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Shooting

Richie, Donald. "Shooting." Ozu. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974. 105-158.

In this section, Richie takes apart the elements of Ozu's films through the techniques of shooting the films. He discusses composition, camera angles, symbolism, and visual aspects in general of Ozu's films.

Richie's analysis of the tracking shots Ozu uses in Tokyo Chorus reveals the parallels Ozu was attempting to make between "the lives of schoolboys, office works, and the unemployed." He also discusses Ozu's low camera position, which he states may have originated from the scene in Tokyo Chorus in which the scene was framed for the children and the audience initially only sees the parents from the waist down. Richie says this explanation may be a valid one, "for it fully accords with Ozu's unique conception of the role of composition in cinema." He contrasts the pictorial composition of Mizoguchi, which involves "the Japanese kind of nature portrait," with the pictorial compositions of Ozu--which were affected by "the great influence of American cinema on Ozu." Richie describes the Ozu set as "almost like a school [where] the director taught the actors how to do everything." This is reminiscent of Lubitsch's methods, in which he would act out the scenes for the actors to see. He quotes Chishu Ryu referring to Ozu, "Sometimes he acted out the role himself." The two directors, Ozu and Lubitsch, shared a common directing method--they were both extremely fastidious about the scene being acted out exactly as they envisioned it in their mind.

Yasujiro Ozu

Bock, Audie. "Yasujiro Ozu." Japanese Film Directors. Kodansha International Ltd.: New York (1978): 69-98.

Bock describes Ozu's career chronologically, beginning with a short biography of his personal life, then the beginning of his career as an assistant to big Japanese directors, and then moving into analyses of the themes and style demonstrated in his films.

Bock reveals that Ozu "thought deeply about film grammar" and again brings up the quote in which Ozu claims not to have been influenced by anyone else. Beginning from the film I Was Born, But... (1932), one year after the making of Tokyo Chorus, Ozu starts to reject fade transitions, "finding them, like dissolves, not to be essentials of film grammar, but rather 'attributes of the camera.'" This section offered particular insight into the themes of Ozu's films, which concern matters of the family; as Bock states, "the core relationship among these ordinary people of the Ozu film is that between parent and child." Bock points out that Ozu's films were social-realist films, which is true also of the films in Hollywood at the time.

Yasujiro Ozu: Notes on a Retrospective

Geist, Kathe. "Yasujiro Ozu: Notes on a Retrospective." Film Quarterly 37.1 (1983): 2-9.

Geist analyzes the differences between Ozu's prewar and postwar films by looking at Ozu's camerawork in various film examples.

Geist points out that "in his prewar films Ozu used cinematic means to both tease his audience and create humor. A favorite device was to show some portion of a person's body without identifying the owner." Several years after the schoolyard drill scene in the beginning of Tokyo Chorus, we are only shown the hands of a man picking up a mirror. The audience may assume that it is Shinji, the main character introduced in the drill scene, but we are not sure until a couple scenes later when Shinji's face is shown as he ties his tie in the mirror. Geist also uses Tokyo Chorus specifically as an example of the montage Ozu uses to imply a sequence of events, showing "objects with or without unidentified hands or feet manipulating them...by way of teasing his audience." Classical Hollywood films also utilized the montage as a means of compressing a large passage of time into a shorter on-screen period. For example, the span of several years may be compressed into a few scenes with a montage of cycles of changing seasons. The montage Ozu uses in Tokyo Chorus is not to indicate a passage of a long period of time, but rather to tease his audience, as Geist puts it.

Visual Style in Japanese Cinema

Bordwell, David. "Visual Style in Japanese Cinema, 1925-1945." Film History 7.1 (1995): 5-31.

Bordwell explores the visual styles of Japanese cinema during 1925-1945 by looking at the chombara style, piecemeal découpage, and the pictorialist approach. He also analyzes the Japanese cinema in respect to the Westernization that was going on in Japan at the time and compares the styles and techniques used by Japanese filmmakers to those used in Hollywood at the time.

In his article, Bordwell explains that Japanese was very similar to Western cinema in that "American staging and shooting techniques [were] basic to Japanese filmmaking." But rather than copy the Hollywood style completely, Japanese filmmakers adopted a style that "[resembled] the 'primitive' cinema of the West: straight-on long shots." Ozu's fixed camera position may have its roots in "primitive" Hollywood, but it seems that so did the other influential Japanese directors. Bordwell's article also reveals that Ozu's style of filming a montage of unidentified body parts rather than the entire person is not his original invention. Bordwell calls this style "piecemeal découpage" and he explains that it was modeled--by Shochiku's studio in Kamata--on Charlie Chaplin's Woman of Paris (1923) and Ernst Lubitsch's The Marriage Circle (1924). Again, though perhaps indirectly, we see the influence that Lubitsch had on Ozu's style. The way Bordwell characterizes Japanese film style at the time as "at once an assimilation of 'classical techniques seen in the West an an experimental impulse mediated by a self-conscious sense of 'Japaneseness' makes Ozu's films seem less pioneering and more adherent to the trends followed by his peer directors. However, Bordwell points out that "Ozu set himself rigorous constraints, virtually a set of private rules for staging and cutting [which] he then stretched, bent, or recast...creating in the process a rich, gamelike approach to film style." So, though many of Ozu's techniques--such as the static straight-on camera angle, the slower tempo, and the careful attention paid to the composition of a scene--shared by other Japanese directors rather than being unique to him, Ozu took these techniques to the next level, effectively creating his own signature style.

Ozu's Early Style

Yasujiro Ozu only developed his signature style with the making of his film Tokyo Story in 1953. To what degree do his films made prior to 1953, such as Tokyo Chorus (1933), demonstrate the influence of the Hollywood style? Ozu especially admired the films of Ernst Lubitsch; what characteristics do his early films share with those of Lubitsch's?

Yasujiro Ozu

Wrigley, Nick. "Yasujiro Ozu." Senses of Cinema (2003). 29 Nov. 2008 <http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/ozu.html>.

This article was written one hundred years after the birthdate of Yasujiro Ozu. It gives a brief biographical background on the director, synopses and analyses of several of Ozu's films, and discusses Ozu's legacy. The bulk of the article is about Ozu's films.

The article presents some of Ozu's influences, including American films and in particular "those of Ernst Lubitsch" though "in other conversations, Ozu seems unwilling to admit influence." Wrigley includes a quote from Ozu that says "I formulated my own directing style in my own head, proceeding without any unnecessary imitation of others...for me there was no such thing as a teacher. I have relied entirely on my own strength." Though Ozu's statement may be true about his later films, I believe that his earlier films, prior to establishing his signature style in Tokyo Story (1953), demonstrate the influence Hollywood had on his films.

Peter Bradshaw pays tribute to Tokyo Story | Film | The Guardian

Yasujiro Ozu

Is Ozu Slow?

JSTOR: Members NewsletterNo. 8 (Spring, 1970), pp. 5-8

Gimpsed Behind the Japanese Screen Scene; Renaissance of Industry Due to Blend Of Commercial and Esthetic Values

Strass, Harold. “Glimpsed Behind the Japanese Screen Scene: Renaissance of Industry Due to Blend Of Commercial and Esthetic Values.” New York Times 2 Jan. 1955: X5.

This article appeared in the New York Times newspaper on Sunday, January 2, 1955. The author, Harold Strauss, is cited underneath the headline as having traveled in Japan and studied its culture. He mentions the then recent advent of Japanese film in the global critical eye. He then gives a brief history of film in Japan, beginning with its introduction in 1910. Notably, he describes the unique Japanese cinematic style as well as the production difference of about ninety percent commercial films to the ten percent art-house. However, this disparity, as he goes on to illuminate, is smaller than in most Western countries. The Japanese audience demands quality, even in the clearly commercial films, and critical recognition especially will influence the audience’s attendance. Kurosawa’s Rashomon was at first a failure in the Japanese box office until the film and its director received praise abroad. He then goes on to describe the five categories of commercial cinema in Japan as well as the different styles found and then compares them to genres in Western cinema. Kurosawa is again mentioned particularly as blending many genres in his films. In Rashomon, the Kabuki style is attributed to the forest scenes and the Noh style to the court scenes. Returning back to a historical, production aspect, Strauss goes on the relate how increased opulence occurred as a result of the country’s involvement in the Korean war. New talent was drawn into Japan, in both actors and directing. After the end of the occupation in 1952, these new players enjoyed an influx of free artistic expression, now with the means.

This article provides a key insight into Rashomon’s reception in the years immediately after its release, both within in home country and abroad. It also explicates specifics as to the styles and characteristics of Rashomon and Kurosawa, its director. Finally, it places the film and its director in the context of both Japan, in a cultural and artistic cinematic sense, as well as in the larger, global cinematic community.

Coming to terms : the rhetoric of narrative in fiction and film / Seymour Chatman.

Chatman, Seymour Benjamin, 1928- . Coming to terms : the rhetoric of narrative in fiction and film / Seymour Chatman. 0801424852 (alk. paper) series Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 1990.
Call#: Van Pelt Library PN212 .C47 1990

In the chapter A New Kind of Film Adaptation, Chatman counters the critique often aimed at film adaptations based on literature: that film adaptations take away from the audience's use of imagination by displaying everything on screen. Noted scholar Wolfgang Iser is quoted by Chatman saying that, "The point here is that the reader is able to visualize the hero virtually for himself. The moment these possibilities are narrowed down to one complete and immutable picture, the imagination is put out of action." Chatman argues that the imagination is not excluded by the visual medium of film and much can be left for the audience to imagine. In particular, dialogue and narration do not always present what the characters are thinking or feeling in film. For example, body language and expression often go unexplained by direct conversation or even diegetic context in the film.

Chatman mentions Rashomon as an excellent adaptation that invokes the audience's imagination. Although Kurosawa directly translates the dialogue and storyline from which the film is based onto the screen, the film still leaves it to the audience's imagination to try and resolve incongruities and figure out what actually happened. Each of the stories in Rashomon represents what the characters think and believe, however, imagination is not limited by this straightforward presentation of the characters' perspective. In fact, it turns out that these presentations are not straightforward after all. Although everything is presented to the audience visually, there is room to play with and entice the imagination of the audience.

In many ways, the term he uses, imagination, may be inadequate. What he is referring to is the workings of the human mind in its entirety. Rashomon inspires thoughts that do not fall under the scope of imagination, namely critical-thinking, rationalism and emotion. These thought processes make the audience active participants in the film.

Warrior's camera : the cinema of Akira Kurosawa / Stephen Prince.

Prince, Stephen, 1955- . Warrior's camera : the cinema of Akira Kurosawa / Stephen Prince. Rev. and expanded ed. 0691010463 (pbk. : alk. paper) series Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c1999.
Call#: Van Pelt Library PN1998.3.K87 P75 1999

In the chapter 4, Experiments and Adaptations, Prince critically dissects the cinematography and editing techniques Kurosawa uses and points out which techniques were innovative and experimental when the film was released.

To start with, the pictorial and cinematic work in Rashomon explores the confines of a single setting, the grove where the death of the samurai character takes place. Kurosawa works within this physical spatial limitation by expanding the dynamic space for his character's emotions and psychology through cinematography and imagery. For example, Prince suggests that the play on light and shadow creates "a kind of spiritual and emotional labyrinth," hinting at the emotional depth Kurosawa bestows upon his characters. Also, camera movement gives depth to the characters as well by panning, shaking -- mimicking their emotional state. Long tracking shots and "sensuous" camera movements follow the woodcutter as he wanders through the forest, whereas jolting and aggressive shots characterize the film after the woodcutter discovers the dead samurai.

Hence, Kurosawa experiments with the narrative by invoking emotional depth in cinematography. Rashomon is quite similar to silent films, where everything is communicated solely through the characters' movements and filming techniques. Kurosawa does not settle for the dialogue as his sole means of narrative, he employs every constituent aspect of the film to this purpose as well.

The dialogue and the cinematography, both as narrative forms, complement each other and interweave to tell the five different accounts in the film. Clearly, as the accounts are conflicting versions of the same story, the dialogue is unreliable and subjective. But, because the imagery is coordinated through the perspective of the first-person, there are richer emotions projected in the film.

Philosophy of the film : epistemology, ontology, aesthetics / Ian Jarvie.

Jarvie, I. C. (Ian Charles), 1937- . Philosophy of the film : epistemology, ontology, aesthetics / Ian Jarvie. 0710210167 : series New York : Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987.
Call#: Van Pelt Library PN1995 .J36 1987

Jarvie's chapter Rashomon: Is Truth Relative? discusses the film from a philosophical standpoint and examines what he calls the "Rashomon problem" as proposed by the film in the 1950's - simply, which person's storyline described in the film is true? Or is it even that none of them true as they are all mutually exclusive? Kurosawa does not imply that the samurai did not exist, or that the wife did not lose her husband. Instead, the construction of events, based on single-person perception tells "truths" based on their individual points-of-view.

In Rashomon, the audience is deliberately given too much information. They cannot coherently piece together the contradictory details and create a cogent picture of what happened. Jarvie argues that the film is more than only the truth relative to a point of view; it is also about each reality that the subjective truths attempt to describe and how those truths are interpreted through the character's perception of events.

Kurosawa uses several film techniques to show different points-of-view in Rashomon. He knows that the audience is able to transition across cuts to deduce what is going on; techniques such as eyeline matching, seamless sound, and complementary point-of-view shots, enable the audience is able to fill in the gaps between cuts. But Jarvie argues that Kurosawa goes beyond these simple editing tricks by showing the audience that in one setting, events are presented in a manner in which the mind cannot reconstruct. Hence, transitioning is made difficult, and the audience's sense of reality is thwarted. This effect is intentional and induces the audience to think about relativity in truth.

In addition, Kurosawa plays with point-of-view through the film's cinematography. Although each story is told from a first-person perspective, the cuts in the scene and the shifting of the camera do not make it clear who is speaking. The eye-witness is not in a fixed position, as to be assumed in first-person, and the point of view is shifted from one eye-witness to several. This freedom in filming that Kurosawa incorporates makes Rashomon even more of a challenge to the audience to view the chain of events as truth, which the audience may never solve.

Rashomon and seventeen other stories / Ryunosuke Akutagawa ; selected and translated with notes by Jay Rubin ; with an introduction by Haruki Murakami.

Akutagawa, RyuL