Late Spring - Criterion Collection

Late Spring - Criterion Collection
by Wim Wenders, Yasujiro Ozu

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DVD Cover Information

Actor: Chishu Ryu, Haruko Sugimura, Hohi Aoki, Setsuko Hara, Yumeji Tsukioka
Director: Wim Wenders, Yasujiro Ozu
Brand: Image Entertainment
Producer: Wim Wenders
Writer: Wim Wenders
Writer: Yasujiro Ozu
Producer: Chris Sievernich
Writer: Kazuo Hirotsu
Writer: K?go Noda
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); German (Original Language); Japanese (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 108 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-05-09
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion

Movie Reviews of Late Spring - Criterion Collection

Movie Review: Great
Summary: 5 Stars

If one were to think of an equivalent to the film style of director Yasujiro Ozu it would have to be long novels suffused with detail, but never superfluous detail. Books such as Herman Melville's Moby-Dick- with its descriptions of the whaling industry and vessels, John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath- with its detailed rendering of the lives of migrant workers, and especially Betty Smith's A Tree Grows In Brooklyn- with its child-like view of a world that overwhelms fresh senses, come to mind, even though the film checks in at a mid-length range of an hour and forty-eight minutes. Ozu's cinema is utterly shorn of melodrama, for all that occurs within its frames advances some aspect of narrative, character development, or social commentary. Yet, some of the most affecting scenes in the whole of his 1949 film, Late Spring (Banshun), are realistic shots of toenail clippings or apple peels, designed to allow the viewer to feel they are intruding in on the reality of the characters. Then there are seemingly throwaway details that also lend authenticity, such as when a meter reader from the electric company comes and requires a stool to read the meter. It has nothing to do with the tale nor symbolism, but immediately `realizes' the situation for most viewers, especially when a more important character has to get the stool for the ephemeral character.
This film not only was a change in technique and tenor for Ozu, from more socially blunt works, but marked the beginning of the final phase of Ozu's long career, where his focus became almost exclusively the Japanese family unit in the post-war transition years, and his camera movement started to become more and more static with every film released. The film was penned by Ozu and longtime collaborator K?go Noda, from a novel called Father And Daughter, by Kazuo Hirotsu. The very naturalistic style of the screenplay and camera work lends an air of realism to Ozu's style that has often been compared to Italian Neo-Realism of the same era, although Ozu's work from this era was never as overtly political as that of the Italian filmmakers. The film follows the life of an aging father, a professor, Shukichi Somiya (Chishu Ryu), and his twenty-seven year old daughter, Noriko (Setsuko Hara), who still lives at home. Worried over her ending up alone, and prodded on by Noriko's aunt Masa Taguchi (Haruko Sugimura)- sister of Shukichi or his wife (it's never delineated), he tries to push his daughter out of the nest and into marital bliss. We never learn what happened to the wife and mother of the household, but we can guess she was killed in the war. We do learn that Noriko was in a labor camp and was very ill and skinny, but has now gotten healthy and plump, according to one of Shukichi's Academic colleagues, Jo Onodera (Masao Mishima), whose remarriage Noriko deems distasteful and filthy. Onodera is a jovial man, and merely one of many who seems to obsess on Noriko's marital status.... What makes Late Spring a great film is that, like great classic novels, it is never preachy nor condescending, but involving. Think of the great novels I compared it to, and then think of the crap put out in recent years by big name authors such as Joyce Carol Oates, T.C. Boyle, or Toni Morrison, and then think of this film and preachy PC films like Brokeback Mountain or Crash, and the comparative difference is manifest. Late Spring can be political when a character takes up an empty seat with his belongings or when Hara forces a smile. One need not have a character stick his tongue down another male character's throat, nor his fingers between a female characters' leg to denote the political stance of the film and filmmaker.
Then there are the terrific technical cinematographic aspects of the film- by Yuharu Atsuta, such as Ozu's patented low angle shots; eyeline mismatches; limited camera movement- such as when Noriko and Hattori go biking, yet it seems as if the world moves by them, not the other way around; the lack of interstitial fades and dissolves; as well as narrative devices, such as ellipses- as when we see Noriko's devastation at her father's supposed remarriage, and then transition to her seemingly positive and happy reaction to meeting `Gary Cooper;' and transition shots of unidentified locations to link themes and elided time intervals. In many ways, the camera of Ozu frames life similarly to that of Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer, or the great Dutch painting masters, where space, the tension built by spare movement, and the relative positioning of characters is all important.
Ozu has tritely been labeled the most Japanese of all directors by lazy critics, as opposed to his two great contemporaries- Kenji Mizoguchi and the far more famous Akira Kurosawa, both of whose reputations were made with historical dramas, but Ozu is actually the most modern of all the classic directors from Japan, and probably the most Western, if not in approach then in attitude. Late Spring shows this to be true, and considering that the film was a distinct reinvention of the man's art, its success is all the more noteworthy. It's akin to a minor dime store novelist from the late 19th Century all of a sudden morphing into Mark Twain. Were most midlife crises handled as ably- nay, greatly- as this the work of such an artist as Yasujiro Ozu would not be needed to illumine the problem. It almost makes one wish for the human race to be continued to be plagued with ills, for only then will the relevance of such artistic rendering still be appreciated, right along with the greatest of novels and novelists.
And the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago....

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Summary of Late Spring - Criterion Collection

The first of a series of intimate family portraits that would cement Yasujiro Ozu's reputation as one of the most important directors in cinema history, Late Spring tells the story of a widowed father who feels compelled to marry off his only, beloved daughter. In the hands of two of the director's finest actors-Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara-this poignant tale of love and loss in postwar Japan remains as potent and meaningful today as ever.

A masterpiece of postwar Japanese cinema, Yasujiro Ozu's Late Spring serves as an elegant primer for many of the themes that would define Ozu's later career. As with other Ozu classics, this is a calm, meditative drama about the dynamics of family, in this case the inevitable separation of 56-year-old father and widower Shukichi (Chishu Ryu) and his adult daughter Noriko (Setsuko Hara), who is content to care for her father and remain unmarried, despite the urging of friends and relatives to find a suitable husband. There are some viable candidates, and several attempts at matchmaking, but the likeliest match is a man who's already engaged. Noriko simply wishes for things to remain as they are, but when she does eventually marry a handsome chemist who "looks like Gary Cooper," Ozu's drama remains intimately focused on the subtle emotions at play; there's not a scene or sequence that feels out of place, and Late Spring serves a secondary function as a light and lively portrait of post-war Japan, as hints of Western influence (like a Coca-Cola sign in one of the film's most memorable scenes) that signal Japan's transition toward a modern commercial economy. Most of all, however, Late Spring is a carefully observed and quietly heartbreaking story of a parent who yearns to set things right for his daughter who must balance her father's love with her own prospects for a fulfilling future. And while Ozu would go on to examine familial issues in later, equally noteworthy films, Late Spring represents a milestone that would ensure Ozu his rightful place among the greatest of all Japanese directors. --Jeff Shannon

On the DVDs
Criterion's release of Late Spring contains a few minor flaws in terms of image quality (such as occasional emulsion scratches), but viewers can rest assured that this DVD was mastered from the finest available materials, and the film looks very good considering the conditions of post-war Japan that were typically harsh on films of that period. The "windowbox" framing format accurately preserves the film's original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. There's a new and improved English subtitle translation, and the audio commentary by Richard Pe?a (an Ozu expert and program director of New York's Film Society of Lincoln Center) emphasizes the literary traditions that inform Ozu's films, in addition to the director's signature fixed-camera, low-angle style. Disc 2 includes Tokyo-ga, the 1985 feature by German director (and avid Ozu admirer) Wim Wenders. It's a tribute to Ozu's Japan, in which Wenders wanders the city searching for remnants of Tokyo as seen in Ozu's films, including interviews with Late Spring actor Chishu Ryu and Ozu's long-time cameraman Yuharu Atsuta. In keeping with Criterion tradition, a 21-page booklet is also included, containing informative essays by critic Michael Atkinson and renowned Japanese-film historian Donald Richie. --Jeff Shannon

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