The Ozu thread.

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anyway as we all know ozu's "tokyo story" recently placed in the top 10 of the sight and sound poll, so obviously his work isnt that with a particularly narrow appeal...

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 29 December 2003 12:53 (twenty-two years ago)

the worst part abt rosenbaum's essay is his quote from stockhausen. anything written by s. is to be taken with a grain of salt--most of all (a) anything about his own work (b) anything where he professes to tell you the "essence" or some such thing of a foreign culture.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 29 December 2003 12:55 (twenty-two years ago)

the basic problem with the ozu critiques which have at their core an idea not far away from "japanese people drive like this" is that if that's so true it doesn't explain why of all the millions of japanese there was only one ozu.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 29 December 2003 12:56 (twenty-two years ago)

having seen one movie of Ozu's i'd say the appeal is fairly narrow. but 'how wide the appeal?' is not something I'm worried about.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 29 December 2003 12:58 (twenty-two years ago)

also yes the very later films have no camera movement to speak of but "early summer" (1951) has a select few movements, all of which are awesome in their beauty and power. as suggested above some of the earlier films have tons of -- often very flagrant and ornamental -- camera movement.

julio ozu's films were almost without exception very popular upon their release, and "tokyo story" only took about a decade after its formal introduction to europe and america to begin placing in the top 10 polls of the major film magazines. i'd say they have a pretty wide appeal among people who will search out older films.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 29 December 2003 13:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Just thought to ask since i don't know what kind of movies you like.

I don't really know what kind of films I like either! It's possible I'd love these films.

there arent too many long shots in fact, there are as many medium shots and even some close ups (though not many).

I meant long in time.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Monday, 29 December 2003 13:01 (twenty-two years ago)

well with regard to length of shots, ozu actually gets quicker after a period during the 40s where his average shot length was about 15 seconds. i think the big 50s films usually hover around 9-11 ASL. contemporary hollywood films are usually between 3 and 8 ASL. hou hsiao-hsien's "flowers of shanghai" was around 180 ASL (!!).

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 29 December 2003 13:03 (twenty-two years ago)

m night shyamalan or however you spell his name...his last two films had ASLs of around 20 or 30. and woody allen routinely uses ASLs of about that length as well. so it's not necessarily an indicator of slowness...

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 29 December 2003 13:05 (twenty-two years ago)

and on the other side "armageddon" had an ASL of like 3.5 and that film felt like a fucking eternity to me...

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 29 December 2003 13:06 (twenty-two years ago)

amt- Being placed in top 10 polls by critics is one thing and as we all know there is a gap between the critcs and the audience.

DV- you should def go to one of the movies that have been recommended here. I think it would be quite an experience.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 29 December 2003 13:07 (twenty-two years ago)

but what are you talking about julio? we all know ozu isnt going to break the box office record. i meant that his films seem to have broad appeal within the self selecting group of people who bother to go to places like the nft. and critics aren't really, in sum, so different from such audiences. there aren't *that* many critics on the s&s poll, id venture, who would cosy up to a straub and huillet season for example.

yeah it goes without saying that id recommend them too. which ones are playing? maybe i can make a suggestion...

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 29 December 2003 13:09 (twenty-two years ago)

ok now you clarified: when you said they were popular when released that confused me a bit.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 29 December 2003 13:14 (twenty-two years ago)

two months pass...

I just saw Ohayou and Tokyo Monogatari within last few weeks. I was really impressed by the camera angles ( that picture above is really neat). Everything was like waist high and 90¼ angle turns.

both movies have this similar shot:

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/images/directors/03/26/ohayo7.jpg

with people walking up there too.

― A Nairn (moretap), Friday, 19 March 2004 19:16 (twenty-two years ago)

some of the shots were more exagerated then that. The grass would be the bottom third of the screen and the peoplewould be walking at the top.

― A Nairn (moretap), Friday, 19 March 2004 19:20 (twenty-two years ago)

i've been writing an essay partly involving ozu this week!!

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 19 March 2004 19:25 (twenty-two years ago)

I just got Tokyo Story from Netflix today. Excited. I liked Good Morning.

― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Friday, 19 March 2004 20:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Hey? What happened to my italicsssss?!

― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Friday, 19 March 2004 20:58 (twenty-two years ago)

one month passes...

"early summer" out on dvd soon in the states:

http://www.criterionco.com/asp/release.asp?id=240§ion=feature

― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 16:33 (twenty-two years ago)

three months pass...

are you still here, momus?

http://www.livejournal.com/users/imomus/ (second post down.) (the img of the artificial eye 'floating weeds' is v. v. exciting.)

http://www.subjective.freeservers.com/tokyo-ga.html

― cºzen (Cozen), Friday, 27 August 2004 21:35 (twenty-one years ago)

this thread is amazing.

― cºzen (Cozen), Friday, 27 August 2004 21:40 (twenty-one years ago)

raphael diligent

― jed_ (jed), Friday, 27 August 2004 21:41 (twenty-one years ago)

i love it of course!

― jed_ (jed), Friday, 27 August 2004 21:42 (twenty-one years ago)

(um I think I ws going through 'a bertolucci phase' (yeah right!) and um raphael diligent is the guy who plays athos magnani in 'the spider's stratagem'?)

― cºzen (Cozen), Friday, 27 August 2004 21:44 (twenty-one years ago)

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)

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