Love From Home, Ozu Tonight (film)

Good Afternoon, my Darling,

I am at home after picking Pearl up from the hair salon, which took a little longer than usual today. I just wanted to say hi. It'll be a quick turnaround because I have to head back to Pearl's in 75 minutes, so I will just read for a few and then walk down to the Oviatt and back, just to get some mileage in.

Tonight is movie night, and we are gonna see Ozu's "Early Summer". No doubt it will be another excellent film by him, so I am looking forward to it. I hope you are having a nice day. :) I will be around one computer or the other until 6:30, and then I'll be back at Pearl's by 10pm or so.

I Love You!  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

(back in a bit)

11:50pm : Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby. I just finished making some spaghetti for my late night snack, one of my all-time favorite dishes - I could eat spaghetti anytime, anywhere.

Well, maybe not for breakfast........but maybe even then! I just love the stuff.  :)

Ozu's "Early Summer" was another family drama. He works his themes over and over, almost as if examining them from another angle. It's like he makes a film and then says, "let me make it again, but differently". Both "Early Summer" and the film we saw last week, "Late Spring" have a main character named Noriko, played by the beautiful Setsuko Hara . The "Norikos" in each film are different characters from different families, but they might as well be the same. Both films revolve around the Japanese family of the post-war era, and in both films the parents and siblings want "Noriko" to get married. In Japan, at least in that era, women were expected to marry, and under pressure to do so, even if the marriage was often arranged, but also by that time, societal conventions were changing, and Japan was being influenced by the West, where women were becoming more independent.

Ozu was really ahead of his time in exploring these topics, and he has a group of actors who work in most of his films, including the incredible Chishu Ryu, who acted in 54 (!) of Ozu's films, beginning in the silent era.

But in the films we have seen in the last two weeks, a modern viewer can see, almost 70 years later, the struggle taking place in families between tradition (defacto marriage for women), and the outside cultural influences which led some women to take a stand for independence.

The actors in these films are really fantastic, and it is interesting to note that, going back to the early decades of the motion picture, that there were great filmmakers and great actors and actresses in many, many countries - right from the get go.

It's true that many of the foreign directors from the early days were heavily influenced by Hollywood films that they saw in their own countries (Ozu and Satyajit Ray loved American movies), but still, they took the ball and ran with it.

Putting on a show, going back to the era of the amphitheater, seems to be a built in artistic urge in all cultures.

Ozu is rapidly becoming one of my all-time favorite filmmakers.

I hope you had a good day. It is super late, so I will wish you sweet dreams and see you in the morning.

I Love You, Elizabeth.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo