505 Make Way for Tomorrow

[Gregory]

Is there evidence that Ozu and/or Noda saw this movie?

According to Bordwell, Noda had seen it but Ozu hadn't.

It's wonderful that Criterion is finally releasing this, and with such a nice contribution by my namesake (who works under a different nom de plume). The booklet looks outstanding, too -- can't wait to read Tavernier's comments.

[swo17]

Criterion is totally releasing this to cash in on the current economic crisis.

[TheGodfather]

Criterion is totally releasing this to cash in on the current economic crisis.

Good to see that this is finally being released into the Collection. I have never seen it before but heard and read many great things about it.
Can`t wait for it.

[denti alligator]

Was this rumored? This comes as a pleasant surprise to me.

[Jeff]

A Mulvaney confirmed it as being in the works for "the not-to-distant future" in February of this year.

[bearcuborg]

McCarey's long been one of Bogdanovich's favorites, but I believe this will actually be the first time he'll be talking about the director on a DVD extra. For that alone this is a pretty great addition.

We might form the minority of Bogdanovich fans here; I always welcome Peter's thoughts. However, if memory serves, I believe he only talked about Lubitsch as an extra for Trouble in Paradise. I myself prefer this to Awful Truth which I dislike.

[domino harvey]

One of my favorite Bogdanovich moments is when he in mock-sincerity claimed an innocuous utterance of "Going my way?" in They All Laughed to be a reference to the McCarey film.

[Michael Kerpan]

Is there evidence that Ozu and/or Noda saw this movie? TOKYO STORY seems like a reworking of TODA FAMILY and other wartime and prewar films, all made before Ozu would have had a chance to see MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW. It's possible McCarey's film would have inspired Ozu and Noda to revisit the theme of children's neglect of their elderly parents.

Make Way came out in 1937 and Hollywood films were still making their way over to Japan rather quickly at that point (though this would soon change). Tadao Ikeda, who wrote the script for Toda Family (along with Ozu), was definitely familiar with McCarey's film (or at least with its script). But Ozu had sketched out Only Son in 1936 (and Ikeda had helped write this script as well) -- and this was also a part of the foundation for Toda Family and Tokyo Story.

Ozu was out of the movie watching loop during a good portion of 1937 -1939, having been drafted and sent to China (as a soldier). By the time he returned to Japan, there was only a trickle of Western (non-German) films coming to Japan. While he watched lots of Western films while stationed in Singapore (as a film maker) towards the end of the war, McCarey's film was appatrently not among the trove of confiscated films he watched when he was supposed to be making propaganda films there.

I believe Noda actually did _see_ Make Way -- though I'm not sure whether he saw this before the war or after (I would guess pre-war is more likely, as the film would already have been rather obscure after the war).

[Michael Kerpan]

Narratively. The set-up strikes me as rather artificial -- and the disposition of "good" parents and "bad" children is simplistic (in Ozu, only Toda Family, modeled on Make Way, comes close to this level of one-sidedness).

By set-up, do you mean that an elderly couple defaults on their mortgage and needs to find a new place to live? Or are you taking about how the children initially decide to handle the matter? Either way, I find nothing artificial in a narrative structure that begins with a plausible crisis (particularly given its era) and makes reasonable stabs at a resolution? Could you say more about the artificiality you find here?

I never believed for one second that the parents and children in Make Way were members of the same family. I never believed for a second that these (largely prosperous) children could not even briefly make arrangements for both parents to stay together with one family or another. I never believed for a second in all the excessive kindness strangers displayed (while being unaware that the couple was soon to be callously split apart by their own children).

As for the "good"/"bad" characterizations, do you find the treatment of the children in MWFT that different from the way Ozu paints Shige and Koichi in Tokyo Story? In each film, I think the children are certainly afflicted with selfishness, but their characters are drawn with enough nuance that we are not forced to see them as "bad" and the parents as "good". Is the problem, for you, that MWFT lacks something of a Noriko character to mediate between the implicit goodness of the parents and the seeming heartlessness of the children?

I find Shige in Tokyo Story far more credible than any of the children in Make Way. Although Ozu primarily used Shige to provide some comic relief (or so he said -- and I believe him), he even gave us a glimpse into her traumatic childhood (during the mostly farcial scene in which her drunken father and his buddy descend on her in the middle of the night, we sense that this was a not uncommon, very distressing event when she was a child -- and our glee at her comeuppance gets undermined).

I saw little or no nuance in the children's behavior in Make Way. This was a film I was all prepared to love -- prior to seeing it. And I was surprised at just how paltry it seemed as a whole (despite some nice performances by the "parents").

[reno dakota]

Fair enough, Michael. Thanks for elaborating on your reservations about the film. I did not find the setup preposterous in any of the ways you mention, or the children in McCarey's film any less credible than those in Ozu's, but I can understand why the film did not work for you as a result of these issues.

[Brian C]

I never believed for one second that the parents and children in Make Way were members of the same family.

The percentage of movies with believable family units is so small that I feel it's a minor miracle when one comes along. While I don't remember this being an issue for me during MWFT - I loved the movie when I saw it for the first time last year - I can fully understand why this would annoy you.

[Michael Kerpan]

It's always a bit sad when a film one fully expects to love falls flat. And I did give this a second shot, to no avail.

Even worse, it even made me pick more nits in the one McCarey film I had previously liked -- Duck Soup. When I told my children that I now preferred Monkey Business to Duck Soup, their reaction was --"Well, it's about time". (But I -- and my twins -- do still llove the mirror scene, at least).

As to Tokyo Story, I find this gets more emotionally complex every time I come back to it. (Now up to 12 or so visits).

[swo17]

When I told my children that I now preferred Monkey Business to Duck Soup, their reaction was --"Well, it's about time".

Well, Monkey Business is the best Marx Bros. film. I'll grant you that.

[Michael Kerpan]

Well, Monkey Business is the best Marx Bros. film. I'll grant you that.

And It's A Gift is the best W.C. Fields film. Does this mean Norman Z. McLeod (who directed both) was an auteur? Or did he just get lucky?

[domino harvey]

Does this mean Norman Z. McLeod (who directed both) was an auteur? Or did he just get lucky?

I don't know, but I'll be goddamned if I'm gonna stand fer it if Criterion ever thinks of allowing him into the collection before more womyn

[alandau]

Excuse my being ecstatic and a bit irrational at the moment (on a flight of emotion) but would this have to be THE Criterion of all time!

[ellipsis7]

Is there evidence that Ozu and/or Noda saw this movie? TOKYO STORY seems like a reworking of TODA FAMILY and other wartime and prewar films, all made before Ozu would have had a chance to see MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW. It's possible McCarey's film would have inspired Ozu and Noda to revisit the theme of children's neglect of their elderly parents.

Make Way came out in 1937 and Hollywood films were still making their way over to Japan rather quickly at that point (though this would soon change). Tadao Ikeda, who wrote the script for Toda Family (along with Ozu), was definitely familiar with McCarey's film (or at least with its script). But Ozu had sketched out Only Son in 1936 (and Ikeda had helped write this script as well) -- and this was also a part of the foundation for Toda Family and Tokyo Story.

Ozu was out of the movie watching loop during a good portion of 1937 -1939, having been drafted and sent to China (as a soldier). By the time he returned to Japan, there was only a trickle of Western (non-German) films coming to Japan. While he watched lots of Western films while stationed in Singapore (as a film maker) towards the end of the war, McCarey's film was appatrently not among the trove of confiscated films he watched when he was supposed to be making propaganda films there.

I believe Noda actually did _see_ Make Way -- though I'm not sure whether he saw this before the war or after (I would guess pre-war is more likely, as the film would already have been rather obscure after the war).

There's an interesting essay 'Ozu's TOKYO STORY and the "Recasting" of McCarey's MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW' by Arthur Nolleti Jr.in the book Ozu's TOKYO STORY ed. David Desser...

[tojoed]

Well, Animal Crackers is the best Marx Bros. film. I'll grant you that.

Fixed.

[Jonathan S]

Horsefeathers!

[Michael Kerpan]

There's an interesting essay 'Ozu's TOKYO STORY and the "Recasting" of McCarey's MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW' by Arthur Nolleti Jr.in the book Ozu's TOKYO STORY ed. David Desser...

As far as I recall, Nolletti misses the link between Make Way and Todas -- which was first documented (even in English) quite a long time before his article came out. On the other hand, maybe his artiicle was cut down for inclusion in the collection -- just like the (very incomplete and rather misleading) chapter from Hasumi's book on Ozu.

[ellipsis7]

Agree about the excerpted Hasumi, Michael, I have the French translation of the full book (published by Cahiers du Cinema)... I think Nolletti just misses the Toda link...

[Michael Kerpan]

Agree about the excerpted Hasumi, Michael, I have the French translation of the full book (published by Cahiers du Cinema)... I think Nolletti just misses the Toda link...

Hasumi's French version of his Ozu book was the first French book I'd read in 20 years or so. ;~}

I think any discussion of Make Way and Tokyo Story that leaves out both Only Son and Todas is perilously incomplete.

[alandau]

Criterion is totally releasing this to cash in on the current economic crisis.

In Australia there is NO economic crisis.

[tajmahal]

In Australia there is NO economic crisis.

There might be after the Barnes and Noble 50% off Criterion sale. #-o

[Michael Kerpan]

And absolutely NO misinterpretation of interfamilial dynamics.

Michael I really think this is the one move from a "tradition" - whatever the hell that might be for McCarey at his peak in '37 - which simply transcends everything you expect of it. There are other McCarey's I love less (if hardly) but there's no other McCarey I love more.

Well, let's just say this -- I almost always "recognize" the people and their families in Ozu -- and the family in Make Way could have come from Mars. Nothing rang true for me.

Alas, I react about as negatively to McCarey as I do to Kinoshita. I recognize both are much loved, but I am almost entirely unable to share that love. They ruib me the wrong way.