Chapter 5 People from the Kansai region Ozu meets Inoue Kintaro Hazumi Tsuneo, a critic, writes the following in the article “My View of Ozu Yasujiro”. The people who appear in Ozu movies have always been unusually attached to their lives …

Being poor and pure I mentioned earlier that Yuasa-ya, which Toranosuke served as the branch manager, was a wholesaler that handled seafood and fertilizers. However, due to the store being damaged by the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, the…

There Was a Father Ozu wrote the following in his diary on April 1, 1937. In the spring of 1923, I returned to Tokyo for the first time in 10 years. At that time, my father was still alive. I once had yellow roses arranged on the second fl…

A Story of Floating Weeds On April 2, 1934, his father Toranosuke suddenly passed away. Ozu's diary from that time records Toranosuke's ever-changing state before and after his sudden death. At night, when I started writing continuity, my …

Chapter 4 Father Sensitive and lonely Many documents say that from 1913 to 1923, when Ozu lived in Matsusaka with his family ,mother, younger sister, and younger brother, only his father, Toranosuke, remained in Tokyo as the branch manager…

Nostalgia-② The deep sadness and disappointment of leaving Tokyo seems to have eased somewhat by the time Ozu writes “Early Summer”, when he was 47 years old. In “Early Summer”, Kenkichi (Nihonyanagi Hiroshi), a doctor at a university hosp…

Nostalgia-① For Ozu, who was born in Fukagawa, Tokyo, having to live in a rural town for 10 years during his youth had a great impact on his outlook on life. Ozu left Tokyo when he was nine years old, and by that age the sights and friends…

Kamata Nonsense On September 1, 1923, the Great Kanto Earthquake struck Tokyo and Yokohama. Kamata studio was also affected by the disaster, so the studio's staff, including Nomura Hotei, temporarily evacuated to Shimokamo studio in Kyoto.…

Training In December of the year he joined the studio, Ozu, who was 20 years old and had a strong physique like that of a boxer or wrestler, took the military draft test and passed. He became a soldier classified-Koh (a person judged to be…

Chapter 3 Tokyo Bumpkin In the spring of 1923, Ozu returned to Tokyo for the first time in 10 years and joined Shochiku Kamata studio on August 1st of that year. According to “Shochiku 80 Year History”, Shochiku was originally the promoter…

Substitute teacher In March 1922, after spending a year as a Ronin, Ozu took the entrance exam for Mie Prefectural Normal School (present-day Mie University Faculty of Education) and failed again. He was reluctantly assigned as a substitut…

I Flunked, But… In March 1921, just before Ozu graduated from junior high school, he took the entrance exams for Kobe High School of Commerce (present-day Kobe University Faculty of Economics), where his elder brother Shinichi was enrolled…

Enthusiasm for Leica According to Ozu's statement published in Camera Mainichi (June 1954 issue), he acquired a Leica Model-A around 1930 or 1931 after purchasing a Brownie. He asked Mohara Hideo, a cinematographer who was going to Germany…

Encountering with cameras I mentioned earlier that Ozu was good at sketching and drawing since he was a boy. Ozu's such talents were also fully demonstrated in later years in the film production. If you look at the screen compositions that…

Chigo incident Now, I must mention an incident that happened to Ozu while he was living his daily life as described above. There was a line written in his diary on October 17, 1918 that seemed to foretell that incident. Today I will leave …

Dormitory life When he was in elementary school, he was a well-rounded, honest son of a wealthy family with excellent grades, but what were Ozu's junior high school days like when he turned into a rough person who often received discipline…

Chapter 2 Youth Rough, but kind hearted, and innocent In April 1916, Ozu entered Mie Prefectural 4th Junior High School (which was renamed Ujiyamada Junior High School while Ozu was a student) and began living in the school boarding house …

Memories of railroad The railroad crossing between Ozu residence and the elementary school in Matsusaka was a light railway. Light railways are generally small-scale railways that use narrow 762mm tracks, and are characterized by the fact …

Original scenery of family separation In “I Was Born, But….”, a track runs in front of the garden of the main character's family's new home, and the brothers of the family walk along this track every morning to go to the elementary school …

A transfer pupil Ozu Yasujiro repeatedly depicted moving in his films. No other filmmaker has been as obsessed with depicting moving as Ozu. Moving can be said to be one of the core themes of Ozu's films. The theme of moving was taken up a…

Sickly child Wealthy days at a magnificent residence in Fukagawa were suddenly cut short in March 1913 when the entire family moved. The new address was 785 Kaibana, Matsusaka Town, Mie Prefecture (present-day Atago-machi, Matsusaka City).…

Part I: Ozu Yasujiro in his youth Ozu Yasujiro was born in Fukagawa Ward, Tokyo on December 12, 1903, and moved to Matsusaka-Town in Mie Prefecture, where his father Toranosuke was from, in March 1913. He was nine years old. As soon as Ozu…

Introduction ② -continued from file 1- After the Matsusaka days, Ozu left Tokyo for a long time during the Sino-Japanese War and when he was dispatched to Singapore as an army civilian employee. Ozu first served on the Chinese battle front…

Ozu Yasujiro in his later years; provided by Office Ozu Introduction ① There is a scene like this at the end of film “Early Summer” (1951), directed by Ozu Yasujiro. Noriko (Hara Setsuko), the daughter of a family of seven people from thre…