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Cinema Ozu (12): Landmark Tokyo Chorus

22: Tokyo Chorus / Tokyo no korasu (1931)
Status: preserved and readily available on DVD in Asia, USA, and Europe
Script: full script preserved
Prints: original negative and multiple prints survive
Region1 DVD: Criterion's Eclipse Series 10, Silent Ozu (Amazon link / Criterion Store link)

Of Ozu's surviving films, this is the first one that really fired on all cylinders for me. The western influence on his work is evident here, since core elements of the plot are very directly inspired by King Vidor's The Crowd. Set during the depressed era seen in previous Ozu features, this was his most effective picture to date that concerned people making do and cutting back.

Okajima (l.) and his former teacher Okamura (r.) later in the film

The movie opens years before the present with protagonist Okajima in school. He is harshly reprimanded by his teacher Okamura (our pal Tatsuo Saito with a mustache and age makeup). Tokihiko Okada plays Okajima, whose surname is shared with "The Beard" Okajima he played in The Lady and the Beard. I like to think that this is a "cousin Okajima", who similarly must evolve to survive and thrive, though in a different way.

Okajima and his elder officemate

Whereas the kendo master of TL&TB needed to modernize, this Okajima must avail himself of his upper-middle-class pride. He works at an insurance firm, and when bonus checks are handed out, he finds out that an older salesman at the firm is being let go, just shy of making pension. Okajima insists that he and his coworkers petition for the old man's reinstatement, but his haughtiness forces him to go it alone. He proceeds to act like he runs the place, resulting in his firing. The sight gags involved in his stealing office supplies remind me just a touch of Chaplin.

Before leaving for work that morning, he had promised his son a bike. In light of losing his job, Okajima instead purchases a much cheaper two-wheel scooter. The son soundly rejects the inferior goodie. What an ungrateful little emperor...

Bad news in-hand, he goes home to his wife and three kids: a son, daughter, and an infant of unspecified sex. Emiko Yaguma plays Okada's wife here, just as she did in That Night's Wife. In TNW, she played the mother who would do absolutely anything for her child. In Tokyo Chorus, her mother is dramatically more self-concerned than selfless.

She responds with outright despair that her husband would sell her belongings to save the life of one of their kids. Additionally, she is not merely embarrassed, but disgusted at the shame of "lowering" herself to doing without and seeing her husband do "common" work for their family to survive. Yaguma also appears in Ozu's Story of Floating Weeds.

Tokyo Chorus is thematically very similar to Ozu's later, better-known films. A portrait of a family set against a backdrop of generational conflict, the static camera that reveals greater internalized emotion, and the well-intentioned father figure are all part of the groove that Ozu would settle into. I got a little choked up for the first time while re-watching this movie, but it wasn't due to the movie's content. I choked up because I knew that this was Tokihiko Okada's biggest success, but last picture with Ozu. In a few minutes, I'm posting an "Appendix" piece on Okada, who died just three years after the release of Tokyo Chorus.

Okajima, son, and daughter

Okada really gives one of the finest silent film performances I've seen here, and he was on track to become one of the great stars of the silent era. His journey from entitlement to humility is very touching, especially once he begins working for his college instructor Okamura at a curried rice restaurant.

Okajima "lowering" himself to common work, handing out fliers and carrying ad banners

The movie itself compliments him nicely by presenting a perfectly-portioned bento box of different genre: college comedy, salaryman, and family drama. This nice, compact meal is the one that master chef Ozu would refine and perfect over the following decades. Bordwell closes his piece on this film (quoted in the Eclipse jacket) by saying "From this point on, Ozu is a major director". The major critics voted it the third best picture of 1931, and Ozu's stock rose exponentially following its release, only to culminate in major success a couple of years later with I Was Born, But....

The Eclipse DVD edition retains a great deal of damage that is truly beyond repair. That is, unless one were to manufacture entire frames out of digital cloth. It's perfectly watchable, and I enjoyed Donald Sosin's newly-recorded score from two years ago. I hope we see his talents employed on future Ozu silent film releases.

As promised above, I will post a standalone appreciation of Tokihiko Okada in mere minutes. Tomorrow promises a few more Ozu entries: a lost film, I Was Born, But..., and a status report. We really lock into high gear starting next week.

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.