Lecture Notes

CTCS 200
11.8.10

I. Ozu & International Film Style

A. The question of national cinema
1. Local production?
2. Local exhibition?
3. State-sanctioned productions?
B. Hollywood and International Style -- Hollywood is model for international
convention
1. Shot-reverse-shot editing
2. Close-ups
3. Continuity editing
4. Style generally serves the narrative
5. Scenes linked causally, with strong clarity in the narrative chain
6. Classical narrative structure: clear resolution to the conflicts
7. The style belongs to Hollywood and international cinema, including and
especially Ozu
8. Pudovkin, Film Technique (1929)
a. Editing is “guiding the attention of the spectator now to one, now
to the other separate element” (42)
b. Writes about American as well as Soviet films as his models
C. Influences on Ozu: Chaplin, Lubitsch, Keaton, Harold Lloyd
1. Lubitsch sequence from If I Had a Million
2. Buster Keaton, The General
II. Ozu & The Japanese Studio System
A. Early cinema in Japan: imports, 1890s
1. From France: Lumiere
2. From U.S.: Edison
B. Early Japanese films
1. Actualities (street scenes) & geisha dances
2. Traditions of exhibition borrowed from theater
a. Kabuki
b. Koh
3. Audiences preferred American films though
C. 1920s Japan: growth of powerful studio system
1. Nikkatusu (Nippon Katsudo Shashin) 1912
2. Shochiku 1920
3. Toho: third major studio -- 1934
4. Both major studios vertically integrated combines of other companies
a. Production, distribution, exhibition
b. Also involved with other mediums of entertainment
5. Dozens of minor studios
6. 600 to 800 films per year
7. 1930s: 400 to 600 films per year

 8. Relies heavily on genres
a. Historical film (jidai-geki)
b. Films of contemporary life (gendai-geki) -- Ozuʼs primary genre
9. Converting to sound by 1930s, a little behind other companies
D. Benshi: live commentator in theater for silent films
1. Continued until 1930s
2. Would comment on traditions in imported films
3. Also gave performances as part of the artistic experience
E. 1920s: modernizing films
1. Womenʼs roles played by actresses
2. Fast-paced editing (based on imported films)
3. Shot-reverse-shot editing, close-ups, continuity editing
F. Experimental Styles within the Studio System -- A Page of Madness (1926)
1. Expressionist/impressionist techniques
2. Lost film discovered years later: question of canon formation and film
history
3. Atypical, particularly in demonstrating the influence of modernism
4. Could be a Fritz Lang film with certain alterations
III. Ozu & Themes
A. Class, family, tradition, modernization
B. Film & modernity -- modern times
1. Film linked to changing values
2. Nostalgia as response to modernization
C. Class system
1. Modern times & dislocation
2. Alienation
D. Family & tradition
1. Changing values
2. Modern pressures