The Art of Ozu

In the past months, a wave of films set in Japan or with a Japanese theme have flooded theaters, from the anime-influenced Kill Bill and Matrix series to stranger-in-a-strange-island tales Lost in Translation and The Last Samurai. Hollywood has revealed a keen interest in the Asian nation, and in huge numbers, Americans have reciprocated the fascination.

Such was not the case in the country’s earlier, perhaps more xenophobic days. The films of director Yasujiro Ozu, made between 1929 and 1962, were long thought to be too nuanced for the international market. Unlike Kurosawa, whose films featured samurai and other overtly stereotyped Japanese characters and plots, Ozu put his films in a contemporary setting and focused on more universal themes such as youth and aging, or more mundane topics such as the Japanese family dynamic. It wasn’t until the 1970s that theaters started screening his films outside his native country. Until then, producers and distributors felt that Ozu just wasn’t exotic enough.

In early April, the Harvard Film Archive (HFA) screened the first film in a lengthy retrospective of Ozu’s work, which continues through to the beginning of next month, concluding on May 11 with Ozu’s final work, An Autumn Afternoon. The comprehensive retrospective, dubbed “Yasujiro Ozu: A Centennial Celebration,” includes nearly all of Ozu’s work produced in a roughly 30-year period, including 11 of his early silent films.

The retrospective wasn’t organized by the HFA itself. Rather, it’s a traveling series organized by Shochiku Home Video, the original Japanese distributor of Ozu’s films. Shochiku collected newly-struck 35 mm prints of most the films, many of which have been previously available only on 16 mm. Before coming to Harvard, the retrospective visited the Berlin, Hong Kong and New York Film Festivals, and the EAC Film Archive in Berkeley.

The retrospective screens 36 films in total, more than is usually allotted for each of the retrospectives that the Archive organizes on a roughly monthly schedule. However, HFA Film Programmer Ted Barron explains that it was crucially important for the Archive to show as much of Ozu’s work as possible.

“If you’re going to celebrate him,” says Barron, “you do it all or nothing at all.”

The comprehensive retrospective wasn’t easy to bring to the Archive; because of its size, organizers worried about funding and being able to screen as many films as they hoped. “A retrospective so large brings in a lot of expenses we couldn’t meet,” explains Barron. Rentals of $300 to $600 per film, as well as shipping and promotion costs, added up to more than the HFA could afford.

Luckily, the Archive was able to get on board with the Japan Society of Boston and the Resichauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard, both of which helped with funding to bring the retrospective in its entirety. The program not only features 36 of Ozu’s works, but several special events throughout the month in which the films are being shown.

On April 2, the HFA screened Tokyo Story, Ozu’s best known film, to open the series. The film was introduced by executives from Shochiku, many of whom shared personal anecdotes and memories of Ozu, who died in 1987. Since this first screening, his works have been screened in roughly chronological order, from his silent films about young college students to his later, more lyrical meditations on family and aging.

On Saturday, April 24, the HFA screened one of Ozu’s silent films, I Was Born, But... (Umarete Wa mita karedo) the way audiences would have seen it in the 1930s: a live benshi performed while the movie played on the screen. During the silent film era in Japan, benshi served as narrators to the on-screen action, playing a key part in popularizing motion pictures throughout the country. Saturday’s performance will come from Midori Sawato, one of the few remaining practicing benshi in the world. The live narration is a performance art in and of itself, and presents a viewing experience unparalleled to anything in the States.

The film to close the series and the last film that Ozu made before his death in 1987, An Autumn Afternoon (Samma no Aji) will screen on May 11. The film will be introduced by Japanese New Wave director Masahiro Shinoda, whose wife, Shima Iwashita, plays the role of the wife in Autumn Afternoon. The year it was made, the film won the Kinema Jumpo prize in Japan, an honor roughly analogous to the best picture Oscar in America.

Three years in a row during the 1930s, the prize went to Ozu, who eventually went on to become the winner of the most Kinema Jumpo Best Picture prizes of any director. Assistant Professor in Visual and Environmental Studies (VES) J.D. Connor ’92 explains that although Ozu was so successful in Japan and such an admirer of American cinema, his arrival on the American film scene is a comparatively recent phenomenon.

“There was a huge mismatch between reception in Japan and reception abroad, but it wouldn’t be cinema history without him in a major way,” says Connor, who currently teaches “Cinema of the Sound Era” in the VES department and requires his students to watch Ozu’s films. “We’re lucky,” he says. “You don’t get this chance very often.”

Ozu stayed silent longer than his contemporaries, and Connor points out that his silent films were not readily available in 35 mm, their preferred viewing format, until recently. Furthermore, a great deal of his sound work hadn’t been subtitled properly, so Shochiku’s job of striking new prints was deeply appreciated by professors and fans alike.

On Ozu’s decision to stay silent after many of his colleagues had transferred over to sound technology, Connor explains that there are two kinds of directors: “One, those who say, ‘Here comes this technology, I’ve got to use it and master it immediately,’ and two, those who say, ‘I want to wait for it to be right.’”

Ozu had a silent film set at Shochiku that he didn’t want to give up, a silent film cameraman he had a contract with, and didn’t have a definitive vision of how he wanted dialogue to work. He waited until he felt it was right and began using sound in 1936 with The Only Son (Hitori Musuko).

Of all Ozu’s films, his most famous is Tokyo Story (Tokyo Monogatari), a film about the ungrateful and indifferent children of an elderly couple who, close to death, go to visit their children in the city. Connor asked his students to watch the film and says that the beauty of the retrospective was that he could direct them to dozens more to watch on their own time.

“Without a functioning film archive, and with a program that is structurally so small, there would never be moments to say, ‘Here is one film, go see twenty more,’” he says. “You have to see movies on your own to make them dear to you.”

The retrospective, with its vast scope and insight into the work of one of history’s most renowned and accomplished filmmakers, affords all film lovers the opportunity to do just that.

movie times

TOKYO TWILIGHT - MAY 8, 9:15 P.M.

GOOD MORNING - MAY 7, 7 P.M. AND MAY 10, 9 P.M.

LATE AUTUMN - MAY 7, 9 P.M. AND MAY 9, 9 P.M.

FLOATING WEEDS - MAY 8, 7 P.M.

AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON - MAY 11, 7 P.M.