Synopses & Reviews
In Japan and much of Europe, Ozu is widely considered to be one of the finest film directors who ever lived. While Ozu has a strong reputation in the West, his films are not as well-known or widely appreciated in the U.S. as they are elsewhere. A notable exception to this trend is film critic Roger Ebert, who recently wrote that Ozu is one of his “three or four” favorite directors. Also, moving beyond the view that Tokyo Story is a masterful exception in the Ozu canon, Ebert sees Ozu's films as “nearly always of the same high quality.” Ozu International will reflect on Ebert's view of Ozu by arguing that this director deserves broader recognition in the U.S., and that his entire canon is worthy of serious study.
With the recent release of more than 15 Ozu DVDs in the Criterion Collection, covering every phase of his career at least in part (including silent films, black-and-white talkies, and color films), Ozu International helps to fill a lingering gap in English-language scholarship on Ozu by giving this new generation of scholars a book-length forum to explore new critical perspectives on an unfairly neglected director. Contributions include specialists in Japanese culture, academics from a range of disciplines, and professional films critics.
About the Author
Wayne Stein is Professor at the University of Central Oklahoma, USA, and teaches classes on Kurosawa, Japanese horror, and Vietnam War cinema. He has coauthored the readers Fresh Takes (2009) and Strategies and has written various chapters in books and encyclopedia entries on Asian American literature and Asian cinema.
Marc DiPaolo is Assistant Professor of English and Film at Oklahoma City University, USA, and is the author of War Politics and Superheroes and Emma Adapted (2007); editor of Godly Heretics: Essays on Alternative Christianity in Literature (2013) and Unruly Catholics: Faith, Progressivism, and Cultural Studies (2013).
Table of Contents
Part I: Ozu in Cultural Context: Considering Class, Gender and Domestic Spaces Chapter 1: “Vanished Men, Complex Women: Gender, Remembrance, and Reform in Ozu's Postwar Films”
Mauricio Castro, Purdue University, USA Chapter 2: “Tokyo is a Nice Place: The Suburban, the Urban and the Space In--Between in Early Ozu”
John Berra, Tsinghua University, ChinaChapter 3: I Was Born Middle--Class, But...: The Price of Modernity in Ozu's Shoshimin eiga in the Early 1930s”
Woojeong Joo, Nagoya University, JapanChapter 4: “Social Fragmentation: Dealing with Divorce and Abortion in
Tokyo Twilight”
Elyssa Faison, University of Oklahoma, USAChapter 5: "Re--evaluating Zen in Ozu's Empty Spaces in
Late Autumn”
Jeff Hammon, The Courtauld Institute of Art, JapanPart II. Ozu's International Reception and InfluencesChapter 6: “Ray Carney, Reader--Response Theory and the Problem of Ethical Spectatorship and 'Foreign' Films”
Marc DiPaolo, Oklahoma City University, USA Chapter 7: “The Ozu Effect, Malick's
Tree of Life, and Other Art House Family Dramas: Too Slow to Handle?”
Isolde Vandee, LUCA - Faculteit Kunsten, Belgium Chapter 8: "An Appreciation of the Pedagogy of Ozu's Cinematic Style and Context in such Films as
Early Spring”
Naomi Chiba, University of Southern Maine, USAChapter 9: “Ozu's Art Direction and Dress as Symbol: International Perspectives"
Brenda Wentworth, Saint Cloud University, USA and Sharon E. Cogdill, Saint Cloud University, USA
Chapter 10: “Ozu and the Poetics of Space: Enter into Yoko's Room in Hou's Café Lumière”
Tom Paulus, University of Antwerp, Belgium Part III: The Spiritual and Universal: Death and Rebirth, Time and Transcendence in Ozu Chapter 11: “Death and Duration in the Creation of Authentic Being in
Toyko Story”
Jack Lichten, Sophia University, Japan
Chapter 12: “The Moment of Instability in Early Ozu: A Textual and Intertexual Analysis of
PassingFancy”
Yuki Takimani, University of Tokyo, JapanChapter 13: "Ozu's
Good Morning: The Limits of Cinema and the Issue of Order”
Suzanne Beth, University of Montreal, Canada