I Was Born, but…
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu
Japan, 1932
How did they manage to
so completely control all of those kids, or generate these naturalistic
performances as they did so? Ozu fans
shouldn’t be surprised at the humour here, as a certain lightness graced even the most
solemn or autumnal of the late works. Ozu fans may be more understandably, more justifiably surprised at the
extraordinarily tight, efficient filmmaking on display here. Though the subject is decidedly and even
defiantly Japanese—fuel for lots of generalizations (hierarchies,
subordinations, etc.), and evidence for the rebuttal of same—this also feels like some
propulsive early 30’s Warner Brothers’ picture.
Framing and cutting and eyeline matches are exhilaratingly efficient. Ozu?
Well, he was young, and his job was to make these comic pictures. In other words, the great artist started out as a craftsman,
or a professional. Also, it’s not just
an Ozu picture. Hideo Shigehara shot and edited this picture. Maybe he's the auteur! Or maybe this film is the product
of a collective effort, like always. It’s an industrial
product! And a fantastic one, too. Efficient, but not inhuman. There are lots of comic pauses here, and
reflective ones too. It’s one of those
frequent, happy combinations: accessibility and substance in happy
balance.
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| The more-or-less remake, also by Ozu |
Make Way for Tomorrow
Directed by Leo McCarey
US, 1937
Or, in the words of a 1911 D.W. Griffith film, what shall we do with our old? This is exhibit
A for the notion that McCarey was Hollywood’s answer to Jean Renoir. Some of the daughters here don’t come off so
well, but the fact is that everyone in this scenario really does have his or her reasons. What’s great, and what’s so forceful, is that
the sympathy that this fact engenders doesn’t at all diminish the criticism that follows. Sympathy for wrongdoers doesn’t eliminate the fact that they've done wrong. For all of its gentleness,
maybe because of its gentleness, this is ultimately a film that howls on the
heath. It is about Goneril and Regan,
and the fact that in industrial modernity Goneril and Regan will generally get away with
it.
Craft! You can’t just dismiss Hollywood, can
you? The pacing of this commercial film
is quite courageous, and quite remarkable when you compare it to contemporary
texts (i.e. The Awful Truth, also McCarey, also 1937). It’s positively geriatric, taking its time to
the point of near excess. This is
utterly intentional, of course. The glacial pace hints at the maddening intransigence and obliviousness of the elderly. More importantly it also contains the tremulous attendance of
the pilgrim on the brink of crossing over.
We have an invitation to consider which of these two interpretive options is more
important. There’s lots of good comedy,
lots of good critical satire up to the point of our elderly protagonists' last afternoon
together.
Then it gets shattering. Notice those four acts of conspicuous kindness—the salesman that takes his foot off of the gas, the check girl that smiles and says she’ll remember, the manager who knows when to forego the pursuit of profit, the bandleader who is mindful of the greater need of less significant patrons. These old folks have not been anywhere, and they’ve not done much. Their recollections are nevertheless as poignant and profound as the most celebrated and momentous. The sparrows, falling. Then, of course, the sparrows die. The comparison is made, quite properly, to Tokyo Story. This ending is closer to Late Spring. Devastations, most quietly.
Then it gets shattering. Notice those four acts of conspicuous kindness—the salesman that takes his foot off of the gas, the check girl that smiles and says she’ll remember, the manager who knows when to forego the pursuit of profit, the bandleader who is mindful of the greater need of less significant patrons. These old folks have not been anywhere, and they’ve not done much. Their recollections are nevertheless as poignant and profound as the most celebrated and momentous. The sparrows, falling. Then, of course, the sparrows die. The comparison is made, quite properly, to Tokyo Story. This ending is closer to Late Spring. Devastations, most quietly.
Late Spring
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu
Japan, 1949
This is a surpassingly gentle, quiet film. Also, in a complicatedly apt way, it's overwhelming. Parents, children, definitively and divinely. “Why didn’t we
do this more often?” “Father, for all
the years of loving kindness, I thank you.” Once I watched this in a class, sitting right beside my own daughter.
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| All the substance & sorrow, right here |
Ugetsu Monogatari
Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi
Japan, 1953
Mizoguchi's mis-en-scene
is mind melting (note the parallel peasant groups in the background of that
last shot), the very definition of cinematic. And then look at all of these boldly theatrical lighting effects. This is versatility, a really rich aesthetical assembly. But also, such modesty! This is not only dispositional—master director, late career—but also thematic. It's all in that justifiably celebrated, practically inexplicable reunion shot. It combines the theatrical and film and cinematic techniques quite wonderfully. More wonderful is how it somehow pulls off that famous and pretty well impossible directorial binary of Carl Theodor Dreyer's. Treat the sacred matter-of-factly. Treat the matter-of-fact with reverence and devotion. The source, setting and subject of this remarkable conjoining: salvific females, in the domestic sphere. Humility, gratitude...
