Snobbin: Beautiful Trash in the Pop Culture Gutter

I had never seen a Yasujiro Ozu film, including his oft-mentioned classic, Tokyo Story (1953), when I watched this movie a couple of years ago. I started with Good Morning  (1959) because I figured a comedy would be a good place to start and felt the premise of Tokyo Story to be somewhat daunting. It made me excited to see more examples of his famous "pillow shots," where Ozu cuts away from the narrative to focus on a landscape, an empty room, or a household item, and build his world. This interest in Ozu's framing was only a starting point because now I plan on watching his entire filmography for narrative as well as cinematography and everything else that makes his mise-en-scene and ideas so enjoyable. I will write about fifteen of them for the blog and rank them.  One of his later comedies,  Good Morning  examines how two young boys challenge their parents' rules because they want them to buy a television to watch Sumo matches. As with most of Ozu's ouevre, t...

I am going to start a new series on Yasujiro Ozu's films in the upcoming weeks where I rank and write capsule reviews for fifteen of his films. I have started watching a representative portion of his filmography, ranging from the silent comedies to his later works that deal with family, marriage, and society in the post war years, including the Noriko trilogy ( Late Spring , Early Summer , and Tokyo Story ) and all the movies he made with the incomparable Setsuko Hara. So far this project has been fun, and I cannot wait to share the results. Prepare for a discussion surrounding culture, dialogue, and the ever-present tatami shots.