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All I can say is watch more Ozu before you brush aside the film. I was confounded by the film when I first saw it, but after going through the late Ozu set and particularly Late Spring Ozu's rhythms started clicking. I had similar issues, the full frontal camera angles even creeped me out, especially as Chishu never seems to blink. The acting seemed bland. And like you I'd seen several kurosawa film and a few Mizoguchi.

I understand that it's an inappropriate phrase to call Ozu's aesthetics more "Japanese", but I do believe that his characters, plots, and interactions are far more "Japanese" than the other major directors. Ozu is entrenched in a society of politeness, whereas kurosawa's films rebel against it, boiling over through Mifune's outbursts. Thus the characters in Ozu films hardly ever say what they think or feel, and instead wear painfully forced smiles or run through traditional greeting routines. Most of the drama comes from that difficulty of communication. At times it gets down right uncomfortable. I recall several scenes where someone begins to cry or is barely struggling to hold in the tears, and their conversation partner has to just stay put and pretend like everything is fine, out of politeness. And here I am, desperately wanting someone to hug the poor girl and tell them everything is alright or show some sign of sympathy, like what would happen in any American film. It's frustrating.

I may be overexoticizing Ozu here, but that's how I account for the different taste he brings to storytelling and acting.

The camera however, I feel is best dealt with via time and exposure. Eventually it gets less disconcerting.

At the risk of repeating the ‘my first Ozu’ story that’s now been told several times on this thread, when I first watched Tokyo Story my expectations were extremely high (slave to Halliwell’s Film Guide, see first page of thread), and as a big fan of Kurosawa (especially Ikiru), Mizoguchi and Kobayashi, was expecting certain kinds of quality in this film – and a certain kind of emotional impact.

Hopes dashed, I spent the first hour developing a headache and wondering why on earth this dull, badly acted, badly shot film was considered a ‘masterpiece’. About half way in, I began to realise I’d been drawn into these characters’ lives and had come to care about them, as you do unthinkingly care about people you know well. In other words, I had the opposite experience to the one Narshty describes – the emotional wave caught me totally off guard, and by the end of the film I was a wreck. I’ve been through this same process with pretty much every Ozu film I’ve watched; I travelled through Late Spring on a low flame of boredom right up until the ending, when everything clicked into place. As MK says, it’s the everydayness that gives the story its impact – these films capture the quiet sadness of life in a way I’ve never seen elsewhere in cinema. And as Sausage remarks, the very novelty (to western eyes) of this sort of thing being shown in this way in a film is part of the appeal.

Ozu’s technique is remarkably similar to that of the novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, who is also a master of boring you to tears and then making you cry like a baby. I guess Miike Takashi uses a similar technique in Audition, though for a very different purpose.

From the late Ozus I’ve seen, it seems like his style ended up becoming a bit of a mannerism, and films like The End of Summer or Late Autumn are easier to watch and more immediately engaging, and that much less rewarding because of it. I get the impression some Ozu fans on this board feel the same way?

I used to hate Dreyer, now he’s my favourite director; if I’d come to Antonioni earlier than I did I’d have dismissed him as a pretentious pseud; and I’m still a long way from being able to get much out of Bresson. These are acquired tastes, and if someone doesn’t ‘get’ Ozu it doesn’t make them a philistine. And if they don’t ‘get’ Ozu and are then honest enough to say why, in a reasonable, non-trolling manner, on a board crammed full of Ozu devotees, rather than just dismissing the experience and moving on, I say good for them!

I think, Grand I, what you may be experiencing is a bit of culture shock into the mannered world of some aspects of Japanese social intercourse which is reflected in much of later Ozu. The things that strike you as strangely mannered and even creepy may be certain formalized aspects of Japanese social interaction (particularly in old-- nee' Ozu's-- Japan), which are absolutely not going to be reflected in the films of Kurosawa.

It's interesting that you cite Ikiru, a film which you enjoyed and a film which would give many Japanese the creeps and send them running for the doors. There was a time when Kurosawa was considered too Western for Japanese tastes... guilty to some of a kind of betrayal by the integration of not only American, but Russian and western European influence in his works. In some quarters of polite, traditional Japanese society (others can speak to this better than I can for sure) the 'going public' so to speak, of grief, suffering, and dying-- a la Ikiru, and the way Mr Watanabe importunes the young lady on his job-- is considered a supreme humiliation, transferance of one's burden onto another, and an emotional disgrace. The film would have sent some of the more extreme of these folks running for the doors for the simple idea of putting material like this on film for the public to watch. You just did not publicize suffering in any form, not from needing a buck, not from loss of a job, not from a hangnail-- via dying is so wretchedly unthinkable it's like having incest on the 9:10 train from Nagoya.

Revisit Tokyo Story, work with it a little bit... get used to the world in there like a tourist on vacation learning the lingo and the terrain. Once you acclimatize, you'll be soaking up the benefits eventually. Or there's a good chance you will be. It's filmmaking of the highest order, and truly one of the greatest masterpieces in world cinema.

By the same token, I despise virtually anything by JLG. I nearly started a riot around here by elucidating, on the Contempt thread, the reasons I find his films to be utterly artless, and mere installments in a very deliberate JLG Cult of Personality. So I know what it feels like to believe folks have had the wool pulled over their eyes and that you have teased out the truth.

Ozu is a craftsman of the highest order, with a minimalism evolved via decade after decade of honing his craft, and countless films. Keep trying. It's beyond worth it.

Sloper wrote:From the late Ozus I’ve seen, it seems like his style ended up becoming a bit of a mannerism, and films like The End of Summer or Late Autumn are easier to watch and more immediately engaging, and that much less rewarding because of it. I get the impression some Ozu fans on this board feel the same way?

I wouldn't describe myself as an Ozu fan in the strict sense of the word, so that's probably one of the reasons why I indeed find these two films you mention (and I would easily add "Late Autumn" to the list) much more immediately engaging without having the feeling that they are so much less rewarding. The style is the same, the themes are similar, but there is a stronger feeling of lightness, of humour even, in these films. I very much share your initial experience with "Tokyo Story", and even though I now also regard it as perhaps his greatest film, I'd definitely NOT recommend it to anyone as a start with Ozu. It's akin to recommending "Gertrud" to someone who hasn't seen the rest of Dreyer before.

I'd say it's not quite fitting to say that one 'gets' Ozu or doesn't 'get' him, because the man's work over the years is surprisingly different in style. Someone who cannot get "Tokyo Story" might get a lot out of "There was a father" or "Dragnet girl" (these earlier films actually 'converted' me to Ozu). Sometimes the half-mythical awe for a particular film, "Tokyo Story" in this case, and the ensuing disappointment if you don't understand at first what all the fuss people are making is about can lead to undeserved dismissal or uninterest in the other films from the same director. So in Schreck's case, I fear he will never try Godard again (a director I'm also not much a fan of, but some of his films I find quite rewarding; I have to admit that "Contempt" is one of them, but it also only clicked after a second viewing).

"Tokyo Story" might be the most perfect expression of Ozu's vision, but the incomprehension of the unique quality of this vision and style has not so much to do with a cultural clash in my view. Kurosawa's attractiveness for Western viewers is often cited, but would you call all those Japanese filmmakers whose films are much easier to 'comprehend' westernized? I'm thinking of directors as different as Yamanaka, Mizoguchi, Kobayashi, or even Naruse. None of them has ever posed the same difficulties for me as Ozu did.

In Grand Illusion's terms, I do believe the issues are indeed cultural. Frankly I've never fully understood what's so "difficult" about Ozu's style. The man was making films for the great masses of Japanese filmgoers, and speaking to universal themes for all to grasp. But his film's themes and stylistic mannerisms are, I'd say, a little unpalatable in the way eating seaweed for breakfast or snacking on edamame or raw fish-- all staples in eastern culture-- would strike the western individual at first.

Certainly his style was unique, even among Japanese filmmakers... thus the fallacy of his films being "more Japanese" than his contemporaries. But his style is not deliberately "challenging" like some of Dreyer or-- worse-- Bresson, who was making his films with very limited appeal and for a very limited audience. There's simply no way that Balthazaar or Pickpocket is going to be seen as 'films for the masses'.. they are rigorous, almost deliberately unfriendly to the average filmgoer, and radical in every way... after the war, and in the style under discussion here, Ozu achieved commercial success.

I don't see his style as alienating, difficult, or challenging a la the films mentioned in your post, Tom. The style is very graceful, simple, and gentle. It is soft and languid, and meditating. The effect of placing the camera square on the speaker, though disorienting at first to some viewers, simply places the viewer into the immediacy of the action and more subject to the emotional climate. These are not bold cinematic gestures designed to alienate the viewer and call attention to "craft" a l a so many of our western "difficult" directors mentioned above.

Ozu is pulling you in, gracefully subjecting you to mild emotional breezes, which slowly urge a sense of contemplation, build a soft sense of smiling through a frown which is most unique and extremely exquisite. I daresay a consciousnly "challenging" or "rigorous" style would be as poisonous to his ultimate goal as rapid montage or Brechtian self-reflexivity. Different doesn't equal austere and rigorous. After the mildest adjustment, it's as soft and simple as syrup over silk.

I first encountered Ozu in my late 40s, I have no idea what I would have thought of him had I first met his films in my 20s -- but I suspect his work would have received a more positive reaction than "Rashomon" produced.

Ozu's "people" are, to me, very like the real people I know -- only sometimes wearing different clothes. I had NEVER felt the sort of shock of recognition of "reality" in films like I did when I saw my first few Ozu films.

Ozu would have considered his films very Western-inspired -- and I never once felt (even at first meeting) that his films were especially devoted to portraying "Japanese-ness" -- in content or in style. Indeed, he spent the last couple of years of WW2 poring over a huge trove of contraband Western films (in stead of making progress on the propaganda films he was _supposed_ to be making). And his supposedly ultra-Japanese "Late Spring" shows major traces of his familiarity witrh more recent Hollywood films.

On the other hand, most of Kurosawa's alleged over-western-ness is a figment of Western writers' imagination. Japanese audiences loved Hollywood films in the 50s just like they do now. Much of the western-ness we perceive in AK's pre-collapse films would have been aimed squarely at the Japanese audience's demands -- not those of Americans and Europeans. AK did lose a lot of favor domestically (starting with Dodes'kaden), but this tells us nothing at all about his popularity before that time.

I find Ikiru mostly a mess -- and very unbelievable in almost every respect, but contemporary Japanese critics and audiences seems to have loved its over-the-top melodrama -- it won lots of major awards in the year of its release.

Tokyo Story is my (honorary) favorite film -- yet I (almost) never recommend it as an introduction to Ozu. More often than not, I'd point to Early Summer and/or Floating Weeds. If the Criterion DVD of Good Morning was not so paltry, I might even recommend that film (my own introduction to Ozu -- via the superior VHS version).

Ozu western in subject matter, huh? This is from the Late Spring thread:

Michael Kerpan wrote:

Mr Sheldrake wrote:Do you think Ozu might have thought himself something of a failure if it is true that it takes multiple viewings to fully grasp the depth of his sublety? I have a suspicion he might have been a much harsher critic of his own films than his modern day enthusiasts. He probably did not consider himself a genius, or that every intention that he had in a movie was necessarily succesful. After all, he was a commercial film director, who had to deal with studios and the demands of the marketplace. He wasn't making films for experts and academics.

What you are not taking into account is the divide between our contemporary Western culture and that of Ozu's Japan. Things that his audiences would have understood rather intuitively or taken for granted, we have to pay careful attention to -- and think about. We need to, as much as possible, re-create for ourselves (through conscious effort) some of the "environmental" awareness of that original audience. And that takes extra viewings (among other things).

Moreover, I think one can be sure that Ozu wanted his original audiences to pay close attention to what he was showing them. He definitely "demanded" more attentiveness than the average Japanese film maker. While he may have made his films for ordinary audiences -- he didn't cut them much slack or make things easy for them (unlike colleagues such as Kurosawa and KInoshita).

Kurosawa not Western influenced? This is from the Sansho thread:

Michael Kerpan wrote:I like both Kurosawa and Mizoguchi -- about equally, but for different reasons.

In saying that Mizoguchi's style has a very old-fashioned foundation I am not _saying_ his style is bad at all. I think it is often visually extraordinary. I do think this quality makes it much harder for modern audiences to connect with his work (both in Japan and the West) -- while Kurosawa's cinematic style is both based on more modern Western influences -- and in turn strongly influenced Western cinema. Consequently Kurosawa does not feel as foreign and remote to modern viewers as Mizoguchi does.

When this gets untangled, I'll reply.

Easy to straighten out. The key word in discussing the divide between Ozu's world and our own is "contemporary" not "Japanese". We had an exchange student from a Japanese high school staying with us a few years ago -- and he said he (and his father -- a big Hollywood movie fan) didn't watch Ozu films because they were too old and "hard to understand". Trying to watch Hollywood films of the 20s through early 60s, and judging behaviors through a completely contemporary filter is likely to produce a certain degree of incomprehension (and even misunderstanding) among younger American viewers. My further point was that Ozu's films (even though old and "foreign") can be followed -- on their own terms -- by younger viewers who are sufficiently attentive (and thoughtful). Learning about mid-20th century Japanese culture can help (but can't substitute for attention and reflection).

Point no. 2 -- Mizoguchi was very much influenced by Western films (just as AK was), but his core Western films were mostly much older ones -- i.e., ones that many younger film fans of today may not be especially familiar with It is not that Kurosawa was _more_ influenced by Western cinema but that he was mainly influenced by _more recent_ (and more male-oriented) Western films -- and thus that any Western influences might be more noticeable to modern Western viewers (especially male ones).

(It is also true that Mizoguchi WAS more influenced by old-fashioned shimpa aesthetics than any other major Japanese film maker -- while America also had highly melodramatic theater in the mid to late 19th century -- average American film viewers surely have no more familiarity with this theatrical history than modern Japanese film fans have with shimpa theater).

My overall point (made many times, here and elsewhere) is that almost ALL major Japanese directors -- of both past and present -- are very much influenced by Western cinema. Singling out Kurosawa for being "Western" -- in opposition to other directors (who supposedly were more "purely Japanese") is, thus, incorrect.

FWIW -- Shigehiko Hasumi (for one) has gone to great pains to point out how much Western cinema influenced Ozu -- unfortunately his book on Ozu is available only in Japanese and French.

Since you at least made the effort I'll further clarify that we are in agreement that the problem with Ozu that GIllusion is probably having is not anything "distintively Japanese" (i e a result of some form of "traditional Japanese filmmaking") in his formal conceits, but that they are corresponding to aspects of a former version of Japanese society, and it's social mechanics, that a Japenese individual of the time wouldn't give much of a thought to. As to the 3 foot height (or however much it is) and the bypassing of the 180 degree tradition, these were part of Ozu's postwar filmmaking cultural identity in Japanese cinema, and relatively consistent enough to be anticipated by contemporaries the way the Grand Sweep of DeMille would be anticipated in his time. But, although the problems and situations at the heart of these Ozu films are entirely human, timeless and universal, the rigid emotional norms of Japanese societal pedigree are I daresay going to be part of what is alien to to a viewer today. And this is what you were getting at when you asked GIllusion:

"Grand Illusion, how much classic Japanese cinema have you seen (not counting Kurosawa and sword fight films)?"

As for Kurosawa, from the very beginning of his international success, he himself felt the resentment of his own countrymen, some of whom felt that if a film could be understood by Western audiences, it was somehow not worth their time. Of course dramatizing this and playing it up to bigger than actual dimensions makes good bio copy-- visionary director leads the blind and all that-- but it was something he contended with even within his own studios from Rashomon forward, and represents something culturally distinctive. It's not something you'd hear from many western companies or countries, except maybe the French (tee hee). Despite the fact that his films were enjoyed domestically prior to his downfall at the end of Redbeard (Dodeska den I've heard made some Japanese audiences distinctly uncomfortable and busted up his new production company viz it's failure) does not eradicate the knee jerk response of some Japanese to the man's films, which he himself (who's word I'll take thanks) has recounted.

Various Japanese critics have said all sorts of silly things about all major Japanese directors (past and present). Nonetheless, Kurosawa was generally popular with both critics and the viewing public all the way up through Red Beard (possibly his biggest domestic success). Kurosawa may have resented the fact that other directors (particularly Imai and Kinoshita) were even more acclaimed in the 50s and early 60s, but it would be untrue to say that there was any widespread disinterest or resentment (Mizoguchi was surely annoyed that Kurosawa got Western acclaim before he did -- but Ozu, Naruse et al. wouldn't have been particularly bothered).

As to cultural norms of Ozu's time -- I would say that Americans probably do have to work a bit to understand these -- but that younger Japanese also have to make an effort to deal with these.

HerrSchreck wrote:I don't see his style as alienating, difficult, or challenging a la the films mentioned in your post, Tom. The style is very graceful, simple, and gentle. It is soft and languid, and meditating.

Yes, the style in itself isn't alienating or challenging in itself, and especially not deliberately so (unlike "Gertrud" or some Godard). What I rather meant is that despite the gentleness and simplicity it might nevertheless prove to be difficult to many viewers, because they are neither used to the meditative quality nor would they particularly understand WHY they should get used to it. This is indeed different to what you call the bold gestures of some western directors, which can be much more immediately attracting to an at first irritated viewer. Example: I have absolutely no interest in the problems of the bourgeois couples in Antonioni's films with Vitti, and -like in Ozu - nothing really seems to happen in these films, but the man's style absolutely dazzles me and left me with a gaping mouth again almost throughout the whole of the length of "Red Desert" recently, although I had already seen the three preceding films and had an idea what to expect.

Ozu doesn't offer such 'easy' ways of attraction for the viewer, and perhaps that's even his greatest gift. His subtleness and quietness may indeed prove more powerful and lasting than the stylistic pyrotechnics of other directors. But these qualities do not immediately install in the viewer the desire to find out more about the director's motivations or world view and understand the film better. Ozu's style only clicked for me after someone compared it to the experience of emptiness in Zen, i.e. an emptiness which is at the same time full of potential and thus not empty at all. The somewhat related idea that all things have their own and equal value enabled me to make sense of the seemingly meaningless shots of tea-pots etc. Such an approach to late Ozu is of course rather conventional and surely misses whole layers of meaning, but it helps greatly to appreciate these films, especially if you're not particularly interested in Japanese family problems or happen not to be blown away by Setsuko Hara.

Thanks for the clarification about Western influences on those older Japanese directors, btw. Very helpful.

Michael Kerpan wrote:Kurosawa may have resented the fact that other directors (particularly Imai and Kinoshita) were even more acclaimed in the 50s and early 60s, but it would be untrue to say that there was any widespread disinterest or resentment ..

Frankly Michael, you're taking refuge in generalities, whereas history and (particularly) a culture as conflicted and zigzagging in so many directions of influence such as postwar, post-occupation Japan cannot be discerned in one sweeping sentence.

I can't say whether or not resentment (disinterest is an odd word) vs Kurosawa or what he represented was "widespread"... I tend to think not at least up to Redbeard and via the budgets the man was given... I can't speak to it's frequency any more than the cultural flags of a society can be located sheerly through the acts of those who purchased tickets and sat down to this or that film. But I can say that the tendencies I've described (the hiding of personal troubles, the idea of "face", the fear of bringing shame, etc) in the more traditional norms of Japanese society represent the cultural source of the resentment viz those who resented Kurosawa's more open, consciously western style of filmmaking and character behavior (in some of his films).

For christs sakes, even for me his films seem over the top and wailing and bleating. The guy just doesn't know when to back off and understand he's made his point: Yes the world is difficult and people are scum. Try subtlety whyncha? The man just beat people over the head relentless.

And that's coming from a lifelong NY'er-fan-of-Japanese/all-forms-of cinema.

Michael Kerpan wrote:Narshty -- the very things that "put you off" Ozu are what make him my favorite director.

Mr_sausage wrote:A lot of people seem to like seeing their own lives on the big screen. ... I think I like Ozu's films because those "small, undisclosed pains and decisions" are less common in film than broad decisions and large pains. So there's some novelty in it.

Absolutely. I was trying to make clear that the combination of content and form is what wears me down. Low-key drama plus low-key presentation equals, for me, low-key involvement. I wasn't trying to brag about my philistinism (I'm pretty certain that's not a word) and I envy those who can see and feel Ozu's greatness directly.

HerrSchreck wrote:Frankly Michael, you're taking refuge in generalities, whereas history and (particularly) a culture as conflicted and zigzagging in so many directions of influence such as postwar, post-occupation Japan cannot be discerned in one sweeping sentence.

And what is it exactly these sentences are doing?

Herrschreck wrote:It's interesting that you cite Ikiru, a film....which would give many Japanese the creeps and send them running for the doors. There was a time when Kurosawa was considered too Western for Japanese tastes... guilty to some of a kind of betrayal by the integration of not only American, but Russian and western European influence in his works.

HerrSchreck wrote:As for Kurosawa, from the very beginning of his international success, he himself felt the resentment of his own countrymen, some of whom felt that if a film could be understood by Western audiences, it was somehow not worth their time.

Your arguments are nothing but generalizations about Japanese society and its reaction to Kurosawa and Ozu (frequently summarized into a sentence). At least Kerpan is trying to point out that there is no set, constant, unchanging thing known as "Japanese society," and that one generation may be culturally different enough to have to work a bit to understand films rooted in an earlier generation.

I didn't consider Ozu "extremely" odd--but I came into Ozu late and I had already experienced a whole bunch of idiosyncratic styles before. I felt he had a definite way of doing things his own way, but it really wasn't even "challenging". The story is simple, the dialogue is simple. I frankly don't see how actors talking int the camera was going to make it "challenging." Sure, it's different from what we're used to, but if you look at it from a pure viewer comprehension sense, it's pretty seamless.

What I see from a lot of people is when they start applying "generic" criticism to something like Ozu--"The character were/weren't likeable, it was well shot, etc,." you're applying too narrow a brush to your viewing habits. Which is absolutely fine--if those are the kind of things you look for in your films, that's your prerogative. But you don't wander into someone like Ozu, or Godard or Antonioni because you're looking for a "better" version of what you see in the mainstream--if you want that, you just go to, say, Hitchcock. You explore these guys because you're looking for something different--different cinematic language, different thematic focus, different narrative structure--from the mainstream standard.

No sausageman, you're dead wrong. Only when read in a belligerent fashion, or with a monstrously defective reading comprehension could you read a sentence like

As for Kurosawa, from the very beginning of his international success, he himself felt the resentment of his own countrymen, some of whom felt that if a film could be understood by Western audiences, it was somehow not worth their time.

as a sweeping statement. If you'll note I qualified quantitatively with "some of whom".

There's also a difference between a lack of quantification, and deliberate generalization. Kerpan already made the precise point that I did about Kurosawa' western tendency. The feelings of some of his countrymen, which I cannot quantify and thus MUST passively generalize (which Michael is not-- he's using the qualifiers "generally" and "widespread", which tend to indicate some sort of majority or lack of), are commonly accepted parts of the AK narrative. I passively generalize because it's impossible to quantify-- Kerpan is actively quantifying because he thinks he knows the answer, and is turning over commonly accepted history/biographic narrative.

Which he's entitled to. I'm all for dubiousness versus commonly accepted narratives, but I think the truth is pretty clear (and MK's contradictions) are pretty obvious. MK tends to poo poo stuff that doesn't jive with his already accepted narrative of Japanese film that he's made for himself. We're all guilty of it here & there.

Michael Kerpan wrote:Would it help you to try to look at Ozu from his comic (sometimes raucously so) side? (I'm a bit resistant to the approach that sees Ozu's work as primarily contemplative -- which I see as only one side of Ozu's work -- which is usually comic at its core -- even throughout much of Tokyo Story).

I've seen five of Ozu's films to date, but squeaking flatulence and old men getting tipsy did little for me. Any other humour went right over my head.

With all due respect, I don't just make stuff up, Herr Schreck.

The Western conventional wisdom on Kurosawa has long been that he was rejected as too Western in Japan. All one needs to do is a bit or research, however, to discover that, most of his films did well with the public and got considerable critical acclaim -- until he slammed into a brick wall with Dodes'kaden. It also takes only a little research to determine that American films were, in fact, popular in Japan in the late 40s and 50s (just as they still are today). Thus, there was considerable domestic audience demand for films that competed head to head with Hollywood's latest and greatest. The fact that a few elitist critics disliked the fact that Kurosawa successfully catered to the Japanese public's taste for a certain degree of Western-ism in Japanese films, simply does not establish a significant degree of rejection within Japan.

Competing with Hollywood was hardly unique to Kurosawa -- Uchida did this (for example his Anthony Mann-influenced Outsiders).. So did Nomura (lots of Hitchcock inspiration, among other influences). And there was lots of other stuff of the same sort (though not of the same level of inspiration).

Narshty wrote:I've seen five of Ozu's films to date, but squeaking flatulence and old men getting tipsy did little for me. Any other humour went right over my head.

There's a lot more humor just in Tokyo Story than is covered by your description (though I personally find the scenes involving tipsy old men in TS quite funny -- among other things).

And fart jokes were far from the only element of humor in Good Morning.

HerrSchreck wrote:No sausageman, you're dead wrong. Only when read in a belligerent fashion, or with a monstrously defective reading comprehension could you read a sentence like

As for Kurosawa, from the very beginning of his international success, he himself felt the resentment of his own countrymen, some of whom felt that if a film could be understood by Western audiences, it was somehow not worth their time.

as a sweeping statement. If you'll note I qualified quantitatively with "some of whom".

There's also a difference between a lack of quantification, and deliberate generalization. Kerpan already made the precise point that I did about Kurosawa' western tendency. The feelings of some of his countrymen, which I cannot quantify and thus MUST passively generalize (which Michael is not-- he's using the qualifiers "generally" and "widespread", which tend to indicate some sort of majority or lack of), are commonly accepted parts of the AK narrative. I passively generalize because it's impossible to quantify-- Kerpan is actively quantifying because he thinks he knows the answer, and is turning over commonly accepted history/biographic narrative.

Which he's entitled to. I'm all for dubiousness versus commonly accepted narratives, but I think the truth is pretty clear (and MK's contradictions) are pretty obvious. MK tends to poo poo stuff that doesn't jive with his already accepted narrative of Japanese film that he's made for himself. We're all guilty of it here & there.

Yes, it's clear even you knew you were comitting too many generalizations, so you stuck some qualifiers in there as tho' to make your comments more specific. But the qualifiers are themselves generalities, and give no specific information about what groups are doing A and what groups are doing B, or even what these groups might be. You can't honestly believe that saying "some" Japanese people dislike this or that thing, and then leaving it there, is sufficiently specific for one to then criticise others for making generalizations.

You're verging on the billigerant yourself. Maybe you should take a break and come back to the discussion with a calmer head?

Michael Kerpan wrote:With all due respect, I don't just make stuff up, Herr Schreck.

The Western conventional wisdom on Kurosawa has long been that he was rejected as too Western in Japan. All one needs to do is a bit or research, however, to discover that, most of his films did well with the public and got considerable critical acclaim -- until he slammed into a brick wall with Dodes'kaden. It also takes only a little research to determine that American films were, in fact, popular in Japan in the late 40s and 50s (just as they still are today). Thus, there was considerable domestic audience demand for films that competed head to head with Hollywood's latest and greatest. The fact that a few elitist critics disliked the fact that Kurosawa successfully catered to the Japanese public's taste for a certain degree of Western-ism in Japanese films, simply does not establish a significant degree of rejection within Japan.

Let me re-emphasize once again, in fear that you may well be misunderstanding me:

It is possible for a filmmaker to do well commercially and to some degree critically, yet still experience rejection from some quarters. Most of life is not either or. Of course Kurosawa experienced success in his native country-- his success to Redbeard, and the budgets he'd been given (we're going in circles) make this painfully obvious. The same way that Ozu could be termed a "successful" filmmaker, especially during the postwar years as he met critical acclaim, yet still there were moments where he experienced rejection by some at various times-- lastly at the very end of his career, just prior to the final film.

Simply proving financial success does not disprove Kurosawas rejection by some quantity cultural conservatives in Japan, a rejection he certainly felt. Saying "Steven SPielberg's films" or "White Zombie's music" is/are financially successful-- to give to wildly disparate examples-- doesn't eradicate these individuals' very real rejection by large numbers of individuals (for very different reasons, each) & social classes. Usually having something to do with some form of aesthetics, and taste.

To actively disprove this EDIT consistently (was "widely") reported sniffing at Ak by some of his conservative contemporaries, you're going to have to point to more than box office. The ball's in your court.

I never said that _no_ critics attacked Kurosawa (quite the contrary). I said the fact that some critics did so is insufficient to validate the western AK fan myth that AK's work was rejected by "the Japanese" as too western..

I am not aware of many directors (Japanese or otherwise) that do not face the hostility of some critics. ;~}

P.S. I do not have time at present to re-read my various sources to prove my contentions to _your_ satisfaction. Some other day (week, in fact).

Change "the Japanese" to "some Japanese" (what I meant, the traditionalist, conservative & rigid quarter, critics are only a sliver of what I mean) and we can put this one to bed, being in agreement with you.

HerrSchreck wrote:Change "the Japanese" to "some Japanese" (what I meant, the traditionalist, conservative & rigid quarter, critics are only a sliver of what I mean) and we can put this one to bed, being in agreement with you.

I was addressing the standard western mythology -- which presented opposition to AK's work as something widespread within Japan. (Subtext -- look at us brilliant Westerners, we appreciate Kurosawa where his country folk do not).

AK and Mizoguchi were much more sensitive to critical adulation (and disfavor) than Ozu and Naruse. Perhaps this is a reason I prefer the works of the latter pair.

mister sausage wrote:Yes, it's clear even you knew you were comitting too many generalizations, so you stuck some qualifiers in there as tho' to make your comments more specific. But the qualifiers are themselves generalities, and give no specific information about what groups are doing A and what groups are doing B, or even what these groups might be. You can't honestly believe that saying "some" Japanese people dislike this or that thing, and then leaving it there, is sufficiently specific for one to then criticise others for making generalizations.

You're verging on the billigerant yourself. Maybe you should take a break and come back to the discussion with a calmer head?

Ah fuggeddaboutit. For the good of this victimized thread.