Ozu Yasujiro. A master filmmaker known for his delicate depictions of everyday life.

His work asks, "How should we live now?"

Every decade, the British Film Institute releases a list of

"the greatest films of all time," compiled by directors from around the world.

In 2012, Ozu's 1953 masterpiece Tokyo Story was voted number one.

It's strange.

We have children of our own.

but you have done
the most for us -

And you're not a blood
relative either.

Thank you.

From 1927 to 1962, Ozu made 54 films.

Thirty-seven of them can be seen today.

"I Was Born, But...,"

A silent film, in which two elementary school boys see something that shakes their faith in their father.

"Late Spring," the start of Ozu's legendary partnership with actor Hara Setsuko.

"An Autumn Afternoon," his last film, a humorous depiction of the life of an aging man,

lonely and alone after his daughter leaves home.

Ozu was known for filming his actors from low positions, without moving the camera.

This unique technique came to be known as the 'Ozu style.'

You can't do without me.

That can't be helped.
After all you're 24 years old.

Sure, so why the big rush?

Trouble is, the more you put
it off, the older you get.

The 2023 Tokyo International Film Festival honored Ozu's life and career.

Fans crowded into screenings of his work and symposiums about his legacy.

German director Wim Wenders was the head of the jury.

He is an avowed Ozu acolyte.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

It is my great honor to be here with you on this very special

...Autumn afternoon in Tokyo.

Celebrating the great and one and only master Ozu Yasujiro,

on the 120 anniversary of his death.

120 years after his birth, 60 years after his death...

What does Ozu Yasujiro mean to us now?

The Mysteries of Ozu:
A Master Filmmaker's Enduring Legacy

Re-evaluation
"One person cannot make films
in different styles."
Ozu Yasujiro

Ozu rose to prominence during the 1950s, known as the Golden Age of Japanese cinema.

His films were popular and widely discussed.

In Japan, he was known as a master filmmaker.

But he was still largely unknown to the outside world.

By contrast, Kurosawa Akira's work seemed to strike a chord with foreign audiences.

He became the first Japanese director in the postwar era to win top prize at a film festival overseas.

Yamada Yoji started his career as an assistant director at Shochiku,

a major film company where Ozu also worked.

He has gone onto direct 90 movies,

including the 2002 hit "Twilight Samurai" and the popular "Tora-san" series.

What did he think of Ozu's movies at the time?

I thought only Japanese people could
understand the beauty of Ozu's works.

A world where people sit in a room,
chitchat, cool themselves with a paper fan.

I assumed foreign viewers would never
understand this.

At the time, Kurosawa Akira was
making "Seven Samurai."

We weren't impressed with a film about
feeling lonely after your daughter gets married.

Also, in terms of technique,
he was very conservative.

The camera never moved,
the position was always low.

No wipes, no fade-outs, nothing like that...

He was a man who never tried
any of those new styles.

Yamada eventually fell in love with Ozu's work in the 1980s,

when he rewatched "Tokyo Story" for the first time in many years.

"Tokyo Story" follows an elderly couple from Hiroshima as they visit their children in Tokyo.

Their own children treat them like a nuisance.

But they are looked after warmly by the wife of their second son, who was killed in the war.

I wondered why this simple story left
such a lingering impression on me.

The theme of the movie is...

parents will be betrayed by their children
and in the end, they will die alone.

It's a very sad outlook on life.

He was still in his 40s
when he made the film.

I once heard that a famous European director,
Wim Wenders, was very impressed by Ozu.

I thought, "Wow, foreign viewers
understand Ozu's essence, too."

Ozu depicted normal Japanese life to create
his own realm with unique expressions.

And that's something everyone can appreciate.

In fact, people overseas were the first
to recognize that.

We were shocked
when we found that out.

In the 1970s, Wim Wenders, an edgy up-and-coming director,

watched Ozu's work for the first time.

I saw them first in the mid-70s in New York, and they had English subtitles.

Later when I traveled to Tokyo two years later in 1977,

at the Japanese Film Institute, they had other prints of Ozu's work.

But they were not subtitled, and they didn't have a translator for me.

And then put the film's myself on the editing table, and I saw them

all by myself without subtitles without translator.

And I felt and I've seen 10 to 12 movies.

And on the second day, I felt I spoke Japanese.

I didn't miss any more the idea that I needed to understand. I understood anyway.

Ozu's films tackled themes familiar to people around the world.

His perceptive gaze resonated with Wenders, who said Ozu quickly became his north star.

Relations between children and parents.

The relation between children and the leftover parent, if father or mother dies.

And the responsibilities of, let's say, a daughter toward

the father was living alone and she's not leaving the house in order to take care of her father.

These stories are very contemporary that every day... every day stories of every family,

other grandparents who get lonely, I mean he shows the essence of family life.

Perfectionist
"I follow the mainstream in matters of no importance.
I follow ethics in matters of importance.
I follow myself in matters of art."
Ozu Yasujiro

A rare recording of Ozu speaking to a radio program in 1961 provides some insight into his filmmaking.

I don't really want to take up
things I can't love.

500 movies are made in a year. It's nice to
have at least one about something I love.

How did Ozu make his films?

Acclaimed actor Okada Mariko appeared in two of his films,

"Late Autumn" and "An Autumn Afternoon."

First, he gave everyone the script and
we got together for a reading day.

Normally in a reading,
each actor reads their own part.

But with Ozu, he read the whole thing.

Or rather, he acted the whole thing.

All the roles, the men and the women.

And we had to act exactly the same way.
Nothing else was acceptable.

We would start filming after the reading.

Our movements were restricted in many ways.

The challenge for us actors was to figure out
how to perform freely under those conditions.

Don't sulk.

If you want to go, go.
Play golf if you want.

Like a spoiled child. If you
want to spend more, earn more!

No comment?

Ozu shared his beliefs about acting in a magazine article published in 1947.

"It's not enough to be good at facial expression."

"You have to understand the character."

"Lots of actors try to express emotions without grasping the character."

"That's why we have actors who are only good at making faces."

"This might sound extreme, but I believe facial expressions can harm the way an actor shows personality."

So the best type of acting is
Noh performance.

The kind of acting you see in Noh is the best.

Noh is a form of Japanese dramatic art that dates back to the 14th century.

The actors are trained to express emotions while wearing a mask.

You won't have to make a face
if you can create the feeling.

To do that, you have to understand the role
and express it from the bottom of your heart.

Okada spoke about what it was like to be on set with Ozu.

It wasn't intimidating but the atmosphere was
quiet and tense.

Usually, a film crew working in a studio is very
noisy. But with him, there was no sound at all.

Even when a light was being set up,
it was silent.

And of course, no one wasted any time talking.

He showed an uncompromising attitude to
each and every detail.

Ozu was particular about even a single inconspicuous prop.

He made everything in his film exactly as he imagined.

For example, when he filmed a scene
that took place in a nightlife area,

there would be signs for
various bars along the street.

Ozu designed them himself and
decided on the colors, too.

Ozu controlled even these
small aspects of his filmmaking.

This isn't normal for other directors.
They don't go this far.

Reading between the lines
"I look into the camera, think deeply,
and try to capture the abundant love
inherent in human nature."
Ozu Yasujiro

After the war, Ozu slowed his pace to about one film per year.

He instead spent time perfecting his scripts.

Each one took several months.

During that time, he would live with his longtime screenwriter Noda Kogo.

They would spend their days drinking and talking about the film.

Ozu's notebooks from the period offer a glimpse into his process.

He started with the storyline.

After that was finished, he moved onto the structure of the film.

Then, he worked on the dialogue, carefully editing the lines to suit each character.

Once the script was finished, he drew the storyboards.

Ozu had the complete film in his head before he even started filming.

When I was writing the script,

I had an image of what everything
would look like.

So by the time I was working with Noda,
I already had all the scenes in my head.

After that, I just tried to gather materials that would bring
everything as close as possible to what was in my head.

That's my way of directing.

I feel more joy when I finish the script because
that's when the ideas in my head are still pure.

Ozu wrote many of his screenplays at the Chigasaki-Kan, a small inn outside Tokyo.

It hasn't changed much since he was there in the early 50s.

Suo Masayuki has directed many popular films,

including "Shall We Dance?" and "A Terminal Trust."

There are three rooms here,
but Ozu always stayed in room number 2.

He visited the room where Ozu used to stay.

It's a small 8-tatami room,
with a table and chairs by the window.

He always created a frame
within a frame in his films.

I don't think of myself as liking
specific Ozu films.

I don't think, "This one was bad,
this one was good."

I look at them as a single series,
a continuation starting in his silent period.

All his films feel like his first,
all his films feel like his last.

Ozu is incomparable.
That's why I got hooked on his work.

He really is one of a kind.

With his postwar work,
even if you haven't seen the whole film...

you can tell from just a single cut,
"Ah, this is Ozu."

You can tell who the director is from one cut.
Movies like that are rare.

What part of Tokyo is this.
I wonder?

A suburb, I think.

It must be.

It was a long ride from the station.

I thought it would be in some livelier
part of the city.

Here?

Koichi wanted to move to a livelier
place but

I'm afraid it wasn't easy.

It's the pause that matters.
The pause he makes in the editing.

How many frames do you keep after
the dialogue is over, that sort of thing.

In haiku and poetry, you have to decide
where to put the line breaks.

You intentionally leave lines blank.
Ozu's work is like that.

Ozu once wrote about the similarities between Haiku and film.

"A haiku is a poem that depicts an image or scene with just seventeen syllables,

but still manages to expand the imagination and leave a lingering impression."

"I think movies are like haiku, in that they summarize a long story in less than two hours, and project it on screen."

Ozu's unique style allows us to see
what's not on screen and feel lots of emotions.

It's a true form of art.

He was able to create his own style
and his own art.

I could never do something like that.

On the battlefield
"I have no desire but to drink water,
eat good food,
and stretch my legs when I sleep."
Ozu Yasujiro

A book series examining Ozu's approach to filmmaking was published in the late 1980s and early 90s.

Its focus was to uncover more about Ozu's life,

in order to get a better understanding of his films.

The editor was cultural historian Tanaka Masasumi.

He spent years combing through Ozu's diaries, letters, and other documents.

Tanaka looked for documents in the national library
and lots of other places.

His work is a very important reference
and the base for all Ozu studies.

It's still very influential today.

For example, Ozu was sent to mainland China
as a soldier in the late 1930s.

Tanaka's research delves into that experience.

It's important to study Ozu himself because
there's a lot you can't get from just analyzing his films.

Tanaka did a lot of important work in this area.

In 1937, Ozu fought on the frontline of the Second Sino-Japanese War.

In Tanaka's words, documents from that time show that "Ozu was faced with the cruelty of war."

Tanaka found texts that suggest filmmaking was always on Ozu's mind, even when he was on the battlefield.

I was crawling on the ground when a mortar shell exploded near some apricot trees in front of me.

The sound of apricots falling was very pleasant.

Some of the trees had white blossoms that shed petals beautifully.

I wish I could have filmed that scene.

The Chigasaki City Museum of Art held an exhibition on Ozu in 2023.

Professor Tsukiyama Hideo provided many of the materials that were on display.

He collects Ozu artifacts, and has items related to the director's experiences on the battlefield.

These are photographs Ozu took
while he was at war.

Most of them were lost.

The ones here have never been
shown to the public.

Ozu took this photograph inside his barracks.

Light shines through a window, and onto a lamp on the floor.

Ozu had been given permission to take his favorite camera with him to the front.

These are really interesting.

While Ozu was off at war,
his mother Asae clipped...

magazine and newspaper articles about him.

The clippings were among items entrusted to Tsukiyama by Ozu's family.

Ozu was already a well-known filmmaker when he went to war,

and his experiences on the front were reported on by the press.

One article even covered his mother's practice of clipping articles that mentioned her son.

I think his time on the front had
a profound influence on his postwar films.

People say his work didn't change,
but I think it changed a lot.

Ozu wrote to his friends back home about what he saw on the battlefield.

"One of our guys, a monk, was hit in the head."

"His brain and blood started pouring out and he died on the spot, without saying a word."

"A pharmacist was shot in the arm and his bone shattered."

"The dead were cremated and the wounded were sent to hospitals."

"We have fewer soldiers now."

Every day, soldiers marching across the sweeping wheat fields of China

without knowing when this would end.

The despairing image became synonymous with the war.

"Wheat and Soldiers," a novel written in the form of a soldier's diary.

The author is Hino Ashihei, who served in the army at the same time as Ozu.

The book shaped many people's ideas about the war.

Ozu's "Early Summer" was released in 1951, six years after the war.

"Wheat and Soldiers" is mentioned in a pivotal scene where Noriko, played by Hara Setsuko,

bonds with Kenkichi, a close friend of her brother who was killed in the war.

Shoji and I used to come here
as students.

You did?

Shoji and I often fought,
but I was very fond of him.

During the battle of Xuzhou, he sent me
a letter with an ear of wheat inside.

I was reading "Wheat and Soldiers."

May I have that letter?

Yes, I wanted you to.

I'd love it.

Hirayama Shukichi wrote a book that examines the relationship between Ozu's work and the war.

When she hears her late brother's best friend
talk about "Wheat and Soldiers..."

you see her feelings suddenly change.

Her late brother has become
part of "the dead."

It may sound strange, but in that scene
I think she decides to live with the dead.

She chooses to live her life
carrying the memory of the dead.

The final scene of "Early Summer" is one of the few times Ozu uses a moving shot.

He shows the vast wheat fields, stretching into the distance.

Most people see the wheat fields and understand
there's some symbolic meaning.

Over time, I've come to understand that
Ozu made this film as a tribute...

to his friends who fought alongside him
and died on the battlefield.

Shadow of a deceased friend
"I didn't want to just tell a story,
I wanted to portray something deeper,
something to do with
reincarnation or impermanence."
Ozu Yasujiro

In March 2023, Hirayama published a book challenging existing interpretations about Ozu's films.

In it, he examines Ozu's relationships with Yamanaka Sadao,

a director who served in China at the same time as him.

and Hara Setsuko, who starred in six of his postwar films.

Yamanaka was an up-and-coming director in the 1930s.

He had made samurai films for a studio in Kyoto and was considered a promising talent.

He greatly admired Ozu, who likewise held Yamanaka's talent in high regard.

According to Ozu's diary, Yamanaka once traveled all the way from Kyoto to visit him in Tokyo.

In 1936, Yamanaka discovered an unknown 15-year-old by the name of Hara Setsuko

and cast her in his film "Priest of Darkness."

Hara's performance landed her a role in a Japanese-German co-production titled "The New Earth," the following year.

This film launched her into major stardom.

In July of that year, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident triggered the start of the second Sino-Japanese War.

Yamanaka quickly received his draft notice, and shortly after, so did Ozu.

They were two of the handful of active filmmakers sent to fight.

After a year on the front, Yamanaka fell ill and died. He was 28 years old.

Ozu reflected on his friend's death in his diary.

"It can't be helped, but I've lost someone I will miss so much and whose death is hard to accept."

Yamanaka's death had a profound effect on Ozu's generation of Japanese filmmakers.

The Museum of Kyoto preserves documents related to Yamanaka, including a diary he kept in China.

Hirayama says there's one entry that Yamanaka clearly wrote with Hara Setsuko on his mind.

"We arrived at Shijiazhuang on the 27th."

"The 'new earth' here is dusty and hard to walk on."

That might sound like a normal description,
but I think "the new earth" is a reference to...

"The New Earth," the movie that made
Hara Setsuko famous around the world.

There's also a letter that Yamanaka sent
to other directors.

It includes the same words.

He writes "the new earth"
and the words are highlighted.

So he wants the reader
to focus on that phrase.

It wasn't just a description of
the conditions in China.

He was probably referring to Hara Setsuko.

In 1949, four years after the war, Ozu chose Kyoto as the setting for a new film.

"Late Spring" was his first collaboration with Hara Setsuko.

It tells the story of a woman who lives with her father, a widower.

He is trying to convince her to leave and get married.

Ryoanji Temple features prominently in one scene.

The father, played by Ryu Chishu,

has just told his daughter that he plans to remarry, a lie that persuades her to finally leave home.

He reflects on fatherhood with a friend.

If I could choose, I'd prefer a son.
Daughters are irksome.

You raise them,
then give them away.

Hirayama believes he knows why Ozu chose to film the scene at this temple.

The two men are having a conversation
as they gaze at the stone garden.

I originally thought the point was
to show a well-known site in Kyoto.

But then I started to see it
from a different perspective,

and the scene took on a
completely different meaning.

I learned there's another temple
nearby called Seigenin.

When Yamanaka was about 20 and working as
an assistant director and screenwriter,

he apparently rented a room there
so he could write.

When I learned that...

I understood why Ozu chose Kyoto
to film "Late Spring."

He filmed the movie with Yamanaka in mind.

In 1935, Yamanaka made a film called

"Tange Sazen and the Pot Worth a Million Ryo."

Hirayama says the most iconic scene in "Late Spring" features a direct reference to the film.

The father and daughter are staying at an inn in Kyoto.

Their room has a vase, similar to the pot in Yamanaka's movie.

The camera lingers on the vase for a long time.

There are many different interpretations
of this scene.

What I think is that the vase is
actually the pot from...

Yamanaka's
"Tange Sazen and the Pot Worth a Million Ryo."

It's a very straightforward and
simple interpretation, but...

I think the pot represents Yamanaka.

Hirayama says that when Ozu turns his camera on Hara Setsuko,

he is also turning it on his old friend Yamanaka Sadao.

Ozu began to cast Hara Setsuko after the war,
beginning with "Late Spring."

He welcomed her into his work.
She was not just another actor for him.

She was the actor Yamanaka wanted to use
in all of his future films.

Or perhaps she was someone
Yamanaka was in love with.

Ozu made six films with Hara Setsuko.

He never spoke about the relationship between Hara and Yamanaka, and how it influenced his films.

It's important that he didn't say anything.

There are some things that can be preserved
on film, precisely because he didn't speak about them.

People watch Ozu's films are left with
an indescribable feeling in their hearts.

They are left wondering
what it was all about.

My opinion is just one viewpoint.
There are many ways of looking at it.

I think Ozu's films are made in such a way
so as to allow us to have diverse interpretations.

Rebirth
"The world we live in may seem complex,
but perhaps the essence of life is very simple."
Ozu Yasujiro

December 12th, 1963.

25 years after Yamanaka's death, Ozu Yasujiro dies on his 60th birthday.

He never married.

Sixty years on, the dialogue continues between Ozu's films and his acolytes.

To me too, he's a mysterious man.

He was an elegant man. Tall, elegant man.

Secretive not much is known about his private life.

There is a story that the love of his life was Setsuko Hara,

and for some reason, they couldn't live their love for each other.

Maybe it's myth. Maybe it's a legend.

I always believed the story because I thought

Setsuko Hara is the most beautiful actress in film history for me.

The way he wrote the film's is still a mystery to me.

The way he lived very much alone for a long time also with his mother.

In a strange way, sometimes I feel he lived like a monk.

With the nice appetite for a sake every now and then and for cigarettes.

Wenders released his newest work "Perfect Days" in 2023.

It portrays the daily life of a janitor named Hirayama.

He lives in an old apartment and spends his days cleaning public bathrooms.

He does the same things every day, and yet no two days are the same.

Yakusho Koji won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes International Film Festival for the performance.

Well, there is a reason why Koji Yakusyo's character is called Hirayama.

Hirayama was the name of the father in the central father character in "Tokyo Monogatari."

And in honor of that fabulous beautiful memorable character,

one of the most beautiful characters in the whole history of Cinema

because "Tokyo Monogatari" in many lists of best movies of the world is still number one movie.

So Hirayama is a very important character in films history.

So we loan the name for a character.

The fact that he is called Hirayama is a big nod towards "Tokyo Mornogatari."

And I think in many ways, this character is a tribute to Ozu's films,

and to the love for simple things and to the attention to nature details.

Vietnamese-born, France-based filmmaker Tran Anh Hung

is known for films such as "The Scent of Blue Papaya" and "Norwegian Wood."

He also spoke about Ozu's influence on his work at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

From Ozu's films, we learn to
love the seasons of life.

We learn to appreciate every moment
of our age.

The acceptance of the cruelty of reality
is beautiful.

That's the reason why I love his films so much.

He captures this acceptance of the life cycle
so tenderly.

What I get from Ozu is
this vague sense of human existence...

which I like to capture in my films.

Tran Anh Hung's newest film is set in France at the end of the 19th century.

It portrays the romance between a gourmet and a chef.

The relationship is based on their shared passion for food.

What are in the autumn of our lives?

That's just you.

I'm in the mid-summer.

I bet I'll die in summer, too.

I love summer.

Many filmmakers hold Ozu in high esteem
because...

he succeeded in rendering something
very profound in a uniquely cinematic manner.

He simplified many things
to show the depths of the human soul.

Ozu is extraordinary in that regard.

120 years since Ozu was born.

And 60 years since his death.

How would he perceive the world today?

The entire character of the family is changing,

and we have families today of two fathers or two mothers.

And there are the whole role models of fathers and mothers are changing.

And children are...

living... growing up into a world that is really so much more dangerous than Ozu ever depicted.

To now sixty years later, if he was still working, I think he would show very different families.

He would show families in trouble.

He would show children in trouble.

He would show very different children today because he was always truthful.

Truth is the biggest thing written in capital letters about his characters.