Setsuko (l.) and Uncle Kimoya (r.)

Feature #35:
What Did the Lady Forget? / Shujuko wa nani o wasureta ka
(1937)
Status: fully preserved and readily available on DVD in Asia
Script: fully preserved
Prints: original negative and multiple prints survive
Region1 DVD: none as of this writing

A decided departure from the dire, hopeless (but still wonderful) The Only Son, Ozu's final pre-war film would plant the seeds from whence the social comedy in his later films would sprout. David Bordwell notes that What Did the Lady Forget? is often completely...Read More

Sakamoto as his signature character, Kihachi, in the character's swan song, An Inn in Tokyo

Takeshi Sakamoto was one of Ozu's most frequent go-to actors in the 1920's and 30's, like Tatsuo Saito, with whom he often appeared. Sakamoto showed up in three of Ozu's (now lost) first seven films. He then pops up in the earliest surviving film, Days of Youth. He's also in the partially-surviving I Graduated, But..., the lost Life of an Office Worker, and then plays the criminal boss in Tokkan Kozo, where a great partnership is born. Tomio...Read More

When this set was announced back in April, I started an absurdly ambitious series to tie into it. Cinema Ozu has turned out to be more personally rewarding and enjoyable than any film studies class I took in college (with the possible exception of Chinese Cinema and Culture). To me, what these long-sought-after releases represent to the aspiring filmmaker or film historian is considerable: a look inside two of the most affecting films in one of the greatest filmographies in all of cinema.

In-depth exploration of the themes and historical...Read More

As I mentioned in last night's article, The Only Son is the only film thus far that specifies definite dates for different periods in the film. Past Ozu films have seen time pass, marked by "three years later" and so on, but this one is the most defined by its era. Not only does it come after the end of the Enlightened Rule (Meiji) period, but it specifically ties to the events of 1923, 1935, and 1936 (the year the film was released).

[A quick primer on the naming of Japanese...Read More

Mother Otsune (l., played by Choko Iida) and only son Ryosuke as an adult (r., played by Shinichi Himori)

Feature #34:
The Only Son / Hitori musuko
(1936)
Status: fully preserved and readily available on DVD
Script: fully preserved
Prints: original negative and multiple prints survive
Region1 DVD: released today (13 July 2010) by Criterion in the Two Films by Yasujiro Ozu set

I've rewritten this article nearly four times now. I blame the pressure of it representing half of the centerpiece of this series, which was quite literally born as a...Read More

Feature #33:
College is a Nice Place / Daigaku yoitoko
(1936)
Status: believed to be completely lost
Script: fully preserved
Region1 DVD: N/A

Ozu's return to college finds it a more hollow, bitter, and ironic place. Students as always struggle in the face of exams and employment, but gag-filled escapades are all long-gone. Higher education is a hindrance rather than a gateway to success in recession-ridden Japan. Unemployment is the norm, rather than the fate of the lazy. Bordwell's description of this Chishu Ryu-starring film believed completely lost is sobering indeed. It also drives home how tragic a...Read More

Feature #32:
An Inn in Tokyo / Tokyo no yado
(1935)
Status: 80 minutes out of ten reels available on DVD in Asia
Script: fully preserved
Prints: partial negative and prints survive
Region1 DVD: none as of this writing

Ozu's single surviving feature (out of two) from 1935 is Kihachi's swan song. In it, he has grown quite a bit in selflessness and maturity. This time around, he has two sons. One is played by "Tokkan Kozo" once again, but is not named Tomibo. There's less screwing around and more drifting...Read More

Documentary Short #1:
The Lion Dance / Kagamijishi
(1935)
Status: fully preserved and available on DVD in Asia
Script: N/A
Prints: multiple prints survive
Region1 DVD: none as of this writing

The Japanese government started to heavily push films that concerned old-school culture in the mid-30's. Sponsorship from the Japan Cultural Association made Ozu's only documentary and first sound film happen. The film did not receive a traditional theatrical premiere, but instead made the rounds to social clubs and schools. I feel it could be an indispensable learning tool for anyone...Read More

Feature #31:
An Innocent Maid / Hakoiri musume
(1935)
Status: believed to be completely lost
Script: fully preserved
Region1 DVD: N/A

Information on this one from Bordwell's book is more limited than usual for a lost film. I would assume that this is mostly due to its utter failure critically and commercially. Kihachi has very little to do with this intended franchise-starter. Takeshi Sakamoto once again plays the can't-catch-a-break rascal whose son Tomibo (Tomio "Tokkan Kozo" Aoki) is, as always, more mature than his father. They live in a back alley making rice cakes, overhearing and prying into...Read More

Feature #30:
A Story of Floating Weeds / Ukigusa monogatari
(1934)
Status: fully preserved and readily available on DVD
Script: fully preserved
Prints: original negative and multiple prints survive
Region1 DVD: Criterion #232 (packaged with remake Floating Weeds, aka Ukigusa)

I had a great time discussing both this film and its 25-years-later remake with the guys at CriterionCast a couple of weeks ago. When asked which we would save if we could pick only one, I instinctively said that I'd sacrifice myself so they both could live. As many similarities...Read More

Mitsuko Yoshikawa as titular mother Chieko

Feature #29:
A Mother Should Be Loved / Haha wo kowazuya
(1934)
Status: version missing two reels available on DVD in Asia
Script: fully preserved
Prints: no negative known, multiple prints survive that lack all of reels 1 and 9 (out of 9)
Region1 DVD: None as of this writing

This article, along with many others, was greatly delayed by my obligations as a result of my younger brother's very serious illness. It's an odd coincidence that my first entry back in Cinema Ozu focuses...Read More

Takeshi Sakamoto as Ozu creation "Kihachi"

Feature #28:
Passing Fancy / Dekigokoro
(1933)
Status: fully preserved and readily available on DVD
Script: fully preserved
Prints: original negative and multiple prints survive
Region1 DVD: Criterion's Eclipse Series 10, Silent Ozu (Amazon link / Criterion Store link)

In Passing Fancy, Ozu introduced Kihachi (Takeshi Sakamoto), one of his most indelible characters. Kihachi would appear thrice more: in A Story of Floating Weeds, An Innocent Maid, and An Inn in Tokyo. In his subsequent iterations, Kihachi is somewhat similar to Chaplin's Little Tramp...Read More

Kinuyo Tanaka performed in light operas as a pre-teen before getting into the movies at the tender age of 14. In her late twenties, she became involved with noted silent film director Hiroshi Shimizu. They never legally married, but they lived as commonlaw spouses for a few years. Shimizu happened to be a close friend of Ozu, who himself was just starting to direct features in the late 1920's. In 1929, Takada played "the wife" in the mostly-lost I Graduated, But... for Ozu. Two years later, she co-starred in Japan's first talkie, The Neighbor's Wife and...Read More

Feature #27
Dragnet Girl / Hijosen no onna
(1933)
Status: fully preserved and available on DVD overseas
Script: fully preserved
Prints: original negative and multiple prints survive
Region1 DVD: none as of this writing

Dragnet Girl is Ozu's most "American" picture, with settings and characters that would fit New York, NY better than you'd think they suit Japan. Cigar-chomping toughs, a former boxer as protagonist, and a gun moll leading lady who no one can trust. The noir-evoking, expressionist cinematography is gauzy, inky, and just plain gorgeous. Touching that French word...Read More

Chikako (Yoshiko Okada) preparing for a night "out"

Feature #26
Woman of Tokyo / Tokyo no onna
(1933)
Status: fully preserved and available on DVD overseas
Script: fully preserved
Prints: original negative and multiple prints survive
Region1 DVD: none as of this writing

We have once again entered the realm of title translation nitpicking. When it comes to Tokyo no onna, I really prefer the less-literal "Tokyo Woman" to "Woman of Tokyo" (the widely-accepted title). "Woman of Tokyo doesn't quite roll off of the tongue, and it just sounds like broken English....Read More

Feature #25
Until the Day We Meet Again / Mata au hi made
(1932)
Status: film considered completely lost
Script: fully preserved
Prints: none known to survive
Region1 DVD: N/A

After this final Ozu film of 1932, only two more are completely lost, with a couple of others missing portions. I agree with David Bordwell that this 10-reeler is one of the most tragic silent film losses in Ozu's canon. The primary reason for this is that it seems to more directly relate to The Manchurian Incident than any other Ozu film of this era. For those...Read More

Feature #24
Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth? / Seishun no yume imaizuko
(1932)
Status: fully preserved and available on DVD in Asia
Script: fully preserved
Prints: negative and multiple prints survive
Region1 DVD: none as of this writing

I didn't think too much of this next feature in and of itself, especially in contrast to the compelling I Was Born, But..., which I re-watched earlier the same day. It is an interesting waypoint in Ozu's career, in that so many elements of his prior salaryman and college films are...Read More

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...Read More

23: Spring Comes from the Ladies / Haru wa gofujin kara (1932)
Status: apparently lost
Script: fully preserved
Prints: none currently known
Region1 DVD: N/A

Based on Bordwell's synopsis, this one was a mishmash of elements Ozu had used in previous films, and wasn't much more than an easily-digestible, goofball studio comedy. Bordwell had the references dead-on, so I'm paraphrasing his citations. A tailor is owed money (Dreams of Youth) by irresponsible college kids who are cramming for exams that they worry about failing (Days of Youth and I Flunked, But...). The search for employment in an era of...Read More

Okada is now considered a legend from Japan's silent era, even though he was in just over 20 films (all produced between 1920 and 1933). His first picture with Ozu was That Night's Wife. I would contend that Wife and Tokyo Chorus feature not only two of Okada's best performances, but among the most complex and internalized on display among Ozu's surviving early work (if not Japanese silent cinema as a whole). Okada would then immediately collaborate with Ozu on two back-to-back productions, the mega-budget, mass-market New Year picture Young Miss, and The Lady...Read More

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...Read More

21: Beauty's Sorrows / Bijin aishu (1931)
Status: completely lost
Script: full script preserved

I should hope that my affection for Ozu and his work is obvious by now, because this article is going to relish in his biggest creative and critical failure (up to this point). We're still in the early years of Ozu's career, and as I've said previously, he was nothing if not a dabbler. I've seen the title of Beauty's Sorrows also translated as The Beauty and the Sorrow, but either way, it's a perfect moniker for the first (and last) romantic melodrama from Ozu, which ran...Read More

First, a note on how these Appendices will work. All of the individual entries related to the subject will be listed at the end of each post. I will update the Appendix articles over time so that new information can be included and so that the links are relatively up to date.

Saito in a non-Ozu movie.

As with the articles I've written on Ozu's lost films, I'm working with a deficit of information. I will clearly mark assumptions and speculation I engage in below, but I've plumbed all the facts that I've got at my disposal.

Tatsuo...Read More

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....Read More

Ozu's three final films of 1930 are irretrievably lost. David Bordwell, once again, is the only Ozu authority (in English, at least) to give us clues as to what we're missing out on these 80 years later.

A production still from Ozu's 19th film Young Miss. Note the looming presence of Harold Lloyd.

17: The Vengeful Spirit of Eros / Eroshin no onyo (1930)
no script or prints survive

I'm going to once again engage my re-titling/re-interpretation abilities and say that this one should have been translated as Cupid's Revenge. After reading the synopsis, this was not...Read More

[This installment, the one coming shortly, and a smattering of others were delayed and partially rewritten due to Movable Type issues. My apologies.]

I put together a mini-tease for this title, intending to revisit it once I could get my eyes on it. In case that never happens, I felt it necessary to get these thoughts, based on Bordwell's writing, out there. The movie starred Tatsuo Saito (once again) as a student who tries to cheat on his exams by writing the answers on his shirttails. He is confounded by his landlady, who sends the shirt off to be washed.

In addition...Read More

16: That Night's Wife / Sono yo no tsuma (1930)
Status: survives, but not on home video
Script: full script preserved
Prints: original negative and multiple prints survive

That Night's Wife is based on a short story called From Nine to Nine. It's a crime thriller, with guns pointed and hair-trigger decisions. It's also a domestic melodrama with hand wringing and overwrought crying. Like his run of silent comedies, he turns the cliche into the unique by giving it weight and a serious approach. Ozu compounds moral crises here for the first time, with multiple people pulled in opposite directions...Read More

15: I Flunked, But... / Rakudai wa shitakeredo (1930)
Status: survives, but not on home video
Script: full script preserved
Prints: original negative and multiple prints survive

This is my great failure so far. I've managed to track down every other surviving piece by Ozu, and outside a surprise retrospective screening somewhere. I'm out of luck until someone puts it on DVD. The thing I like most about the synopsis I read in Bordwell's book is that the story concerns how failure in one sense leads to the protagonist's great success in life. I have two months, we'll see what...Read More

Kenji the Knife and the girl he falls for

14: Walk Cheerfully / Hogaraka ni ayume (1930)
Status: no DVD, has aired on foreign TV
Script: full script preserved
Prints: original negative and multiple prints survive

As we get into more full features, my writeups will naturally focus less on plot regurgitation and much more on oblique impressions of the film itself. First up, we have a movie that I'd personally deem Noir Lite, based on the shooting style and subject matter. It doesn't get remotely as gritty, violent, or dark as true Noir, so...Read More

13: An Introduction to Marriage / Kekkon-gaku nyumon (1930)
Status: completely lost

A dentist and his wife are stuck in a stale marriage, and decide to hit the spa to liven things up. The spa idea fails. On the train ride home, the dentist flirts with a young woman who rebuffs him and leaves, forgetting her gloves on the table. The dentist pockets them.

The young woman returns to her own home, where her professor husband (Tatsuo Saito) barely acknowledges her. She makes mention of her tooth hurting. Uh-oh, we see where this is going already, don't we?

So, the professor's wife...Read More

12: A Straightforward Boy / Tokkan kozo (1929)
Status: fragments of 14 remaining minutes available on YouTube (as of this writing)
Script: none survive
Prints: no negative or prints survive

Before we get into the plot of Ozu's child abduction comedy (yup), I should take a moment to tackle the title, which does not translate well going from Japanese to English. "Tokkan kozo" is a colloquial expression for "a boy (or brat) who charges into you". Apparently, there is a nickname for the kind of kid that just knocks you on your ass in...Read More

11: The Life of an Office Worker / Kaisha-in seikatsu (1929)
Status: completely lost
Script: lost

In yet another lost film, Mr.Sakamoto (Tatsuo Saito once again) comes home with great news: he got his semi-annual bonus! Unfortunately, he also lost his job. He doesn't share the second part with his wife. Ozu's second movie in a row dealing with a secret kept from a spouse after I Graduated, But... also dealt with a husband hiding something from his wife out of shame.

Shortly after Sakamoto starts pretending he hasn't lost his job, his pal Okamura (who works for another firm) drops...Read More

I decided to bundle a stretch of three mostly-lost and one completely lost film under one "number" in the series, though in separate sub-posts.

Ozu's love of Harold Lloyd is prominently displayed in the couple's apartment.

10: I Graduated, But... / Daigaku wa detakeredo (1929)
Status: 10 minutes of footage in a Japanese multi-DVD Ozu boxset (and 8 of it currently on YouTube)
Script: full script preserved
Prints: 10 minutes of assorted scenes remain out of seven reels

The first of three films suffixed by "But...", Ozu returns to the theme of marital strife,...Read More

I decided to bundle a stretch of three mostly-lost and one completely lost film under one "number" in the series, though in separate sub-posts.

9: Fighting Friends: Japanese Style / Wasei kenka tomodachi (1929)
Status: 14 minutes of footage in a Japanese multi-DVD Ozu boxset (and currently on YouTube)
Script: lost
Prints: none survive

Fighting Friends: Japanese Style is the first of a short run of Ozu titles that technically survive, but in extremely truncated forms. The 14 minutes of Fighting Friends are embedded further down, but first: some context.

Ozu's go-to script collaborator,...Read More

This shot taken from the low-quality DVD available from YesAsia. If you want Days of Youth, hope that Criterion eventually puts it out, because this edition looks terrible. Lousy compression, the whole nine yards.

8: Days of Youth / Gakusei romance: Wakaki hi (1929)
Status: Available on DVD in Japan
Script: full script preserved
Prints: original negative and multiple prints survive

Ozu's earliest surviving film is a college comedy wherein a couple of pals pursuing the same girl. One of them offers to sublet his room to her, but leaves all of his stuff behind...Read More

It's been a while since the second entry in this series, but since announcing Cinema Ozu, I had to do a great deal of preparatory work in order to continue. One of the fruits of this work is that there will be a new 'CO' piece every day this week (and likely the next one too, at this rate).

I've returned with the first in a sub-series on the lost films of Ozu that will be peppered throughout the project. Seventeen of Ozu's films are irretrievably lost. In fact, none of his first seven films survive. No scripts, stills, or prints are known...Read More

I wanted to take this second installment as my chance to add some context to my series on the work of Ozu. I was first exposed to Ozu's work through the Criterion Collection DVD of Good Morning (1959, a relatively late Ozu film), which I picked up my senior year in high school.

It was the only Criterion disc I found at Fry's that they sold for $20. This was on a day when I wanted to get something and only had about twenty-five bucks in my pocket. Good Morning is about two suburban Japanese kids who...Read More

Welcome to the first installment of a multi-part, mixed-media, and (mostly) chronological journey through the career of Yasujiro Ozu. In the next few installments, I'll examine how I discovered him, discuss Ozu's early lost films and his oldest surviving features and shorts. We'll then proceed through phases of his career and cover each of his films, whether found on import DVDs or the more thorough and clean versions presented by The Criterion Collection.

This is the one photo I've seen of Ozu that I feel evokes his independent spirit and enigmatic aura the best. Is he just an...

Criterion announced four titles (in pairs) last week for release in July. That announcement radically changed how I plan on spending a significant chunk of the next three months on this column. Don't get me wrong, the 15th of the Month announcements every 30 or so days are always a reason for excitement and re-budgeting things, but these resulted in my pulling a couple of grand plans out of cold storage.

(l.) Yasujiro Ozu and (r.) Powell & Pressburger

Starting this week, I'm beginning work on a pair of extremely ambitious series. One will focus on...Read More