BFI: 32 Ozu Films

[zedz]

I certainly don't mind the BFI pitching Naruse as "Ozu: Advanced Studies" if it means they release more Naruse.

[Michael Kerpan]

I suspect that unless there is a sudden rush to buy up all the lingering copies of BFI's first Naruse set, we may not see any other Naruse releases. Too bad that Naruse still has so (relatively) few English-language fans.

[domino harvey]

Godard said it well too - can't find the quote now, but the gist was that he didn't believe in home video because it would only end up with people spending more time buying films than actually watching them.

I believe the quote was something to the effect that he loved VCRs because now he could tape movies off TV and "never have to think about them again"

[Tommaso]

I suspect that unless there is a sudden rush to buy up all the lingering copies of BFI's first Naruse set, we may not see any other Naruse releases. Too bad that Naruse still has so (relatively) few English-language fans.

I guess one of the problems with both sets was that they were sets, and rather expensive ones, of a director that few people had heard about before. Perhaps they should try with one or two individual releases? I think "Wife, be like a rose" for instance would be a film with immediate appeal that might win Naruse a few new customers.

[MichaelB]

I really wouldn't hold your breath for any more Naruse from the BFI. Aside from the Ozu project and the Kurosawa boxes, the BFI really isn't a specialist Japanese label and lacks both materials and in-house curatorial expertise.

I'd have thought, given the rights and materials situation, that a Kurosawa BD survey would be infinitely more likely once the Ozu project is complete.

[AlexHansen]

Watched A Hen in the Wind not too long ago and found it very interesting. The shocking moment at the end (which Rosenbaum does an excellent job breaking down in the booklet) was unexpected but it was the repeated interstitial shots that stuck out the most. Rather than those shots moving use through time and space like they do in Ozu's other films, these kept us mired in the characters' surroundings. We were as stuck as they were.

[JacquesQ]

Seems like the BFI project has slowed down quite a bit of late.
Anyway, regardless of the BluRay treatment, quality of masters, restoration, etc., I'd say that we should first and foremost look at plain availability of Ozu's films here, and in this regard only TWO (or 1 point something) of Ozu's films are BADLY in need of a Western release, namely :
1/ the extant fragment of "Fighting friends" (1929) ; if I remember correctly, it is included in the Shochiku box sets, but the Japanese subtitles have not been translated ; my memory is blurry about this, though (by which I mean I'm not 100% sure that there are any [Japanese] titles at all in this short bit of film - it is really a short fragment, much shorter than the approximately 10' of "I graduated, but..." included in a BFI set) ;
and CHIEFLY 2/ "The Munekata sisters", one of the two Toho films by Ozu (actually a "war subsidiary" named Shintoho), that is only available in two versions that are bound to despair non-Asian viewers : a Japanese DVD (from Toho) with only Japanese subtitles, and a Chinese BoYing DVD with Japanese and two varieties of Chinese subtitles, period ; some sellers advertise the BoYing version as having English subs (as is often the case with Chinese DVDs), but it doesn't. AAAAAUUUUUGGGGGHHHHH !!!!!
So I would say that for now, even though there are subtitles floating around on various sites and one can make their own version in AVI including subs, "The Munekata sisters" is the only true gap in the Ozu filmography - and I'm pretty sure it won't be included in any BFI or even Criterion collection. My hopes are actually slim that it will ever become available in "user-friendly" format...

[Michael Kerpan]

Shintoho was not started until after the war. It was a product of post-war labor strife, which came into existence due to the series of strikes aimed at Toho. Some Toho actors (chief among them Setsuko Hara) were very right-wing and anti-union -- and basically wanted nothing to do with actors more sympathetic to the unions. Munekata Sisters is probably the most "script-bound" of all Ozu films -- he was not given the freedom to adapt the source (a currently popular best selling novel) in his usual fashion. Obviously, completists (like me) will want this -- but it is the least appealing of the post-war films (by a considerable margin). It would be interesting to know if Ozu could have gotten a more effective performance from Hideko Takamine, had he been allowed to develop his script more freely.

[JacquesQ]

Thanks for the precisions about Shintoho, Michael, your knowledge and/or memory about the Japanese film industry is obviously much better than mine.
I can confirm, having seen it after reading the synopsis, that all questions of subtitles (and hence not undesrtanding the dialogues) apart, "The Munekata Sisters" looks pretty substandard as an Ozu film, especially if one thinks that "Late Spring" came two years before it, but I hope that (in addition to the completism you mention, and of which I am also a victim !) I'm not too much of a bigot if I say that a bad Ozu is still much better than 95% of the output of most other directors...
Anyway, if it had been a Shochiku film, we'd have it, and if we don't it's chiefly because it was a Toho film and Western DVD makers are sometimes a bit lazy - considering that the Japanese Toho release (after which the Chinese BoYing was made with added subtitles) dates back to the moment when all the Shochiku films in their beautiful box sets + Toho's "End of Summer" + Daiei's "Floating Weeds" were made available in Japan, i.e. for Ozu's 100th birthday 10 years ago, and the film has been shown with French (at least once in 2007) or English subtitles since, so I'm sure that if Toho agreed to selling the rights for "Late Summer" there is no reason why they would put an unreasonable price tag on the rights to make a Western edition of "The Munelata Sisters" if they were asked for the material they have available.

[JacquesQ]

By the way, I have to make good another mistake : "Two Fighting Friends" is not a piece of an otherwise lost film, but a short comedy that has been preserved complete.
So that BFI's "pattern" for its 32 films now appears quite obvious :
Ozu's films : 54 ;
of which lost : 17, remain : 37 ;
of which released by Toho or Daiei : 3, remain (Shochiku) : 34 ;
of which one with only a fragment survivng (included in the BFI series, but as a bonus only), remain : 33 ;
of which one documentary ("Kagamijishi"), remain : 32...
If my guess is correct (i.e. if they consider "I Graduated, But..." as just a bonus, and if they somehow include the short "Two Fighting Friedns", and why wouldn't they since they included the other short "A Straightforward Boy" - only it will require a bit of subtitling...), then the only "Shochiku victim" in their list would be "Kagamijishi", Ozu's only documentary short, and it's a pity because it isn't that easy to find : apart from the Shochiku box sets, I think I only have it in one of the two French Carlotta box sets ; what's more, it doesn't require any subtitling, being entirely the filming of a kabuki performance, and another interest resides in the fact that, along with the famed noh performance in "Late Spring" and the two "Floating weeds" films (where the travelling troupe does kabuki), it is another look by Ozu at traditional Japanese performing arts.

[FerdinandGriffon]

By the way, I have to make good another mistake : "Two Fighting Friends" is not a piece of an otherwise lost film, but a short comedy that has been preserved complete.

You were right the first time. It was a seven reel feature, and the surviving fragment only covers a fraction of the plot (but in pretty coherent form).

[Michael Kerpan]

"Fighting Friends, Japanese Style" almost seems like a digest film (rather like "I Graduated But) rather than fragments like "Tokkan kozo" (The Charging-Straight-Ahead Boy).

Other "missing on disc" Ozu -- Shibuya's Radish and Carrot (based on the last script Ozu wrote) and the recently re-discovered (and restored) TV drama "After the End of Youth" (made after "Autumn Afternoon", right before Ozu became unable to work due to cancer).

[AidanKing]

I really hope this project hasn't come to a premature end: it would be a shame if the other Shochiku films didn't get a release. I suspect The Munekata Sisters was unfortunately never part of the project, like Floating Weeds and The End of Summer.

[Michael Kerpan]

Watched A Hen in the Wind not too long ago and found it very interesting. The shocking moment at the end (which Rosenbaum does an excellent job breaking down in the booklet) was unexpected but it was the repeated interstitial shots that stuck out the most. Rather than those shots moving use through time and space like they do in Ozu's other films, these kept us mired in the characters' surroundings. We were as stuck as they were.

Movement in "Hen in the Wind" is often atypical (Tanaka's movements especially).

[JacquesQ]

Other "missing on disc" Ozu -- Shibuya's Radish and Carrot (based on the last script Ozu wrote) and the recently re-discovered (and restored) TV drama "After the End of Youth" (made after "Autumn Afternoon", right before Ozu became unable to work due to cancer).

I didn't know this TV drama had surfaced. Funny, for a director who was so critical of TV (see "Ohayo" for instance), to have prepared a TV film...
Both would of course be very welcome additions to the Ozu canon ; it would be particularly interesting to see whether the two directors tried to "imitate" Ozu's style (whose "mannerisms" are, to be honest, fairly easy to copy), and also evauate, by comparison, how much of Ozu's greatness resides in his filming, writing (with Kogo Noda), actors' direction, etc. But I wouldn't hold my breath for those to show up on DVD - a bonus on a Criterion edition of "An Autumn Afternoon" would have been a great idea, but unfortunately it's too late for this.

[Michael Kerpan]

I think Ozu himself was either director or co-director of the TV drama.

From what I read, Radish and Carrot did not look very Ozu-ish (it seems to have been in cinemascope format, among other things).

[swo17]

What on earth happened to Good Morning? It's almost like it never existed in the first place.

[shaky]

Strange. It's still available on BFI's website though.

[joshua]

I can't seem to find it at Amazon when I do a title search but if I go back to my old order, I can find it. Here is the link as it seems to be available.

[zedz]

I can find it on Amazon (searching for "good morning ozu") but it's listed as 'currently unavailable'. I can't imagine the rights have lapsed for that single title and not for all the others, so I'm guessing it's just between printings. Which would be good news.

EDIT: Actually, complete lack of availability from any third party sellers is pretty odd, since there are still plenty of marketplace sellers offering the OOP Tartan set that includes the film.

[swo17]

Yes, they evidently have two ASINs set up for it, and the only one that comes up in a search is the one where no one has it listed.

[manicsounds]

I see "Good Morning" fine coming up on a search here

[AidanKing]

As there haven't been any more Ozu releases announced yet this year, I wonder if the project may have come to a premature end? I sincerely hope not.

[EddieLarkin]

I'm probably being naive hoping this delay has something to do with them waiting for better materials for some of the bigger ones left. I believe A Story of Floating Weeds is available in HD from Criterion, but there's also The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice and Record of a Tenement Gentleman. It'd be nice to get at least one of them on Blu-ray. How about A Story of Floating Weeds (HD) and Record of a Tenement Gentleman (SD), and then The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice (HD) with An Inn in Tokyo (SD)? After that there would only be Tokyo Chorus and Passing Fancy which will presumably be in SD and can go together in another 2-disc multi-title release, with Kagami jishi and Fighting Friends Japanese Style as supplements.

[EddieLarkin]

As there haven't been any more Ozu releases announced yet this year, I wonder if the project may have come to a premature end? I sincerely hope not.

I emailed the BFI recently and they have confirmed that they still intend to release the remaining 6 features they have, though none are scheduled at the moment.