Wherein Ben and I struggle to compose ourselves as we compose two very similar reviews.
Ben Begins:
I am going to start by way of Beckett with a specifically formal point in mind. In my experience, Waiting For Godot is the most plot-less drama ever. Just about nothing happens. At all. Just about. Of course, nobody is more aware of this than the characters themselves; constantly talking about the fact that they are doing nothing, that there is nothing to do, that nothing can be done, nothing nothing nothing. But now I am moving from the form of the thing into its content.
Tokyo Story does not get into this sort of content, this self-reflective existential business, but speaking strictly formally, it is just as plot-less a drama as Godot. Seriously, the big event in Godot is that Pozzo shows up and falls over. The big event in Tokyo Story is that they go home and she falls over for good. Sure, sure, there are many more episodes in Tokyo Story. They go here. They go there. But with respect to the formal requirements of DRAMA, just about nothing happens. At all. Just about. Yet the drama is sooooo powerful. Tokyo Story knocked me out.
Let me announce up front, however, that it is not Ozu's social consciousness that impresses me. It is too narrowly focused on The Family, always the primary unit for traditionalists, conservatives, reactionaries, call 'em what you will. For this camp, inter-generational discontinuity is the main expression of social disorder and decay. Certainly, this is not dogmatic in Tokyo Story because the complexity of the characters—they are deceptively complex—facilitates nuanced readings. Still, this reactionary familial sociology is obvious enough in the film and in the context of 1953 Japan, the political ramifications are decidedly not progressive.
It is instructive to compare Tokyo Story with Kurosawa's Ikiru (1952). It also touches on family life but only as an aspect of a broader concern. It locates familial breakdown in the damaged features of post-WWII Japanese society at large. Ikiru connects inter-generational discontinuity to foreign cultural domination and its vulgar consumerism. Ikiru clearly criticizes the reinstallation of the political bureaucracy in Japan under the direction of the US State Department. Against a background of supposedly upbeat capitalist development, it presents a positive image of a grassroots, working-class, bread-and-butter mobilization. Because guess what folks—the prosperity was not universal and it takes more than the family to protect the family.
In its way, Tokyo Story is also extremely sensitive to the realities of post-WWII Japanese society—not the least of which being the son lost to the war—but this sensitivity is confined to the private emotional world within the family. It is never brought to bear on the family from without, from social forces outside of and larger than the family itself. Again, I'm not trying to dump Ozu in a right-wing cage. There's a lot of room for interpretation. Still, even though I'm hardly educated about Japanese history I can see how Ozu's outlook would have been popular among a very wide demographic of his society in 1953. There is something Frank Capra-like about the cultural reassurance he is providing for his own people.
This comparison may sound false because ultimately Capra delivers an optimistic message whereas Ozu articulates one of resignation fraught with disappointment—Jesus; this is explicitly spoken in Tokyo Story! But this difference reflects the opposite objective trajectories of America and Japan in the first half of the 20th Century as much as the subjective dispositions of the filmmakers. Tokyo Story is terribly sad and even sad about having to be sad. Yet, it is also comforting. I get the impression that Ozu is telling his domestic audience that any feeling of disgrace they may feel coming out of the military defeat and political occupation is OK. It's a special sort of shame, a vital part of knowing how you are unique in the world, of being truly Japanese at that moment in history. The fallout from the atomic bombs irradiated the soul of the nation. Tokyo Story is crawling out from the cancer, but the rekindled spirit it flickeringly offers is just numb nostalgia.
But so much for what is implicitly ideological in my eyes and looked upon by me critically to boot. That's definitely enough of that because, really, this film knocked me out. Add my name to the list of Ozu fans because all the stuff that bugged me about him before just came together this time as high art. The still shots, the flipping back and forth between speakers looking directly at the camera, the slow delivery of dialogue and complete lack of overlapping or rapid response dialogue, the almost painfully grinding pace of it all... I guess it boils down to a refusal to accelerate anything. Not just the tempo of the dialogue, but even more so, the tempo of the cuts. Ozu will not be rushed. The film is set to a silent metronome from which it uncompromisingly will not budge.
Be romantic and call this a gentle heartbeat. Or go for some coffee table Zen and say the whole thing is paradoxically driven by a no-drive; the passion comes from passionlessness, the tremendous drama from no plot at all. This must be what it is about Ozu's aesthetic that is quintessentially Japanese. Minimalism and delicacy are fundamental principles. It's the antithesis of baroque excess and novelty for its own sake. Everything is spare. No unnecessary energy is expended. This applies to the performances, the framing of individual shots, the editing of scenes, the recapitulation of images, the telling of the story as a whole—all aspects of the film are thusly informed. Less is sooooo much more.
That drama of such power can be achieved through such means is just staggering to me. For all that aesthetic restraint, the emotional appeal is spread on thick. Is this what you meant when you handed me this film and dropped Chaplin's name? Tokyo Story is the amazing experience of humdrum life coming off as seriously profound and this notification we receive from our hearts more than our heads. I was, of a piece, basically bored and moved to tears.
But you know, a lot of power comes from really saying something when the occasion arises. And in keeping with the conventions of drama, the occasions arise towards the end of Tokyo Story. And talk about really saying something! Contrary to probably racist clichés about Orientals in general being circumspect when it comes to making ad hominem comments, there are a few lines of dialogue in Tokyo Story that are direct bullets to the gut. I already referred to THE killer line in the film but there are a number of super-direct lines. They just burst out of the small-talk/polite-chat/dull-practical conversation like comets of truth that burn the flesh. Love hurts. It is as sad as sad can be. But it is love. So it is also beautiful.
The pain in Tokyo Story is beautiful. The French come close with their category of poignancy. But this is too sensual, too openly felt, too French. When comparing Ozu's Floating Weeds from 1934 and his 1959 remake, I tried to suggest that although the latter was in many ways superior, something was lost from the '34 original. This quality I referred to as "a certain austerity." Yet, this is also not quite right; too Scandinavian. I can't do any better though, which is fine as long as you see the specifically Japanese thing for which I am reaching. Specifically Japanese. Universally accessible. Ozu. Art.
The smokestacks alone blew me away.
Dan Responds:
Here's what I wrote about Tokyo Story a few years back. You may notice a similar reference in my review.
"None can serve his parents beyond the grave." —Confucius.
Let's face it, filial piety ain't what it used to be. But it ain't all it's cracked up to be either. I mean, as a social goal, it's always seemed awfully old-fashioned to me; the sort of quiet obedience that marks devotion to one's parents has never struck me as a vital quality around which to build an enlightened society. I mean, who the hell hasn't been terminally embarrassed by one's parents? And if we don't kick and rail against everything they stand for, how are we ever going to carve out a distinct reality and identity for ourselves? So how is it that, despite much scepticism going in, I am forced to admit that Yasujiro Ozu's lifelong fascination with the familial dynamic in a rapidly-changing Japan has resulted in the production of one of the most quietly powerful studies of the gradual and inevitable erosion of filial piety in just such a world. And just how is it that, despite my misgivings regarding the value of this sort of studious and anachronistic obeisance, and regardless of how I spent much of my youth fighting against the very things that this film seems to be championing, Tokyo Story STILL managed to knock the pins out from under me?
A bittersweet wash of brittle facades and forced pleasantries, Yasujiru Ozu's Tokyo Story is a mournful movie about the disappointment innate in the experience of being a parent in a world in a state of flux. The film certainly adopts the parental point-of-view at the expense of the petty children whose self-absorption couldn't be more sponge-like. This certainly didn't incline me to get me to climb aboard this cinematic train, as the painful properness of this aging couple's relationship, both with each other and the outside world—as represented at first by an inquisitive neighbor and later by their own children—seems, like the troubling stricture of their forced smiles, strained and painfully repressed, almost to the point of obsequiousness. However, as the film marches quietly on, it becomes clear that these are people who have arrived at some hard-fought wisdom after struggling through life's many challenges. While these two are hardly saints themselves, as their later willingness to rake over coals of their tattered relationship with their children suggests, they have a willing acceptance of those things they cannot change. Characteristically, Shukishi (Chishu Ryu) sagely comments to an old friend who complains of the many ways he feels let down by his progeny that we "expect too much from our children."
Tokyo Story is most incisive as a study of the corrosive effects that modernity has upon the Japanese family unit. The whingeing of the ancient couple's grandson is an early sign of the discord that the parental visit is going to bring, as well as an indicator of the sort of unpleasantness seething just beneath the surface. It also shows us that the journey from parent's home in the country to the children's Tokyo setting, which happens in a heartbeat of screen time, is a long one, both literally and metaphorically. The parents have traveled far, as they have not been to Tokyo before, and are not likely to make the trip again. When Shukishi and Tomi (Chieko Higashiyami) arrive in Tokyo, they are greeted by their children respectfully, but coolly. Their kids bicker over what to feed them, and search for ways to slip out of the noose of familial obligations, largely, it seems, because it costs them both time, and more importantly, money. At one point, the elderly couple's embarrassed daughter even denies her parents' identity, telling an acquaintance that they are just friends visiting from the country. Clearly, the distance between the parents and their children isn't just that of age and geography, but also outlook and lifestyle, values and belief. The generational conflicts serve to emphasize the separation of rural and urban, ancient and modern, east and west in a contemporary Japan seeking to rise phoenix-like from the ashes of the Second World War through a near single-minded devotion to economic prosperity. Eventually the children shuffle their parents off to a coastal spa, which not only removes from them the burden of entertaining the old folks, but also saves the children money, because they won't have to miss work to take mom and dad out on the town. At the spa, as the parents gaze out at the sea, their mouths may honor their children for sending them there, but their eyes tell a different story, one of disappointment and regret.
Tokyo Story is rife with this sort of pervasive sense of loss, not just of a single life, but of what Japan has surrendered in order to enter the modern industrial world. While ominous, Tomi's morbid musings on mortality as she watches grandson pluck blades of grass also acts as a reminder of the finality of this visit, which takes on allegorical overtones for all of us—the elderly couple, like we in the audience, will not be passing this way again. Likewise, the film is an elegy to a Japanese society that is rapidly giving way. Ozu's fixation on the distinctive manners of traditional Japanese society is reminiscent of Victorian era period pieces, placing us in a world of tightly controlled emotions where you have to be patient and attentive to spot minor but significant shifts in characters' thoughts and feelings.
Those familiar with his work will see much evidence of Ozu's touch—the tatami-mat level POV, the serene camera work, the elegant mis-en-scène, and his thematic concerns with familial discord evident throughout. While he is a much different sort of filmmaker, Ozu's Tokyo Story shares much in common with countryman Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru. Both films are intimate ruminations on the power and fragility of an individual's life, both sneak up on you and slug you where it hurts, and with both films the pain stays with you for days afterwards. There is very little comfort ("Life is disappointing") and a terrible amount of sorrow ("If I'd known things would come to this, I would have been kinder to her") in Tokyo Story, which is remarkable given how much there is of the former and how little there is of the latter up there on the screen. How Ozu manages this is the secret of every great master; he trusts the audience to bring to the film a certain level of intelligence and emotional commitment. If you are willing and able to do the same, you should find, as I did, that Tokyo Story is a profoundly moving experience.
And, as for your query about Chaplin, yes, most certainly. But even more so in the comedy, which Ozu (sadly: heh) pretty much deserts after 1950, you see that same humanitarian affection that lifts Chaplin above all but a chosen few.
And yes, the smokestacks. Not to mention the clotheslines.
Then Ben:
Yeah, the clotheslines too.
Well, we agree but from different directions. We agree that the authority of the elders—the father's, to be precise, in a word, patriarchy—is at least in need of questioning if not radical challenge in the hope of progress. However, you approach this individualistically and classify the family problematic in Tokyo Story as the collapse of filial piety. I approach this socially and classify the problem in the film as the breakdown of inter-generational continuity. For you, Ozu is upset that the children are not loyal to the parents and do not respect them accordingly. For me, Ozu is upset that the parents fail to command the respect of the children and do not attract their loyalty accordingly.
I reckon either approach to the social obligation involved is sustainable because of the complexity of the characters. Nevertheless, your approach is probably more in keeping with Japanese culture, at least that of 1953. On behalf of this concession, it occurs to me to contrast the Freudian paradigm with that of Naikan therapy. The former gives the introspective individual a license to blame his parents. The latter does the exact opposite. The introspective individual is prompted to blame himself for failing to live up to his parents' expectations. Clearly, this is your side of the spinning coin more than it is mine.
We are definitely tossing the same coin though. Between you and me there is the deeper agreement that the treatment of the family in Tokyo Story has essentially a conservative bent in need of criticism. And I was impressed that both of us organized our reviews in the same way. We could not overlook the ideological aspect of the film that bothered us and felt the need to address this first. But we didn't want to make too much of this, preferring instead to gush about the aesthetic and emotional power of Tokyo Story for the remainder of the review.
As for the Ikiru comparison, we agree enough to have both adopted this strategy but we do so for opposite purposes; you, what they have in common; me, how they are different. I don't think there is any substantive disagreement between us, however, (alas). I trust you concur with my assessment of Kurosawa's explicitly larger sociological treatment and radical orientation. For my part, I like your review for acknowledging the implicitly larger sociological elements in Ozu, to which I gave only a single line of lip service: "In its way, Tokyo Story is also extremely sensitive to the realities of post-WWII Japanese society." You spread some butter on this bread.
Last observation, you allow yourself to employ the term "bittersweet" whereas I did not allow myself to use the term "poignant." Is there some Japanese word we need to learn?
OK, one more observation. What the hell is wrong with us? Can we not seriously disagree about a film? (We'll always have Mulholland Drive.) You said, Tokyo Story "managed to KNOCK the pins out from under me." I said (twice), Tokyo Story "KNOCKED me out." Well, knock knock fellas. Who's there? It's the God of Vocabulary at the door. Seems she's shown up to knock our heads together. Seems she's noticed this exact-same-language thing we've got going on. Seems we're supposed to knock it off.
And Dan:
Do you suppose the uniformity in our choices of expression has something to do with the similarities of our education, culture, interests, appetites and the like? All in all, we're just another brick in the wall.
I, too, sense a cultural gap in our inability to articulate exactly what it is that Ozu is expressing here, but whatever it is, he's damned good at it—particularly when you consider how pretty much all of his plot outlines read like melodrama.
Then Ben:
I hear you and I agree with you (again, sigh). But come on, this time the two reviews were frighteningly similar. I mean, Mary-Kate and Ashley scary. One thing is for certain, we're never gonna get our own TV show if we keep on agreeing like this. (I'm planning on being the fat one, just to let you know).
I reckon if we studied some traditional Japanese philosophy and painting and martial arts and such, we might get somewhere. Ozu is bringing something prior from his culture into cinema that us Westerners cannot quite fathom.
By the way, do we each have to be another brick in the wall? I'd much rather that we be two peas in a pod.
Dan Jardine is the publisher of Cinemania.
The trouble with "Tokyo Story" is "Tokyo Story." Cultural laziness has decreed this film not only to be Ozu's best, but the One and Only Ozu anyone need see.
"Tokyo Story" is a nice film from the late period, but it's not up to the level of "I Was Bon But. . ." or "Record of a Tenement Gentleman" to name but two masterpieces of Ozu's vast, multi-faceted and extrmeely complex career. The notion that Ozu is in any way "Conservative" is utterly idiotic to anyone with actual knowledge of his films — or his life for that matter.
Gp see "A Hen in the Wind" or "There Was a Father" and then get back to me about "Tokyo Story."
JEZZ this is tiresome! Every time critics who should know better talk about "Tokyo Story" its as if they've just discovered how to walk and therefore know what being an Olypic runner means.
It seems we have touched a nerve with David Ehrenstein. I invite you to look at why our adoration of Tokyo Story has made you so angry, Mr. Ehrenstein.
Firstly, one can admire MANY films by the same filmmaker, no? Our love for Tokyo Story does not nullify our feelings for other works of Ozu, does it? This was a discussion about TS, so we stuck to its merits. If you do not agree with us on that level, please feel free to point out the various errors of our way(s). If you find us obtuse, our writing banal, our conclusions absurd, let us know. I am being most sincere here; please give us something to work with here. Otherwise, this comes of as a rather nasty and merit-less dismissal.
Secondly, I should point out that this discussion occurred many years ago when both Ben and I were just getting into the practice of writing down our discussions about film. It was, in fact, the first Ozu film either of us had seen. So we could not contextualize it with regards to his other works (and I think it stands up VERY WELL when one does so). I hope that eases some of your concerns about our conversation.
Finally, Ozu may not be a conservative in the American/Republican sense, but he is most certainly a conservative in the more traditional philosophical sense. He is mourning the passing of a bygone era, and younger generation's the loss of veneration for the older generation in its rush to get ahead in the world. He wishes he could conserve all those things he admires about his parent's generation. He sides with the old folks, not the kids. That makes him conservative.
Mr. Ehrenstein, thank you for reading my conversation with Dan Jardine about Tokyo Story. I hope you will allow me to clarify that I do not claim to be a film "critic," if by that you have in mind someone who reviews movies professionally or teaches the history of cinema in an academic capacity. I am merely a guy whom Jardine lends films and then we blog a bit about them from time to time. The editor of The House Next Door has recently invited us to share some of our conversations here. So perhaps it is Mr. Urlich (sorry Keith)"who should know better" than to permit here people less schooled in Ozu than you.
The only Ozu I have seen is the film under discussion and the two I reference in my review of it. With respect to this, I apologize to you if I gave you the impression that I consider myself to be an Olypic [sic] runner. I thought I was quite explicit about having just discovered how to walk with Ozu.
You object to any decree that Tokyo Story is not only Ozu's best film but also the one and only Ozu film anyone ever needs to see. But neither Dan nor I issued such a degree. You call what you consider to be undo attention to Toyko Story "cultural laziness," yet Dan and I were at pains to respect what is specifically Japanese and uniquely Ozu about the film.
As far as I can make out, then, you seem to be hostile to anyone being introduced to an appreciation of Ozu by way of Tokyo Story. There is a prior course of study that you believe is necessary. As I have already failed to follow this unwritten curriculum, I can only hope others will benefit from your pedagogical instruction when you write it.
In the meantime, your assertion that there is nothing ideologically conservative about Ozu in general does not critically attend to our interpretation of the thematic substance of Tokyo Story specifically. I can only surmise that you did not have time for this, what with you being too busy finding us "utterly idiotic." What a lost opportunity for me, (can't speak for Dan). If only you had found me intelligent enough to educate, I would have been interested to hear from you about the relationship between Ozu's art and his biography; most especially, his location to patriarchy given his personal sexuality and family life. Could it be that Ozu is ideologically conservative in some ways and in other ways not at all?
Then – Ben
I believe David Ehrenstein is a humbug trying to be a bugbear. Out of respect to the kind authors, I'll confine my comments to the movie they actually wrote about.
I enjoyed the discussion but was surprised that no mention was made of the main starlet of the picture, Setsuko Hara. She is unique of Ozu's regular players in that she was an icon in Japanese cinema from the war years to the early 60s – first as a role model energizing the war effort, then later, during the reconstruction, as a role model of filial piety (under Ozu) – a woman, almost always named Noriko, who's devotion to her dad/parents/in-laws (depending on the film) was so strong that she resists changing the family dynamic. Often, Setsuko represents the unmarried working girl emerging in Japanese life (moreso in Early Summer, etc, than Tokyo Story) – a phenomonon just as relevant today as it was back in 50s Tokyo. It's curious because everything Ozu does seems devoted to creating real-life characters – yet Hara was something of an ideal in his pictures. And it's noteworthy to point out that the same woman that was used to inspire Japanese citizens during the war was the same woman Ozu used in his postwar pictures – as if the shame of the past was not a pressing concern to him. (Not to paint her as some sort of Leni Riefenstahl – she's not) According to Donald Richie's book, Ozu, the director had some sort of innocent infatuation with her and would stutter and blush around her.
I've never heard the word "upset" used to describe Ozu's position on anything in his films. I don't think he's taking sides regarding tradition over modernity or vice versa or critiquing one thing or another. I think he appreciates both, just as he does youth and old age.
If I recall correctly, the commentator on Tokyo Story described one of the themes as being an ever widening gap between the generations and a break down in the family structure, but I disagree with that. Ozu never lived in a Japan that wasn't rapidly changing. As an aside – I remember reading Lafcadio Hearn complaining that the Japanese cities were already losing their traditional culture and becoming too western and industrialized – and that was at the turn of the century! Go to Tokyo today and you'll find a brilliant modern city that hasn't lost it's Japanese identity – still offers plenty of tradition and could not at all be mistaken for a western city. The truth is that Japanese tradition – like any tradition – is more durable than people give it credit for. I believe Ozu understood that as well as anybody. When he shows powerlines or smokestacks, it is in the same careful and loving way he films a bird cage or a temple. He may see opposing forces playing out in Japanese culture, but he doesn't seem to treat either as a threat to the other.
Going back to youth and old age, when the grandmother is on the hill watching her youngest grandson, she doesn't strike me as disappointed in the selfishness of the kid or morbid because she acknowledges her own mortality – in fact, it's an optimistic moment because she sees the boys future as wide open. When the old man drunkenly says that parents expect too much of their kids and are bound to be disappointed (paraphrasing) – I'm not sure if that's a universal declaration by Ozu or simply something a drunk parent might say in a moment without actually feeling that way. Don't forget that they have two ideal children – their youngest daughter that still lives with them at the beginning and end of the film, and the widow of their son, Setsuko Hara.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that when Dan describes the old couple's expressions as one of disappoint and regret – I see it as some sort of mysterious wisdom – more resigned to the way of the world and, in a stoic way, marveling at it – but not regretting anything. Consider that the Japanese are not prone to expressing emotions like we are in the west. It is odd for a parent to tell a kid they love them or that they are proud of them – and they generally don't hug and kiss. But that in no way should indicate the parent doesn't feel those universal emotions.
Finally, few directors are as good at filming children as Ozu – because he'll depict them warts and all. Whether its early Ozu or late, you can always find a wealth of humor in the way he depicts children.
I appreciate your contribution, Mr. Hill, thank you. I hope you will not find me dogmatic now. It seems to me that your consideration of Setsuko Hara, (about whom I knew nothing until you told me), supports our interpretation of Tokyo Story in particular more than your own presentation of Ozu in general as basically ideologically neutral in a culturally resilient sort of way. If the reoccurring Noriko character is a female role model of filial piety that constitutes something of an ideal for Ozu, does this not indicate more rather than less of a conservative stance in relation to patriarchy?
As for the rest of your commentary, I find it perfectly reasonable and quite a lot of it convincing too when taken in isolation from the thesis under debate.
Then – Ben
Setsuko Hara — who by the way us still with us — was Ozu's stand in for himself. In the films she goes through with the marriage her family insists upoin. Ozu never married — a rareity among Japanese men of his generation, even gay ones like himself. (Hara has never married, BTW.)
A fuller appreciation of Ozu's career will eradicate the knee-jerk notion of "Conservatism" that has been thrust upon him by far too many people. The world he was descriving was disappearing at the very time he made his films. Japanese families no onger live that way. And for a far more agressive and more traditionally critical view of why see Oshima's "The Ceremony."
Ozu knows that nothing stays in place forever. He's interested in moments of transition, among other things.
"A humbug trying to be a bugbear"? Most amusing.
Well, to be fair, you'd have to be a special brand of ostrich not to see that life is flux, and Ozu was certainly no fool. What is up for grabs, however, is how Ozu responded to this reality. And I maintain that if we are to limit our discussion to Tokyo Story, in this film he is certainly mourning alongside the parents, who are cast in the more sympathetic light, while the children come off as impatient and ingrateful. Jeffrey, sorry that our discussion didn't get around to Setsuko Hara, but there's only so much of Ben and I any right minded person should be subjected to.
(Finally, something Mr. Ehrenstein and I can agree upon.)
And what I object to is limiting this discussion to "Toyko Story." Why because discussions of Ozu in the West are ALWAYS limited to "Tokyo Story"! It is as if he never made another films.
So, what has really upset you is that that we chose to review Tokyo Story instead of Floating Weeds, I was Born But… or a Hen in the Wind?
Nobody's saying we need to stop talking about the rest of Ozu's ouevre. But why did you feel the need to be so dismissive of our entire discussion just because we chose to start here?
No reason to be sorry, Dan. Besides, the omission gave me an opportunity to bring up the wonderful actress – who I realize is still alive, but the fact remains that she retired early in the 60s and has stayed out of the movies ever since. If you guys had reviewed, say, Early Summer (and avoided David's disdain) I probably would have brought up Chikage Awashima, who is spunkier than Setsuko and a little more modern and generally captures more of my attention when she shares a screen with Setsuko. So you see, I would have found some opening to mention somebody.
Ben, I'm not sure Setsuko's character supports your argument. You're right that there's plenty room for interpretation – but Ozu's stories, as David said, tend to force Setsuko's character to reluctantly commit to the change (and yet, that change is usually to follow a normal process….I'm so confused). That she often played an unmarried woman is pretty unconventional. Basically, I don't know which direction Ozu is trying to pull the viewer – all I know is that the tatami level camera is often still, letting the action play out without much of the director's narrative interference.
David, "Japanese families no longer live that way." What does that mean? Are you talking about extended families living in the same house? Every daughter getting married? I'm also curious to know where you come by the confidence to declare Ozu was gay. As far as I know he's never come out of the closet. Did he?
Finally, if you two (Dan and Ben) wanted to continue with more Ozu films, that would fine by me. I like to see affection lavished on him.
Gentlemen, I do declare we are actually getting somewhere. Mr. Hill asks Mr. Ehrenstein to provide evidence for his assertion that Ozu was gay. Of course I cannot speak for Mr. Ehrenstein (whoever could?), yet I hear him saying that the fact of Ozu never marrying in heterosexist Japanese society at that time was of itself a form of being out of the closet. If I am hearing this correctly, I will further speculate that this interpretation of the fact is behind his insistance that Ozu is in no way conservative. Quite the contrary, the argument would be that he was fundamentally progressive in terms of gay identity politics. With respect to this, it is vital to observe that patriarchy is not only the domination of the wives by the husbands, it is also the domination of the sons by the fathers. Mr. Ehrenstein's thesis that Setsuko Hara was Ozu's "stand in for himself" requires further explication within the orbit of this conceptual field. I am simply not knowledgable enough about Ozu's work and life to attend to this. All I would venture to suggest is the coffee-table Freudian insight that in the case of Ozu, the figure of the father would have been represented by proxy. I offer all of this to once again propose that perhaps Ozu is ideologically conservative in some ways and in other ways not at all.
Then – Ben
Ozu's gayness was an open secret in Japan. In pone of his middle period films (I forget which one) he even makes reference to himself when one of the old men having dinner together (as Ozu's old men often did) mentions a school mate of theirs who was expelled because of love lteers he had written to another boy. This in fact happened to Ozu.
What I mean by "stand in for himself" is that she got married in fiction for his refusal to het married in fact.
They was a post mortem Ozu "scandal" in that one of the male leads in "The Taste of Atumn Mackrel" (known in the West as "An Autumn Afternoon") was an extra, eaxtra special "favorite" of the director. (He was the the actor who played the golf-crazy son.) He died not long after Ozu did, and at his funeral his wife created a scene and a half when she started to run about screaming at the top of her lungs "OZU HAS TAKEN HIM WITH HIM!!!!!!!!"
Mr. Ehrenstein, I notice that you have replied to Mr. Hill's request for further substantiation of Ozu's gayness. I also notice that you have not replied to my consideration of how this might bear on your view that my identification of a conservative bone in the body of Ozu is a "knee-jerk notion" in need of eradication. You refer to Ozu's biography and you refer to many other of his works beside Tokyo Story, but with all due respect – and frankly, at this point, how much of that is due to you from me? – you continue to simply dismiss my reading of Tokyo Story rather than attend to it critically. It would appear that you need to take a break from your Ozu scholarship in order to view the Monty Python routine about the supposedly professional arguer who does not actually know what it takes to construct an argument.
OK here goes:
"Tokyo Story is most incisive as a study of the corrosive effects that modernity has upon the Japanese family unit."
Maybe.
I'm not at all sure Ozu was opposed to modern life as such. In "Ohayo" he finds modern devices (new then, commonplace today) to be most amusing — much along the lines of Tati.
The family is thoughtlessly rude to the odl couple. But this is small potatoes comapred to the fate of the wife in "A Hen in the Wind." And that's not to mention his stinging indictment of Japanese society as a whole in "Record of a Tenement Gentleman."
Ozu regards the family unit in the late perido films with some degree of affection. Nothing lasts of course. The unit breaks up as the individuals within it go off to live thier own lives. Ozu accepts this utterly. What interests him is the moment of transition. (In this he somewhat like Ophuls — a filmmaker otherwise entirely different from him.)
"Tokyo Story is most incisive as a study of the corrosive effects that modernity has upon the Japanese family unit."
Darn it. Dan said that. Not me. Shut out again. Oh well, at least I'm not alone. Tokyo Story is shut out again too. All sorts of other Ozu films I've never seen are mentioned, but an internal investigation into the text of Tokyo Story itself provided as a rebuttal to my reading of it – not happening.
Mr. Ehrenstein, I bid you farewell. Perhaps you will be discourteous enough to call me stupid again some time soon. Dan and I are scheduled to chat about Kurosawa here at The House a short time from now. I'd inform you of the particular film we will be discussing, but should you show up, I reckon you'll insist on name-dropping all the Kurosawa titles not under discussion anyway.
Then – Ben
Not at all. Kurosawa's career has been given more serious attention in the West than Ozu's. And while everyone has favorites, no one seems to zero in at one particulr film at the expense of all the others.
My faves include "Stray Dog," "No Regrets For Our Youth," "Rashomon," "Three Bad Men in a Hidden Fortress," "High and Low," "Ikiru," "Ran" and his last, "Madadayo."
But if there are others you prefer that's fine with me.
Mr. Ehrenstein, I see you insist on name-dropping Kurosawa titles even before the scheduled discussion has begun. When we do pay serious attention to Ikiru, I certainly hope that we do not zero in on it in particular at the expense of all the other Kurosawa films you have included among your faves. I would hate to do anything that's not fine with you.
Then – Ben
Almost a year and a half later, I am here again to notify Mr. Ehrenstein that almost a year and a half ago he should have notified me that Tokyo Story is based on Leo McCarey's Make Way For Tomorrow (1937), screenplay by Vina Delmar, from a play by Henry and Noah Leary, itself based on the novel, The Years Are So Long (1934) by Josephine Lawrence. Of course, in order to have done this, Mr. Ehrenstein would have had to have taken seriously my review of Tokyo Story in the first place.
I have not returned to bother with this, however. The purpose of this postscript is rather to suggest that the reputation of Tokyo Story among English-language audiences, (which so irritates Mr. Ehrenstein), must to a considerable extent rest on whatever Western aspects of it Ozu absorbed from McCarey's original film and incorporated into his own picture, however adapted to reflect his perspective on the contemporary society around him.
Having noted this common ground, a couple of differences between the two films strike me as especially significant. The first has to do with the interpersonal dynamics within the family. In McCarey's film, all of the drama rests on the plot dictating that the senior parents are separated and individually farmed out among their blatantly and consistently crappy kids. This is not the case in Ozu's film. The old couple remains together until death does do them part and along the way their kids are crappy in more subtle and varied ways.
No doubt, this difference reflects a much deeper difference between American and Japanese culture. At the same time, though, Ozu's personal sexual orientation appears to be a factor. Compared to the McCarey source material, his plot enables him to attend much more to the relationship between the senior parents in order to focus critically on the emotional and moral failings of the husband/father with respect to the wife/mother.
The second difference has to do with historical context. The field informing McCarey's movie is The Depression. The collapse of familial bonds, most especially inter-generationally but also between the siblings, is plainly the result of the ongoing crisis in the capitalist system that is steadily contracting the US economy. The kinship structure is being eroded by internal class divisions. This is happening in Ozu's film as well. But 20 years later, it is caused by and expressed in quite opposite ways. The post-WWII reconstruction of Japan under US political direction to facilitate US economic expansion is the basic situation. So the dissolution of the extended household formation in this context is examined less as a matter of the distribution of wealth and more in terms of traditional domestic culture breaking down under a foreign imperial project.
Hence, at bottom,in Make Way For Tomorrow, the kids are crappy because they do not pool their resources to keep the bank from foreclosing on their parents home. In Tokyo Story, the kids are not crappy this way because to begin with, their parents are not impoverished and do not get thrown out on the street by their creditors. They are instead crappy at bottom for caring more about the taste of Coca-Cola than they care about their elder kin… something that had been going on already in America at least since the 1920′s.
Then – Ben