Author: Jonathan Rosenbaum Translator: Puyi Zhu Proofreader: Issac Source: Criterion
From the very beginning, Good Morning (1959) is deeply infused with cheerful musicality, whether in the opening two shots, the combination of static visual elements and orchestral arrangements (the juxtaposition of the fences and clotheslines of adjacent houses, all arranged horizontally perpendicular to the power towers), or in the rhythmic patterns of the characters' behavior, with various characters walking through the paths between the houses, between the houses and the hills, and on the top of the hill — they always move from right to left.
Good Morning (1959)
In the opening prank, on the top of a hill on every sunny morning, a group of boys fart as a way to gag each other, what could be more musical than this scene? Or is this another form of theme and variation?
It's all this that makes me unable to agree with the late Ozu expert Donald Richie, who argues that "Good Morning' is in some ways Ozu's most concise film, at least one of the least complex in form, an example of a film built around a motif."
Of course, its motif is there, and it's crucial; two examples that Ritchie see as exemplary, namely that the title of the film contains two meanings of farting and greeting, and Ozu has done enough variations on both.
But as long as we focus on the connection between these two themes — including the realization that farting is a way for boys to say "good morning" to each other, and the housewives using the farting sounds of their husbands as a convocation — the possibilities for comedy and drama become endless when irony and music come together. None of this is simple.
In a more general sense, the standardization of the environment of suburban living, which leads to drunken neighbors walking in the wrong house one night, and also causes the entire community to reject a couple with a free-spirited couple, is the core theme of Good Morning, with liturgical and social implications—especially if you think that Ozu, like Jacques Tati, is that the expression of social form and the expression of film form are two sides of the same coin in their work.
Because the society Ozu depicts is inherently ritualistic, naturally, his sense of this social boundary and limitation is closely related to his traditional social posture. He gently criticizes this limitation, while at the same time playing with this absurdity and etiquette.
Some of the unexpected brilliance of Good Morning (or Ohayo in Japanese) lies in the subtlety of Ozu's form, using colorful colors and the same cubic shapes (quilts, other furniture, clothing) on the set to construct a visual rhyme to refute the monotony and reproduction of suburban communities, or at least to complicate them.
Similarly, Ozu's ability to find that complexity and universality in the cross-cutting pattern of Japanese sitcoms is amazing.
Xiao Shi and Xiao Yong, one 13 years old and the other 7 years old, were often criticized by their mothers because they always stayed at the nearby bohemian couple's house watching TV (mainly watching sumo wrestling, which was very popular at the time) instead of going to English classes; their English tutor had no job at the time and occasionally did some translation for their aunt, and their neighbor, Mr. Fuzawa, who was also unemployed, often complained to the boys' father, Mr. Kobayashi, about his difficult life after he was retired from the company.
At the same time, the membership fee of the local women's association inexplicably disappeared, and the treasurer, Mrs. Haraguchi (another Ozu's royal actress, Haruko Sugimura), had recently bought a washing machine, which aroused some jealousy and suspicion until Mrs. Haraguchi found out that her mother had foolishly forgotten to hand over the membership fee to her.
This hectic neighborhood interaction, conveyed through cross-editing, is either a contrast or a fit for each person,from trivial to profound, and from profound to trivial, to hint at how often serious and unserious things alternate—all thanks to Ozu's keen sense of form.
Ozu is philosophical and calm, balancing the important things and insignificant places in daily life, and the following scene vividly reflects this characteristic - Mr. Kobayashi returns home to find his sons restless because he does not buy a TV.
He blamed his sons for talking too much, and Koshi retorted to his father that adults were the same, and gave examples of greetings such as "good morning" and "today is really good" between adults, and Mr. Kobayashi was even more angry. Children retaliate with oaths of silence — a serious gesture that can have all sorts of absurd effects when it comes to dealing with neighbors and teachers.
"Good Morning" focuses on embodying the profound necessity and extreme stupidity of social interaction, and is therefore more subtle and grandiose than it might have been at first. It is widely considered a remake of Ozu's 1932 masterpiece I was born, but..., and "Good Morning" is also made more interesting by its differences rather than similarities with that film— most importantly, how the authority of fathers differed between pre-war and postwar Japan.
I Was Born, But... (1932)
The focus of the earlier film was on a family adapting to a new suburban community by experiencing brutal social enlightenment: the father belittled himself in front of his boss for success, but the sons were accepted by their peers for humiliating local bullies. The father's behavior shocked them, and he insisted that he had to belittle himself in order to support his sons, and the children retaliated by hunger strikes.
Today, 27 years later, in "Good Morning," a more relaxed and tragic atmosphere, Tokyo's middle class is back in the suburbs, but the family has now stabilized, and serious problems — aging, unemployment, isolation — are mostly for their neighbors and friends.
The sons complained and resisted much more gently. It is worth noting that the comedic sense of the first film was mainly provided by the act of humiliating others, and the theme only had power when it caused discord between father and son.
But in Good Morning, a deeper sense of humor extends to the rebellion itself and everything that comes with the act of rebellion, and the little tricks that surround it; one no longer thinks of the father's authority as a monument that can be overthrown.
Alexander Jacobi noted in his Handbook of Reviews for Japanese Film Directors that while Ozu's importance is obvious, "Ozu is one-sided and misunderstood among audiences in many Western countries". Among these cited misconceptions, there is the view that "Ozu uses static and unchanging photography", that his devout Buddhist Zen Buddhism seems to explain everything in his films, and that he is "the most Japanese director in Japan".
But Ozu shot almost twice as many silent films as there are sound films, and in his early works, camera movement was abundant. Ozu teased some Westerners, such as the idea that his work could be explained in Zen Buddhism, and one of Ozu's keenest and most insightful critics, Ren shigehiko, believes that he may actually be the least Japanese of the major Japanese directors.
Ozu's admiration for Hollywood movies has run throughout his life, and he has even put most of his films in the sunny weather of Southern California rather than the rainy days of Japan. In fact, it can be argued that Ozu's dual grasp of reality and form has more to do with his views on Hollywood filmmaking than with the Japanese "alternative."
Unfortunately, with the exception of the last chapter titled "Clear Sky", there is no English translation of Renshi Shigehiko's book on Ozu. But I think the Westerners' misconceptions about Ozu pointed out by Shigehiko Renshi can be summed up in the following passage: "Ozu's genius lies in choosing an image that can be integrated into the film at a specific moment and play a poetic role, rather than directly attaching an image to the film and excluding poetry."
In Good Morning, this poetic mastery is more or less reflected in the unopened box in the hallway with the new TELEVISION, a perfect illustration of this rule—and an interpretation of another rule: the transformation of something ordinary, familiar into something special through deliberately arranged order and placement strategies.
Due to my interest in "full disclosure," I should mention my first visit to Japan in late 1998. I was invited by Shigehiko Ren, who was then the interim president of the University of Tokyo, to join himself, as well as with Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien, his screenwriter Zhu Tiantian, and French critics Jean-Duchet and Terry Jussi to a seminar called "Yasujiro Ozu Around the World."
This was part of Ozu's retrospective, and the most memorable one for me was the display of notes from each of his works, which was preserved by the filmmaker. Ozu is a meticulous control freak who records exactly how long each shot is expected to last, and how long it will take to present in the film.
Without a doubt, the best moment of this event for me was that when I arrived in the hall, an elderly Japanese-speaking gentleman chatted with Hou Dao and me, shook hands with us, and then left.
It was a puzzling encounter, but then it immediately became reasonable, and when Hou astutely imitated the comic signature of "Sudden Monk", I understood that he was Aoki, the youngest son in "I was born, but..." and the child actor discovered by Ozu, he was the anti-hero in the title of "Sudden Monk", his screen career lasted 75 years, and even starred in Suzuki Kiyoshun's 2001 "The Opera of the Pistol".
Perhaps the most comical scene in I Was Born, But... is perhaps the most obvious moment of self-reflexivity in Ozu's work, contrasting the organization of the little boy's school with the systematization of his father's office. The boy at school walked quickly past the camera, which quickly followed in the opposite direction, and then cut to his father's office with another quick follow-up, passing at the same speed through a row of workers at the table, some sitting and some standing.
It was as if every worker was yawning as the camera passed, with one exception, and then the camera moved back, stopped, and waited for him to yawn too; once he yawned, the camera returned to its previous speed, passing by the other workers, all of whom were yawning.
This is a rather peculiar moment of self-referentiality in Ozu's work, as it equates the director's position of power with that of the school and office, which are the two main areas of domination in the film, apart from the more uncertain fields (ruled by boys) and the family (ruled by fathers).
Of course, "Good Morning" contrasts children and adults in its own satirical way, such as juxtaposing a young couple's shy chat while waiting for a train with a farting game for boys. (There's another implicit contrast to the childish jealousy of adults when a family buys a TV or a washing machine.) )
Similar to the cautious feeling of economic behavior, the narrative of simple small plots (if associated) alternates with complex camera movements, less limited by the narrative process, depicting the physical layout of the community itself: vertical paths between houses, and avenues on the empty embankments behind them, all pertinently showing the exact spatial structure, as well as those good people isolated from each other in the interdependent social structure.
In this case, the sliding sliding doors and the changes in the lens become the overall level of the same "architecture" – an interconnected complex autonomous complex – and the details of the advertising flyer even become part of the design, fascinating.
For example, the movie posters for Stanley Kramer's "Prison Break" and Louis Mahler's "Lovers," combined with the various sumo wrestlers on television, not only allude to stubborn sons, but also have a sense of connecting rival political parties, which often seem to work under the surface of daily greetings.
A grandmother complains about her dissatisfaction with her prayers, a drunken Mr. Tomizawa comes home in the wrong house, a young couple who are onomatopoeia are quietly squeezed out of the community, and a meticulous Mr. Kobayashi doubts that television will "produce a hundred million idiots" – these are typical waveless moments, but each goes straight to the heart of the movie.