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Silent
. Black and White . 80 minutes
Shochiku Kamata Studio
Written By
Ozu Yasujiro
Ikeda Tadao
Arata Masao
Uinzato Mone (story)
Cinematography
Mohara Hideo
Music By
Horiuchi Keizo
Cast
Sakamoto Takeshi (Kihachi)
Tokkan Kozo (Zenko)
Suematsu Takayuki (Masako)
Okada Yoshiko (Otaka)
Ojima Kazuko (Kimiko)
Idia Choko (Otsune)
Ryu Chishu (Policeman)
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Synopsis
Kihachi, a widower with two young sons, looks
for a job in vain. They take up lodgings at the
Manseikan Inn, where many others are in the same
boat. Among them is Otaka, and her daughter Kimiko.
The boys try to make money by eating stray dogs
to obtain a police reward. Things start to look
up when Kihachi meets an old friend Otsune, who
finds him a job at the factory. Kihachi dreams
of a new life that includes Otaka, but when Kimiko
falls ill, he is driven to desperation and steals
to help her. After entrusting his sons to Otsune,
he turns himself in to the police.
Thoughts from Ozu
Around that time, I was making Kagamijishi,
even though it was a documentary rather than a
feature film. By that time, there was no place
for silents anymore. Although An Inn in Tokyo
was a silent film, I had no choice but to adopt
the method of sound films. For example, in a conversation
scene between two persons, I ventured to superimpose
character A's lines on a close-up of character
B.
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Background
The
34th film, shot from June to September of 1934.
In April of that year, Ozu started the Tokyo
is a Nice Place (Tokyo yoi toko), but
the shooting had to be interrupted. This is a
sound film (music and sounds), with the original
songs composed by Ito Senji. Uinzato Mone, the
name of the author of the script, is the pen name
of Ozu. It is a distortion of the English "without
money". The protagonist of this film is penniless,
but also Ozu's financial situation was not very
good at that time, maybe also due to his father's
death in the previous year. In his diary he often
wrote about this problem. Again, this is a Kihachi-film,
and again, the hero is wandering around, sometimes
staying at a cheap boardinghouse, sometimes sleeping
in the open. However, even without a permanent
residence, Kihachi is rooted in Tokyo's old quarters,
shitamachi, and the Koto district is his sphere
of activity. The living conditions are close to
those in Passing Fancy. Kihachi has two
children. In An Inn in Tokyo, the Kihachi
of Passing Fancy is even more driven into
a corner, even more confronted with reality. In
the first half of the film, the view of the father
and his two children, moving slowly in a bleak,
desert-like scenery under the mid-summer sun,
almost has the effect of a daydream hallucination
in slow-motion. On the other hand, the scene of
the three, imagining eating food, brings us back
to reality. The documentary Kagamijishi
was made during this shooting: Ozu's muster of
the first reserve for the army and bad weather
again delayed the completion of this film. The
actual shooting days were quite few. At this time,
the removal of the studio to Ofana was decided.
Ozu was requested to make talkies, the insistence
of the studio becoming stronger. Ozu himself had
the desire to make talkies. Since its first talkie
The Neighbor's Wife and Mine (Madamu
to nyobo, 1931), Shochiku had a contract for
the Dobashi Sound System. However, Ozu had promised
his long-time companion, Mohara Hideo, his cameraman
since the second film Dreams of Youth (Wekodo
no yume, 1928), to wait for the completion
of his Mohara sound system. In his diary, he wrote:
"I made Mohara this long-held promise.
If I want to keep this promise, I may have to
quit directing. That would be fine with me too."
At the end of An Inn in Tokyo, Kihachi
resorts to theft to keep a promise, and is arrested
by the police. The origins of Kihachi's feelings
and Ozu's friendship for Mohara are the same.
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