Ozu & Ebert at the Movies

"With an Ozu film, every time I see it, it is a little different, because I am a little different and it moves with me." --Roger Ebert

Ten years before his death, Roger Ebert recorded a wonderful commentary on Yasujiro Ozu's Floating Weeds. Part of what made it so good was his opening disclaimer that he was by no means an expert on Japanese film, deferring to Donald Richie and David Bordwell. Liberated from the burden of sounding like an expert, Ebert was able to share something more akin to an appreciation.

Thus, his main concern throughout the commentary is not placing Floating Weeds within a context of Ozu's oeuvre and film history but rather an explication of Ozu's technique. Consequently, we get an analysis of the shots and a sense of how Ozu assembled them to tell his story. Along the way, Ebert draws our attention to the composition of the scenes, allowing us to not only appreciate the film, but learn enough about Ozu's style to watch any of his other films with a more educated eye.

On Low Camera Angles

A number of Ozu's characteristic techniques are generally well known to anyone who has ever taken an interest in his work. Ozu's camera almost never moved--not to pan, not to zoom, and certainly not to track. Transitions were also verboten--only simple cuts would do. Finally, Ozu preferred low camera angles, generally placing the camera lens below eye level of the actor, as if the camera were the humble servant. 

Ebert capably handles these well known techniques, but he still manages to add an interesting explanation as to why Ozu preferred the low camera angle, sharing an Ozu anecdote about how he wanted to avoid the illusion of the camera representing the point of view of an actor participating in the scene. He later adds another illuminating anecdote gleaned from the Wim Wenders documentary, Tokyo Ga, in which a member of Ozu's crew said the director found it hard to create interesting angles without the low angle shot because of all the parallel lines in Japanese rooms.

Back to Back

Of greater interest is Ebert's ability to explicate lesser known, but still distinctive aspects of Ozu's style, such as his tendency to show the backs of characters in his shots. Upon hearing this comment, I realized that a majority of the scenes do show the characters from the back or in profile, far more so than most directors attempt. While it is understandable that a director would shoot head on to make facial expressions visible, Ozu's style feels entirely natural. Whether it's because we feel like an eavesdropper in the room or the body language of the actors reveals as much as their facial expressions could, it just works.

Composition

Perhaps the most interesting discussion in the commentary is the one about Ozu's sense of composition in the scene. Ebert notes a number of tendencies, such as a frame within a frame (usually, but not always provided by walls and sliding doors in a room), and the inclusion of hanging lights at the top of the frame as a visual reference point. All three interior stills were selected for this post to illustrate a different Ebert point, but coincidentally they all have a light at the top of the frame.

What really stood out for me was Ebert's comment on Ozu's combined love of placing objects in the lower right foreground and the colour red. I can't watch an Ozu film now without watching for these objects, adding another level of charm to sustain repeated viewings. Scene compositions mattered so much to Ozu that they trumped continuity issues, with Ebert noting you can almost play a game of "follow the moving teapot" in one scene as it moved to serve a visual function depending on which character is being shot during a particular scene. One could say Ozu was a photographer who just happened to work with moving pictures.

By the time the commentary is coming to a close, one feels better educated, but not schooled. Ebert's blend of erudition and observation creates a feeling of watching a movie with a friend in the room, not a critic on the screen. The overall effect is such that it is easy to forgive a small error here or there. For example, at one point he describes Floating Leaves as only one of four colour films made by Ozu (also naming An Autumn Afternoon, Equinox Flower, Good Morning), leaving out Late Autumn and The End of Summer. But what is an innocent mistake or two between friends? In fact, it would be churlish to make too great a deal of it considering how much wisdom and insight gets imparted along the way. For those who only know Roger Ebert through his TV shows and writing, Floating Weeds is almost worth seeking out for his commentary alone. Should you discover the charms of a great Japanese director along the way, I'm sure no one would have been more delighted than Ebert himself.