The Favorites - Late Spring (#78)

The Favorites is a series briefly exploring films I love, to find out what makes them - and me - tick. Late Spring (1949/Japan/dir. Yasujiro Ozu) appeared at #78 on my original list.

What it is • In postwar Japan, 27-year-old Noriko lives in a cozy arrangement with her father, situated perfectly between the travails of the past and the uncertainties of the future. Life is a series of pleasant household chores, refreshing excursions to a Tokyo museum or the beach (whose looming Coca-Cola sign, along with Noriko's slacks and sweater, stand as a modern/Westernized contrast to the traditionally-dressed tea ceremony that opens the film), and playful, bantering conversations with old friends and relatives. The film deceptively thrusts us into this particular moment in Noriko's life, lulling us into believing that this is how it has always been, and always could be. But in fact the situation is tenuous and fleeting. Noriko has only just recovered from an illness incurred during the harsh years of the war and she is expected to marry. She has no skills that she could apply outside of the home (her friend, an independent divorcee working as a stenographer, chides her wanting a job of her own). But Noriko doesn't want to marry and her father, at least until he is pressured, does not seem especially eager to lose her either. They have a close bond and we sense that all the unspoken tragedies of the past - her mother's death, the harshness of the war years, the poverty and humiliation of occupation - have only forged their desire to remain within a comfortable cocoon. Miraculously, as with much of Yasujiro Ozu's work, the placid, soothing surface of what we see both conceals and suggests the storm offscreen. The film is as deeply wise as it is seemingly simple, and with that wisdom comes both sadness and acceptance. The arrival of the late spring is little comfort for those who enjoyed their hibernation.

Why I like it •

Cinepoem: Emily Dickinson's After Great Pain (video)

Update 1/3: The video is finally up!!

After a very long delay I have finally found the time to assemble my newest Cinepoem video, joining Emily Dickinson's "After great pain, a formal feeling comes..." with mostly empty shots from Yasujiro Ozu's Late Spring. The first minute of the video is taken up by a free-form montage/collage whose frenetic pace offsets the contemplative mood of the second half. It's also partly inspired by a dream I had about six weeks ago. The Vimeo upload follows, and the YouTube embed appears after the jump.

Fragments of Cinephilia, Pt. III

Short thoughts on: The Honeymoon Killers • Forbidden Games • Tout Va Bien & Masculin Feminin • Moby Dick • Robert Bresson • Yasujiro Ozu and Early Spring • My Dinner with Andre • Stanley Kauffmann • Sweet Movie

As I prepare a batch of fresh posts for the fall (a dozen new reviews are already written, with dozens more on the way), here are some more oldies but goodies. These sporadic notes and musings were originally comments on IMDb. Many of these thoughts led to longer conversations, and you can click on the date to see the original thread. Some of the responses are pretty interesting; in fact under the final fragment, on the extremely controversial Yugoslavian film Sweet Movie, I actually included some samples of the ensuing discussion (most of which I didn't see until now). And if you've viewed the film in question, I'd be really interested in your own opinion on the matter.

(See here for Pt. I and Pt. II of this archival project.)

Tokyo Story

This is an entry in "The Big Ones," a series covering 32 classic films for the first time on The Dancing Image. There are spoilers.

Shukishi and Tomi do not need money from their children. They don't need a place to live. They have their own home, and they seem comfortable enough in it - they even have a young daughter, an unmarried schoolteacher, who still lives with them. There is no crisis in their lives - no overt crisis anyway. This is, in a sense, the tragedy of Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story: there is no great tragedy just simple sadness and disappointment, without catharsis or indignation to leaven the melancholy. In one of the film's famous exchanges, the youngest daughter, wearing an expression of strained frustration, asks her sister-in-law, "Life is disappointing, isn't it?" "Yes, it is," the other woman responds. With a smile.

Remembering the Movies, Nov. 12 - 18

Every Friday, we look back at films released 10-100 years ago this week.

First off, a note of mourning. Since this series began I have been linking up every 1990 release to a "Siskel & Ebert" review. Watching those old programs had been one of the highlights of "Remembering the Movies" for me - well, lo and behold, this week when I look up Rescuers Down Under the link is broken. Turns out (irony of ironies, given the movie in question) that the D****y Corporation decided to take down the archives for no apparent reason. Which of course breaks all the links on my previous entries as well (luckily I included quotes from those shows in my text). So R.I.P. "At the Movies," and cross your fingers for the archives to go back up when a new edition of the show begins in January. A discussion of the circumstances of the deletion can be found here, along with pointers to where 80s episodes can be found. Almost makes you wish Stokowski was giving the Mouse the finger instead of shaking his goddamned hand.

Another important subject, on which I hope to hear some feedback...

Starting next week, I would like to simplify "Remembering the Movies" so that it consists of the titles of the releases, multiple pictures for each movie, embedded video clips, and maybe some quotes from critics or historians (in other words, the information I'm already presenting, just unfiltered and un-paraphrased, and without my own opinion or prior knowledge mixed in - and also less frequent, as some entries would be pictures/videos only). The paragraphs and story summaries would be axed; the result would be less exploratory than expository (but also more colorful and quicker to take in). I think this would still deliver what readers get from the series - i.e. a walk through movie history - while making the posts easier for me to prepare (the current approach is frankly too time-consuming to continue). In order to still write something, I might pick one film a week and write up a capsule review. Otherwise, it will be a mostly visual approach.

Share your thoughts on this new plan below - lurkers, that means you too! As I cut down on blogging in the coming weeks and months, your response will help determine if "Remembering the Movies," in one form or another, is something I preserve.

This week's films - with the customary paragraphs, information, quotations, and links - follow the jump.

Silent Ozu

Eclipse Series 10: Silent Ozu - Three Family Comedies

I Was Born But... (click on the title to see my review)
Passing Fancy
Tokyo Chorus

Though this isn't necessarily the best place to note it - an analysis of the director's later work might be more fitting - Yasujiro Ozu has been somewhat misclassified. Namely, he has been grouped with Carl Theodor Dreyer and Robert Bresson under the heading "transcendentalist cinema," by Paul Schrader and others following in his wake. Truth is, Ozu has probably authored some of the least transcendent films of all time. Don't get me wrong; he was one of the masters of the art form, even in his youth. And, on the other hand, I love transcendent film experiences - it's why I became a movie lover in the first place. So I'm not knocking Ozu or cinematic transcendence by saying that the two really don't have anything to do with each other.

Not having read Schrader's book, perhaps I'm misunderstanding its thesis; but as I see it Ozu does not offer transcendence in his studies of family life (whether in a comedic or tragic context). He offers stoicism, often through good humor, occasionally through sacrifice and repression - but always a sense of human beings, aware of their futility, coping with their situations. They savor the moments of happiness and often lash out in frustration when things don't go their way, but Ozu's conclusions usually find them making their peace with the realities of their lives. Call this philosophy what you will, but transcendence it ain't.

Perhaps where Ozu comes closest to transcendence is in the indelible, uncanny naturalism of his early style. These three films demonstrate that quality with remarkable aplomb.

I Was Born, But...

Like the child in whom we can retroactively see elements of the future adult, I Was Born, But..., a mostly lighthearted silent comedy by a 29-year-old Japanese whiz kid named Yasujiro Ozu, contains seeds of the master's later work. Yet just as that child, however similar to the grown-up he or she will become, also has a youthful energy and cavalier innocence that will eventually subside, this 1932 classic skips, jumps, and grins where later Ozu films would serenely and sadly contemplate. (That said, I have yet to see Good Morning, made when Ozu was 56, which apparently includes a farting contest.) There are some pillow shots and static, close-to-the ground compositions, as one would expect from Ozu, but also frequent dollies, as if the camera had to move in order to keep up with the kids.

I Was Born, But... is also one of those movies whose supposed plot (the one that critics summarize in their reviews) doesn't actually arrive until the last twenty or thirty minutes of the movie. Most of the running time is spent on "Our Gang"/"Little Rascals" material, gracefully (often gorgeously) photographed, as a group of beanie-clad schoolchildren play on dirt roads, running between trolley cars and amidst telephone poles . This developing industrial world is their playground, but it's a world they don't really understand, which brings us to that last act of the film, where the "plot" kicks in.