Grand Illusion wrote:Does the performance/blocking in the mediums match the performance/blocking in the wides? All I'm asking is if they are exactly the same. Specifically, the way the characters always rigidly turn their heads 90 degrees and speak staring straight ahead? If not, is this, by definition, incongruous (whether or not you like the film or this effect)?
The performances themselves are not ‘different’ in the straight-to-camera shots, and you can find several examples where, in the wide shots, characters turn their heads to speak in exactly the way you describe. This movement is more noticeable and unnerving in the close-ups because, as you say, it breaks a cinematic ‘rule’ by having the character address the camera. When Ozu shows an entire conversation with these sorts of shots, the effect is especially unnerving and artificial because the cuts between shots seem to prolong the gaps between the lines of dialogue – it’s as though the actors have to wait for the camera to turn round before saying their piece, and when that piece consists of a couple of perfunctory words and a weak smile, the effect can be frustrating. It certainly was for me when I first saw the film. In answer to your question though, I think it is the unusual (at least it is unusual to most Western eyes) shooting style that makes the performances seem different, not the actors themselves. (And Chishu Ryu does more acting with his adam’s apple in this film than most actors do with their arms, legs and face – watch him when he looks down at his dying wife, or in the penultimate shot of him back at home.)
It’s interesting that you think the film works in the wide shots but not in the mediums – if anything, I feel more alienated and less engaged by the former, however nicely composed they are. As a lot of the recent discussion on this thread has shown, so much of this film is about perspective: seeing things from both the parents’ and the children’s (and the grandchildren’s) point of view; seeing the wider perspective of the outside world in those wonderful shots of chimney stacks, the ticking boat in Onomichi (going first left to right, then right to left, then left to right again), trains (or empty tracks), clouds, sunsets, sunrises, full and empty streets… Etc. (For most of which, compare Red Desert.) Tomi and Shukishi look out over Tokyo and comment that it is so big, if they get lost they may never find each other again – from a height they can see it all clearly, but once among the people (of whom there are ‘too many’) everything will become more complicated and dangerous.
Look at the scene where Shukishi sits with Fumiko looking out of the window: they see Tomi out walking with one of the children, and the old man says ‘Look, there they are.’ We see the child and the old woman, from a distance, as they walk in the grass; then we see them up close and realise that the child is not listening to Tomi’s heartbreaking attempts to bond with her grandson, which turn into ruminations on her own imminent death. What looked sweet from a distance looks very different close up; we then see Shukishi again, only now Fumiko has left him and he is alone. Tomi’s lines in this scene are not delivered straight to camera because the child is not looking back at her; he does not even pretend to listen. So these kind of shots tell us something about the communication (or lack thereof) going on between the characters.
The artificiality of the straight-to-camera shots often conveys the artificiality, the pretence, in which the more sophisticated adults engage. For instance, when Shige tells her mother she can borrow her sandals, she does one of those ‘turn to the camera’ moves. There is a cut to the mother as she takes the sandals and goes out, then we cut back to Shige, still looking at the door, her impatience more visible now. Immediately afterwards she phones Noriko to get her to take care of the old folks. The next time Shige sees Tomi the two are in exactly the same positions, only now the daughter makes less effort to hide her resentment; the intensive shooting style throws such transitions into sharper relief.
Proving that this is a film about how people mask their true feelings under an artificial veneer would be like shooting fish in a barrel – you can find this going on in absolutely every scene, though it is always done with subtlety and a great deal of sympathy for all concerned. Antonioni is another director who tries to say something about the artifice and alienation of modern life through artificial, disorienting, rule-breaking cinematic techniques. Ozu forces you to look closely at all these false moments, he shoots them in such a way as to draw out their fake-ness; the 90 degree turn of the head sometimes conveys a sense that the character is composing themselves in order to give an appropriate response – it’s a very formal gesture.
Look at how Noriko is caught off guard when her in-laws ask about her late husband’s drinking: her smile disappears for a second, then as she turns to reply she plasters it back on. Later, when she puts Tomi up for the night, they have a long, polite conversation about Noriko getting married again; then suddenly Tomi turns away and cries; Noriko turns away as well, turns off the light and goes to bed; her face, lit up in the darkness, is pensive and sad, as it is in the train at the end – both moments when no one is looking at her, and so when she can look the way she feels. At the end when she bares all to Shukishi, she calls herself cunning (in the Tartan edition subtitles), which must refer to the way she calculates her appearance and her expressions – so yes, Grand Illusion, she is artificial and fake. When the floodgates finally burst at the end, she cannot look Hirayama in the face anymore, but weeps into her own hands. The pattern of the earlier scene between her and Tomi is reversed: just as she tried to comfort the old woman with money, so Hirayama, unable to respond to her outburst, gives her a keepsake, from which she seems to draw little comfort when she handles it on the train. (As to what the watch signifies, isn’t it about the passage of time, juxtaposed with that ticking boat? Noriko’s face when she looks at it reminds me of how she looked when she heard Tomi was ill, and went back to her work desk looking similarly pensive.)
There isn’t a single shot in the film where someone looks into the camera and really lets their emotions speak, they always have to look away. Even the disinhibited barroom scene has a kind of formality to it: I think Colin has discussed it’s ‘politeness’, and it’s almost a case of ‘let’s get drunk and say what we really think; then get drunker and forget the whole evening; and then we’ll say it was a “wonderful” evening.’
I'm oversimplifying a great and complex film but this post has to stop... Does this address some of your issues with the film, GI?