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Ozu Yasujiro

Ozu Yasujiro. ‘Views from One Foot above the Floor’. Ozu as auteur. Complete grip on film-making in every stage Ozu wrote all his late scripts with Noda Kôgo and gave meticulous and final instructions on production design and photography to his crew (Ozu Gumi) members. Ozu as auteur.

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Ozu Yasujiro

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  1. Ozu Yasujiro ‘Views from One Foot above the Floor’

  2. Ozu as auteur • Complete grip on film-making in every stage • Ozu wrote all his late scripts with Noda Kôgo and gave meticulous and final instructions on production design and photography to his crew (Ozu Gumi) members.

  3. Ozu as auteur Mr. Ozu looked happiest when he was engaged in writing a scenario with Mr. Kogo Noda, at the latter's cottage on the tableland of Nagano Prefecture. By the time he finished writing a script, after about four months' effort, he had already made up every image in every shot, so that he never changed the scenario after we went on the set. The words were so polished up that he would not allow us even a single mistake.

  4. Ozu as auteur • Ozu had most of things in his head: set designs, locations, compositions, lighting, camera positions, camera movements, acting, length of shots, the ways in which film is cut • Once his style was established, he never changed it. • Stylization

  5. Ozu as auteur • Ozu-gumi (the Ozu crew) • The same crew over many films with Ozu as their absolute head • This was made possible in Japan’s studio system

  6. Late Spring (1949) Producer: Yamamoto Takeshi Script: Ozu Yasujirô and Noda Kôgo Camera: Atsuta Yûharu Editor: Hamamura Yoshiyasu Music: Itô Senji Art: Hamada Tatsuo Tokyo Monogatari (1953) Producer: Yamamoto Takeshi Script: Ozu Yasujirô and Noda Kôgo Camera: Atsuta Yûharu Editor: Hamamura Yoshiyasu Music: Saitô Kôjun Art : Hamada Tatsuo Ozu as auteur

  7. Equinox Flower(1958) Producer:Yamamoto Takeshi Script: Ozu Yasujirô and Noda Kôgo Camera: Atsuta Yûharu Editor: Hamamura Yoshiyasu Music: Kôjun Saitô Art: Hamada Tatsuo Autumn Afternoon(1962) Producer:Yamanouchi Shizuo Script: Ozu Yasujirô and Noda Kôgo Camera: Atsuta Yûharu Editor: Hamamura Yoshiyasu Music: Kôjun Saitô Art: Hamada Tatsuo Ozu as auteur

  8. Ozu as auteur • Photographer: Atsuta Yûharu (or Yûshun) • Atsuta was an assistant cameraman for Ozu for 6 years and his first photographer for 25 years from 1937 (What did the Lady Forget?) to 1962. After Ozu’s death he did not work for any other director.

  9. Ozu as auteur • Ozu was the only director for whom Atsuta operated his camera. Atsuta had learned what Ozu wanted before he became the first cameraman and he did not need any instruction. • Complete grasp of Ozu’s intention.

  10. Ozu as auteur Through years‘ experience as an assistant … I’ve learned what Ozu wanted. I didn‘t bother to ask him about the camera position; Occasionally he said, “I don’t like to look down on people. A down shot makes me feel as though I‘m looking down. So I like the camera on the horizontal.” -- Yûharu Atsuta

  11. Ozu as auteur Kôgo Noda • He co-wrote with Ozu 13 scripts of the 15 post-war films. • For Ozu the script is to a film director as the blueprint is to an architect. • Avoid ‘dramatic’ plots • Ordinary stories of ordinary people • Birth, growth, marriage, aging and death - ‘the wheel of life’

  12. Ozu as auteur • Scripts written jointly by Ozu and Noda • Few instructions of action appeared on the scripts and no indications of shot sizes, angles, points of view, camera movements, lightings etc. Once a scenario is completed, not a single word is added or taken away (almost!)

  13. Ozu as auteur • Ozu kept using the same actors: Ryû Chishû, Hara Setsuko, Sugimura Haruko, Tanaka Kinuyo, Yamamura Sô, Nakamura Nobuo, Tôno Eijirô • Ozu completely dictates the ways in which actors deliver dialogues and act, allowing them no freedom and improvisation.

  14. Ozu as auteur • Ozu kept using the same actors: Ryû Chishû, Hara Setsuko

  15. Ozu as auteur • Tanaka Kinuyo, Sugimura Haruko, Yamamura So, Nakamura Nobuo, Tôno Eijirô

  16. Ozu as auteur • Rigid, artificial action - lack of spontaneity (criticism) • However, Ozu won complete trust from actors • Stylized ‘beauty’ - sense of order

  17. Ozu’s Visual Style(Mise-en-scène) Style derives from the consistent use of certain techniques. Mise-en-scène - Motionless camera - Low-level camera placement (one foot above the floor) - One lens (with focal length of 50mm)

  18. Ozu’s Visual Style(Mise-en-scène) • The camera placed about one foot from the floor - low level shot without moving camera (no pans or travelling) • Slight low-angle shots

  19. Ozu’s Visual Style(Mise-en-scène) - Horizontal composition c.f. Mizoguchi’s diagonal composition

  20. Ozu’s Visual Style(Mise-en-scène) • Composition - horizontal and (slight) low angle while Mizoguchi’s favourite composition is diagonal and high-angle

  21. Ozu’s Visual Style(Mise-en-scène) • Perspectival placement of a group of people • Careful, geometrical arrangement of screen

  22. Ozu’s Visual Style(Mise-en-scène)

  23. Ozu’s Visual Style(Mise-en-scène) • - Frontal composition: actors (almost) directly looking at and talking to camera • Unconventional and against classic filmmaking rules

  24. Ozu’s Visual Style(Mise-en-scène) • More frontal compositions

  25. Ozu’s Visual Style(Mise-en-scène)

  26. Ozu’s Visual Style(Mise-en-scène) • Frontal compositions • Faces turned to the camera

  27. Ozu’s Visual Style(Mise-en-scène) Uniform set design • Middle-class Japanese household • Shôji (sliding paper door) wide open and shallow perspective with background view is partly blocked by a wall.

  28. Ozu’s Visual Style(Mise-en-scène) • More examples of Ozu’s favourite interior composition • Empty tatami in foreground, figures in the middle ground and small garden and wall at background

  29. Ozu’s Visual Style(Mise-en-scène) • The same interior design consistently used

  30. Ozu’s Visual Style(Mise-en-scène) • Japanese architecture and horizontal composition • The camera’s straight-on, horizontal angle and low position creates horizontal composition. • Lack of depth - shallow composition

  31. Ozu’s Colour Films • The same mise-en-scéne as in the black-and- white films • Repeated uses of the same colour - red

  32. Ozu’s Colour Films

  33. Ozu’s Colour Films • Red is used in ‘pillow’ shots

  34. Ozu’s Visual Style (Montage) Montage (Editing) - Rhythmic editing (nearly fixed lengths of shots according to sizes) ‘Ozu’s low camera position is not for long takes. It makes a rhythm from a combination of medium close-up, medium long shot and reverse shot. Consequently, how long one shot lasts becomes very important.‘ Yûharu Atsuta - Cuts - no dissolve, fade or wipe)

  35. Fade (in)

  36. Wipe

  37. Ozu’s Visual Style (Montage) • Almost perfect visual match in shot-and-reverse-shots • Drinking sake from the cup held in the right hand; matching waistcoats and ties; the same hair-style; the pillar at their back on the screen right.

  38. Ozu’s Visual Style (Montage) • Even the position of the beer bottle is the same, on the right of each character and the label of the beer is facing to the camera in either shot.

  39. Ozu’s Visual Style (Montage) • ELLIPSIS - narrative device used in literature to leave out a (large) portion of an action, an event or situation. • Ozu frequently uses this device. • The viewer learns of important narrative events only after they have occurred. • Tokyo Monogatari: The viewer does not see the grandmother falls ill - the viewer knows it only when her son and daughter receive a telegram; her death taking place between scenes: in one scene, they are at her bedside and in the next they are mourning her death

  40. Ozu’s Visual Style (Montage) - ‘Pillow shots’ or ‘still life shots’ which are not directly related with narratives and function as transitional insertions.

  41. Ozu’s Visual Style (Montage) • Noriko gets a phone call at work telling that her mother-in-law is ill; medium shot of her at desk with sound of typewriters

  42. Ozu’s Visual Style (Montage) • Cut to a low-angle shot of a building under construction with riveting machine sounds and music

  43. Ozu’s Visual Style (Montage) • Cut to another shot of the construction site with the same sounds

  44. Ozu’s Visual Style (Montage) • Then a cut to Koichi’s clinic with his sister, Shige present. The new scene begins.

  45. Ozu’s Visual Style (Montage) • Meanings of pillow shot • Contemplative and aesthetic • Related to story-telling mechanism: frequent uses of ellipsis (a segment of a narrative is deliberately omitted) • Pillow shot indicates that an ellipsis occurs.

  46. Ozu’s Film Style Ignoring the standard continuity editing - 180 degree rule - Omission of the establishing shot - using space of 360 degrees

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