Black and White . 83 minutes

Shochiku Ofuna Studio

Written By
Ozu Yasujiro ('James Maki')
Ikeda Tadao
Arata Masao

Cinematography
Sugimoto Shojiro

Music By
Ito Senji

Cast
Iida Choko (Nonomiya Otsune)
Himori Shinichi (Ryosuke)
Hayama Masao (Ryoichi as a child)
Tsubouchi Yoshiko (Sugiko)
Yoshikawa Mitsuko (Otaka)
Ryu Chishu (Okubo)
Naniwa Tomoko (Okubo's Wife)
Kozo Bakudan (Okubo's Son)
Tokkan Kozo (Tomibo)

Synopsis
Otsune is a widow raising her only son Ryosuke in rural Shinshu. One day, Ryosuke's teacher Okubo pays Otsune a visit, asking permission to take Ryosuke to Tokyo to continue his education. At first she refuses but later agrees, and sells her land to go and work in a silk factory to support him. 13 years later, she visits Ryosuke in Tokyo, and discovers that instead of the roaring success they'd both hoped for, he is a mere night school teacher, living in an outskirt slum with his wife and baby. Ryosuke borrows money to treat her, but when his neighbor's son is injured he gives them the money. Otsune tells Ryosuke she is proud of him and returns home.

Thoughts from Ozu
This is the first talkie I directed. The plot was adapted from my finished script for Tokyo is a Nice Place, which was partly filmed, then canned in order to refashion it into a talkie... By then, the set had been relocated to Ofuna, but since I was using Mohara Hideo's sound system, it was not compatible to facilities at Ofuna. As a result, we had to shoot in the deserted Kamata studio. The din of trains nearby kept us from shooting in daytime, so we worked from 12 midnight to 5am, sticking to our schedule of five shots per night. We were in high spirits. However, ingrained ways of making silents cannot be changed overnight, so glitches were inevitable. Even though I was well aware that talkies were a totally different ballgame, I couldn't help slipping back into style of silents. I was worried that after being four or five years behind others, I would never be able to catch up. However, now I realize how useful my persistence in making silents was to my future development.

Personal Thoughts and Comments
Ozu's first talkie film was made well after the development of sound and in many ways the emotions of the film are expressed like that of a silent film (which is mostly through images over dialogue). This is one of Ozu's most melodramatic films and thematically it is very definitive of his most well known family relationships (in this case mother and son). The Only Son is an incredibly moving and bittersweet film as Ozu again details the inevitable disappointment of life and his general philosophy of acceptance towards it. The film does leave hope and certainly you can see that the Mother has great reason to be proud of her son. Yet in Ozu fashion the Mother and Son hold back their feelings. The mother is very proud of her son, but she is still left sad and possibly regretful only because she is concerned that her son is not happy. The Only Son is an early Ozu masterpiece and among his most emotionally involving. The Only Son captures much of the mastery of simplistic and poetic visual composition, as well as an effective use of "pillow-shots", and also a beautiful homage to the 1933 German film Lover Divine. Powerful and insightful Ozu's transition into the sound era stands as an unforgettable achievement.