did THIS make the Sight & Sound Top 10?" For somebody who says "Oh this is boring! Is this his style or what?? YAWN." I think somebody like you should just take their word for it, right? I mean, really... :roll:
Actually, modage, what you should read to at least give yourself a better idea of what people see as special and edifying about Ozu is Schrader's Transcendental Style in Film. The way I look at it is this: A very, very controlled restraint and measured tempo a la Bresson, Dreyer, and Ozu (and, to a lesser extent, what Bergman does in most of his films or Todd Haynes did in Safe) is as radical and provocative a stylistic choice as the more popular contemporary one of being a cocksure camera jockey. The reaction is meant to be reflective and contemplative, not adrenaline-pumping. One is not inherently superior to the other, but we get used to one definition of "style" and prefer it, which is a fairly arbitrary distinction in itself. Anyway, I think Schrader excellently and incisively digs into Ozu's means and methods, so that's the recommended-reading. I do not recommend ever trusting that Leonard Maltin. I wouldn't trust him any farther than I could throw him (notice I said him and not his pedestrian little book, as that traveled quite a good distance when I hurled it off my balcony in disgust :) )
Quote from: themodernage02[ there was about 3 camera moves in the whole film. (i felt like i was watching a kevin smith movie.)
Ha, see Kevin Smith is good. He is the heir apparent to Ozu.
Tokyo Monogatari- such a beautiful film!
I like a lot about Ozu's style: graceful, pure, very subtle. The girl who plays Noriko in this movie really blew me away with her kindness...
Soshun was also worth watching, although not as good as Tokyo Story. Sanma no aji was better, his final film AND the first Ozu in color I saw. He disliked color in most of his career, but this film is such a beauty...very nostalgic use of colors, it reminded me a bit of for instance Fellini's Amarcord.
Want to see more from Ozu!
Quote from: SHAFTRQuote from: themodernage02[ there was about 3 camera moves in the whole film. (i felt like i was watching a kevin smith movie.)
Ha, see Kevin Smith is good. He is the heir apparent to Ozu.
:lol: hahahahahahahahahahaha
Lordy, how did I miss this one?!
I just had my first Ozu experience with Tokyo Story and Floating Weeds. With Tokyo Story, I was slightly disappointed -- I had in mind the entire time Roger Ebert's testimony that he's never heard more weeping in the theater as he did at a screening of this film. I thought it was a masterpiece of composition and emotion-by-way-of-restraint, but it didn't move me as much I had hoped. But the style is just amazing -- I don't know how Ozu did it, but his rampant breaking of the 360 degree line never jumped out at me. I wish I had been able to see it in the theater, though; watching it home, I felt too distracted by other things, and I think that may have been part of the reason I didn't get so wrapped up in it.
Floating Weeds didn't make me cry either, but that wasn't it's intent. I really loved this one; it's absolutely wonderful, and the relationships between the characters are so sad and warm and funny and gentle...I just loved them. The color scheme is magnificent, and again, Ozu's style really blew me away (no tracking shots whatsoever in this one, and the montages or rooms and other locations, devoid of people, were really poetic).
What next?
Yasujiro Ozu excelled in his quiet moments
The Japanese director was so confident in his steady shots that understatement ruled his palette.
Source: Los Angeles Times
Legendary director Yasujiro Ozu's rigorously spare style was often marked by long, slow takes — the camera set at the eye level of a person sitting on the tatami matting that cover the floors of a traditional Japanese home. With so little camera movement, the rare pan shot became a uniquely expressive event.
His films remain tremendously evocative, with a flourish of superbly composed images introducing key scenes. Shots of people entering and exiting a room — Ozu loved to shoot down corridors — become expressive not only of everyday life being lived but beyond that, of the transitory quality of life itself. (It's not coincidental that his post-World War II films frequently had one of the four seasons in their titles.)
It wasn't until years after his death in 1963 on his 60th birthday, however, that Ozu came to be regarded by filmmakers, historians and critics as an all-time-great filmmaker. Among Ozu's admirers are such internationally renowned auteurs as Jim Jarmusch, Stanley Kwan, Aki Kaurismaki, Claire Denis, Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Wim Wenders.
Ozu, who never married and lived with his mother until his death, was also a master delineator of family life and relations between adults and their children. His films, which will be featured this week by the UCLA Film Archive and LACMA, are suffused with warmth, compassion and humor and are remarkable for the power of their understatement.
"Any filmmaker who really loves movies and is interested in what they can do gets to Ozu, who becomes lovely, sacred soil to them, a very special achievement," said another admirer, filmmaker Paul Schrader. "Really, all you can do is stand back and look at his movies and be baffled by how they're done."
Schrader became intoxicated with Ozu's style when he was a film student at UCLA and later published "Transcendental Style in Film," a 1972 exploration of spirituality in film, which focused on Ozu as well as Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer and French director Robert Bresson.
Currently preparing the release of an "Exorcist" prequel, Schrader took time out to discuss Ozu by phone from his Manhattan office. The filmmaker said his own work — including "American Gigolo," "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull" — was influenced by Ozu.
Schrader said that tracing Ozu's influence on other directors is "a hard angle to take — first, because Ozu is unique to the Japanese cinema, and second, the Japanese culture he reflected in his films is long gone. But Ozu shows us what movies can do when they go quiet.
"To watch an Ozu film makes you think about not moving the camera so much, to slow down on the editing and the performances, letting the performances unfold," Schrader said. "When you start to do this you start getting things you don't expect from movies. This lets the audience know you're playing for big stakes. Making a movie is like playing poker: if you're just going to have a good time you play for low stakes. But if you play slower you let the viewer know that there's a lot of money in the pot at the end of the game, and that somebody is going to get rich.
"But how do you do that? Ford could stop a movie and go with lyrical passages, but nobody can do it like he could."
Slowing the pace
Even so, Schrader has discovered that it's worth trying to go slower than action-oriented American audiences expect. "Ozu shows us that movies can work in a different way from what Americans have assumed. That … seeps into your consciousness as a filmmaker."
Schrader, who grew up in Michigan, said he lived a sheltered childhood and saw his first movie at 17. When he discovered Ozu after arriving at UCLA as a young man, the filmmaker's work struck a chord within him.
Schrader, now 58, was a film student at the university in the 1960s when the major Japanese studios still had their own theaters in Los Angeles and catered to the city's large Japanese American community. Schrader recalls watching Ozu's final film, the 1962 "An Autumn Afternoon," during a revival there. When Schrader became a fellow at the American Film Institute, he persuaded Shochiku, Ozu's longtime studio, to screen Ozu's postwar films for him.
"I came to UCLA fresh from theological school — Calvin College, a Dutch Calvinist college in Grand Rapids," Schrader said. "All this theology fell in line with my interest in films in relation to their spirituality."
From fall 1968 through 1969, Schrader was film critic for the pioneering alternative weekly the Los Angeles Free Press and made a name for himself with provocative reviews that echoed the concerns of the movies and screenplays of his own films, "The Yakuza," "Mishima" and "American Gigolo." Schrader also wrote "Taxi Driver" for Martin Scorsese and co-wrote Scorsese's "Raging Bull."
In Ozu, Schrader discovered an Asian counterpart to the revered and better-known Dreyer and Bresson. He was moved to spend a year and half writing his book, linking Ozu, Dreyer and Bresson. He says in retrospect he was really too young to write the book but knew that only at that age would he devote such a period of time to such a project. Looking back, he says, "It's a very cautious book, very elitist, with lots of footnotes."
'You can't top him'
Schrader said that although Ozu is without parallel — "You can't make an Ozu film any more than you can make a Sturges comedy or a Ford western. You can't top him" — his distinctive styles have been reflected in a number of films.
He cites Korean filmmaker Kim Ki-Duk's "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter … and Spring" as a recent example, and Hirokazu Koreeda's 1995 "Maborosi," which means "illusion" or "mirage," has the feel of an Ozu classic, sharing an understanding of the power of precisely composed images coupled with an innate understanding of how long to hold a shot until it's suffused with meaning and emotion.
Two films recently screened at the Toronto festival were homages to Ozu: Abbas Kiarostami's "Five" and Hou's "Cafe Lumiére."
Schrader ranks his favorite Ozu films starting with "Tokyo Story" (1953), widely regarded as Ozu's masterwork; "Late Spring" (1949) and "An Autumn Afternoon." Schrader is quick to add that some of Ozu's many films didn't always work but were peerless when they did.
"Tokyo Story" is replete with deceptive simplicity: an elderly couple (Chishu Ryu, Ozu's reflective alter ego virtually throughout the director's career, and Chieko Higashiyama) visit their adult children in Tokyo, only to find that they are not as successful as they had assumed, and have little time for their elders. The couple returns home and the wife dies soon after. So detached, yet so committed is Ozu's approach that "Tokyo Story" reverberates with the brevity and preciousness of life.
"Late Spring" contains one of the defining moments of all Ozu films and is played by the actors Schrader believes Ozu revered most: Ryu and Setsuko Hara. A widower, Ryu, listens as his adult daughter, Hara, says that she would rather stay with him than marry. But the father, whose devotion to his daughter is palpable, tells her with the utmost reticence, and yet with kindness, that she must leave him and make her own life. "That's the cycle that is the history of human life," the father says.
Schrader mused for a moment about Ozu, an intensely private man and the solitary life he lived. It may be that Ozu simply poured all of himself into his work, he said, adding that the love Ozu expressed onscreen through Hara surpasses what most people are capable of expressing for their own mates.
All anyone can do in regard to Ozu, Schrader said, is view his towering achievements with "reverence and bafflement."
I'm so excited about the Ozu retrospective... Tokyo Story projected on the big screen this Friday, bitches.
samsong, you are sexy.
Zooey in the av, Bresson and Fassbinder in the sig, posting on Ozu. Can we go steady?
I am going to see Flavor of Green Tea over Rice tonight at an Ozu retrospective. I can't wait. Has anybody here seen that film? I wish more of his films would get picked up by Criterion. I heard Criterion has their hands on a couple of his films, but I would love to see I Was Born, But..., and Late Spring get a good transfer and some good features.
Quote from: In the 'I just bought...' thread, on Tokyo Story, samsongI just saw it and it fucking crushed me. Tokyo Story is a work of pure genius and is, alongside Kurosawa's Ikiru, the greatest Japanese films... no, fuck that, one of the greatest films ever made (Ikiru included). This is an essential for anyone and everyone, the perfect remedy for the "wretched excess" (Friedkin, Decade Under the Influence.... i love that term) in cinema today. Ozu implements a style so mind-bogglingly simple yet MUCH more effective than just about any other stylistic choice I've ever seen. Ozu offers in Tokyo Story (my first experience with him) one of the most beautifully observant works ever put on film, whose influence is very clear in the works of Ozu worshippers like Wim Wenders and Jim Jarmusch (others include Aki Kaurismaki, Hou Hsiao Hsien and Claire Denis but I haven't seen their films... yet). People will lead you to believe that this is just a stellar exploration of family, which it most definitely is. But the film holds within it the very geography of life, perfectly mapped and brilliantly illustrated.
Simply put, Tokyo Story is a masterpiece. An absolute masterpiece. I can't wait to revisit it (which will probably be tomorrow... and I still have six blind buys to go through).
I'm not that familiar with Ozu, but I've known for a long time that he's one of the giants of Japanese cinema. I'm a Kurosawa enthusiast and after seeing Tokyo Story, I feel comfortable in saying that Ozu is in every way Kurosawa's equal.
I'm wondering if we saw the same film. Not to sound like a philistine or a modage or anything, but YAWN. It went on way too long after the denouement (it was a 2+ hour movie that could've been 90 minutes), static shots do not a great film make, and neither do shots of characters looking into the camera, delivering their lines in singsong voices, and in tones that don't even fit the words they're saying. It's not the least bit sad. It goes a great way to expressing an idea that isn't explored in that many other places, and I really hand it to Ozu for that. It made me think. But it's so heavy handed. I didn't hate it, and it is worth a look, but it's really not the masterpiece people make it out to be. Maybe I need to watch it again. I saw this in a class, on a VHS, and I don't know if that had anything to do with my lack of enjoyment of it, but I must've missed something. Kurosawa > Ozu. By a long shot.
Quote from: ono mo cuishledelivering their lines in singsong voices, and in tones that don't even fit the words they're saying.
dude, it's in japanese..
I realize that. Still, there's such a thing as intonation. That doesn't change across languages.
ono, do u know anything about languages? intonation can change even between regional dialects, as in japanese.
perhaps ur problem with ozu is based on total ignorance of japanese culture.
Quote from: Pubrickono, do u know anything about languages?
Considering I'm somewhat fluent in Spanish, and I've studied a lot about linguistics, yes. That gives me a great understanding of Romance languages.
Japanese is not a Romance language, true. But still, the principles apply. My roommates both take Japanese. So hearing them speak, and having watched many Japanese films (both anime and live action), I think I'm a good judge of that.
i am also fluent in spanish and italian, but this is not a dick measuring contest. cos discussion of romance languages, distinguished by their grammatical form, has little if anything to do with pronunciation of japanese.
hav u never encountered the basic joke that a chinese person can say Mother and Horse by just changing their "sing-song voice"? why do u think russians are made fun of in the simpsons when one of them is giving lisa directions and she thinks he's threatening her?
those are just simple observations supporting what i thought was common knowledge: intonations are not a 'universal language constant'. u truly are a product of the american educational system.
Quote from: Pubrickthis is not a dick measuring contest.
Quote from: Pubricku truly are a product of the american educational system.
so u've abandoned ur misguided position?
and that quip was in reference to this japanese waiter impersonating an american:
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.xixax.com%2Ffiles%2FP%2F30minsWaiter.JPG&hash=65ad535a0840b135fbc7e21ea920bbfc960bd3da)
[Lisa: Don't you serve anything that's even remotely Japanese?]
Don't ask me! I don't know anything! I'm product
of American education system. I also build
poor-quality cars and inferior-style electronics.[/b]
the irony was too delicious to resist.
03, your thoughts?
it is early so i might expound later; but everything bricks said is correct, there really isn't anything technically wrong with the way they are speaking, (in a language context, not an acting one) if you feel it is any different from the delivery of lines in current japanese cinema, then it is for the same reasons as the changes in the delivery of lines in american cinema. if you're comparing kurosawa and ozu, maybe you should watch rashomon again and see if you feel the same about kyo machiko's performance, which is kind of melodic at times. you can simply say that you just did not like it, instead of being mean by gauging it with 'technical information'.
hahah I speak Japanese and Ono is wrong.
I was lucky enough to see Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family in Chicago and it totally rocked my world. Anyone else have a similar expierience?
The Eclipse set is opening Ozu up for me in a big way. I watched Early Spring and that was amazing, and then I watched Tokyo Twilight and realized that Early Spring was really amazing. I find the way he paces his films stimulating and completely involved with the emotions of his characters, I find his shot selection delicate and engaging. And his cuts: I think Early Spring has instinctive and logical cuts, and given the restrictive atmosphere, given the suppression of conversational exoneration, they couldn't possibly be called anything but jarring and powerful. He doesn't move the camera, but he moves around his characters, and when he moves around them he forces you to notice new things about them, consider them in this way then that way. Watch, it's there. Gripping is my choice adjective. If you give yourself over I can see a whole theater crying, the way Ebert talked about and Ghostboy quoted on page one.
When I'm done with the box I'm going to revisit his Criterions.
I caught I Was Born, But... today at IFC and although it's one of the better silent films I've seen, it felt completely underdeveloped, unresolved, and even boring for most of it. The opening shot was the most promising... but I just couldn't get into until the last half hour. I guess I have to assume I just missed a lot in terms of cultural context or something. Anybody else see this?
I saw it a while ago with a new live score. I remember being charmed by it. I don't really remember much of a story to it, so a lot of it was just seeing simple Japanese life through the eyes of children, and it was pretty funny at times. Like I said, I don't remember the story, but that might be because there wasn't really much of one? I don't think anything really happens, and the stuff that happens is fairly inconsequential, but the details and atmosphere were palpable and felt so lived-in. So perhaps development and resolution were not really important. Right now it's in my mind as more of a portrait of a time and place and attitude, especially from the children's point of view.
i saw it with a recorded piano score that really didn't fit the film very well. there was a little bit of mickey mousing here and there but in terms of tone, it brought/changed nothing to the film. it felt very tacked on.
I was just watching The End of Summer again and I've really come to feel that the final third of the film is really, really unsettling and ominous.
Anyway, I wish Ozu could have done more colour stuff.
I've never been particularly interested in Ozu, but this excerpt from the beginning of Ebert's Criterion commentary got me excited about him without much knowledge so I figure it's a decent entry point into his work. I've never seen an Ozu movie and admittedly have a difficult time getting into Asian cinema in general (exceptions: I'm a big fan of Masahiro Shinoda's 'Pale Flower', Nagisa Oshima's 'Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence', and the Koreyoshi Kurahara films packaged in Criterion's Eclipse set, most notably 'The Warped Ones', but these director's films seem to be stylistic exceptions to the majority of the Japanese films I've seen) but the compositions in the opening of Floating Weeds above have me really stoked on seeing it and Good Morning, which also looks incredible visually.
Screenshots (http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Floating-Weeds-Blu-ray/50522/#Screenshots) from the UK blu-ray release of Floating Weeds (1959)
Screenshots (http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Good-Morning-Blu-ray/18745/#Screenshots) from the UK blu-ray release of Good Morning (1959)
funny, at the paragraph's beginning was going to mention good morning! you already did, lol. is really enjoyable imo. ozu is an emotional and narrative master, with a famous inclusion of japanese perspective, although maybe not visual (cinematic) appeal. idk
in la right now, shion sono is considered like, japan's unmissable. not sure how to describe the vision of him as unavoidable. appreciation mainly based on love exposure
i'd recommend many on my own, if i thought a conversation might be started. not fully believing so, just want to smile and say yasuzo masumura, seijun suzuki (famous, but thinking of youth of the beast, and fighting elegy), kihachi okamoto, and many more but i won't mention. love japan basically
but good start to conversation, good morning wilderesque :))
I've seen Youth of the Beast, which I liked, and a couple other Sezuki's. I respect what he does but it's something I might have been into more if I got deeper into it several years ago, it's just not really my thing now. Might try Fighting Elegy on your recommendation and also Gate of Flesh, which I've been putting off for godknowshowlong.
I've heard of Yasuzo Masumura and actually have The Blue Sky Maiden (1957) sitting here to watch, but it doesn't have subtitles. Its compositions look great though, and I'm interested in his stuff for similar reasons as Ozu, so I might give it a go without understanding a goddamn thing. Some screencaps from Blue Sky Maiden:
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FGpnSz0i.jpg&hash=92b7ba7354c5b48b425134853c95edc24bbb9bd3)
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Fk0cInCE.jpg&hash=c26d74e6b37fb59940817e79b74bb13a477e2631)
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FNPBOjkJ.jpg&hash=20aae20b2817a4d04cb354b370fca8c295b81fe7)
and one from another of Masumura's movies, The Hot Little Girl (1970)
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FSX50BpX.jpg&hash=26cb3a3e3b32689cfe1bf2ee632b40cf0f529d9a)
I haven't seen anything by Okamoto. All that Feudal Japan stuff kind of turns me off. I like Kurosawa's High and Low, the more contemporary set films. The old setting strips that level of relatability for me. Maybe I'll try them out despite this.
oh hello! :)
guess most of your replies are based on your personal preferences, which are of course more up to you than others :)
exciting screencaps! masumura's movies are pretty wild, it's true
i might say kinda the same thing about historical japanese perspectives as you did (related to okamoto). the same kinda thing about wwii movies, time perspectives, thematic bases, the aging of people, etc. i def think about the same kinds of things. seems like a difficult battle, between self and society and history and all other things. know what you mean, is what i'm saying. like with america's movies, some japanese movies aren't so much about the past as about other human questions related through events. and the time detail is a crazy abstraction. i'm delighted by sub-surface mystery, and enjoy encountering them. i have in other historical japanese movies, and most of all valued the strange emphasis in okamoto's movies. btw :)
fun talking with you :))
Quote from: Lottery on March 15, 2013, 08:22:23 AM
Anyway, I wish Ozu could have done more colour stuff.
Doubly stand by this because upon rewatching, Floating Weeds has some of the most fantastic use of colour ever (the composition is special too). Can I make a thread about most striking/memorable cinematography? Not necessarily favourite...hell, I'll just see if there's an old thread I can use.
Anyway, instead of watching his talky stuff again and again, does anyone have any opinions on his silent work? I've never really delved much into silent film overall. Help me out?
Quote from: Lottery on April 07, 2014, 10:30:35 AM
Anyway, instead of watching his talky stuff again and again, does anyone have any opinions on his silent work? I've never really delved much into silent film overall. Help me out?
with some silent movies i can see the ingredients that continue to constitute the basis for cooking a movie. for example, griffith's orphans of the storm has the major elements of popular action movies today, in that it frames the story within a historical problem, it uses people as symbols, and there's a conclusive chase scene
there's an ozu example: i was born, but... ('32), which he remade as good morning ('59). i adore good morning, and i appreciate being able to register similarities/differences between the two. floating weeds itself has a story of floating weeds ('34). relationships between the movies help build interests, because sometimes silent movies are hard to watch for people. a few of my movie friends like all kinds of movies, but for one reason or another they can't stand silents. so these are the obvious ozu silents to mention
how do you watch them -- do you have a region free player? my personal favorite silent japanese movie is hiroshi shimizu's japanese girls at the harbor, which i think plays itself as a wonderful cinematic narrative, with readable and digestible emotions. that's cinema so good you gotta write that shit down. eclipse put it out, but idk how that's helpful news for non-region1
Quiet Cinematography - Floating Weeds (1959) - Vimeo (https://vimeo.com/159571092)
I have, in my late 40s, come to absolutely love the cinema of Yasujirō Ozu.
I've worked my way through many of his most notable post-war films in the past three years.
I jumped right in with Tokyo Story, because I didn't want to be influenced by already understanding Ozu's style. I wanted to see if the film would come to me, and it absolutely did. Looking forward to rewatches, because I'm not sure if I'll ultimately end up ranking it as my #1 Ozu. But it's surely a masterpiece.
After that I have watched, in this order:
-- Good Morning
-- Late Spring
-- Floating Weeds
-- Early Summer
-- An Autumn Afternoon
All wonderful, in their own rights. Funny, sad, playful, devastating, all in turn.
Looking forward to watching more Ozu. For me, there's something about the pace of the films that's so comforting in these stressful times; even acknowledging that he's showing a world of post-war Japan that was not without its own pressures and problems.
Quote from: Find Your Magali on August 07, 2021, 10:41:25 AM
I have, in my late 40s, come to absolutely love the cinema of Yasujirō Ozu.
I've worked my way through many of his most notable post-war films in the past three years.
I jumped right in with Tokyo Story, because I didn't want to be influenced by already understanding Ozu's style. I wanted to see if the film would come to me, and it absolutely did. Looking forward to rewatches, because I'm not sure if I'll ultimately end up ranking it as my #1 Ozu. But it's surely a masterpiece.
After that I have watched, in this order:
-- Good Morning
-- Late Spring
-- Floating Weeds
-- Early Summer
-- An Autumn Afternoon
All wonderful, in their own rights. Funny, sad, playful, devastating, all in turn.
Looking forward to watching more Ozu. For me, there's something about the pace of the films that's so comforting in these stressful times; even acknowledging that he's showing a world of post-war Japan that was not without its own pressures and problems.
Cool! Thanks for sharing. I've also never seen an Ozu and have been considering starting with Late Autumn or Spring.. there's a few of them on HBOmax:
Late Autumn
Late Spring
Tokyo Story
Of those three, I think I'd recommend Late Spring as an Ozu opener. But you really cannot go wrong.
Thanks, I was planning to do that. This morning I checked the TCM app and they've added
Bakushu
Tokyo Twilight
Early Autumn
Are there any of those you'd recommend before Late Spring? Just curious
Quote from: Reelist on August 20, 2021, 06:17:02 AM
Thanks, I was planning to do that. This morning I checked the TCM app and they've added
Bakushu
Tokyo Twilight
Early Autumn
Are there any of those you'd recommend before Late Spring? Just curious
Bakushu is Early Summer, which is very very good. It's would be fine to start with. I haven't watched the other two yet. They're in the Criterion Eclipse "Late Ozu" box. Tokyo Twilight has a very good reputation.
Ahh Ok, I'll stick with Late Spring since that's the earliest of the bunch ('49)