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One response to “The Cinema Sight Film Club #10: Discussion”

1. 

   Peter J Patrick

   July 22, 2012

   So, is this “club” dying or is no one here more interested in Ozu than American theatre owners and film distributers were during his lifetime?

   Only his last two films were given theatrical showings in the U.S. within two years of their Japanese premiere, yet this dsiciple of Ford and McCarey was, in retropspect, the most easily accessible of the great Japanese directors even if the films of Kurosawa, Misujuchi, Teshigahara and others were more immediately available and popular in their own time.

   1949’s Late Spring which began Ozu’s cycle of films about the changing times in Japan, like most of his films, were not shown in the U.S. until 1972, nine years after his death.

   It was the first of his numerous films with Sestsuko Hara, still living at 92, but retired since shortly after Ozu’s death, and arguably her greatest role. The actress is heartbreakingly wonderful as the young woman content with her life with her father and disinclined to marry until he informs her that he is going to re-marry himself. Like all of Ozu’s films, it’s about family, but it’s also about the changing way of life in Japan – the growing independance of women – the westernization of the country with its omniprsenct Coca-Cola signs. Next to 1953’s Tokyo Story, also not available to U.S. audiences until 1972, this is Ozu’s best film and a genuine masterpiece in its own right. Never has the peeling of an apple -in the film’s final scene – looked so sad.

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