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Cinema Ozu (14): But...I'm Everyday People?

23: I Was Born, But... / Otona no miru ehon - Umarete wa mita keredo (1932)
Status: fully preserved and readily available on DVD
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)

The most popular early Ozu feature also has a plot that is easily distorted by leaving out minor (but crucial) details. Two brothers rebel against the pitiful legacy of their straitlaced father. They move to a new town and take over the local gang after taking a few knocks themselves. The movie culminates in a violent outburst, imprisonment, and a hunger strike.

That makes the movie sound like a Yakuza crime drama, but I suppose that simply speaks to the universality of themes in fiction. The movie is more specifically about two young boys and the various struggles they endure making a couple of major adjustments. The first couple of which come as a result of their parents moving them to the suburbs. The first, which concerns much of their time in the film, is settling in to a new school. A gang of bullies scare them away from regularly showing up to class at all. Later, they are crushed to learn how inconsequential a paper-pusher their father is at work.

Tomio Aoki (aka "Tokkan kozo", l.) and Hideo Sugawara (r.)

"Tokkan kozo" was something of a Mickey Rooney-style kid superstar. He got away with ridiculously broad humor, and chewed all the scenery they gave him.

The older brother is played by Hideo Sugawara, who played the bratty son in Tokyo Chorus opposite Tokihiko Okada. The younger brother, who steals the film, is good ol' Tomio Aoki, credited here as Tokkan Kozo, after his breakout role in 1929's Tokkan kozo just three years previous. This time, Tatsuo Saito plays his father instead of his kidnapper.

"TK" once again.

Seiichi Kato (leaning, center) as Taro.

Mitsuko Yoshikawa, who had worked on seven previous Ozu features (most of them now lost), plays the mother. Child actor Seiichi Kato plays Taro, the wealthy son of the company boss. Kato would go on to play another notable role in A Mother Should Be Loved.

Tatsuo Saito revealing a submissive attitude toward his boss in front of his kids.

After learning that their dad is no big man with a great legacy to leave them, the brothers focus all of their frustration-borne anger at him. They then go on a hunger strike, echoed in Good Morning, Ozu's 1957 re-working of this early critical and popular success. Even though things end relatively happily, the lingering generational conflict leaves you wondering "who will these young boys become?" at the film's end.

The theme of strife between parents and children becomes more pronounced in Ozu's films as time goes on. We also see much fewer young kids featured, with adult children taking their place. Ozu himself admitted that he "[started out making] a film about children and ended up with a film about grown-ups." I'm not alone in feeling that I Was Born, But... was a major discovery point for Ozu.

Older brother goes apeshit.

Even though many of his next few pre-WWII films have little to do with the themes in IWBB, he was indisputably drawn to them like a calling from a higher power. The struggle within Japanese society between traditional dominant/subservient relationships is also opened up here. IWBB leaves these questions answered in an open-ended fashion, and they will be explored further after WWII.

I couldn't resist revealing the instance of primary schoolers smoking.

The movie has worn its 78 years quite well, and is just as watchable as Charlie Chaplin pathos-comedies and the films of Keaton and Lloyd (one of Ozu's great early influences). The beauty of the silent era is that subtitles don't prevent possible Subtitle Snobs from turning their nose up at foreign films with the complaint, "I don't wanna read." The kids are adorable, the father admirable, and the movie is disarming.

"Ozu-esque" framing

The 10th set from Criterion's Eclipse label includes this film, the just-previous surviving film Tokyo Chorus, and then it skips four surviving movies ahead to the next family-centric film, Passing Fancy. this is about as good a any of these three will look without making digital repair glaringly obvious. The picture on this one is a bit banged up, but it looks a whole hell of a lot better than the first few surviving features.

One last thing: the title translates literally to "I Was Born, But...: A Picturebook for Grown-ups".

I'm delaying a "So Far" piece I had intended for last week to the end of this week, since I've decided to add some more information that'll be better supplemented by including this week's films. Next up is Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth?, which marks the last time we see a couple of genre for some time.

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.