Good Morning

This is a not quite so random meditation on things Ozu: the Brattle Theater screened Ozu's Ohayo this weekend - any chance to see Ozu on a big screen is a treat not to be missed. This was a particularly nice event, as it was introduced by Ty Burr, of the Boston Globe (as well as the Brattle's Ned Hinckle) - there were other critics in the audience (notable, the Phoenix's Brett Michel), leading to a nice little discussion of the film.

Good Morning is a bit of an oddity in Ozu's career. Burr called it his only full comedy, which might be a bit of a stretch (especially counting the pre-war films), but it probably is the most sustained comedy. It tends to avoid the melancholic twists most of his films have - it doesn't linger on the loss or failure or disappointment that crops up in his work. But one way it does this is by making the comedy itself darker. Good Morning contains some pretty harsh material - unemployment and thieves, nasty gossips and spying neighbors, a woman telling her mother she should go to Narayama to die, and mom giving it back... Compensates for its more consistent comic tone by making the comedy darker - the jokes are crueler, more at people's expense.

But that's not the only thing that's different. Start with the music - the score is by Toshiro Mayuzumi - who scored Imamura's early films, as well as a few others for big directors - Ichikawa, a Naruse or so... That's a departure - both in his style, which is a kind of breezy jazz, with streaks of experimentation (especially in the Imamura's) and the occasional comic sound effect - and in the fact that the music actually seems integrated into the film. Ozu's soundtracks usually play fairly neutral - other than an occasional music theme, there's not much sense of the music working together with the image and story. Mayazumi, though, works the music in more conventionally - partly, I think, by slipping it closer to diegetic music - radios and TVs and the singing cabaret couple next door. Partly because things like Ozu's fart sound effects are so readily integrated into Mayazumi's style. It works very nicely here.

Mayuzumi's score also helps give the film a definite Tati feel - noted by Ty Bur and members of the audience. It's a good comparison - and another departure for Ozu. Good Morning is full of long, layered, Tati-esque shots - people moving around in the far distance of the shots, action staged in multiple planes, - creating lots of little silent comedy off in the corner or the back of the screen. And this film makes a lot of its space, as space - the houses and neighborhood as social spaces - much like Tati. Ozu usually develops his key spaces - exploring them - but usually analytically, fragmented. This film has a lot more depth shots than usual. And it's all given social significance - these crappy little prefab houses, all alike, all crammed next to each other. Ozu plays it for all its worth - the interchangeable houses, the way they're piled on top on one another. His customary low angle, combined with some fairly long lenses, flatten out the space completely - so people talking across the street, each in their own house, seem to be standing next to one another. He is known for flattening out space- stripping away the depth markers - but here, it's given a fairly direct social meaning. It exaggerates their proximity. So does the fact that - if I am not mistaken - often the people you can see moving around in the back of the shot are, in fact, across the street.

He emphasizes this: he shoots the various houses alike, from the same angles, with the same compositions - reinforcing the impression of all these people living in these identical, prefab houses, and never able to get away from anyone around them. (Though it could be worse - they could live in the godawful concrete slab the english teacher lives in.) In the beginning, especially, he cuts between different houses, in disorienting ways - it takes a while to figure out where you are. And of course - he uses this to build to one of his great gags: a drunken man comes home, starts taking off his shoes - in the wrong house. When the housewife comes to greet him, he even asks her why she's in his house... when he does get to his house, he's still not sure until his wife comes out to nag him... At the same time, though, Ozu does teach you which place is which - you just have to look for which pots and bowls are where...

Ah, pots and bowls - and hula hoops - and circles - and Red: it's not entirely uncharacteristic Ozu. In fact you can watch the whole film just following the movement around the screen of the red things -bowls and cups and stripes of cloth and socks and coats and rugs and lettering on boxes and the trim on the mailboxes and the hula hoops.... there's always that....

Though what there isn't: nature? This came up in the conversation after the film - the lack of nature in this film. Somewhat downplayed by Burr and others - but it's notable. Ozu doesn't spend much time in nature proper - but most of his films include quite a bit of nature in them. He's particularly fond of the sea, which figures in many films, with quite a few scenes set by the sea - but even when the characters don't interact with nature, he usually includes quite a few "pillow shots" of nature - the sky, sea, trees, hills, birds (at least), and so on. There's not much of that here. The "pillow shots" are of lamps and lampposts, electrical towers, hula hoops.... Not much natural.

Though there is an even more shocking omission in this film: where are the trains? No trains? Thankfully, they are evoked - the scene at the end at the station... and train whistles, once or twice during the film... But - no trains! how did he stand it?

Anyway - that's enough. It's a fascinating film - it's also a pretty unambiguous masterpiece, for all its oddness in Ozu's career, and all its seeming lightness. As always he is a perfect master of story telling - elliptical and subtle as always. The way he shows us that the 2 salesmen are in cahoots; the way he wraps it up - the old man coming home drunk, to the wrong house, then his house,saying he's happy - why is he happy later - we see him at his new job as a salesman - he visits the family, they talk about his wares, though we never see a sale being made. Instead - Ozu switches to the boys' story - taking food, running away - and the parents' and friends' concern... and only at the end, when they come back and see, almost as an afterthought, what they see.... does he let you wrap it up. And - the gags (including the original "that's not a knife - this is a knife!" gag), the politics - the ubiquity of money, and fears about money, the consumerism, selling, etc. - the social changes registered - the concentration of language, different registers of language... a grand and glorious film. And funny as heck to boot!