Taiwan’s Hsiao-hsien Hou has often spoken of his admiration for Japanese master Yasujirō Ozu. In the 1993 documentary Talking with Ozu, attached to the Criterion edition of Tokyo Story and featuring such commentators as Claire Denis and Aki Kaurismäki, he compares the man’s work to that of a mathematician: one that observes and studies in a detached, clinical fashion. Often, returning to …
Gloriously composed — visually and aurally — The Young Girls of Rochefort is a lyrically light holiday to this provincial town, with its assortment of pleasant people having their fair share of romantic troubles. Moreover, it’s one of the best musicals the form has ever seen.
December 12 marks 110 years since the birth of the great Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu (and 50 years to the date since his death). So what better way to commemorate the occasion than to revisit what is widely seen as his masterpiece among masterpieces, Tokyo Story, out now on a 3-disc dual format Blu-ray/DVD from The Criterion Collection?
Riffing on Terek Puckett’s terrific list of director/actor collaborations, I wanted to look at some of those equally impressive leading ladies who served as muses for their directors. I strived to look for collaborations that may not have been as obviously canonical, but whose effects on cinema were no less compelling. Categorizing a film’s lead …
In this episode of They Shot Pictures, I am joined by my friends, Sean Gilman and Marc Lawless and we discuss three films by Yasujiro Ozu. We start with a silent film, Tokyo Chorus, move on to Early Summer and conclude with his last film, An Autumn Afternoon. Download MP3 in a new window Subscribe via iTunes