National Cinemas Post 1945: National Cinemas Post 1945: Japan, India, China

 National Cinemas Post 1945: National Cinemas Post 1945: Japan, India, China

                                            Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

1)Identify the characteristics and major figures of the postwar cinemas of Japan, India, China,
   Taiwan and Hong Kong.
2)Understand the connection between the politics of nations and their cinematic output.

Postwar Asian Cinema:
1)The postwar period encouraged a unique individuality in the cinema.
2) Films of the period offered interesting things to say and new ways to say them.
3) Audiences and technology were changing, and the American film industry was in trouble
   commercially.
4) Furthermore, foreign governments supported their film industries, while the American
    government let the Hollywood industry sink in the aftermath of the collapse of the studio
    system.
5) By the mid-1970s, American films had adopted the techniques of foreign films and became
    strong once again.

Mast and Kawin next turn their attention to several auteurs in the chapter including
Akira Kurosawa,
Kenji Mizoguchi,
Yasujiro Ozu,
Satyajit Ray,
Zhang Yimou,
Edward Yang,
John Woo,
Wong Kar-Wai.

A student asked a question about cinematography which was discussed in the book and I'm glad she asked because cinematography is my weakness in film reviews: 

Regarding Ozu's films, please explain and give examples for:

1. temporal fractures of narrative

2. 180 degree cut

3. shots linked through overlapping bits of space

Thanks! 

Great questions Sakura,

1. temporal fractures of narrative

In my mind this general reference comes from Paul Schrader's work Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer (1972). 

Schrader’s investigation of mid-century art cinema masters as extensions of spiritual art is worthy of our careful consideration, especially given the legacy of Yasujirō Ozu, Robert Bresson, and Carl Th. Dreyer. These three directors have been endlessly studied and filmmakers have adopted, revamped, and appropriated them.

He begins with a general overview of the theory of transcendental style and a working definition. While moving through several possible definitions, Schrader opts for “human acts or artifacts which express something of the Transcendent,” i.e., an expression of something “beyond normal sense experience” (37) achieved through style or “a general representative form.” The content of a film is therefore unimportant because transcendental style is universal and expressions of the Transcendent “knows no [specific] culture” – any artist can search for this elusive beyond. For Schrader, in terms of filmmaking, what matters are spiritual expressions in cinematography, dialogue, and editing in relation to one or more past iterations of the Holy from the gamut of artistic representation. Schrader connects unrelated filmmakers working in different contexts because they all investigate the “mystery of existence” (42), and it’s the critic’s task to determine, uncover, and reveal how this mystery is expressed.

- "Revisiting Paul Schrader's Transendental Style in Film" (Links to an external site.)

2. 180 degree cut

This blog entry (Links to an external site.) looks at what the 180 degree rule IS and how Ozu breaks it in his camera set up and resulting edit of a scene in Tokyo Story.

he does everything wrong; he breaks every rule of conventional cinematic grammar. He always puts the camera too low, but he doesn’t angle it up, so the subject of the shot always occupies the top of the frame. The eye-line matches are always wrong.

A fundamental rule of standard continuity requires that the camera always stay on one side of an axis created by the actors’ gazes. Thus the camera may not be moved 180 degrees from one set-up to another; it must always stay within a semi-circle on one side of the axis.

Ozu doesn’t simply violate this rule, he overturns it: every cut crosses the axis of the gaze. Every cut is a multiple of 45 degrees, most often 180 degrees (especially when he cuts on an action match) or 90 degrees. The standard continuity system was developed to make cuts invisible, to the conscious mind at least. Ozu denaturalises the cuts, making them as noticeable as possible.

After considering Ozu in relation to Zen arts, Schrader demonstrates the means at the director’s disposable to go beyond it. First, the director shoots the banal and quotidian in static shots from the same low height (as if one is kneeling on the floor). The conversations are monotone and “every cut forthright and predicable” (70). The narratives often reinvestigate everyday themes such as love, marriage, and family, and by employing the same (or similar) locations, actors, and filmmaking techniques, Ozu’s work transforms into a repeatable ritual. Second, for Ozu’s characters, disparity is internal. The protagonists cannot find nature within themselves and the decisive moment (often after the protagonist weeps alone) is a communal event involving family and neighborhood. Third, often after the decisive action at the culmination of a film, Ozu’s camera tracks backwards to reveal the setting, the landscape, and “the unity of all existence” (80). While worthy of the label of transcendental style, Ozu is runner-up to another art cinema master: the French auteur Bresson.

- "Ozu The Master of Time," BFI (Links to an external site.)

3. shots linked through overlapping bits of space 

I think this is more simple than you might think. Bordwell is referring to the everydayness in Ozu's compositions. Each is compact in itself, on occasion there might be a bit of "overlapping space" from one image to another (the edge of a table, a teapot, etc.), but more often than not his cuts are "hard."

I still don't understand it!