is a 1998 book written by
Yoshishige Yoshida (also called Kiju Yoshida), translated into English in 2003, and published by Center for Japanese Studies,
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
.
It included analysis and commentary on
Yasujirō Ozu's films and film-making techniques.
Background
The book was inspired by the documentary series ''Yoshida Kiju ga kataru Ozu-san no eiga'' (''Kiju Yoshida Talking about Ozu Films'') and translated from Japanese by
Daisuke Miyao Daisuke Miyao is a professor of Japanese films at the University of Oregon and the University of California San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in Sa ...
and Kyoko Hirano. It also happens to be the first Japanese book based on
Yasujirō Ozu's works to be translated in English.
Yoshida himself is a well known director, having directed
Japanese New Wave
The is a group of loosely-connected Japanese filmmakers during the late 1950s and into the 1970s. Although they did not make up a coherent movement, these artists shared a rejection of traditions and conventions of classical Japanese cinema in ...
films like ''
Eros + Massacre
In Greek mythology, Eros (, ; grc, Ἔρως, Érōs, Love, Desire) is the Greek god of love and sex. His Roman counterpart was Cupid ("desire").''Larousse Desk Reference Encyclopedia'', The Book People, Haydock, 1995, p. 215. In the earli ...
'' (1969) and ''
Coup d'Etat'' (1973). The book was originally published in Japanese as ''Ozu Yasujirō no han eiga'' in 1998. The author had worked with
Shōchiku Studio as an assistant director and like several other directors of that time, he was critical of Ozu's films. Yoshida called the research work for the book "a reflection of his own awareness of aging". The book was awarded the Japanese Ministry of Education Commendation Award, 1998. Previously, Masaaski Tsuzuki, Shigehiko Hasumi, Masasumi Tanaka,
Paul Schrader
Paul Joseph Schrader (; born July 22, 1946) is an American screenwriter, film director, and film critic. He first received widespread recognition through his screenplay for Martin Scorsese's ''Taxi Driver'' (1976). He later continued his collabo ...
and
David Bordwell
David Jay Bordwell (; born July 23, 1947) is an American film theorist and film historian. Since receiving his PhD from the University of Iowa in 1974, he has written more than fifteen volumes on the subject of cinema including ''Narration in th ...
had published works on Yasujirō Ozu.
Summary
The book included descriptions of the author and Ozu's meetings. They met for the first time at a party shortly after Yoshida had published an article in which he reviewed Ozu's 1961film ''
The End of Summer
is a 1961 Japanese film directed by Yasujirō Ozu for Toho Films. It was entered into the 12th Berlin International Film Festival. The film was his penultimate; only ''An Autumn Afternoon'' (1962) followed it, which he made for Shochiku Films.
P ...
'' negatively. Their second and last meeting was at Ozu's deathbed, where he told Yoshida "Cinema is drama, not accident". He died about a month later due to cancer. His statement puzzled Yoshida and he compared it to several of his previous statements, including one in which he said "directors are like
prostitutes
Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-penet ...
under a bridge, hiding their faces and calling customers". To know the actual meaning of the statement, Yoshida researched Ozu's films and he discovered that though they were almost similar in terms of their titles and themes, they resembled his attitude "towards cinema and the world" and he concluded that Ozu considered the world a chaos. Yoshida further wrote "Ozu-san’s filmmaking style can be seen as an act of penance for the sins of his camera’s assault on the world." He felt that Ozu was remaking films with slight differences and called ''
Early Spring'' anti-''
Tokyo Story
is a 1953 Japanese drama film directed by Yasujirō Ozu and starring Chishū Ryū and Chieko Higashiyama about an aging couple who travel to Tokyo to visit their grown children. Upon release, it did not immediately gain international recogniti ...
''. In his view, Ozu's films were so similar that they formed a "labyrinthine circle". Yoshida felt that Ozu was different from the rest of Japanese filmmakers and had "no relationship with any conventional Japanese sense of beauty". He opined that the pillow shots in ''Tokyo Story'' were shot from an "anonymous viewpoint" and in the film, the city was portrayed as a "shining emptiness". The book notes that Ozu "did not trust actors' performances". It describes ''
A Hen in the Wind
is a 1948 Japanese drama film directed by Yasujirō Ozu, starring Kinuyo Tanaka and Shūji Sano.
Plot
The film is set in immediate postwar Japan, Tokyo. Tokiko (Kinuyo Tanaka), a twenty-nine-year-old mother of a young boy of four, is waiting f ...
'' (1948) as an "unusual and unlikely film". In the book, Yoshida called Ozu "a born filmmaker". The fishing scene in ''
There Was a Father
is a 1942 Japanese film directed by Yasujirō Ozu.
Plot summary
Shuhei Horikawa (Chishū Ryū) works as a mathematics school-teacher in a middle school. A widower, he has a ten-year-old son named Ryohei ( Haruhiko Tsuda), who studies in the same ...
'' (1942) was also discussed.
Reception
Jasper Sharp wrote for Midnight Eye that the book was "a fascinatingly readable reappraisal of Ozu's life and philosophy from a director who initially came from a fundamentally diametrically opposed viewpoint, which attempts to get to the heart of just why Ozu's films are so enduringly powerful to this day."
Darrell William Davis (''Japanese Studies'') wrote "''Ozu’s Anti-Cinema'' is stimulating because of its rhetoric of antithesis, repetition and allusion." He rejected Yoshida's idea about Ozu's perspective about the world and argued that his early films were totally opposite to Yoshida's idea. Citing ''
Late Spring
is a 1949 Japanese drama film directed by Yasujirō Ozu and written by Ozu and Kogo Noda, based on the short novel ''Father and Daughter'' (''Chichi to musume'') by the 20th-century novelist and critic Kazuo Hirotsu. The film was written and ...
'' (1949), ''Tokyo Story'' (1953), ''Early Spring'' (1956) and ''
Late Autumn'' (1960) as examples, Davis wrote "chaos and unruliness is totally opposite to the world of these films. Davis opined that "Yoshida's approach could perhaps be described as phenomenological." He added that "Yoshida’s discussion tries to put that misapprehension right, but only in his own personal history." He criticised the author for repeating the same concepts and expressions and suggested that translation work might be a reason for this. About the book's style, he said that understanding it was difficult than reading it and readers will be provoked to move to films.
Linda C. Ehrlich (''
The Journal of Asian Studies'') opined that the translation work had left redundancy in the book. In her view the redundancy "
avethe clearest sense of the writer’s voice." Likening the book to Ozu's works Ehrlich called it "a joy to revisit" and "a story of memories and revisitings" and mentioned that it "
oomedin and out of favorite scenes from Ozu’s films." Dennis C. Washburn (''
Journal of Japanese Studies'') called the translation "clear and sensitive" and the book "an important work to the English-language literature on Ozu", though he noted that the analysis "
endedtoward fragmentation". He felt that Ozu's last words had the same impact as
Charles Foster Kane
Charles Foster Kane is a fictional character who is the subject of Orson Welles' 1941 film ''Citizen Kane''. Welles played Kane (receiving an Academy Award nomination), with Buddy Swan playing Kane as a child. Welles also produced, co-wrote an ...
final word "Rosebud" (''
Citizen Kane
''Citizen Kane'' is a 1941 American drama film produced by, directed by, and starring Orson Welles. He also co-wrote the screenplay with Herman J. Mankiewicz. The picture was Welles' first feature film. ''Citizen Kane'' is frequently cited ...
''). Washburn praised the author for his "sensitivity and commitment to the value of film art". He opined that the term ''Anti-Cinema'' referred to Ozu's experimentation and opposition to conventional film-making techniques. Keiko I. McDonald (''
Japanese Language and Literature
''Japanese Language and Literature'' is a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal published by The Association of Teachers of Japanese. It was established in 1966 as the ''Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese'', obtaining its curren ...
'') praised the translators for "matching style and substance". However, she pointed out a few errors in translation. She concluded by saying "some will see Ozu with new eyes; others will think differently about his artistry; and still others, though unconvinced, will have to admit that this is a daring and original book." Chris Fujiwara wrote for
Moving Image Source Moving Image Source is a website of the Museum of the Moving Image (New York City) devoted to the history of film, television, and digital media. Made possible with support from the Hazen Polsky Foundation, it features original articles by leading ...
that Yoshida's films also tended to be anti-cinematic and that they do not "narrate a story, but
escribegaps".
References
Journal articles
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External links
''Ozu's Anti-Cinema''at
Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...
{{Portal bar, 1990s, Books, Japan
Books about film directors
Yasujirō Ozu