ACF 2050: Screening of Ozu's LATE AUTUMN at Japan Society NY

Late Autumn © 1960 SHOCHIKU Co., Ltd.

Late Autumn / Akibiyori

Directed by Yasujiro Ozu

Japan, 1960, 128 minutes

When: Thursday, December 12, 2013 at 7:00 PM

Where: Japan SOciety, 333 East 47th Street, NYC

(Between 1st and 2nd Avenues)

In Japanese with English subtitles

*Screening in place of Equinox Flower (see below)

 
Donald Richie on Late Autumn:
"A daughter is reluctant to leave her widowed mother, even though it is time for her to marry. The story could be seen as a ‘remake’ of Late Spring – and though more autumnal, it is just as moving."

Among the earliest champions of the now-immortal director, Richie first introduced Yasujiro Ozu to the world with a retrospective at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1963, followed by a European tour of his films. Richie's book, Ozu (University of California Press, 1974), illuminated Ozu’s uniquely serene style and went on to bring him international recognition.

A thoughtful and charming late work by Ozu, Late Autumn revisits the premise of Late Spring (1949), in which a daughter refuses to marry in order to take care of her single parent, and implements some subtle but powerful changes. Having played the part of the daughter in the earlier film, the beautiful Setsuko Hara returns in Late Autumn as the widowed mother, making a poignant connection that movingly speaks to the passing of time and to children growing up to be parents.

Director, writer and producer Atsushi Funahashi, who is currently making a documentary on Ozu for NHK, will introduce the film.

This screening, part of Richie's Fantastic Five: A Tribute to Donald Richie (1924-2013), Part 1, will be taking place on the 110th anniversary of Ozu’s birth and the 50th anniversary of his passing. It will be followed by an Ozu birthday celebration reception.

Tickets: $12; $9 for Japan Society members, seniors and students

Buy tickets online or call the Japan Society Box Office at (212) 715-1258, Mon. - Fri. 11 am - 6 pm, Weekends 11 am - 5 pm.

If you are interested in purchasing group tickets for the event (10 or more), please email f2@japansociety.org for information on their discounted rate.

*Please note: Due to unforeseen circumstances, Equinox Flower will not be screened as previously scheduled. Tickets for Equinox Flower will be honored for the screening of Late Autumn and do not require an exchange. Any customer who already purchased tickets for Equinox Flower is entitled to a refund upon request. All inquiries can be directed to Japan Society's Box Office manager, Julia Moran, at (212) 715-1246. The Japan Society apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your understanding.

ACF 2043: Ozu's AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON at Lincoln Center

An Autumn Afternoon / Sanma no aji

Directed by Yasujirô Ozu

Japan, 1962, 122 minutes

When: Wednesday, December 04 7:00pm,

Thursday, December 05 1:00pm; Friday, December 06 5:00pm,

Saturday, December 07 4:00pm, Tuesday, December 10 2:30pm,

Wednesday, December 11 6:00pm, Thursday, December 12 8:30pm

Where: the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center

of the Film Society of Lincoln Center 

144 W 65th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue

Tickets

An Autumn Afternoon was the last film made by renowned Japanese director Yasujirô Ozu, who died in 1963, the year after it was released. It is one of several of his films that employed seasons in their titles, others being Late Spring (An Autumn Afternoon is an updated remake of this 1949 film), Early Summer, Early Spring, Late Autumn and The End of Summer. An Autumn Afternoon will be shown at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center of the Film Society of Lincoln Center several times, starting tonight, as part of the film series Ozu And His Afterlives which runs from today through December 12th.

Chishu Ryu again plays a kind and benevolent father, the type of role he'd performed for Ozu several times previously. Here his character is Shuhei Hirayama, a widower with a son and a daughter. The drama revolves around the conflicts that arise for both him and his daughter as they confront the need for her to marry.

A black and white publicity still. The film itself is in color.

An Autumn Afternoon is a touching drama and a fitting final film for Ozu's illustrious career. The print being shown is a new digital restoration courtesy of Shochiku and it's beautiful, another reason to make it to one of these screenings if you can. For those who can't, look into the DVD from The Criterion Collection, or wait for Criterion to put it out on Blu-ray. 

Some thoughts on visual style and composition in Ozu's films:

Ozu, considered by many to be the most Japanese of Japan's film directors, has a very distinct visual style. One element of this is the low placement of the camera in interior scenes.

Ozu's camera, which rarely moves at all, is often described as being positioned at the eye level of someone sitting on a tatami mat. I've previously seen the film, so when I attended a press screening, I payed particular attention to camera placement. In such shots the camera is actually at the level of the low tables in the home, or in the shot above, a private room in a restaurant. Thus it actually is below eye level of someone sitting on the mats; it actually looks edge-on at the table.

For most shots the camera is set square to the space being filmed. Exceptions to this in An Autumn Afternoon are some of the scenes in a bar that has stools. There the camera is set at a higher, but still lower than normal, level and at an angle to the subjects instead of square on. The shot above is also an exception to the "squared-off" position that typifies Ozu's style and composition.


Many of Ozu's compositions consist of a corridor running straight away from the camera position and cut off by a perpendicular surface. Here it's the entrance doorway to a residence, in the distance.


Even in this nominally "outdoor" evening shot, the same type of composition is evident. The narrow street in the foreground is like the interior corridor above and the buildings on the other side of the cross street terminate the perspective.


Open outdoor shots occur rarely. When they do, it's most often as a brief transitional shot, such as the one above.

ACF 2031: Film Society of Lincoln Center to present OZU AND HIS AFTERLIVES film series

Tokyo Story / Tokyo Monagatori (1953)

 THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

to present

OZU AND HIS AFTERLIVES

December 4 - 12

Series includes restorations of Ozu classics EQUINOX FLOWER

and AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON as well as Ozu-influenced films

by Pedro Costa, Claire Denis, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Jim Jarmusch,

Aki Kaurismaki, Hirokazu Kore-eda and Wim Wenders

From December 4th to 12th, the Film Society of Lincoln Center will be presenting Ozu and his Afterlives, a program honoring the work and legacy of the great Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu (1903 – 1963). Timed to the 110th anniversary of Ozu’s birth and the 50th anniversary of his death on December 12, 2013, the series will celebrate the legendary filmmaker’s work as well as his indelible influence on some of today’s most notable directors.

“Ozu’s greatness can never be asserted often enough,” said Dennis Lim, the Film Society’s Director of Cinematheque Programming. “In this anniversary year, we wanted to recognize his modernity and his eternal relevance by showing two of his final color works, which happen also to be two of his most beautiful. We are presenting them alongside a wide range of more recent movies that were, in some way, made with Ozu in mind. These are all films that — to borrow a phrase from the director Claire Denis — grew under the shade of Ozu.”

The focal point of Ozu and his Afterlives will be the U.S. premieres of restorations of two exquisite color films by Ozu, EQUINOX FLOWER (1958) and AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON (1962), newly restored by the Japanese studio Shochiku to commemorate this anniversary year. The films screen seven times each during the nine-day series. The program also includes films by contemporary directors—from Jim Jarmusch to Pedro Costa, who once called Ozu’s films “documentaries about mankind”—that bear some trace, obvious or subtle, of the great Japanese master.

A great formalist as well as a great humanist, Ozu began his career in the silent era. Early on, he developed a spare, distinctive style that ran contrary to the conventions of Japanese and Hollywood cinema, and that he continued to refine and intensify through the final stage of his career. In his rigorous yet deeply expressive films, Ozu minimized camera movement and shot from a low camera angle, using a 50mm lens, and rejected standard editing patterns.

Often called “the most Japanese of all directors,” Ozu has long held a special place in the pantheon of master auteurs, not least among fellow filmmakers (his TOKYO STORY was recently voted the best film of all time in Sight and Sound’s directors’ poll). “If in our century, something sacred still existed, if there were something like a sacred treasure of the cinema, then for me that would have to be the work of the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu,” said Wim Wenders, whose TOKYO-GA screens as part of this series. “For me never before and never again since has the cinema been so close to its essence and its purpose: to present an image of man in our century, a usable, true and valid image in which he not only recognizes himself, but from which, above all, he may learn about himself.”

The films that will be screened alongside EQUINOX FLOWER and AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON are Claire Denis’s 35 SHOTS OF RUM (2008), Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s CAFÉ LUMIERE (2004), Pedro Costa’s IN VANDA’S ROOM (2000), Aki Kaurismaki’s THE MATCH FACTORY GIRL (1990), Hirokazu Kore-eda’s STILL WALKING (2008), Jim Jarmusch’s STRANGER THAN PARADISE (1984) and Wim Wenders’s TOKYO-GA (1985).

Tickets are now available for purchase on www.FilmLinc.com. Single screening tickets are $13; $9 for students and seniors (62+); and $8 for Film Society members. Discount packages start at $30; $24 for students and seniors (62+); and $21 for Film Society members. Discount prices apply with the purchase of tickets to three films or more.

Films will be screened at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street (between Broadway and Amsterdam).

For information about all the films that will be shown in the series, including schedules and links to purchase tickets, click here.

ACF 2056: New series at Japan Society NY to focus on five directors championed by Donald Richie

Richie's Fantastic Five:
Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Ozu, Yanagimachi & Koreeda

When: October 18, 2013 - February 19, 2014
Where: Japan Society, 333 East 47th Street, NYC
(between 1st and 2nd Avenues)

Part One of  a new Monthly Film Series Highlights

Five Seminal Directors Introduced and Championed

by Legendary Japanese Cinema Critic Donald Richie

Before his passing in February, Donald Richie (1924-2013) educated and inspired generations to become interested in Japan through the Japanese art and culture he introduced – especially through film. Noted film scholar Kyoko Hirano calls him one of the single most important film and cultural critics. "Many people in the world beyond North America and Western Europe, beyond the film world, first became acquainted with Japanese culture through Richie's wide range of writings," she says.

In Richie's Fantastic Five: Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Ozu, Yanagimachi & Kore-eda, Japan Society's Film Program honors Richie's legacy, presenting five timeless classics and hard-to-see gems over five months in glorious 35mm presentations. Curated by Hirano, a former Japan Society Film Program Director, the series highlights five seminal Japanese directors, who first became known throughout the world through Richie's work. Co-presented with The Japan Foundation, the series launches with Akira Kurosawa's High and Low (October 18); continuing with Kenji Mizoguchi's The Life of Oharu (November 16); Yasujiro Ozu's Equinox Flower (December 12), screening on Ozu's birthday and the 50^th anniversary of his death; Mitsuo Yanagimachi's Himatsuri (January 24), unavailable on DVD; and Hirokazu Kore-eda's After Life (February 19), marking the one-year anniversary of Richie's death.

Hirano notes, "Richie tirelessly promoted the cinematic beauty of such giants as Kurosawa, Ozu, Mizoguchi and Mikio Naruse; championed the iconoclastic energy of Japanese New Wave directors Nagisa Oshima, Masahiro Shinoda, Susumu Hani and Shohei Imamura; and celebrated the vibrant styles of new and upcoming directors such as Yoshimitsu Morita, Kazuo Hara, Yanagimachi and Kore-eda. Thanks to Richie, the world knows the greatness of Japanese cinema."

Further information about Richie's Fantastic Five film series and descriptions of each film can be found here.

Tickets to each screening are $12/$9 Japan Society members, seniors and students. Tickets may be purchased in person at Japan Society, by calling the box office at 212-715-1258, or at www.japansociety.org.

The second part of the series, also curated by Hirano, will focus on films that portray various aspects of Japanese society as observed through Richie's eyes, and begins March 2014 as part of the annual spring Globus Film Series.