Tag Archives: Tokyo Story

José Arroyo In Conversation with Alastair Phillips on Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)

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I’ve been wanting to talk to Alastair Phillips about his ‘BFI Classic’ monograph on TOKYO STORY (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953) since it was first published late last year. I found reading the book after watching the film truly illuminating, deepening and enriching the experience: a real achievement with a film already so familiar. It draws on Japanese sources not yet available in English, offering new information on the film’s production and reception and combines this with Alastair’s characteristically precise and informative textual analysis. It’s no surprise that the book is already on its second printing.

 

In the podcast we discuss the significance of TOKYO STORY being Ozu’s first film after the American occupation; Shochiku Studios, genre, and the star system of the period; the film’s reception in Japan and the lag between that and broader international release; Ozu’s characteristic aesthetic, including what Nöel Burch characterised as the ‘pillow shot’ ; the relation of space to place in the film; how the film is about the flow of time in its varied temporalities; the female-centric aspect of the film and what it has to say about ‘blood’ families; why and how it’s so moving; it’s relationship to MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW (Leo McCarey, 1937); how Ozu is not just one of the great directors of the Twentieth Centuries but, considering his work as a potter, designer, painter, photographer, calligrapher etc, might just be one of its greatest artists; why it keeps getting ranked at the top of the critics’ polls decade after decade;  why isn’t it called THE ONOMICHI STORY …. And much more. A conversation that will hopefully incite listeners to read the book.

The podcast may be listened to below:

 

The podcast may also be listened to on: Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

José Arroyo

‘Ten Films in Ten Days’: Day 1 – Tokyo Story

I was asked to do this by a friend on facebook, and having done it. It seems silly not to share more widely: So here it goes:

tokyo story

  1. Tokyo Story (Yasujirô Ozu, Japan, 1953):My first choice, almost always my first choice, and what I measure so much of cinema against is Ozu’s Tokyo Story. I always break up at the end: the kindness, the resignation, the understanding, the wisdom: the mixture of motivations and feelings, so beautifully evoked within a liminal zone where things are not stated but clearly understood; and expressed  in a way that makes it feel true and beautiful but also mysterious. Plus I just love looking at Setsuko Hara.

Flowing/ Nagareru (Mikio Naruse, Japan, 1956)

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flowing

My first Naruse film and  it is a revelation: an exquisitely beautiful movie. The river flows at the beginning and the end. Time moves on. But the world is changing. Business gets the upper hand. Family helps but at a price. A restaurant will take the place of the geisha house. There is no room for geishas in the modern world except on the other, grubbier side, of the river. The performances are very moving, with Haruko Sugimura, the coarse and unfeeling daughter from Tokyo Story (Yasujirō Ozu, Japan, 1953), here a stand-out as a drunken fifty-year old geisha. The compositions are a work of art; and the end, where the maid knows all that the characters sense but don’t yet fully realize, made me well up a little.

José Arroyo