There Was a Father

Scale

Le Salaire du zappeur from José Oliveira on Vimeo.

The condition of "early Ozu" which in parlance = "before Late Spring" / The father and son close the shôji simultaneously, the bond that cannot be broken
will the end / An incredible encapsulation of time / A funeral of all events
d

The angle and the paradise / Begins, in the second shot, after credits, by repeating with the women the angle and parade of the opening Only Son / Like Ryôsuke in that film / _____ / Horikawa (Chishû Ryû) teaches geometry / on a class excursion, / the student Yoshida disobeys / teacher's orders to stay
Lifeboat [Alfred Hitchcock, 1944]
he; /

"Pillow shot" as teens yell out onto the lake / the soundtrack

the Iowa Writers' Workshop

one of the Buddhist markers / capsized boat /

Horikawa, Hirata sit and talk, Horikawa announcing his resignation from the school deflecting Hirata's advice to the contrary: a tree bound to support stake in background echoes chalkboard image from schoolroom lesson of circumscribed forms, angles,
what is between these men /



"The grave next to your mother's is your grandfather's.
He sold that house to put me through school." /

Holidays alone without a wife

Dad went through the roof, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky on Alex Ross Perry

the sewing and son, synchronously fishing: the Tale of Floating Weeds / The spinning wheels, The Only Son, Horikawa, Tokyo job, overseer at a textile plant, Ryôhei's boarding-highschool, / The Only Son, the mother's occupation — now automated wartime,
and jobs for men /

He meets Hirata in a go — thirteen years since, and Hirata's daughter grown —

but he is a YOUNG SON, SEIICHI (where is mother?) /

Ryôhei is leading! = teaching chemistry — specifically, manufacture molecular makeup of TNT / First event mentor: "Your older brother was drafted, wasn't he?" /
The son offers the father spending money, the father's pledge to offer it to the dead mother's and wife's
star altar /
Old students a former teacher no longer recognizes by face, but honors their call / Ryôhei's shaved his head for the draft / At the dinner for Horikawa and Hirata:
"Sensei, remember how you punished Iwamoto and me for fighting in third grade?"

"I'm afraid I don't." /

The shot past these same former students, into the hospital room and deathbed of Horikawa, surrounded by family and friends, his head, face, dim / "It's nothing to be sad about. I did the very best I could."

— not entirely definitively ring, though perhaps they do, — "I am happy."

After the father passes, the son Ryôhei tells Fumiko his new wife that the time he spent together with his father was "the best week of [his] life" / She buries her face in a handkerchief and weeps, / and Ryôhei off to war

Chichi ariki [There Was a Father] by Yasujirô Ozu, 1942:









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Previous pieces on Ozu at Cinemasparagus:

A Straightforward Brat [1929]

Friends Fighting Japanese-Style [1929]

Tokyo Chorus [1931]

A Picture-Book for Grown-Ups: I Was Born, But... [1932]

Where Have the Dreams of Youth All Gone? [1932]

Passing Fancy [1933]

A Tale of Floating Weeds [1934]

Kagamijishi [1936]

The Only Son [1936]

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