Okay, looks like Criterion has 15 titles out. This is awesome news!!!
My favorite Ozus are “Record of a Tenement Gentleman” and “I Was Born But. . .”
Record of a Tenement Gentleman is available as a japanese import through sellers on Amazon but I’m not sure of the quality. The BFI will probably release it since I think it’s one of his better known works.
So, nobody cares about Ozu or nobody has a region free player? Perhaps I should have called this:
DIRECTOR OF THE DECADE: YASUJIRO OZU
Ozu is the director of the decade because he captures the simple way of living most of us and our families go through on a daily basis rather than focusing on serial killers, blue aliens, bat-eared avengers of the night, symbolic talking critters, heroic devils spawn, or identity switches.
Now…go!!! :)
Early Summer could have really used a talking fox, I thought.
Thanks Mike. Between buying all of these DVD’s and having to travel to England to see the ones in the theater, I’ll be broke for the rest of my life. Don’t you know we’re in the midst of a depression?
“Don’t you know we’re in the midst of a depression?”
Shiiiit, depressions over, son. My boy Cam’erons be dropping half a billion here, half a billion there. Write my boy and ask him to spot you a few hunnert fo’ some Ozu dvds. Make sure you address him as “king” though.
“Early Summer could have really used a talking fox, I thought.”
A clear disadvantage of the film when compared to the more recent “Dreams” by Kurosawa which features a talking fox as one of the main protagonists. It also makes it clear that Ozu was not a modernist.
The optimist in me tells me that a lot of people already have all of Ozu’s films through shady means so this news is meaningless. Bravo! I will catch up with you all in three years thanks to the BFI.
No, we already have all of his films because of Tartan.
But they went bust and their titles out of print (although they have risen from the ashes since), so it’s nice to know that the BFI are getting them back out there.
This Ozu chap, is he any good?
The cinema season is showing in my home town of Edinburgh. Yipee!
I’m working whilst I Was Born, But….." is showing with live musical accompaniment. Boo hoo.
Well, I for one am excited about this news; hopefully the DVDs will eventually come into fruition. And I’m actually also familiar with Ozu’s thematically diverse and visually and stylistically inventive early films, where a few of his known rigorous tendencies (low-angle, “tatami shots”; creating 360-degree playing space by graphically matching alternate shots; employing abstract “pillow shots” as transitions between sequences, etc.) are comparatively more often aligned with pans, tracking shots, close-ups, fade-outs, etc. There’s a rather remarkable hand-held p.o.v. shot in Ozu’s earliest extant film Days of Youth (a student comedy which bears traces of Lloyd and Lubitsch) involving a skier who eventually falls into a pile of snow (along with the camera, of course). I’m sure many who’re only familiar with his later films will be surprised by the overall versatility (or a certain lack of distinctiveness) present in his early work. They may also gasp at the sight of a moll (played by Mizoguchi axiom Tanaka Kinuyo, no less) holding a hand-gun in Dragnet Girl, one of the many proto-gangster pics Ozu did early on. Speaking of Mizoguchi, Woman of Tokyo actually feels more like one of his efforts. While the three issued together by Eclipse under the subtitle of “Three Family Comedies” to me play closer to his shomin-geki films about the working class and their predicaments. HK distributor Panorama made a number of these available a few years back but I’d like to believe that BFI will do a better job with their releases
Hey fuck you U.K. for being able to see Late Spring in the cinema.
But also, thanks U.K., because I have a region free player.
But fuck the economy, because I don’t have a job.
But maybe thanks Criterion when they simply steal all of BFI’s releases and pass them off as their own?
And then thanks Netflix for being great.
But then, I have no girlfriend : (
lol
That was actually pretty funny.
Mike Spence
Apologies if this has already been covered but the BFI has a major Ozu release coming soon. Their releasing a few films in theaters and releasing 32 films on DVD over the next 3 years!! From the website:
In 2010, the BFI pays tribute to the Japanese master filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu with his films released at the cinema nationwide and also on DVD.
In the cinema, there’ll be a full retrospective of his films at BFI Southbank in January and February and the release of two of his masterpieces (Tokyo Story and Late Autumn) in cinemas nationwide.
On DVD, we’ll see the release of 32 of the great director’s films over the course of 3 years, starting with the Noriko Trilogy (Tokyo Story, Late Spring, Early Summer) in April 2010 – you can pre-order them now, details beneath the stills to the right.
And Tokyo Story on blu-ray for those who care. I have no idea how many Ozu films Criterion carries but this sounds like important news for anyone who loves his work and has bought one of the always inexpensive region free players.