BFI: 32 Ozu Films

[Peacock]

I got sent my Late Spring BD from HMV on Friday. Looks great, glad they didn't keep the original horrible color across the picture.
Ah I see RossyG said the same thing!

[antnield]

^^ Although if you opt for MovieMail then you'll get the discs even earlier. I had the three Ozus arrive on Tuesday.

[RossyG]

Blimey! And you'd have got bonus points.

(Pithy laugh dies in Rossy G's throat)

But the films were still brilliant.

[perkizitore]

No, i used thehut.com because i am currently in Greece, when i am in the UK i use HMV it ships them even sooner.

[Elephant]

Amazon uk still hasn't shipped my three...

Mine were supposed to ship today -- but I just got an e-mail telling me that I'd have to wait a week or so longer for Late Spring.

I got the same email . . . and then an email this morning that all three have dispatched.

[perkizitore]

Late Spring indeed! [-X

[Finch]

Just finished watching the first 20 minutes of Early Summer and I could have wept with joy at this beautful transfer of the one film that I hold dear the most. Even more impressive than the image is the sound which has been improved further still from the very solid CC DVD. Thank you to everyone at the BFI who helped making this wonderful release possible. (I'll still get the CC Blu when it eventually surfaces though - this is one of a few films that I have to have two copies of)

[Svevan]

There's a conversation in the Ozu thread about which films may not make the cut, as there are more than 32 extant Ozu films.

[Michael Kerpan]

Just took a peek at Early Sumner and Late Spring -- and watched Only Son. Pretty pleased.

As I already have three copies of most of these, I don't expect my wife will approve of a second BR version. ;~}

[ellipsis7]

Popped TOKYO STORY & LATE SPRING on the HD projector last night... Superb, a transformation from the DVDs, insofar as Ozu's compositional depth now is beautifully rendered, rather than slightly flattened on the lesser format...

[8140david]

What about Naruse's movies? Will BFI or another company release blurays of these?

[Matt]

No.

[Michael Kerpan]

I would be surprised to see any Japanese BR releases of Naruse's films (at least in the next several years).

[8140david]

I would be surprised to see any Japanese BR releases of Naruse's films (at least in the next several years).

Why is that?
I suppose that Kurosawa is the Japanese director most famous in the West, then Ozu, then Naruse.
And once you know of Ozu, you'll probably also know of Naruse, and appreciate films of both, won't you?

[Michael Kerpan]

Japanese Naruse DVDs petered out after 13 or so releases (out of 60+ surviving films) -- and all the (complete) films have since been showed numerous times on digital satellite TV. I doubt there is a big enough market for Naruse BRDs in Japan.

[Matt]

And once you know of Ozu, you'll probably also know of Naruse, and appreciate films of both, won't you?

Unfortunately, it's got nothing to do with appreciation, it has to do with the market for Naruse films. Take a look at these posts and these posts and it should fill you in nicely and avoid us having to rehash the recent discussion.

[zedz]

It took more than thirty years of hard work by critics and programmers to get Ozu to that level of prominence, and Naruse is still lagging way behind. I'm sure a lot of people who have never heard of him would love his films if they saw them, but the evidence seems to be that the first big splashes on the English-speaking DVD market (by MoC, BFI and Criterion) were all commercial failures, to the extent that even planned DVD follow-ups have been abandoned for the moment. I think we can all be confident that if there was any way at all to make the figures remotely feasible MoC would have forged ahead with Volume Two. If that's not happening, BluRay seems even more unlikely.

EDIT: What they said.

[MichaelB]

I suppose that Kurosawa is the Japanese director most famous in the West, then Ozu, then Naruse.

I'd say Nagisa Oshima is the most plausible contender for third place, even though his profile in the West largely stems from his later, weaker films. Certainly, when I used to book films for rep cinemas from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s, that was probably correct order, with Kurosawa miles out in front. Naruse ranked nowhere, for the simple reason that none of his films was in British distribution at that time, and indeed for over a decade afterwards.

Zedz is absolutely correct about how long it takes to build someone's profile from a base of near-total ignorance and unavailability of most (sometimes all) of the work - I'm currently plugging away at František Vláčil, who may be Czech cinema's closest equivalent to Naruse (i.e. stellar reputation at home, virtually ignored abroad), but it's a long, hard slog that involves considerable effort and often little reward on the part of cultural organisations (the Czech Centre), DVD labels (Facets, Second Run), cinemas (BFI Southbank, Edinburgh Filmhouse, Glasgow Film Theatre) and sympathetic publications (Sight & Sound has just published my third and longest Vláčil piece in four years). And most of his films were off limits even to a hardcore fan like me until a few weeks ago - and even then I had to watch a couple with no subtitles at all, two more with Google-translated subtitles, and a fifth with a printed subtitle list balanced on my lap. As a result, some of the descriptions in the article are slightly more visual than others...

[John Edmond]

Oshima would be considered more famous than Mizoguchi or Miyazaki? Naruse's problem is that he's probably the fifth or sixth most famous Japanese director at best. The problems of a strong national cinema.

[MichaelB]

Mizoguchi's films are easier to get hold of than Naruse's, but there was a pretty considerable drought there for many, many years. I think Ugetsu monogatari was in British distribution in the 1990s, but I'm not sure that anything else was.

[Jonathan S]

I can only speak of my own experience but Mizoguchi was one of my favourite directors even in the 1980s, when I'd never even heard of Naruse (an admission I take no pride in). I don't know about 35mm distribution but Sansho Dayu was rentable on 16mm even in the early 1980s, and Shin heike Monogatari and The Life of Oharu were televised by the BBC in the 1980s and 90s, while Zangiku Monogatari was on one of the Sky channels a little later (the BFI had planned to release it on VHS with Sansho and Ugetsu in the late 1990s but they told me they dropped it when they found the materials weren't good enough). I also saw several other Mizoguchis at the Everyman in the 1980s. I think his work (some of it anyway) was actually easier for me (in the UK) to see than most of Ozu's until around 2000 and I didn't see a Naruse film until the BFI/MoC DVD sets, mainly if not entirely due to lack of opportunity.

[MichaelB]

And as soon as Mizoguchi slipped out of distribution, half a dozen Ozus entered the catalogue - I remember them suddenly becoming available in the early 1990s and booking the lot immediately.

[perkizitore]

I hope BFI will announce the next batch of Ozu titles soon and that they will be released before Christmas!

[ellipsis7]

Yes, AUTUMN AFTERNOON & LATE AUTUMN on Blu should be not too far away, hopefully...

[Finch]

I am actually hoping that these two titles don't come out until next year because I don't know if my wallet can cope with the amount of stuff that's on my wishlist already!