"Substantially the book that devotees of the director have been waiting for: a full-length critical work about Ozu's life, career and working methods, buttressed with reproductions of pages from his notebooks and shooting scripts, numerous quotes from co-workers and Japanese critics, a great many stills and an unusually detailed filmography."—Sight and Sound Yasujiro Ozu, the man whom his kinsmen consider the most Japanese for all film directors, had but one major subject, the Japanese family, and but one major theme, its dissolution. The Japanese family in dissolution figures in every one of his fifty-three films. In his later pictures, the whole world exists in one family, the characters are family members rather than members of a society, and the ends of the earth seem no more distant than the outside of the house.

A luminous exploration of one filmmaker's work by another, an artist's personal journey, a manifesto

Ozu's Tokyo Story is generally regarded as one of the finest films ever made. Universal in its appeal, it is also considered to be 'particularly Japanese'. Exploring its universality and cultural specificity, this collection of specially commissioned essays demonstrates the multiple planes on which the film may be appreciated. The introduction outlines Ozu's career as both a contract director of a major studio and as a singular figure in Japanese film history, and also analyses the director's cinematic style, particularly his narrative strategies and spatial compositions. Other essays situate Ozu's cinema in its relationship to Hollywood film-making: his relationship to aspects of Japanese tradition, situating the film within artistic modes, religious systems and beliefs, and socio-cultural and familial formations. Also included is an analysis of how Ozu has been misunderstood in Western criticism.

Based on a close reading of Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu’s extant films, this book provides insights into the ways the director created narrative structures and used symbolism to construct meaning in his films. Against critics’ insistence that Ozu was indifferent to plot and unlikely to use symbols, Geist demonstrates otherwise, revealing the director’s subtle iconographic paradigms. Her incisive understanding of the historical and cultural context in which the films were conceived amplifies her analysis of the films’ structure and meaning. Ozu: A Closer Look guides the reader through Ozu’s early, silent films and his sound films made during Japan’s wars in Asia and the subsequent American Occupation, then takes up specific themes relevant to his later, better-known films. These themes include religion, gender, and the influence of traditional Japanese painting. Geist also examines the impact that Ozu’s films had on specific directors in Europe, America, and Japan. Intended for film scholars, students, and fans of the director, this book provides fresh insights into the director’s films and new challenges for those who study him. “Kathe Geist has woven an elegantly textured tapestry in this illuminating survey of Ozu’s films and their endless sense of pattern, rhythm, and cultural renewal. Melding form, narrative, iconography, and context, the book traces old and new patterns of meaning and critical debate.”—Alastair Phillips, University of Warwick; author of the BFI Film Classic on Tokyo Story (2022) “Ozu: A Closer Look provides one of the most comprehensive and meticulous analyses so far on Ozu Yasujiro. With her great attention to small textual details, along with intertextual and contextual comparisons, Geist achieves a significant reinterpretation of the director’s work, opening up new possibilities in future Ozu studies.”—Woojeong Joo, Nagoya University; author of The Cinema of Ozu Yasujiro: Histories of the Everyday

Considered by many film critics and scholars as a master of Japanese Cinema, director Ozu Yasujiro still inspires filmmakers both within and outside of Japan. With fifteen never before published chapters in English by contributors from North America, Europe, and Japan, Reorienting Ozu explores the Japanese director's oeuvre and his lasting impact on global art cinema. Exploring major theoretical frameworks that characterize Ozu studies, chapters consider the various cultural factors that influenced the director's cinematic output, such as the anxiety of middleclass Japan in the 1930s, the censorship imposed by the US-occupation after World War II, and women's rights in Ozu's late work such as Tokyo Twilight (1957). Ultimately, chapters illuminate Ozu's influence on the directors of Japan and beyond. With the recent restoration and re-release of Ozu's early and late films, this volume provides an opportunity to examine not only the auteur's major works but also the relationships--both cultural and aesthetic--that are forged among directors across the world.

A re-interpretation of the master of Japanese cinema from a socio-historical perspectiveOne of the most well regarded of non-Western film directors, responsible for acknowledged classics like Tokyo Story (1953), Ozu Yasujiro worked during a period of immense turbulence for Japan and its population. This book offers a new interpretation of Ozus career, from his earliest work in the 1920s up to his death in 1963, focusing on Ozus depiction of the everyday life and experiences of ordinary Japanese people during a time of depression, war and economic resurgence. Firmly situating him within the context of the Japanese film industry, Woojeong Joo examines Ozus work as a studio director and his relation to sound cinema, and looks in-depth at his wartime experiences and his adaptation to post-war Japanese society. Drawing on Japanese materials not previously examined in western scholarship, this is a ground-breaking new study of a master of cinema.Case studies include:Ozus shAshimin films Ozus wartime films, including the script of The Flavour of Green Tea over RicePostwar script of The Moon Has RisenTokyo Story

In Japan and much of Europe, Ozu is widely considered to be one of the finest film directors who ever lived. While Ozu has a strong reputation in the West, his films are not as well-known or widely appreciated in the U.S. as they are elsewhere. A notable exception to this trend is film critic Roger Ebert, who recently wrote that Ozu is one of his ?three or four? favorite directors. Also, moving beyond the view that Tokyo Story is a masterful exception in the Ozu canon, Ebert sees Ozu's films as ?nearly always of the same high quality.? Ozu International will reflect on Ebert's view of Ozu by arguing that this director deserves broader recognition in the U.S., and that his entire canon is worthy of serious study. With the recent release of more than 15 Ozu DVDs in the Criterion Collection, covering every phase of his career at least in part (including silent films, black-and-white talkies, and color films), Ozu International helps to fill a lingering gap in English-language scholarship on Ozu by giving this new generation of scholars a book-length forum to explore new critical perspectives on an unfairly neglected director. Contributions include specialists in Japanese culture, academics from a range of disciplines, and professional films critics.