Director Yasujiro Ozu collaborated with screenwriter Kogo Noda on twenty-seven films, including THE FLAVOR OF GREEN TEA OVER RICE, with the pair often working out of a small house in the mountains of Tateshina, Japan. The following program, created by filmmaker Daniel Raim in 2019, explores their...
This conversation about Yasujiro Ozu and his working methods, produced by the Shochiku film company on the centenary of Ozu’s birth, features a few of his collaborators—child actor and sound and editing assistant Kojiro Suematsu, assistant cameraman Takashi Kawamata, and producer Shizuo Yamanouchi.
Observations on Film Art No. 37
One of the last Japanese directors to make the transition to sound, Yasujiro Ozu continued making silent pictures until the midthirties. His lovely 1933 domestic drama PASSING FANCY is a gently humorous take on one of his signature themes: the relationship between...
Created by Shochiku studios to commemorate the ninetieth anniversary of director Yasujiro Ozu’s birth, this 1993 documentary features filmmakers Stanley Kwan, Aki Kaurismäki, Claire Denis, Lindsay Anderson, Paul Schrader, Wim Wenders, and Hou Hsiao-hsien reflecting on the importance of Ozu and hi...
In this original documentary, filmmaker Daniel Raim explores Yasujiro Ozu’s late work through the objects that were important to him and the people who knew him best.
In this original documentary, filmmaker Daniel Raim explores Yasujiro Ozu’s late work through the objects that were important to him and the people who knew him best.
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu • 1932 • Japan
One of Ozu's most popular films, I WAS BORN, BUT . . . is a blithe portrait of the financial and psychological toils of one family, as told from the rascally point of view of a couple of stubborn little boys. For two brothers, the daily struggles of bullie...
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu • 1961 • Japan
The Kohayakawa family is thrown into distress when childlike father Manbei takes up with his old mistress, in one of Ozu's most deftly modulated blendings of comedy and tragedy.
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu • 1960 • Japan
The great actress and Ozu regular Setsuko Hara plays a mother gently trying to persuade her daughter to marry in this glowing portrait of family love and conflict; a reworking of Ozu's 1949 masterpiece Late Spring.
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu • 1962 • Japan
Starring Chishu Ryu, Shima Iwashita, Keiji Sada
The last film by Yasujiro Ozu was also his final masterpiece, a gently heartbreaking story about a man’s dignifed resignation to life’s shifting currents and society’s modernization. Though the widower Shuhei...
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu • 1958 • Japan
Later in his career, Ozu started becoming increasingly sympathetic with the younger generation, a shift that was cemented in Equinox Flower, his gorgeously detailed first color film, about an old-fashioned father and his newfangled daughter.
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu • 1934 • Japan
Starring Takeshi Sakamoto, Choko Iida, Koji (Hideo) Mitsui
In 1959, Yasujiro Ozu remade his 1934 silent classic A STORY OF FLOATING WEEDS in color with the celebrated cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa (RASHOMON, UGETSU). Setting his later version in a seaside...
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu • 1959 • Japan
Starring Masahiko Shimazu, Koji Shidara, Kuniko Miyake
A lighthearted take on director Yasujiro Ozu’s perennial theme of the challenges of intergenerational relationships, GOOD MORNING tells the story of two young boys who stop speaking in protest after t...
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu • 1959 • Japan
Starring Ganjiro Nakamura, Machiko Kyo, Ayako Wakao
In 1959, Yasujiro Ozu remade his 1934 silent classic A STORY OF FLOATING WEEDS in color with the celebrated cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa (RASHOMON, UGETSU). Setting his later version in a seaside locati...
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu • 1953 • Japan
Starring Chishu Ryu, Chieko Higashiyama, Setsuko Hara
A profoundly stirring evocation of elemental humanity and universal heartbreak, TOKYO STORY is the crowning achievement of the unparalleled Yasujiro Ozu. The film, which follows an aging couple’s journe...
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu • 1929 • Japan
An unemployed college graduate attempts to trick his family into thinking that he has a job. (Presented without score.)
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu • 1947 • Japan
A widow is pressured into taking care of a homeless war orphan. Bitter at first, she soon finds herself growing fond of the boy.
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu • 1952 • Japan
Starring Shin Saburi, Michiyo Kogure, Keiko Tsushima
One of the ineffably lovely domestic sagas made by Yasujiro Ozu at the height of his mastery, THE FLAVOR OF GREEN TEA OVER RICE is a sublimely piercing portrait of a marriage coming quietly undone. Secre...
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu • 1948 • Japan
When a soldier returns home at the end of World War II, he refuses to forgive his wife for prostituting herself one night in order to pay off medical bills after their son's sudden illness.
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu • 1937 • Japan
When modern, liberated Setsuko visits her uncle Komiya, she is appalled by how he is dominated by his socialite wife and tries to get him to 'man up.'
