JAPANESE FILMS

Analysis of “There Was A Father”, 01:06:00 – 01:11:59

Masahiro Shinoda once worked under Ozu as an assistant director (Tokyo Boshoku). During the shooting, there was a sitting cushion placed on the tatami floor in the set, which was never used by any of the characters in the scene. He asked Ozu what was the meaning of that cushion. Ozu invited Shinoda to the view finder of the camera. “What do you see?”, he asked. There were lines and lines of tatami edge (hen) covering the lower half of the frame. Ozu did not like the tatami edges invading his composition and the cushion was placed to conceal them. …

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JAPANESE FILMS

Analysis of “There Was A Father”, 01:00:00 – 01:05:59

“Another problem (in cinema direction) is that people stand up and sit down. In western-style rooms, this is not as difficult, since the posture of the person is fairly consistent throughout the movement. But it is problematic in Japanese-style rooms. First of all, when the person stands up (from sitting position on tatami), the center of gravity (of the body) translates in a complex fashion. Then, the vertical size is doubled. But the screen would not be elongated in the vertical axis accordingly.” This passage was written by Kouzaburo Yoshimura in 1942. The contemporary of Ozu, he had directed such …

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Uncategorized

Analysis of “There Was A Father”, 00:54:00 – 00:59:59

In prewar/wartime Japan, and postwar Japan to some extent, the clothes, especially women’s, convey various implications as to the social/cultural roles, status and psychology of the character. This implication is clearly evident in Ozu’s films. In Ozu’s prewar, wartime films, majority of female characters wear kimonos, while male characters are dominantly in western clothes. However, after the war, the (young) female characters are completely converted to the western dress, as can be evidenced by “Late Spring”. Noting that “Late Spring” and “There Was A Father” or “Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family” are only less than ten years apart, …

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