Synopsis
To pay for his daughter Michiko's medical treatment,
artist Hashizume Shuji breaks into an office.
When the police arrive on the scene, he hops on
a taxi, not realizing that the driver is undercover
cop Kagawa. Meanwhile, the doctor tells Hashizume's
wife Mayumi that if Michiko survives the night,
the worst will be over. Kagawa appears to arrest
Hashizume, but Mayumi takes her husband's gun
and holds him captive, begging him to let her
husband keep watch over Michiko for one night.
The next morning, Mayumi tries to help her husband
slip away, but he returns to turn himself in.
Thoughts from Ozu The script came from a translated novel published
in New Youth (Shin Seinen) Magazine. This is my
first experience of working with Okada Tokihiko.
Six of the film's seven reels depict action that
takes place on a single set. I lost so much sleep
over the continuity it was a labor of love, and
had great significance for me. Kido Shiro was
full of praise for it, and even urged me to go
take a break at a hot spring.
Background
The 16th film, shot from the end of May to the begging
of July 1930. Based on the novel FromNine
to Nine by Oscar Shisgall, which was published
in the periodical New Young Men (Shin
Seinen) in March. The story is very unusual
for an Ozu film. The head of Kamata studio, Kido
Shiro, first read the novel and recommended it to
the screenplay-writer Noda Kogo for adaptation.
In the original story, the robbery (by the husband)
happens one week earlier then the other events.
To make the film more suspenseful, Noda condensed
the whole plot to one evening. Except for the first
of the seven reels, in which the husband robs a
bank and runs away, the entire film is psychological
drama, set in an apartment. Ozu got the scenario
and worked out the continuity. The result is a very
detailed, dense drama, under the strong influence
of modernism and westernized style. We have already
spoken about the importance of the apartment. Ozu's
tendency for westernization appears not only in
his film, but also in his life. At this time Ozu
wrote several articles, using Roman letters and
loanwords (one of these articles "Strange
Tales About Murder" ("Satsujin
kidan") is published in Cahiers du Cinema
Japon, no 9, 1993.) These quotations from the
very modern style and similar examples can be seen
in his films. Ozu's modernism films (the apartment
films) are reminiscent of the writer Ryutani Yu
and his novels of the same period, such as Mako.
Mako is set in an apartment, and loanwords
appear frequently in the text. Ozu's films have
to be discussed not only in the cinematic context
but also in the whole cultural context of that time.
The young and healthy Ozu often insisted on filming
all night. For this film, Ozu endlessly repeated
his acting instructions for Yamamoto Togo. Once,
the cameraman Mohara fell asleep and as he woke
up in the morning, Yamamoto was still rehearsing
the same scene. Ozu twice used an overlap transition
in the reverse-angle shots of the apartment's door.
Ozu did not like this technique, this is one of
its rare uses. In 1952, Ikeda Koro remade this film.
Ozu saw a preview and wrote in his diary: "it's
troublesome."
Personal
Thoughts and Comments That Night's Wife is a unique film from
Ozu in that it is a suspenseful crime thriller,
yet it stands among one of his most interesting
silent films in the way it emerges into a definitely
Ozu film. The simple story centers around an artist
who steals money and is chased down by a police
detective. When the detective arrives at his home,
he is held at gun point by the artists wife. The
film is reminiscent of a Hollywood thriller, but
the emotional and visual core is purely Ozu, particularly
the way the film is concentrates in family and
social troubles, as the penniless artists robs
the money to pay for medicine for his sick daughter.
That Night's Wife takes place almost entirely
within the apartment, and the mood is effectively
established as tense and claustrophobic. What
truly makes the film definitive Ozu is the rhythm,
captured by lyrical visual patterns. Here Ozu
uses expressive tracking shots as visual patterns,
as well as a specific use of hand expressions
to heighten the atmosphere and suspense. Ozu flawlessly
edits the visual patterns and motifs resulting
in a film that is at once tense, stunning, and
poetic. That Night's Wife is likely to be forgotten
among Ozu's more emotionally-driven silent films,
but it remains a truly fascinating work from the
master.