New Favorites

Radio Show: Snap Judgment

New Artist: Caitlin McGauley

Male Name: The Situation ("Everybody loves me, babies, dogs, ya know, hot girls, cougars. I just have unbelievable mass appeal.")

Color: Puce (think belly of a flea)

Book: still deciding

Movie: "There Was A Father"

Magazine: Lonnymag

Strange Bargain

Flipping through the channels the other day I discovered the 1949 movie "Strange Bargain". It's about an accountant who accidently gets involved in his boss's murder/suicide. In the end, he is vindicated; the boss's wife did it. The interesting thing is that almost 40 years later the TV show "Murder She Wrote" used the story and the original actors(!!) as the basis for Jessica Fletcher's case (thank you, IMDB trivia). In this version, though, the initial ending has been changed. The accountant has just been released from prison after 30 years having been convicted for the murder of the boss. Of course, Jessica re-solves the case and figures out who the real murderer was. Don't you think TV producers were more clever in the '80s?

Inception

My dreams are more interesting than my life.
And I didn't even see the movie.

"A Hen In The Wind"

Ozu's movie made in 1948- an absent husband, an abused wife (he pushes her down the stairs), a sick baby and prostitutes. It made me think about what hens have to do in the wind. What more could you want.

"To See or Not To See"

"Human Nature"
A film by Charlie Kaufman ("Being John Malkovich")
"To see"
I liked it.

Here's what it's about:
A hairy woman, a scientist who teaches etiquette ( to mice), a fake French woman, an ape-man and revenge.
Piqued your interest?
See it.
Then tell me what it's about.

I'll Never Call My Husband Mr Thick-head.

Here's a memorable quote from Yasujiro Ozu’s movie: The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice. “I'll never call my husband Mr. Thick-head." It was Setsuko’s retort to the ladies at the spa when she explains why she doesn’t want to be set up in an arranged marriage.

It starts out with four women, each on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Well, at least two of them were: Takae, the unhappy, lying, spoiled wife and the above mentioned Setsuko. They lie to sneak away to a spa where they sit around smoking and drinking sake. Overindulging! Comparing their husbands to the carp in the pool (Mr Thickhead)! It was Japan, 1952 and the film is a femi-Nazi milestone. It passes the so-called Bechdel Test (“a simple test which names the following three criteria: (1) it has to have at least two women in it, who (2) who talk to each other, about (3) something besides a man.”). So it turns out that Ozu was a “proto-feminist" - who knew? The Noriko trilogy (Late Spring, Early Summer, and Tokyo Story) includes female characters with independence and intelligence we wouldn't expect in '40s and '50s let alone in Japan. Don’t be deceived -in most of his other films the role of the wife is to help her husband change his clothes when he comes home from the office. The husband removes his suit, dumps it on the floor and changes into a kimono more suitable for relaxing at home. The wife predictably and silently picks up each item of clothing.

My curiosity about Ozu was piqued when I read “The Elegance of the Hedgehog.”. The protagonist was crazy about his films and upon my finding out that Ozu was a real person, a real director, I was motivated to see one of his films. I became hooked myself.

It turns out Yasujiro Ozu is a well-known Japanese film director who died in 1963 on his 60th birthday. His films focus on relationships- generational (fathers and daughters, mothers and sons), marriages (arranged and otherwise), children (often rebellious) and taboo (in the west) subjects such as abortion. (See Tokyo Twilight!!!)

One interesting and repetitive aspect of Ozu’s films is the perspective he uses for his shots. What I didn’t realize is that he “moved the camera less and less as his career progressed.” Maybe if I had watched his movies in chronological order I would’ve noticed that. Probably not. What is impossible not to notice is his invention of the ‘tatami shot’, in which the camera is placed at a low height, supposedly where it would be if one were kneeling on a tatami mat. Another feature in every film I have seen is the long hallway with people inevitably crossing the perspective point. I think he used the same hallway in each of his movies. Personally, I like these predictable techniques. I find the long still shots relaxing and perhaps a little boring. So different from the dizzy Ken Burns-esque zooming in and out.

Near the end of the movie (The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice) Takae’s husband says that every marriage is like “rice flavoured by tea.” I haven’t figured that out yet but I'll think about it.

Ozu Movies

Here's a list of all Ozu's movies -in chronological order (unfortunately most of the early ones are lost). I will try to mark(*) those I have seen-if I can remember correctly.





Sword of Penitence
Dreams of Youth
Wife Lost
Pumpkin
A Couple on the Move
Body Beautiful
Treasure Mountain
Days of Youth
Fighting Friends Japanese Style
I Graduated, But...
The Life of an Office Worker
A Straightforward Boy
An Introduction to Marriage
Walk Cheerfully
I Flunked, But...
That Night's Wife
The Revengeful Spirit of Eros
The Luck Which Touched the Leg
Young Miss
The Lady and the Beard
Beauty's Sorrows
Tokyo Chorus*
Spring Comes from the Ladies
I Was Born, But...**
Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth?
Until the Day We Meet Again
Woman of Tokyo
Dragnet Girl
Passing Fancy*
A Mother Should Be Loved
A Story of Floating Weeds**
An Innocent Maid
Kagamijishi
An Inn in Tokyo
College is a Nice Place
The Only Son*
What Did the Lady Forget?
Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family
There Was a Father
Record of a Tenement Gentleman*
A Hen in the Wind
Late Spring*
The Munekata Sisters
Early Summer*
The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice*
Tokyo Story**
Early Spring*
Tokyo Twilight***
Equinox Flower*
Good Morning*
Floating Weeds*
Late Autumn*
The End of Summer*
An Autumn Afternoon*
(54 in total)
*-those I have seen
**-my favorites
*** -this film will convert you if you are not already a fan

Stop! Do Not Pass Go! Go Directly to...

The TV, for what should arrive today but a


package in a plain brown wrapper. From Hong Kong. Three(!!!) unavailable (I thought) Ozu movies that I have not seen! I am in 7th (what happened to the first six?) heaven. Excuse me, gotta go... to the TV.

PS. Who sent these?
PPS. I know you did. Thank you.