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Cinema Ozu (10): The Lady and the Beard

Tokihiko Okada as Okajima, "The Beard" of the title.

20: The Lady and the Beard / Shukujo to hije (1931)
Status: survives in near-complete state
Script: full script preserved
Prints: original negative and multiple prints of 75 minutes out of 8 reels survive

It spoils absolutely nothing to say that this Ozu picture ends with a quotation by Abraham Lincoln. The hero ("The Beard" of the title) is an old-fashioned, traditionally Japanese guy who means well, but has not adapted to the "modern" suit & tie way of life that has become popular in Japan. I like that the identity of "The Lady" in the title is open to interpretation. It could be all three female supporting leads, or just one of them.

The movie begins at a kendo tournament. Bearded competitor Okajima (Tokihiko Okada) bests all of his opponents, and a couple of guys watching approach him afterward to congratulate him. One of the guys, Teruo (Ichiro Tsukida), invites Okajima to come along to his sister's birthday party. On his way, Okajima saves a girl named Hiroko (Hiroko Kawasaki) from being robbed by Satoko (Satoko Date as yet another "bad girl") and her henchmen.

"Bad Girl" (as she is officially credited) Satoko and her "Bad Dudes"

At the party, Teruo's sister Ikuko (Toshiko Iizuka) and her friends make fun of Okajima. Okajima does shave his beard at one point, and the grand question is which of the three ladies he will end up with. Since he ends the film beardless, does this mean that the woman he ends up with is no longer a "lady" by traditional definition?

A small aside: two of the ladies have marriage proposals already offered, though they are drawn to Okajima "The Beard". One of them meets her potential husband and asks him if he knows kendo. To wit:

She: "I won't marry a man who doesn't know kendo."
Him: "Why?"
She: "So he can protect me."
Him: "The Police can protect you. They have the law."
She: "Then I'll marry the police, or the law."

Coincidentally, and thanks to watching the more recent movie just yesterday, this reminded me of a particularly Mamet-ian exchange between Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins in The Edge. I'll have to paraphrase:

Baldwin: "A few days ago, if a bear had reared up on you like that, you would have called your lawyer."
Hopkins: "No, I wouldn't do that to any animal."

It's not the topic of conversation that felt similar, it's the snap-crackle-pop intellectual payoff. Good, smart writing always works.

One of the opponents at the opening Kendo match

While watching The Lady and the Beard, it isn't difficult to guess who he ends up with, but I see no reason spoiling it here, since TL&TB isn't available on DVD anywhere that I can find. I once again am indebted to Italian bootleggery for allowing me to see this film, which survives, albeit in pretty banged-up shape.

The movie starts out lighthearted and comedic, but grows more serious and grounded as we go on. This is a progression that is among the only steadily developing trends visible within the subset of these early years of Ozu films. He jumped from genre to genre, trying this and that, and Bordwell rightly pokes a hole in the idea that Ozu steadily developed into the fully-formed artist that made his postwar films. Here we see a spiritual predecessor to Ozu's later career focus on wondering "what's so bad with old culture?".

In the surviving films and fragments, we can see little touches here and there that he would use later on, but until now, we haven't seen much that is indicative of what I consider the Signature Ozu period that he is known for. Bordwell notes that first seen here is the device Ozu used extensively: dividing portions of rooms with items in the extreme foreground (glasses and cups in this case). Ozu's Hollywood influence remains blatant at various points. Something I didn't have time to include is a screencap of the girl Bordwell points out as doing a "Dietrich" pose at the party early on.

Okada, who plays Okajima, looks nothing like he did in That Night's Wife when he has the beard on in TL&TB. He does some really wonderful work here, and it's a shame he wasn't in more films overall. Okada only made a total of five movies with Ozu, the last being Tokyo Chorus, which we'll look at in a couple of days.

Hope for a Region1 DVD: I'd say this will happen in time, whether through Criterion or Eclipse. Our best bet for a near-term release is another multi-title Eclipse set, as there's not a lot of money in expensive re-masterings of admittedly lesser works in the Ozu canon.

Honest Lincoln-sama

Tomorrow brings two Cinema Ozu pieces: "Appendix A" talking about Tatsuo Saito's career with and without Ozu, and a piece on Ozu's 21st film, generally translated as Beauty's Sorrows. I can smell the melodrama from here.

Cinema Ozu is a limited-run series of articles about the career and impact of Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu. My primary intent is to chronicle my own journey through his films, a fair number of which I have seen, but even more of which I have not. The most essential research tools I have used are David Bordwell's book Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema and definitive Ozu fansite "Ozu-san".

The series is also timed to celebrate the July 2010 U.S. release of The Only Son and There Was a Father as a DVD double-set by The Criterion Collection. You can find all entries in Cinema Ozu here. New to the series? It's best to start from the beginning.