Peliculas de yasujiro ozu biography

Japanese filmmaker (1903–1963)

Yasujirō Ozu (小津 安二郎, Ozu Yasujirō, 12 December 1903 – 12 December 1963) was a Japanese filmmaker. He began his career meanwhile the era of silent films, and his behind films were made in colour in the originally 1960s. Ozu first made a number of reduced comedies, before turning to more serious themes assimilate the 1930s. The most prominent themes of Ozu's work are family and marriage, and especially integrity relationships between generations. His most widely beloved big screen include Late Spring (1949), Tokyo Story (1953) attend to An Autumn Afternoon (1962).

Widely regarded as give someone a buzz of the world's greatest and most influential filmmakers, Ozu's work has continued to receive acclaim because his death. In the 2012 Sight & Sound poll, Ozu's Tokyo Story was voted the third-greatest film of all time by critics world-wide. Foresee the same poll, Tokyo Story was voted description greatest film of all time by 358 charge and film-makers world-wide.^[1]

Biography

Early life

Ozu was born in class Fukagawa district of Tokyo, the second son light merchant Toranosuke Ozu and his wife Asae.^[2] Dominion family was a branch of the Ozu Yoemon merchant family from Ise, and Toranosuke was glory 5th generation manager of the family's fertilizer line of work in Nihonbashi.^[3] Asae came from the Nakajō purveyor family.^[2][3] Ozu had five brothers and sisters. Like that which he was three, he developed meningitis, and was in a coma for a couple of date. Asae devoted herself to nursing him, and Ozu made a recovery.^[2] He attended Meiji nursery grammar and primary school.^[4] In March 1913, at decency age of nine, he and his siblings were sent by his father to live in wreath father's home town of Matsusaka in Mie Prefecture, where he remained until 1924.^[4][5] In March 1916, at the age of 12, he entered what is now Ujiyamada High School.^{[n 1]} He was a boarder at the school and did judo.^[4] He frequently skipped classes to watch films specified as Quo Vadis or The Last Days pressure Pompeii. In 1917, he saw the film Civilization and decided that he wanted to be put in order film director.^[6]

In 1920, at the age of 17, he was thrown out of the dormitory provision being accused of writing a love letter collect a good-looking boy in a lower class, enjoin had to commute to school by train.^[6]

In Foot it 1921, Ozu graduated from the high school. Take steps attempted the exam for entrance into what hype now Kobe University's economics department,^{[n 2]} but useless. In 1922, he took the exam for trim teacher training college,^{[n 3]} but failed it moreover. On 31 March 1922, he began working kind a substitute teacher at a school in Mie prefecture. He is said to have traveled significance long journey from the school in the hinterlands to watch films on the weekend. In Dec 1922, his family, with the exception of Ozu and his sister, moved back to Tokyo comprehensively live with his father. In March 1923, considering that his sister graduated, he also returned to viable in Tokyo.

Entering the film business

With his novelist acting as intermediary, Ozu was hired by greatness Shochiku Film Company, as an assistant in primacy cinematography department, on 1 August 1923, against distinction wishes of his father.^[6] His family home was destroyed in the earthquake of 1923, but negation members of his family were injured.

On 12 December 1924, Ozu started a year of personnel service.^{[6][n 4]} He finished his military service set of contacts 30 November 1925, leaving as a corporal.

In 1926, he became a third assistant director spick and span Shochiku.^[7] In 1927, he was involved in spruce up fracas where he punched another employee for quick a queue at the studio cafeteria, and considering that called to the studio director's office, used overflowing as an opportunity to present a film penmanship he had written.^[7] In September 1927, he was promoted to director in the jidaigeki (period film) department, and directed his first film, Sword ensnare Penitence, which has since been lost. Sword dear Penitence was written by Ozu, with a histrionics by Kogo Noda, who would become his co-writer for the rest of his career. On Sept 25, he was called up for service encircle the military reserves until November, which meant desert the film had to be partly finished saturate another director.^[7]

In 1928, Shiro Kido, the head cue the Shochiku studio, decided that the company would concentrate on making short comedy films without shooting star actors. Ozu made many of these films. Representation film Body Beautiful, released on 1 December 1928, was the first Ozu film to use cool low camera position, which would become his trademark.^[7] After a series of the "no star" cinema, in September 1929, Ozu's first film with stars, I Graduated, But..., starring Minoru Takada [jp] and Kinuyo Tanaka, was released. In January 1930, he was entrusted with Shochiku's top star, Sumiko Kurishima, layer her new year film, An Introduction to Marriage [jp]. His subsequent films of 1930 impressed Shiro Kido enough to invite Ozu on a trip utility a hot spring. In his early works, Ozu used the pseudonym "James Maki"^{[n 5]} for crown screenwriting credit.^[8] His film Young Miss, with undecorated all-star cast, was the first time he unreceptive the pen name James Maki, and was further his first film to appear in film review Kinema Jumpo's "Best Ten" at third position.^[9]

In 1932, his I Was Born, But..., a comedy value childhood with serious overtones, was received by obscure critics as the first notable work of common criticism in Japanese cinema, winning Ozu wide acclaim.^[10] In 1935, Ozu made a short documentary pick out a soundtrack: Kagami Jishi, in which Kikugoro VI performed a Kabuki dance of the same dub. This was made by request of the The church of Education.^{[11]: p. 221} Like the rest of Japan's cinema industry, Ozu was slow to switch authenticate the production of talkies: his first film junk a dialogue sound-track was The Only Son absorb 1936, five years after Japan's first talking pick up, Heinosuke Gosho's The Neighbor's Wife and Mine.

Wartime

On 9 September 1937, at a time when Shochiku was unhappy about Ozu's lack of box-office come off, despite the praise he received from critics, authority thirty-four-year-old Ozu was conscripted into the Imperial Altaic Army. He spent two years in China acquire the Second Sino-Japanese War. He arrived in Metropolis on 27 September 1937 as part of break off infantry regiment which handled chemical weapons.^[12] He going on as a corporal, but was promoted to serjeantatlaw on 1 June 1938.^[12] From January until Sep 1938, he was stationed in Nanjing, where without fear met Sadao Yamanaka, who was stationed nearby. Shamble September, Yamanaka died of illness.^[12] In 1939, Ozu was dispatched to Hankou, where he fought pointed the Battle of Nanchang and the Battle behove Xiushui River. In June, he was ordered daze to Japan, arriving in Kobe in July, swallow his conscription ended on 16 July 1939.^[12]

Some be fond of Ozu's published diaries cover his wartime experiences amidst 20 December 1938 and 5 June 1939.^[13] All over the place diary from his wartime years (陣中日記) he absolutely forbade from publication. In the published diaries, indication to his group's participation in chemical warfare (in violation of the Geneva Protocol, though Japan difficult to understand withdrawn from the League of Nations in 1933) can be found, for example, in various entries from March 1939. In one passage, he reflects on the systemic manipulation of Chinese soldiers, comparison them to insects in a way that illustrates their perceived loss of individuality due to propaganda.^[14] Although operating as a military squad leader, Ozu retains his directorial perspective, once commenting that influence initial shock and subsequent agony of a fellow as he is hacked to death is development much like its depiction in period films.^[15]

Ozu's publicity also offers a glimpse into the Japanese military's use of comfort women. In a letter transmitted to friends in Japan on 11 April 1938, from Dingyuan County in China's Anhui Province, Ozu writes about the comfort station protocol in faintly coded terms.^[16] In a 13 January 1939 log entry, Ozu writes more openly about his group's upcoming turn for use of a comfort cause to be in near Yingcheng. He mentions that two tickets, cosmetic and prophylatics are provided, and that three Altaic and twelve Chinese women were being held favor the comfort station for their use. Comfort place rates and schedules are also given by Ozu.^[17]

In 1939, he wrote the first draft of influence script for The Flavor of Green Tea rein in Rice, but shelved it due to extensive waver insisted on by military censors.^[12] The first album Ozu made on his return was the badly and commercially successful Brothers and Sisters of magnanimity Toda Family, released in 1941. He followed that with There Was a Father (Chichi Ariki, 1942), which explored the strong bonds of affection betwixt a father and son despite years of disunion.

In 1943, Ozu was again drafted into rendering army for the purpose of making a promotion film in Burma. However, he was sent disrupt Singapore instead, to make a documentary Derii house, Derii e ("To Delhi, to Delhi") about Chandra Bose.^[18] During his time in Singapore, having slender inclination to work, he spent an entire vintage reading, playing tennis and watching American films on the assumption that by the Army information corps. He was addon impressed with Orson Welles's Citizen Kane.^[19] He lost in thought a fifth-floor room facing the sea in prestige Cathay Building where he entertained guests, drew cinema, and collected rugs. At the end of say publicly Second World War, in August 1945, Ozu rakish the script and all footage of the film.^[18] He was detained as a civilian, and pompous in a rubber plantation. Of his film plan of 32 people, there was only space on the way to 28 on the first repatriation boat to Lacquer. Ozu won a lottery giving him a embed, but gave it to someone else who was anxious to return.^[18][19]

Postwar

Ozu returned to Japan in Feb 1946, and moved back in with his smear, who had been staying with his sister make out Noda in Chiba prefecture. He reported for business at the Ofuna studios on 18 February 1946. His first film released after the war was Record of a Tenement Gentleman in 1947. Get about this time, the Chigasakikan^{[n 6]}Ryokan became Ozu's advantaged location for scriptwriting.

Tokyo Story was the dense script that Ozu wrote at Chigasakikan. In following years, Ozu and Noda used a small council house in the mountains at Tateshina in Nagano Prefecture called Unkosō^{[n 7]} to write scripts, with Ozu staying in a nearby house called Mugeisō.^{[n 8][20]}

Ozu's films from the late 1940s onward were well received, and the entries in the so-called "Noriko trilogy" (starring Setsuko Hara) of Late Spring (1949), Early Summer (1951) and Tokyo Story (1953) splinter among his most acclaimed works, with Tokyo Story widely considered his masterpiece.^[21]Late Spring, the first neat as a new pin these films, was the beginning of Ozu's advertizing success and the development of his cinematography cope with storytelling style. These three films were followed bid his first colour film, Equinox Flower, in 1958, Floating Weeds in 1959 and Late Autumn worship 1960. In addition to Noda, other regular collaborators included cinematographer Yuharu Atsuta, along with the look for Chishū Ryū, Setsuko Hara and Haruko Sugimura.

His work was only rarely shown overseas before position 1960s; however, Tokyo Story gained recognition after alluring the Sutherland Trophy at the 1958 London Coating Festival. Ozu's last film was An Autumn Afternoon, which was released in 1962.

He served variety president of the Directors Guild of Japan break 1955 until his death in 1963.^[22] In 1959 he became the first recipient from the specialism of cinema to win the Japan Art Institute Prize.

Ozu was known for his drinking. Grace and Noda measured the progression of their scripts by how many bottles of sake they confidential drunk. Ozu never married.^[23] He lived with dominion mother until she died in 1961.^[24]

A heavy consumer, Ozu died of throat cancer in 1963 unite his sixtieth birthday. The grave he shares business partner his mother at Engaku-ji in Kamakura bears negation name—just the character mu ("nothingness").^[25]

Legacy and style

Ozu in your right mind probably as well known for the technical sense and innovation of his films as for depiction narrative content. The style of his films not bad most striking in his later films, a type he had not fully developed until his post-war sound films.^[26] He did not conform to Feeling conventions.^[27] Rather than using the typical over-the-shoulder shots in his dialogue scenes by most directors, position camera gazes on the actors directly, which has the effect of placing the viewer in ethics middle of the scene.^[27] Throughout his career, Ozu used a 50mm lens, which is usually putative to be the lens closest to human vision.^[28]

Ozu did not use typical transitions between scenes. Satisfaction between scenes he would show shots of identify with static objects as transitions, or use direct cuts, rather than fades or dissolves. Most often illustriousness static objects would be buildings, where the adjacent indoor scene would take place. It was close to these transitions that he would use music, which might begin at the end of one view, progress through the static transition, and fade touch on the new scene. He rarely used non-diegetic refrain in any scenes other than in the transitions.^[29] Ozu moved the camera less and less kind his career progressed, and ceased using tracking shots altogether in his colour films.^[30] However, David Bordwell argues that Ozu is one of the unusual directors to "create a systematic alternative to Spirit continuity cinema, but he does so by inconsistent only a few premises."^[31]

Ozu invented the "tatami shot", in which the camera is placed at ingenious low height, supposedly at the eye level flawless a person kneeling on a tatami mat.^[32] In reality, Ozu's camera is often even lower than stroll, only one or two feet off the foundation, which necessitated the use of special tripods courier raised sets. He used this low height unexcitable when there were no sitting scenes, such bit when his characters walked in hallways. When Ozu made his move to colour, he chose in a jiffy shoot under the German colour process Agfacolor, orang-utan he felt that it captured reds much unscramble than any other colour process.^[33]

Ozu eschewed representation traditional rules of movie storytelling, most notably eyelines. In his review of Floating Weeds, film commentator Roger Ebert recounts:

[Ozu] once had a young proffer who suggested that perhaps he should shoot conversations so that it seemed to the audience make certain the characters were looking at one another. Ozu agreed to a test. They shot a place both ways, and compared them. "You see?" Ozu said. "No difference!"^[34]

Ozu was also an innovator make money on Japanese narrative structure through his use of ellipses, or the decision not to depict major word in the story.^[35] In An Autumn Afternoon (1962), for example, a wedding is merely mentioned uncover one scene, and the next sequence references that wedding (which has already occurred); the wedding upturn is never shown. This is typical of Ozu's films, which eschew melodrama by eliding moments drift would often be used in Hollywood in attempts to stir an emotional reaction from audiences.^[35]

Ozu became recognized internationally when his films were shown abroad.^[36] Influential monographs by Donald Richie,^[11]Paul Schrader,^[37] and Painter Bordwell^[38] have ensured a wide appreciation of Ozu's style, aesthetics, and themes by the Anglophonic hearing.

Tributes and documentaries

Five, also known as Five Effusive to Ozu, is an Iranian documentary film doomed by Abbas Kiarostami. The film consists of cinque long takes set by the ocean. Five sequences: 1) A piece of driftwood on the strand, carried about by the waves 2) People colourless on the seashore. The oldest ones stop impervious to, look at the sea, then go away 3) Blurry shapes on a winter beach. A aide of dogs. A love story 4) A rank of loud ducks cross the image, in put the finishing touches to direction then the other 5) A pond, efficient night. Frogs improvising a concert. A storm, therefore the sunrise.

In 2003, the centenary of Ozu's birth was commemorated at various film festivals worry the world. Shochiku produced the film Café Lumière (珈琲時光), directed by Taiwanese film-maker Hou Hsiao-hsien style homage to Ozu, with direct reference to primacy late master's Tokyo Story (1953), to premiere retain information Ozu's birthday.

Ozu was voted the tenth longest director of all time in the 2002 Nation Film Institute's Sight & Sound poll of critics' top 10 directors.^[39] Ozu's Tokyo Story has arised several times in the Sight & Sound opt of best films selected by critics and charge. In 2012, it topped the poll of release directors' choices of "greatest film of all time". Ozu was one of film critic Roger Ebert's favourite filmmakers, who described him as the near humanistic director of all time.^[40][41][42]

In 2013, director Yoji Yamada of the Otoko wa Tsurai yo lp series remade Tokyo Story in a modern rowdy as Tokyo Family.^[43]

In the Wim Wenders documentary disc Tokyo-Ga, the director travels to Japan to go over with a fine-too the world of Ozu, interviewing both Chishū Ryū and Yuharu Atsuta.^[44]

In 2023, OZU: Ozu Yasujirō ga Kaita Monogatari (OZU～小津安二郎が描いた物語～), a 2023 television series home-grown on Yasujirō Ozu's several films premiered.^[45]

Filmography

Notes

References

Sources

• Bock, Audie (1978). "Yasujiro Ozu". Japanese Film Directors. Kodansha. pp. 69–98. ISBN .
• Hasumi, Shiguéhiko (1998), Yasujiro Ozu, translated by Hasumi Shiguehiko, Nakamura Ryoji, René de Ceccatty, Paris: Cahiers du cinéma, ISBN 
• Hasumi, Shiguéhiko (2003). Kantoku Ozu Yasujiro [Director Yasujiro Ozu] (in Japanese) (Enlarged and definitive ed.). Chikuma Shobo. ISBN .
• Inoue, Kazuo (2003). Ozu Yasujirō Zenshū [Collected Contortion of Ozu Yasujiro (two-volume boxed set)] (in Japanese). Tokyo: Shinshokan. ISBN .
• Ozu, Yasujiro (2016), Franco Picollo; Hiromi Yagi (eds.), Scritti sul cinema (in Italian), Rome: Donzelli, ISBN 
• Rothman, William (2006). Jeffrey Crouse (ed.). "Notes on Ozu's Cinematic Style". Film International. 4 (22) (Stanley Cavell special issue ed.): 33–42. doi:10.1386/fiin.4.4.33.
• Sato, Tadao (1997b), Le Cinéma japonais – Tome II, translated overstep Karine Chesneau, Rose-Marie Makino-Fayolle, Tanaka Chiharu, Paris: Core Georges Pompidou, ISBN 
• Shindo, Kaneto (21 July 2004). Shinario Jinsei [A life in scriptwriting]. Iwanami Shinsho (in Japanese). Vol. 902. Iwanami. ISBN .
• Torres Hortelano, Lorenzo J., Primavera tardía de Yasujiro Ozu : cine clásico y poética zen, Caja España (León), Obra Social y Artistic, ISBN 978-84-95917-24-9
• Yoshida, Kiju (1998). Ozu's Anti-Cinema. Center for Nipponese Studies, University of Michigan. ISBN .

Further reading

• Andreas Becker: Needle Cut: Screenplay Analysis of Yasujirō Ozu's Equinox Bud (Higanbana). Remarks on the Screenplay and the Reason of Montage in a Transcultural Comparison, in: Marcos P. Centeno-Martin and Norimasa Morita. 2020. Japan out of range Its Borders: Transnational Approaches to Film and Media. Chiba: Seibunsha, ISBN 4-901404-32-6: 147–157.
• Bordwell, David (1988). Ozu courier the Poetics of Cinema. Princeton University Press. ISBN . Archived from the original on 20 July 2011. Retrieved 1 March 2014.
• Desser, David (13 April 1997). Ozu's Tokyo Story. Cambridge University Press. ISBN .
• Gillett, John; Wilson, David (1976). Yasujiro Ozu: A Critical Anthology. British Film Institute. ISBN .
• Kardozi, Karzan (2024). 100 Duration of Cinema, 100 Directors, Vol 10: Yasujiro Ozu. Xazalnus Publication – via The Moving Silent.
• Ozu, Yasujirō; Noda, Kōgo (2003). Tokyo Story: The Ozu/Noda Screenplay. Stone Bridge Press. ISBN .
• Ozu, Yasujirō (2006). Ozu Yasujirō's Two Post-war Films. Godage. ISBN .
• Richie, Donald (1 Jan 1977). Ozu. University of California Press. ISBN .
• Yoshida, Yoshishige (2003). Ozu's Anti-Cinema. Center for Japanese Studies, Routine of Michigan. ISBN . OCLC 53013473.

External links