Ozu Yasujirō (1903-1963)

Ozu Yasujirō was born in Tokyo, but he never considered himself a man of Tokyo. He left the city and lived in the rural area. He experienced the drastic change of Japan and witnessed the cruelness of the war. However, these intense feelings were rarely shown in his films. Dry, monochrome, a simple story line were the features of Ozu's style. Similar to his films, Ozu's social life was likely simple. He never married and lived with his mother until his 60s. Being an experienced film director, a participant in the Pacific War (1941-1945) and a single man who never married, Ozu's female characters not only reflect his life experiences, but also the Japan's modernization and the filmmaker's personal understanding of women's role in society. 

     Photograph of Ozu with Mother

 Portrait of Ozu

Ozu’s break into filmmaking came in 1923 when he landed the job of assistant cameraman to director Tadamoto Okuba at Shochiku Motion Picture Company---the film company at which he would eventually spend most of his professional life. Ozu made his first film in 1927, Zange no yaiba (Sword of Penitence), an uneven silent film that showed his lack of experience. Undaunted and armed with his interest in Hollywood films, he began to adopt an American studio approach to his filmmaking.[1] 

In the 1930s, Ozu rejected the conventions of both Japanese and Hollywood cinema to create his own style and themes. He experimented with camera angles, settling on a concept of simplicity and became well-known, and, at times, criticized for his deceptively simple camera techniques. He eschewed techniques in Western cinema such as fades, dissolves, pans, or tracking shots. Rather he built his aesthetic on subtle, minimal camera work, simple cuts, and measured dialogue based upon everyday conversation.[2]

Ozu was sent to China during the Pacific War. After the war ended in 1945, Ozu reached the golden era of his career. Ozu, as well as his characters, adopted a gentle resignation and acceptance in the face of the corrupting influence on family traditions in postwar Japanese society. Mono no aware, "the pathos of things," became a quintessential theme in Ozu's work, in which he mourns the dissolution of the family in Tokyo Story, and the loneliness of the father and the daughter at the end of Late Spring. Ozu's return home from the battlefield after the war and focus on family melodramas might be interpreted as his attempt to escape the blood, violence, and loss of the war.  

"This mono no aware outlook on life is a belief that the world will go on despite the uncertainty surrounding you. Live in the present, acknowledge that the past is gone, sympathize but don't complain, face your life with serenity and calm"[2]

During his career, Ozu directed over fifty films. His later style brought him a lot of controversies criticizing his works as "cold and artificial."[1] While his female characters were not cold and artificial objects. Living inside the Japanese society and taking up roles in Japanese families, these female characters show the changing image of the new woman and the new challenge brought by the new society.

Woman of Tokyo (1934)

I Graduated, But(1929)

The Night's Wife (1930)

Dragnet Girl(1933)

Mother Should Be Loved (1934)

What did the Lady Forget (1937)

A Hen in the Wind (1948)

Female Characters in Ozu's Films