An
Autumn Afternoon - Ozu's private "family" By Doron B. Cohen (Kyoto,
Japan)
An
Autumn Afternoon turned out to be Ozu's last
film; he was working on his next project when
a particularly virulent form of cancer ended his
life in great pain while professionally he was
still in peak form. Everything that was wonderful
in his earlier films can be found in this final
one, including the marvelous cast of familiar
actors and actresses.
Much has already been written about Ozu's regular
cast, which gives viewers the feeling of meeting
with familiar family members. In some cases the
family relations were real; the beautiful and
vivacious Okada Mariko, who plays the daughter-in-law
Akiko in this film (and who played Yuriko in Late
Autumn), was the daughter of Okada Tokihiku,
a star of Ozu's silent films (Tokyo Chorus),
who died as young as 30 years old, only one year
after the birth of his daughter. This daughter
herself became a distinguished acctress, and learned
from Ozu about the father she never got to know.
There are a few other such cases, but the main
point is that through participating in his films
actors and actresses became "relatives",
parts of a large and loyal family.
What happened to "Ozu's family" after
the death of their sensei and "father"?
Most famous is the fate of Hara Setsuko, who is
not in this final film, but who had major roles
in six earlier ones; she retired from the screen
shortly after Ozu's death, and was never seen
in public again, leading an even more stubbornly
private life than that of Greta Garbo. Since her
death has never been announced, she is presumably
still alive at the time of writing (December 2011),
aged 91. Her appeal is still strong, apparently;
in its issue of March 2011 the magazine Shinko
published eight pieces by writers and actors on
"rediscovering Hara Setsuko", and included
a DVD of one of her earliest films, Inochi
no kanmuri ("the crown of life",
a surprisingly socially oriented 1936 silent film
by director Uchida Tomu, in which Hara had a minor
part).
However, unlike Hara, most other Ozu regulars
continued on with successful careers. I was struck
by the fact - was it a coincidence or an intended
tribute? - that several of Ozu regulars appeared
years later in the films of another wonderful
director, Itami Juzo, who died tragically in 1997,
aged 64. In Itami's first film, The Funeral
(1984), Ryu Chishu, Ozu's most regular actor,
plays the wonderful part of a Buddhist abbot;
in fact, Ryu was familiar with the part as he
had played a similar role in director Yamada Yoji's
popular series of films It's Hard Being a Man
(known as "Tora-san films", after their
hero), which was the longest in film history in
its time (and is still the longest series made
by the same director) with 48 installments. Ryu
was in most of them (as well as in hundreds of
other Japanese films), and is probably remembered
better by the Japanese public for that role than
for his roles in Ozu's films. He turned up again
in Itami's fourth film, A Taxing Woman's Return
(1988) as a retired Buddhist priest… (he
was 84 years old at the time, and still had several
films ahead of him, including an impressive part
in Kurosawa Akira's 1990 Dreams). The above-mentioned
Okada Mariko also appeared in two of Itami's films:
in his second one, Tampopo (1985), she
had a small role as a fine lady who teaches a
group of debutants how to eat spaghetti politely,
until her intentions are frustrated by a rude
foreigner; and in the third, A Taxing Woman
(1987), she played another fine lady, the wife
of the corrupt businessman under investigation.
What a pleasure it is to recognize her as the
young, spicy girl of Ozu's films. And finally,
also in Tampopo, in the small role of the
"professor" who turns out to be hardly
as naïve as the con-man who was laying a
trap for him thought, it is possible to identify
none other than Nakamura Nobuo, a veteran of Ozu's
cast since Tokyo Story (the son-in-law),
and who also appears in An Autumn Afternoon
as the classmate who holds a grudge against their
old teacher.
These actors and many others appeared also in
the 1983 tribute film to Ozu, directed and scripted
by Inoue Kazuo, which in the original Japanese
had the meaningful title Ikite wa mite keredo
("I lived, but…"), but in English
has the uninspiring title The Life and Works
of Yasujiro Ozu (at least in the IMDb website's
listing). In this film - which is highly recommended
to all Ozu lovers - relatives and friends of Ozu,
as well as film directors and actors, talk about
his life and work from various angles. Ryu Chishu,
Nakamura Nobuo, Okada Mariko, Sugimura Haruko
and several other actors participated, but Hara
Setsuko refused to immerge from seclusion even
for a cause such as this. Perhaps the most moving
moment in this film is when Kishida Kyoko (who
plays the bar hostess in An Autumn Afternoon,
her only appearance in an Ozu film which made
her a "last minute" member of the "family")
reads Ozu's poem on bringing his mother's ashes
for burial on Mount Koya.
These are some of the many aspects that link An
Autumn Afternoon to the cinematic and the
real worlds. The film itself brings together several
of Ozu's recurring themes: not only family break-ups
and the marrying off of a daughter, but also social
issues relating to the lives of the salarymen,
which go back to the films of the 1930's and early
1950's. The humor is there, and the beauty and
poignancy; everything we are looking for in an
Ozu film.
