Yasujirō Ozu

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

Yasujirō Ozu
小津 安二郎
Ozu in 1951
Born	(1903-12-12)12 December 1903 Fukagawa, Tokyo City, Empire of Japan
Died	12 December 1963(1963-12-12) (aged 60) Bunkyō City, Tokyo, Japan
Resting place	Engaku-ji, Kamakura, Japan
Other names	James Maki
Occupation(s)	Film director, screenwriter
Years active	1929–1963
Movement	Shomin-geki
Japanese name
Hiragana	おづ やすじろう
Katakana	オヅ ヤスジロウ
Transcriptions Romanization Ozu Yasujirō

Widely regarded as one of the world's greatest and most influential filmmakers, Ozu's work has continued to receive acclaim since 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. In the same poll, Tokyo Story was voted the greatest film of all time by 358 directors and film-makers world-wide.

Biography

Early life

Ozu was born in the Fukagawa district of Tokyo, the second son of merchant Toranosuke Ozu and his wife Asae. His family was a branch of the Ozu Yoemon merchant family from Ise, and Toranosuke was the 5th generation manager of the family's fertilizer business in Nihonbashi. Asae came from the Nakajō merchant family. Ozu had five brothers and sisters. When he was three, he developed meningitis, and was in a coma for a couple of days. Asae devoted herself to nursing him, and Ozu made a recovery. He attended Meiji nursery school and primary school. In March 1913, at the age of nine, he and his siblings were sent by his father to live in his father's home town of Matsusaka in Mie Prefecture, where he remained until 1924. In March 1916, at the age of 12, he entered what is now Ujiyamada High School. He was a boarder at the school and did judo. He frequently skipped classes to watch films such as Quo Vadis or The Last Days of Pompeii. In 1917, he saw the film Civilization and decided that he wanted to be a film director.

In 1920, at the age of 17, he was thrown out of the dormitory after being accused of writing a love letter to a good-looking boy in a lower class, and had to commute to school by train.

In March 1921, Ozu graduated from the high school. He attempted the exam for entrance into what is now Kobe University's economics department, but failed. In 1922, he took the exam for a teacher training college, but failed it too. On 31 March 1922, he began working as a substitute teacher at a school in Mie prefecture. He is said to have traveled the long journey from the school in the mountains to watch films on the weekend. In December 1922, his family, with the exception of Ozu and his sister, moved back to Tokyo to live with his father. In March 1923, when his sister graduated, he also returned to live in Tokyo.

Entering the film business

Yasujiro Ozu in Dragnet Girl 1933

With his uncle acting as intermediary, Ozu was hired by the Shochiku Film Company, as an assistant in the cinematography department, on 1 August 1923, against the wishes of his father. His family home was destroyed in the earthquake of 1923, but no members of his family were injured.

On 12 December 1924, Ozu started a year of military service. He finished his military service on 30 November 1925, leaving as a corporal.

In 1926, he became a third assistant director at Shochiku. In 1927, he was involved in a fracas where he punched another employee for jumping a queue at the studio cafeteria, and when called to the studio director's office, used it as an opportunity to present a film script he had written. In September 1927, he was promoted to director in the jidaigeki (period film) department, and directed his first film, Sword of Penitence, which has since been lost. Sword of Penitence was written by Ozu, with a screenplay by Kogo Noda, who would become his co-writer for the rest of his career. On September 25, he was called up for service in the military reserves until November, which meant that the film had to be partly finished by another director.

In 1928, Shiro Kido, the head of the Shochiku studio, decided that the company would concentrate on making short comedy films without star actors. Ozu made many of these films. The film Body Beautiful, released on 1 December 1928, was the first Ozu film to use a low camera position, which would become his trademark. After a series of the "no star" pictures, in September 1929, Ozu's first film with stars, I Graduated, But..., starring Minoru Takada and Kinuyo Tanaka, was released. In January 1930, he was entrusted with Shochiku's top star, Sumiko Kurishima, in her new year film, An Introduction to Marriage. His subsequent films of 1930 impressed Shiro Kido enough to invite Ozu on a trip to a hot spring. In his early works, Ozu used the pseudonym "James Maki" for his screenwriting credit. His film Young Miss, with an all-star cast, was the first time he used the pen name James Maki, and was also his first film to appear in film magazine Kinema Jumpo's "Best Ten" at third position.

In 1932, his I Was Born, But..., a comedy about childhood with serious overtones, was received by movie critics as the first notable work of social criticism in Japanese cinema, winning Ozu wide acclaim. In 1935, Ozu made a short documentary with a soundtrack: Kagami Jishi, in which Kikugoro VI performed a Kabuki dance of the same title. This was made by request of the Ministry of Education. Like the rest of Japan's cinema industry, Ozu was slow to switch to the production of talkies: his first film with a dialogue sound-track was The Only Son in 1936, five years after Japan's first talking film, 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 success, despite the praise he received from critics, the thirty-four-year-old Ozu was conscripted into the Imperial Japanese Army. He spent two years in China in the Second Sino-Japanese War. He arrived in Shanghai on 27 September 1937 as part of an infantry regiment which handled chemical weapons. He started as a corporal, but was promoted to sergeant on 1 June 1938. From January until September 1938, he was stationed in Nanjing, where he met Sadao Yamanaka, who was stationed nearby. In September, Yamanaka died of illness. In 1939, Ozu was dispatched to Hankou, where he fought in the Battle of Nanchang and the Battle of Xiushui River. In June, he was ordered back to Japan, arriving in Kobe in July, and his conscription ended on 16 July 1939.

Some of Ozu's published diaries cover his wartime experiences between 20 December 1938 and 5 June 1939. Another diary from his wartime years (陣中日記) he expressly forbade from publication. In the published diaries, reference to his group's participation in chemical warfare (in violation of the Geneva Protocol, though Japan had withdrawn from the League of Nations in 1933) can be found, for example, in various entries from March 1939. In other entries, he describes Chinese soldiers in disparaging terms, likening them in one passage to insects. Although operating as a military squad leader, Ozu retains his directorial perspective, once commenting that the initial shock and subsequent agony of a man as he is hacked to death is very much like its depiction in period films.

Ozu's writings also offers a glimpse into the Japanese military's use of comfort women. In a letter sent to friends in Japan on 11 April 1938, from Dingyuan County in China's Anhui Province, Ozu writes about the comfort station protocol in lightly coded terms. In a 13 January 1939 diary entry, Ozu writes more openly about his group's upcoming turn for use of a comfort station near Yingcheng. He mentions that two tickets, ointment and prophylatics are provided, and that three Korean and twelve Chinese women were being held at the comfort station for their use. Comfort station rates and schedules are also given by Ozu.

In 1939, he wrote the first draft of the script for The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice, but shelved it due to extensive changes insisted on by military censors. The first film Ozu made on his return was the critically and commercially successful Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family, released in 1941. He followed this with There Was a Father (Chichi Ariki, 1942), which explored the strong bonds of affection between a father and son despite years of separation.

In 1943, Ozu was again drafted into the army for the purpose of making a propaganda film in Burma. However, he was sent to Singapore instead, to make a documentary Derii e, Derii e ("To Delhi, to Delhi") about Chandra Bose. During his time in Singapore, having little inclination to work, he spent an entire year reading, playing tennis and watching American films provided by the Army information corps. He was particularly impressed with Orson Welles's Citizen Kane. He occupied a fifth-floor room facing the sea in the Cathay Building where he entertained guests, drew pictures, and collected rugs. At the end of the Second World War, in August 1945, Ozu destroyed the script and all footage of the film. He was detained as a civilian, and worked in a rubber plantation. Of his film team of 32 people, there was only space for 28 on the first repatriation boat to Japan. Ozu won a lottery giving him a place, but gave it to someone else who was anxious to return.

Postwar

Ozu returned to Japan in February 1946, and moved back in with his mother, who had been staying with his sister in Noda in Chiba prefecture. He reported for work at the Ofuna studios on 18 February 1946. His first film released after the war was Record of a Tenement Gentleman in 1947. Around this time, the Chigasakikan Ryokan became Ozu's favoured location for scriptwriting.

Ozu's grave at Engaku-ji, Kamakura in 2018

Tokyo Story was the last script that Ozu wrote at Chigasakikan. In later years, Ozu and Noda used a small house in the mountains at Tateshina in Nagano Prefecture called Unkosō to write scripts, with Ozu staying in a nearby house called Mugeisō.

Ozu's films from the late 1940s onward were favourably received, and the entries in the so-called "Noriko trilogy" (starring Setsuko Hara) of Late Spring (1949), Early Summer (1951) and Tokyo Story (1953) are among his most acclaimed works, with Tokyo Story widely considered his masterpiece. Late Spring, the first of these films, was the beginning of Ozu's commercial success and the development of his cinematography and storytelling style. These three films were followed by his first colour film, Equinox Flower, in 1958, Floating Weeds in 1959 and Late Autumn in 1960. In addition to Noda, other regular collaborators included cinematographer Yuharu Atsuta, along with the actors Chishū Ryū, Setsuko Hara and Haruko Sugimura.

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

He served as president of the Directors Guild of Japan from 1955 until his death in 1963. In 1959 he became the first recipient from the field of cinema to win the Japan Art Academy Prize.

Ozu was known for his drinking. He and Noda measured the progression of their scripts by how many bottles of sake they had drunk. Ozu never married. He lived with his mother until she died in 1961.

A heavy smoker, Ozu died of throat cancer in 1963 on his sixtieth birthday. The grave he shares with his mother at Engaku-ji in Kamakura bears no name—just the character mu ("nothingness").

Legacy and style

Setsuko Hara (left) and Yasujirō Ozu (far right) on location of Tokyo Story (1953)

Ozu is probably as well known for the technical style and innovation of his films as for the narrative content. The style of his films is most striking in his later films, a style he had not fully developed until his post-war sound films. He did not conform to Hollywood conventions. Rather than using the typical over-the-shoulder shots in his dialogue scenes by most directors, the camera gazes on the actors directly, which has the effect of placing the viewer in the middle of the scene. Throughout his career, Ozu used a 50mm lens, which is usually considered to be the lens closest to human vision.

Ozu did not use typical transitions between scenes. In between scenes he would show shots of certain static objects as transitions, or use direct cuts, rather than fades or dissolves. Most often the static objects would be buildings, where the next indoor scene would take place. It was during these transitions that he would use music, which might begin at the end of one scene, progress through the static transition, and fade into the new scene. He rarely used non-diegetic music in any scenes other than in the transitions. Ozu moved the camera less and less as his career progressed, and ceased using tracking shots altogether in his colour films. However, David Bordwell argues that Ozu is one of the few directors to "create a systematic alternative to Hollywood continuity cinema, but he does so by changing only a few premises."

Ozu invented the "tatami shot", in which the camera is placed at a low height, supposedly at the eye level of a person kneeling on a tatami mat. Actually, Ozu's camera is often even lower than that, only one or two feet off the ground, which necessitated the use of special tripods and raised sets. He used this low height even when there were no sitting scenes, such as when his characters walked in hallways. When Ozu made his move to colour, he chose to shoot under the German colour process Agfacolor, as he felt that it captured reds much better than any other colour process.

Ozu during a film shoot

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

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

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

Ozu became recognized internationally when his films were shown abroad. Influential monographs by Donald Richie, Paul Schrader, and David Bordwell have ensured a wide appreciation of Ozu's style, aesthetics, and themes by the Anglophonic audience.

Tributes and documentaries

Five, also known as Five Dedicated to Ozu, is an Iranian documentary film directed by Abbas Kiarostami. The film consists of five long takes set by the ocean. Five sequences: 1) A piece of driftwood on the seashore, carried about by the waves 2) People walking on the seashore. The oldest ones stop by, look at the sea, then go away 3) Blurry shapes on a winter beach. A herd of dogs. A love story 4) A group of loud ducks cross the image, in one direction then the other 5) A pond, at night. Frogs improvising a concert. A storm, then the sunrise.

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

Ozu was voted the tenth greatest director of all time in the 2002 British Film Institute's Sight & Sound poll of critics' top 10 directors. Ozu's Tokyo Story has appeared several times in the Sight & Sound poll of best films selected by critics and directors. In 2012, it topped the poll of film directors' choices of "greatest film of all time". Ozu was one of film critic Roger Ebert's favourite filmmakers, who described him as the most humanistic director of all time.

In 2013, director Yoji Yamada of the Otoko wa Tsurai yo film series remade Tokyo Story in a modern setting as Tokyo Family.

In the Wim Wenders documentary film Tokyo-Ga, the director travels to Japan to explore the world of Ozu, interviewing both Chishū Ryū and Yuharu Atsuta.

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

Filmography

Filmography of Yasujirō Ozu
Year	Japanese title	Rōmaji	English title	Notes
Silent films
1927	懺悔の刃	Zange no yaiba	Sword of Penitence	Lost
1928	若人の夢	Wakōdo no yume	Dreams of Youth	Lost
	女房紛失	Nyōbō funshitsu	Wife Lost	Lost
	カボチャ	Kabocha	Pumpkin	Lost
	引越し夫婦	Hikkoshi fūfu	A Couple on the Move	Lost
	肉体美	Nikutaibi	Body Beautiful	Lost
1929	宝の山	Takara no yama	Treasure Mountain	Lost
	学生ロマンス　若き日	Gakusei romansu: wakaki hi	Student Romance: Days of Youth	Ozu's earliest surviving film
	和製喧嘩友達	Wasei kenka tomodachi	Fighting Friends Japanese Style	14 minutes survives
	大学は出たけれど	Daigaku wa detakeredo	I Graduated, But...	10 minutes survives
	会社員生活	Kaishain seikatsu	The Life of an Office Worker	Lost
	突貫小僧	Tokkan kozō	A Straightforward Boy	Short film
1930	結婚学入門	Kekkongaku nyūmon	An Introduction to Marriage	Lost
	朗かに歩め	Hogaraka ni ayume	Walk Cheerfully
	落第はしたけれど	Rakudai wa shitakeredo	I Flunked, But...
	その夜の妻	Sono yo no tsuma	That Night's Wife
	エロ神の怨霊	Erogami no onryō	The Revengeful Spirit of Eros	Lost
	足に触った幸運	Ashi ni sawatta kōun	The Luck Which Touched the Leg	Lost
	お嬢さん	Ojōsan	Young Miss	Lost
1931	淑女と髯	Shukujo to hige	The Lady and the Beard
	美人哀愁	Bijin aishu	Beauty's Sorrows	Lost
	東京の合唱	Tōkyō no kōrasu	Tokyo Chorus
1932	春は御婦人から	Haru wa gofujin kara	Spring Comes from the Ladies	Lost
	大人の見る繪本　生れてはみたけれど	Otona no miru ehon — Umarete wa mita keredo	I Was Born, But...
	靑春の夢いまいづこ	Seishun no yume ima izuko	Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth?
	また逢ふ日まで	Mata au hi made	Until the Day We Meet Again	Lost
1933	東京の女	Tōkyō no onna	Woman of Tokyo
	非常線の女	Hijōsen no onna	Dragnet Girl
	出来ごころ	Dekigokoro	Passing Fancy
1934	母を恋はずや	Haha o kowazuya	A Mother Should Be Loved
	浮草物語	Ukigusa monogatari	A Story of Floating Weeds
1935	箱入娘	Hakoiri musume	An Innocent Maid	Lost
	東京の宿	Tōkyō no yado	An Inn in Tokyo
1936	大学よいとこ	Daigaku yoitoko	College Is a Nice Place	Lost
Sound, black-and-white films
1936	菊五郎の鏡獅子	Kagami jishi	Lion in the Mirror	Short documentary
	一人息子	Hitori musuko	The Only Son
1937	淑女は何を忘れたか	Shukujo wa nani o wasureta ka	What Did the Lady Forget?
1941	戸田家の兄妹	Todake no kyōdai	Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family
1942	父ありき	Chichi ariki	There Was a Father
1947	長屋紳士録	Nagaya Shinshiroku	Record of a Tenement Gentleman
1948	風の中の牝鶏	Kaze no naka no mendori	A Hen in the Wind
1949	晩春	Banshun	Late Spring	Ozu's first film with Setsuko Hara
1950	宗方姉妹	Munekata Kyōdai	The Munekata Sisters
1951	麥秋	Bakushu	Early Summer
1952	お茶漬の味	Ochazuke no aji	The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice	Adapted from censored 1939 script
1953	東京物語	Tōkyō monogatari	Tokyo Story
1956	早春	Sōshun	Early Spring
1957	東京暮色	Tōkyō boshoku	Tokyo Twilight
Colour films
1958	彼岸花	Higanbana	Equinox Flower	Ozu's first film in colour
1959	お早よう	Ohayō	Good Morning	Remake of I Was Born, But...
	浮草	Ukigusa	Floating Weeds	Remake of A Story of Floating Weeds
1960	秋日和	Akibiyori	Late Autumn
1961	小早川家の秋	Kohayagawa-ke no aki	The End of Summer	Ozu's last film with Setsuko Hara
1962	秋刀魚の味	Sanma no aji	An Autumn Afternoon	Ozu's final work

Sources

• Bock, Audie (1978). "Yasujiro Ozu". Japanese Film Directors. Kodansha. pp. 69–98. ISBN 0-87011-304-6.
• Hasumi, Shiguéhiko (1998), Yasujiro Ozu, translated by Hasumi Shiguehiko, Nakamura Ryoji, René de Ceccatty, Paris: Cahiers du cinéma, ISBN 978-2-86642-191-5
• Hasumi, Shiguéhiko (2003). Kantoku Ozu Yasujiro [Director Yasujiro Ozu] (in Japanese) (Enlarged and definitive ed.). Chikuma Shobo. ISBN 4-480-87341-4.
• Inoue, Kazuo (2003). Ozu Yasujirō Zenshū [Collected Works of Ozu Yasujiro (two-volume boxed set)] (in Japanese). Tokyo: Shinshokan. ISBN 4403150012.
• Ozu, Yasujiro (2016), Franco Picollo; Hiromi Yagi (eds.), Scritti sul cinema (in Italian), Rome: Donzelli, ISBN 978-88-6843-481-6
• 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 by Karine Chesneau, Rose-Marie Makino-Fayolle, Tanaka Chiharu, Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, ISBN 978-2-85850-930-0
• Shindo, Kaneto (21 July 2004). Shinario Jinsei [A life in scriptwriting]. Iwanami Shinsho (in Japanese). Vol. 902. Iwanami. ISBN 4-00-430902-6.
• Torres Hortelano, Lorenzo J., Primavera tardía de Yasujiro Ozu : cine clásico y poética zen, Caja España (León), Obra Social y Cultural, ISBN 978-84-95917-24-9
• Yoshida, Kiju (1998). Ozu's Anti-Cinema. Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan. ISBN 978-1-929280-27-8.

Further reading

• Andreas Becker: Action Cut: Screenplay Analysis of Yasujirō Ozu's Equinox Flower (Higanbana). Remarks on the Screenplay and the Aesthetics of Montage in a Transcultural Comparison, in: Marcos P. Centeno-Martin and Norimasa Morita. 2020. Japan beyond Its Borders: Transnational Approaches to Film and Media. Chiba: Seibunsha, ISBN 4-901404-32-6: 147–157.
• Bordwell, David (1988). Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-00822-6. 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 978-0-521-48435-0.
• Gillett, John; Wilson, David (1976). Yasujiro Ozu: A Critical Anthology. British Film Institute. ISBN 978-0-85170-048-9.
• Kardozi, Karzan (2024). 100 Years 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 978-1-880656-80-8.
• Ozu, Yasujirō (2006). Ozu Yasujirō's Two Post-war Films. Godage. ISBN 978-955-20-8936-7.
• Richie, Donald (1 January 1977). Ozu. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-03277-4.
• Yoshida, Yoshishige (2003). Ozu's Anti-Cinema. Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan. ISBN 978-1-929280-26-1. OCLC 53013473.

External links

• Yasujiro Ozu at IMDb
• OzuYasujirō.com (archived)
• Digital Ozu Archived 2 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine – notes from an exhibition at Tokyo University.
• Directions for finding Yasujiro Ozu's grave at Engaku-ji
• The quiet master at The Guardian
• Ozu's Angry Women by Shigehiko Hasumi
• Yasujirō Ozu at the Japanese Movie Database (in Japanese)
• OZU Yasujiro Story on YouTube