The Ozu thread.

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yeah, i think we've ALL been through a Bertolucci phase.

― jed_ (jed), Friday, 27 August 2004 21:45 (twenty-one years ago)

The score for "Early Summer" just seemed to underline a few too many times emotions that were already made plain through other means, and also tried--unsuccesfully thank god--to smother other, more complex emotions that might emerge unexpectedly as they are wont to do when watching Ozu's films.

i meant to write "the end of summer"--that's the one with the anomalous subpar soundtrack. the score to "early summer" is in fact amazing.

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Saturday, 28 August 2004 01:31 (twenty-one years ago)

i think my previous message (that is, the one from may 5th) was my last post from paris!

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Saturday, 28 August 2004 01:33 (twenty-one years ago)

five months pass...

the writer in this month's sight and sound was arguing ozu shows the family to be a oppresive unit where power is played and weighted to force the hurt and stagnation of those therein, or more or less. which I thought was an off analysis of the more refined picture of familial relations that ozu manages to carefully capture.

― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 17 February 2005 18:46 (twenty-one years ago)

like, ok perhaps there is a touch of that, or that is hinted at, like a shadow fanned, but it's eventually displaced (in automata) by a kind of further iteration towards the true topology of family: so we have phase crit i. the family as tight-knit unit of comfort and nursed potential which is met with distrust by all minded individuals and liberals which takes us to phase ii. family as unit of oppression and the economics of guilt but ozu's genius and it's not only his is to take us out into phases iii., iv., v., the unbelievable., the subtle., the sublime., the believable., &c. but I don't know quite how to articulate those, although it's part of my job, as I'm not ozu.

― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 17 February 2005 18:50 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm saying, watch the films.

― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 17 February 2005 18:50 (twenty-one years ago)

OZU YOU GUYS!

― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 17 February 2005 18:51 (twenty-one years ago)

i like ozu

― adam.r.l. (nordicskilla), Thursday, 17 February 2005 18:55 (twenty-one years ago)

what do you think ozu thought about families?

― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 17 February 2005 18:56 (twenty-one years ago)

my family is more like a mike leigh thing than an ozu thing. i love ozu but i havent seen any of his films. well i think i saw one many years ago but i'm not sure.

― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 17 February 2005 18:59 (twenty-one years ago)

my family is woody allen, obv.

― adam.r.l. (nordicskilla), Thursday, 17 February 2005 19:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Or maybe even John Waters or maybe even Todd Solondz!

― adam.r.l. (nordicskilla), Thursday, 17 February 2005 19:00 (twenty-one years ago)

my family is more mike leigh than ozu but I try!

― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 17 February 2005 19:02 (twenty-one years ago)

when I am a dad, my family will be totally gaspar noe.

― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 17 February 2005 19:02 (twenty-one years ago)

todd solondz!!! ouch.

― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 17 February 2005 19:02 (twenty-one years ago)

haha, i was about to crack out gaspar noe but i couldn't rememeber his name.

― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 17 February 2005 19:04 (twenty-one years ago)

my jeans smell.

― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 17 February 2005 19:05 (twenty-one years ago)

I have still never seen any Gaspas Noe film.

― adam.r.l. (nordicskilla), Thursday, 17 February 2005 19:07 (twenty-one years ago)

wait til amateurist gets back and finds out his thread has been sullied with Gaspar Noe and smelly jeans.

― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 17 February 2005 19:10 (twenty-one years ago)

There was an Ozu fest as Lincoln Center last year. I think Stephin Merritt went to every single film, hence "I Was Born" on "i."

His family dynamic stuff reminds me of Henry James.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 17 February 2005 20:42 (twenty-one years ago)

'ozu depicts the family as an agent of oppression, focusing on characters who are fighting to preserve their individuality and humanity within structures seen as inimical to such a project. this supposedly 'conservative' director leave us in no doubt that social obligations and expectations cause suffering.' (brad stevens)

― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 17 February 2005 21:10 (twenty-one years ago)

i agree with cozen. ozu's films exhibit a wide range of examples of family dynamics; in most of his late films both the power to stagnate and oppress and the power to change are witnessed; often one action sets in motion numerous things that can't be easily identified as "good" or "bad." one is often left to ruminate endlessly on the wisdom (or perhaps, the inevitably) of a certain action.

there are a few ozu films that are more overtly didactic. "brothers and sisters of the toda family" starts out like many of the more familiar films but winds up in a very very didactic, even strident mode that i wasn't comfortable with. some of the silent films, too, are a bit didactic in a proto-neorealist vein ("an inn in tokyo"). there are of course didactic elements even in some of the best late films, but they are muted and no one character is ever made to be the "voice of the film" so to speak.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 18 February 2005 07:14 (twenty-one years ago)

cozen have you seen early summer?

(cozen how are you?)

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 18 February 2005 07:40 (twenty-one years ago)

this doesn't accord with my limited knowledge of ozu, but there are so many questions begged i don't see how it ever could. if the family is an agent of 'oppression', whence that oppression? if you wanted a film that showed 'the individual vs the family', then 'rebel without a cause' might be a better place to look than ozu, but even if it were true of ozu, counterposing the individual to the collective unit is hardly incompatible with conservatism, which is all about the realization that social obligations cause suffering. which conservatives argue for *more* social obligations?

― NRQ, Friday, 18 February 2005 10:52 (twenty-one years ago)

hey amateurist, I'm good, yeah, a bit bored tonight but spring's almost here, my course is almost finished then I can back to glasgow (I'm in aberdeen!) and tonight I have todd haynes 'safe' set to stun. of ozu's I have seen 'early summer', 'floating weeds' and 'tokyo story'. these have been released as the noriko trilogy recently (so-called because setsuko hara plays a girl (of no relation) called noriko in each). by tartan I think (the UK equivalent of criterion, I guess.) 'the record of a tenement gentleman' / 'the flavour of green tea over rice', ozu volume 2, comes out 30/05/2005.

― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 18 February 2005 23:20 (twenty-one years ago)

(how are you?)

― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 18 February 2005 23:21 (twenty-one years ago)

(how are you enrique?)

― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 18 February 2005 23:27 (twenty-one years ago)

(I liked yr 'if....' article a lot. sorry, I'm a bit late in saying.)

― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 18 February 2005 23:28 (twenty-one years ago)

two weeks pass...

ozu: search ~~& destroy~~

― cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 6 March 2005 22:10 (twenty-one years ago)

as noted above, i didn't like "brothers and sisters of the toda family," but i found it interesting nonetheless.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Sunday, 6 March 2005 22:13 (twenty-one years ago)

I wish I wouldn't have skipped An Autumn Afternoon a few months back like I skipped a Renoir double feature of The Lower Depths and A Day in the Country today.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Monday, 7 March 2005 03:58 (twenty-one years ago)

"few months" = "few weeks"

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Monday, 7 March 2005 03:58 (twenty-one years ago)

A very strange juxtapostion of the obnoxious strains of drive-time radio plus the decorous rhythms of this Japanese cinematic master has just entered my head- a radio spot or show called the "Z-morning Ozu."

― Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 7 March 2005 04:21 (twenty-one years ago)

i hope it consists of 1 hour of people exchanging commonplace greetings in japanese!

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Monday, 7 March 2005 06:31 (twenty-one years ago)

four months pass...

How is The Taste of Green Tea Over Rice?

― C0L1N B... (C0L1N B...), Friday, 15 July 2005 20:48 (twenty years ago)

err, Flavor of...

― C0L1N B... (C0L1N B...), Friday, 15 July 2005 20:49 (twenty years ago)

ten months pass...

Late Spring just released on DVD. Halfway through the film Setsuko Hara's smile becomes unexpectedly ghoulish.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Monday, 15 May 2006 18:09 (twenty years ago)

Late Spring is my favorite of the Ozu films I've seen. Especially if you subscribe to the theory of Yasujiro Ozu living his experience through Setsuko Hara's resistance to heteronormative practice (i.e. marriage).

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Monday, 15 May 2006 18:18 (twenty years ago)

I've never seen any actress extract so many variations on the polite smile.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Monday, 15 May 2006 18:21 (twenty years ago)

All that gentility and subservience to your parents' will has got to exact a toll.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Monday, 15 May 2006 18:28 (twenty years ago)

(btw, in case my comments didn't make it clear, I loved the film)

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Monday, 15 May 2006 21:07 (twenty years ago)

what's funny about the whole "somberness" thing is that so far, i've gone the other way when it's come to watching his films - i've so far only seen ohayo and part of i was born, but... in class, so now i'm anxious to see how he handles dramatic material also (largely bcz of this thread)

― joseph (joseph), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 01:16 (twenty years ago)

It's not without humor. But it's a little smile, sometimes dark, in the midst of slow-paced somberness.

I need to see more.

― ¯\(º_o)/¯ (Chris Piuma), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 06:59 (twenty years ago)

Dave Kehr today on Late Spring. As much as he tries to avoid DOA defenses of Ozu's mastery (Zen and a variant on "Oriental stillness" are the most popular), he still has to write that "viewers are invited to rise above (or sink below) the chatter of consciousness."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/16/movies/homevideo/16dvd.html

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 12:26 (twenty years ago)

Good Morning is a good comedy, with kids farting and whatnot.

It's funny how people fuss about the low camera angles, when the characters sit on the floor so often.

I liked that guy who usually plays fathers in the mid- to late period. You know, that guy.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 12:33 (twenty years ago)

Good Morning was too pokey for my taste. I like Early Summer best.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 12:42 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, that guy. He's in lots of them. So many that dometimes I have trouble remembering which ones I have seen or even which one I might be watching at any given moment.

― Sons Of The Redd Desert (Ken L), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 12:50 (twenty years ago)

Chishu Ryu?

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 13:01 (twenty years ago)

yes!

The parent-child plots are so similar I have trouble distinguishing unless I see a bunch of them in succession.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 13:04 (twenty years ago)

i looooove good morning.

ihttp://scoopsnoodle.com/future/goodmorning.html

the way the lighter than usual for ozu subject matter plays with his trademark cinematography is absolutely effervescent!

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 13:25 (twenty years ago)

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