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SCREENING LOG
- 10/13-10/19, 2003
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I watched EQUINOX FLOWER, QUEEN MARGOT, WOMAN OF TOKYO,
THAT NIGHT'S WIFE, TOKYO TWILIGHT, AU HASARD BALTHAZAR, THE
LADY AND THE BEARD, TOKYO CHORUS, THE CRANES ARE FLYING, KANAL,
ASHES AND DIAMONDS and WHERE NOW ARE THE DREAMS OF YOUTH?
7 x Yasujiro Ozu
in chronological order:
That Night's Wife (1930)
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0021406/
Ozu makes the best of what appears to be an uncharacteristic
potboiler assignment involving a man (Tokihiko Okada) driven
to crime to help his wife and ailing daughter, chased down
by a cop (Fuyuki Yamamoto who looks like a Japanese Charles
Bronson) who suddenly faces a moral dilemma. The characters
are clearly played for genre type, but great performances
make it special -- especially by Emiko Yagumo as the fiercely
protective wife -- and Ozu achieves a feeling of moral resolve
and atonement through personal sacrifice similar to what he
did in WALK CHEERFULLY. #6 for 1930 between I FLUNKED BUT...
and JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK
The Lady and the Beard (1931)
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0022048/
This eccentric comedy of manners follows a love quadrangle
centered on a kendo master (Tokihiko Okada), whose chauvinistic
upholding of Japanese culture screeches to a halt when he
falls for a progressive (but not too progressive) office worker.
He shaves his beard (after protesting memorably that "all
great men have beards!" including Lincoln, Darwin and Marx),
puts on a suit and learns the Western ways of wooing a woman,
attracting a haughty aristocrat and a gangster floozy in the
process. The three very different women seem to be presented
as three feminine responses to the Western modernization of
Japan, with the office girl being the ideal (conversant in
Western ways while wrapped fetchingly in a kimono). Ozu's
often hilarious depictions of Okada's romantic entanglements
owe a good deal to Lubitsch, but his sensitivity to cultural
disparity is uniquely his. #9 for 1931
Tokyo Chorus (1931)
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0022485/
A well-to-do employee of an insurance firm gets a handsome
bonus only to get fired for standing up for a laid-off co-worker;
his stay-at-home wife, son and daughter (a very young but
no less adorable Hideko Takamine) all must contend with the
effects of his unemployment. This could very well be re-titled
I WORKED, BUT... as it has the same eclectic mix of tones
found in that "trilogy", this time ranging from the wistfully
ruminative to the starkly violent to the hilariously scatalogical.
The film also continues the major theme that preoccupied Ozu
at this time, employment as a determinant of social status
and self-esteem, while also pointing to the dichotomy of home
life vs. office life and how children view their parents which
would be explored further in I WAS BORN BUT... It is wonderful
to witness the sheer range of devices Ozu employs, from tracking
shots to keyhole iris shots, generous helpings of physical
slapstick and odd assorted throwaway moments that reveal characters
in quirky, intimate ways. With its freewheeling technique
examining the foibles and fissures of Japanese society from
all angles, this is a major example of the young, robust Ozu
at his best. #4 for 1931 between FRANKENSTEIN and KAMERADSCHAFT
Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth? (1932)
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0023450/
Ozu revisits the dichotomy between schoolboy idealism and
working world realities, this time focusing on four college
friends, one of whom (Tatsuo Saito) happens to be the son
of a corporate executive; the son takes over upon his father's
death, and his friends come seeking employment. Their friendship
clearly isn't the same under this new working relationship,
the subordinates become yes-men to the point that one of them
says nothing when Saito casts his eye on his fiance. This
leads to a climax even more violent than those of A HEN IN
THE WIND or THE MUNEKATA SISTERS, a minute-long beating served
by one friend to another that is all the more stunning in
that the other two friends passively look on. Startlingly
raw and deeply unresolved, this is perhaps Ozu's most disturbing
exploration of social inequality and the damage it unleashes
even among the most loyal friends. #7 for 1932
Woman of Tokyo (1933) second viewing
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0024676/
Seeing this a second time in a healthy restored print, I
still can't say I'm entirely won over by this early melodrama
involving a woman who is scandalized when her brother's girlfriend
learns of her prostitution to help cover his student expenses.
The chief interest of this film lies in its unusual structure:
as J. Hoberman notes, the film is "a subtle riot of discordant
formal devices -- two-character crosscutting is complicated
by weird eye-line matches and bizarre special jumps, inexplicable
interpolations, and exreme close-ups." (There's also some
interesting non-matching of dialogue intertitles with the
characters speaking them, which David Bordwell discusses in
his study on Ozu.) Hoberman concludes that "inadvertant or
not, it's a masterpiece," though I think one would have to
appraise the film on strictly formalist experimental grounds
to come to that evaluation (Hoberman was probably thinking
of his favorite cut-and-paste classic ROSE HOBART as he wrote
this). There certainly is plenty to baffle over, such as the
sudden wild digression to two journalists bantering happily
at the end of the film, which seems to suggest Ozu's contempt
at public indifference to a private tragedy, a theme that
gets a real workout in the much later masterpiece TOKYO TWILIGHT.
#6 for 1933 between DUCK SOUP and DINNER AT EIGHT
kerpan Fixer of the week
Tokyo Twilight (1957)
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0051093/
A deeply, uncharacteristically dark film, even among other
"dark" Ozu films (i.e. A HEN IN THE WIND, EARLY SPRING) that
may require a theatrical setting for the viewer to be fully
absorbed in the strange, darkÊtextures of the worldÊOzu presents.
I myself was pretty alienated for the first 1/2 hour or so
until the wintry chill of the mise-en-scene (brilliantly suggested
in the slightly hunched-over postures of the characters) found
its way into me instead of keeping me at arm's length. And
from there this story builds in unwavering intensity as it
follows a family on a slow slide into dissolution: a passive,
judgmental patriarch (played by Chisyu Ryu, subverting his
gently accepting persona in a way that is shocking), his elder
daughter, a divorcee with a single child (Setsuko Hara, playing
brilliantly against type -- who'd have thought the sweetest
lady in '50s Japan had such an evil scowl?), and his younger
daughter (Ineko Arima, a revelation), secretly pregnant and
searching for her boyfriend, get a major shakeup when their
absent mother, who the father had told them was long dead,
re-enters their lives. Ozu's vision of post-war Japan and
how the sins of one generation get passed on to the next,
illustrated brilliantly by a series of parallels drawn sensitively
between characters,Êmanages to be bothÊcompassionate and scathing
-- even a seemingly cop-out happy denouement is embedded with
a poison pill. A masterpiece, without question, one that throws
all of Ozu's depictions of modern society in a beautifully
devastating new light. #3 for 1957 between APARAJITO and A
KING IN NEW YORK
Equinox Flower (1958)
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0051720/
Ozu's first color feature, following the harsh, pessimistic
black-and-white worlds of EARLY SPRING and TOKYO TWILIGHT,
returns to the more whimsical disappointments of domestic
life, and the use of color adds to the film's soothing quality
and delight in everyday details vibrantly observed, qualities
that Ozu would continue to develop in his remaining color
films. A father butts heads with his oldest daughter when
she refuses to comply with his wish to arrange her marriage.
Another quality to this film that Ozu would develop to better
effect in his later works is a movement away from overt narrative
-- things happen in this film in a static, almost incidental
manner, which seems to reflect the experience of the father,
insisting on things being the same as always, and yet perceiving
gradual shifts almost in spite of himself. There's one beautiful
sequence, the father's college reunion party, where Chisyu
Ryu sings a patriotic song from their youth that is something
of a epiphany, where youthful idealism and traditional values
finally merge in a manner that is poignant, tragic, and truly
sublime. #7 for 1958 between SOME CAME RUNNING and GIGI
The rest, in order of preference:
howard.schumann film we both love probably for extremely
different and possibly incompatible reasons but at this rate
I'll accept whatever I can get masterpiece of the week
Au Hasard Balthazar (1966, Robert Bresson) third
viewing
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0060138/
Saw this in a packed theater with two friends, which led
to two very different experiences of the film -- the experience
of watching it amidst other audience responses vs. the experience
of talking about it afterwards. I'm still not resolved as
to what to make of this screening. I'll say more if I can
get a handle on what to say. #1 for 1966
75to81 "I don't like this but I'm sending it to you to
check out anyway" film of the week
Kanal (1957, Andrzej Wajda)
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0050585/
Wajda's WWII action thriller-cum-existential drama depicts
the final failed Polish resistance to the Nazi occupation
of Warsaw, the ragtag rebels pushed down into the sewers to
seek their escape. Gripping, tense, hellish, and a bit schematic
-- in other words, heavily reminiscent of Polanski (not to
mention James Cameron's ALIENS!). I enjoyed this quite a bit
though I'm a bit skeptical as to what the Veronica Lake-lookalike
is doing in this film, let alone as the most knowledgable
person about the sewers. #9 for 1957 between PATHS OF GLORY
and THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI
LeSamourai bliss-out of the week
The Cranes Are Flying (1957, Mikhail Kolotozov)
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0050634/
The title of this film, possibly taken from a line in Chekov's
Three Sisters, could just as well apply to Kolotozov's
breakthrough camera technique, that swirls and floats through
the air like an Ophuls movie on amphetamines, as it effectively
captures the tumultuous feelings of two star-crossed youths
separated by war, while also heralding a new, energetic era
in post-Stalin Soviet filmmaking. Kalatozov's virtuoso technique,
however brilliant, left me more impressed than moved, perhaps
because the material being served struck me as a bit rote
were it not for the steroidal stylization. The best light
in which I can appraise this film is in postulating that Kalatozov
is after a purity of theme through heightened sensation, something
akin to what Murnau and Vidor achieved back in the silent
era. #12 for 1957 between SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS and BITTER
VICTORY
ali-112 French favorite of the week
Queen Margot (1994, Patrice Ch?reau)
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0110963/
Catholic Queen Margot (played by a ravishing Isabelle Adjani)
engages in a bizarre love triangle when she brings her affair
with a Protestant lover together with her arranged marriage
with her Protestant cousin under a mutual protection pact.
For me this film is a startling but precarious mix of historical
drama and bloody spectacle, done up for maximum heat and light;
in that sense faithful to the tumultuousness of the times
it depicts, as best represented in a masterful rendering of
the St. Bartholomew massacre, hundreds of bodies lying in
the streets. There was overabundant historical intrigue to
take in on one sitting and I'm still trying to resolve myself
to the manner of storytelling -- edgy but fundamentally commercial,
relishing in the sex, gore and sordid machinations to the
point of distracting me from the nuances of the odd relationships
between the power players. This will probably require another
look. #16 for 1994 between LEON and QUIZ SHOW
Ashes and Diamonds (1958, Andrzej Wajda)
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0052080/
Wajda's international breakthrough came with this proto-New
Wave piece about a patriotic but ideologically conflicted
assassin about to make a hit on a Communist party official,
but falls in love with a barmaid, leading him to question
what he's living for. There's quite a bit of clutter and slack
throughout involving peripheral characters getting drunk and
talking about the future of themselves and their country,
though that may be part of the film's charm -- Wajda's films
seem to have an open conversation of Polish values post-war
(and potentially post-Soviet), which doesn't always make for
compelling cinema (though the knockout finale is a real kicker
-- literally) but is admirable in its own right. I see thematic
similarities to Godard's BREATHLESS and LE PETIT SOLDAT leading
me to wonder what influence if any Wajda had on the New Wave
(or Godard at least). #9 for 1958 between GIGI and THE DEFIANT
ONES
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