Yasujiro Ozu on trains & automobiles
August 31, 2007 8:57 AM   Subscribe

 
Wow... that was really great.

Does anyone know more about the clip? Did Ozu make that film or did someone compile bits from Ozu's stuff and arrange it?
posted by thebigdeadwaltz at 9:32 AM on August 31, 2007


DESU!!
posted by chlorus at 9:38 AM on August 31, 2007


this is a compilation, according to the youtube comments.

clips brought this recent chatmonchi PV to mind.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 10:06 AM on August 31, 2007


Does anyone know the music used in the clip?
posted by cazoo at 10:24 AM on August 31, 2007


I love Ozu.
posted by Outlawyr at 10:27 AM on August 31, 2007


thebigdeadwaltz: "Does anyone know more about the clip? Did Ozu make that film or did someone compile bits from Ozu's stuff and arrange it?"

These are bits and clips from his films. They are very beautiful, but you don't need me to tell you that.

One of the things I love about this clip, which those who don't know Ozu might not realize, is that these are the least important parts of his films. His films are generally non-moving affairs, fairly undynamic as far as the shots he takes are concerned, and he himself viewed moving shots as a minimal part of his work. His films are beautiful more because of the incredible things he does with a very basic vernacular: low, still, long shots. Maybe that's why these shots have such a stirring quality of stillness even though they're in motion; I think that gives them a beautiful touch that I hadn't really noticed before.

I believe that Ozu had a better sense for beauty than has been seen before or since in a director of films. He was meticulously careful in his pursuit of the beauty of his shots; he was also remarkably simple and pure in his devotion. I recently read a story about him which recounted a moment when one of his cameramen pointed out that, in setting the scene between shots, Ozu had moved a vase and a teapot to the opposite side of a table in the scene. Ozu was puzzled as to what the cameraman was referring to. "Well, it ruins the continuity; people will notice that it was over there, and then over here in the next shot." "Oh, that," Ozu replied. "No one ever notices that. What's important is that the shot be perfect; that's what they'll see, that it's beautiful."

His touch shows. Please, everyone, go rent his movies. They're not only very beautiful, but very touching; no other director, or even artist of any other kind, has spent as much time thinking about what family life means. If you're wanting to get started, begin with Tokyo Story.
posted by koeselitz at 8:11 PM on August 31, 2007


Heywood: more like Star Guitar

Ozu had a lot of things he loved to the end — namely 50mm, no panning, no tilting, no zooming.
posted by blasdelf at 12:41 AM on September 1, 2007


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