Haiku on celluloid :

the films of Yasujiro Ozu

Friday Review interview with Donald Richie :
When did your interest in Japanese cinema begin ?

Ever since I went to Japan in 1947, I have been watching Japanese films. Even before I had met Kurosawa and Ozu in person, I was well-acquinted with Japanese cinema. I was then the film critic of the newspaper "Stars and Stripes". After the war, I joined "Japan Times". By then , I had fallen deeply in love with Japan. Moreover, I was not much interested in returning to Ohio, my homeland for several reasons.

In 1968, I returned to the U.S to join the New York Museum of Modern Art as film curator. Six years later, I flew back to Japan. I like the Japanese. They are orthodox as well as progressive.

I took only two months to write my book on Kurosawa. I stayed at the Hot Spring Resort at Kyosho in southern Japan to work on it. It took me much longer to finish my book on Ozu. I admired Kurosawa, but loved Ozu. It is difficult to write about someone or something you love. Your emotions stand in the way of your intellectual evaluation.

Ozu himself had believed that his subjects were too abstruce for the West to follow ....

True. Ozu had once said that. But on another occasion, he had told his cameraman that foreigners will one day rave about his style.

Why did the Japanese like Ozu ? Because they could see themselves in Ozu's films. Stylistically, he was unparalleled. I took Satyajit Ray for a screening of Ozu's "Tokyo Story" in Japan. I heard Ray sobbing as the reels rolled on.

Ozu has been a great influence on film makers in several countries. He has inspired some Kerala film makers. I am currently compiling a package, titled "Ozu's children", consisting of the works of such film makers as Jim Jarmusch and Hou Hsiao-Hsien, who had been profoundly influenced by Ozu.

A still from Yasujiro Ozu last movie An Autumn Afternoon (1962)

Had not Ozu, for whom oriental culture was as precious as his breath, been little incomprehensible for the westerner ?

So had been the belief. But I have proved that it is not so. My book shows how much I have understood Ozu. Infact, foreigners understand Ozu better than many young Japanese of today

do.

Compared with Ozu, Kurosawa was less popular in Japan....

Ozu was quintessentially Japanese, so people liked him. Kurosawa was also a genius.

I first met him in 1947. He was then shooting "Drunken Angel". Once I was with himon the sets. He was fiddling with a faulty pen. Yet, he would not give that upand use a new one.

Toshiro Mifune (actor in most of Kurosawa films), who was with us, called me aside and said, " I am that pen. See how carefully and painstakingly he works on it."

What is your assessment of contemporary Japanese cinema ? (as in 1998)

There are a few good serious film makers, who include Mitsuo Yanagimachi("Fire Festival") , Hirokazu Kore-Eda ("AfterLife") and Makoto Shinozaki ("Okaeri"). But they are quite a small group. People seem to prefer Hollywood movies to native ones.

But during the time of Ozu or Mizoguchi, there was an audience for serious cinema....

Ozu and Mizoguchi belong to the pre-TV era. Cinema was then the sole means of entertainment. They lapped up the movies and thus production companies ran profitably. As the money was coming, the companies gave an Ozu or Mizoguchi a carte blanche.

courtesy : Friday Review - The Hindu Daily 1998.

Satyajit Ray & Akira Kurosawa

Two great film makers of the 20th century, Akira Kurosawa and Satyajit Ray meets at a Chinese restaurant in Tokyo - Extracts from the book Our Films Their Films by Satyajit Ray.

Like Ray, Kurosawa was also an accomplished artist who designed his own posters & story-boards.

As it turned out, the venue for the meeting was a Chinese restaurant in a quiet back-street of Tokyo.

'A favourite of Kurosawa's' said Mrs Kawakita, my hostess and a close friend of the director. Atleast one could face the gastronomic hazards with more confidence here.

Kurosawa turned out to be that rarity - a tall Japanese. He also had a stoop, with an appropriate humility to go with it, kindly eyes which a ready smile thinned into more slits, and a hushed and gentle tone of voice - all of which was in unexpected contrast to the ferocious image derived from his samurai films. But then, it's not unusual to find schizophrenics among people of theatrical profession, and I knew Kurosawa had samurai blood in him. I had visions of his unbridled other self, pitching into that scene of combat with all the controlled fury of a samurai himself.

I started by talking of Seven Samurai, which turned out to be both his and my favourite amongst his films. 'It needs long and hard training to be a film samurai' he said. 'There was so much about the samurai that was stylised - his ride, his run, the way he wielded the sword. A samurai would never be hunched over his saddle when charging. He would stand straight up with feet firmly on the stirrups and knees pressed tight against the flanks of the horse. His body would not be perpendicular, but leaning forward at an angle to prevent being thrown backwards by the force of the charge.'

Kurosawa rose from his chair to demonstrate the stance of the charging samurai.

'And about the sword - it wouldn't cut at all if you only hacked with it. You would have to combine' (more demonstration here) 'a backing motion with a slicing motion. And when the samurai runs, his head shouldn't bob up and down with his footsteps. The effect should be like a swift floating. In other words, the head shouldn't trace a wavy curve, but a straight line'.

Rai and Samurai...Chips of the same block, Satyajit Ray & Akira Kurosawa during the later's visit to Delhi in the 70s.

A stickler for historical accuracy, Kurosawa in his period films, makes his actors put on period costumes obtained from museums.

'But you know where the snag is' he said with a twinkle in his eyes. 'The Japanese as a whole have grown smaller over the last five or six hundred years. It is difficult to find actors large enough for these costumes to fit'.

I asked if he had any more samurai films in mind.

'None' he said. 'And I doubt if I could ever make another one'.

'Why not ? '

'Because there's such a dearth of horses now. You see, most of the horses used in films came from farms. But now farm-work has been machinised, and horses are bred only for racing'.

I heard that Kurosawa had been signed up by the American producer Joe Levine to direct a film in the USA. The news intrigued me, because this would be the first instance of an Asian director with only a rudimentary knowledge of English making an English-language film in the States.

'I had a story in mind' said Kurosawa. 'I had saved up a clipping from an American newspaper which described how a goods train went tearing through Chicago at eighty miles an hour with three men on board but no one at the control. For some unaccountable reason, the driver had jumped off and killed himself. The train as well as the passengers were ultimately saved, and the film will show how'.

But there were snags. Kurosawa had stipulated that he would work with his own Japanese crew consisting of some twenty technicians. Producer Levine's drastic rerms permitted only one non-English speaking assistant. The fact that Kurosawa had to concede could be indicative of either his great urge to film the story at any cost, or of the alarming situation of the serious film maker in Japan. What is true of Kurosawa is also true of Ichikawa, Kobayashi and Shindo.

However, a truly gifted film maker - as has often been proved in the history of the cinema - can rise above his circumstances; so that one can look forward to the The Runaway Train - if it ever gets made - with all the pleasurable anticipation of an authentic Japanese Kurosawa. Let us hope that a charging train will prove just as inspiring as a charging samurai.

chapter: Tokyo, Kyoto and Kurosawa - 1967

book : Our Films Their Films [a compilation of Ray's articles & essays on cinema] authour : Satyajit Ray