Ozu Quotes

The clock is impotent; mechanical time does not affect those living in an eternal present.

Flora had not seemed to mind the excessive amount of time their parents demanded from them, which had meant that he could spend more time in his room working on his model houses and less time downstairs in the den, fidgeting through one of his father’s interminable Ozu film festivals.

This distinction between form and experience is not pedantic, but fundamental: a form can express the Transcendent, an experience cannot. A form can express the common ground in which all things share. An experience can only express one man's reaction to that common ground.

In retrospect, the reason for her decision seems evident. Our Noriko, for so many years troubled by the demands of society on one hand and the needs of the self on the other, finally decided. She would do what she wanted. And she did. All attempts to lure her out over the years have been rebuffed. When a documentary was made on Ozu, she refused to appear, just as, when he died, she did not attend his funeral. Setsuko Hara was her own person at last. On Japanese actress Setsuko Hara

In Ozu it is often the trivial gestures that narrate the situation most eloquently, far more so than the dialogue tends to do.

But as we were falling in love with Barbery’s building, we were also falling in love with her characters: Madame Michel, Monsieur Ozu, and Paloma, a jaded little girl bent on both committing suicide and also setting her apartment on fire before she turns thirteen. The Elegance of the Hedgehog is, in many ways, a book about books (and films): what they can teach us, and how they can open up worlds. But it’s really, like most great books, about people—and the connections they make, how they save one another and themselves.

There is a fundamental difference between being slow to create mood and being slow to activate the viewer.

Wide angles are favored by slow cinema. A tableau, whether exterior or interior, offers multiple points of interest. One can see the action, the surroundings, the people talking, the people listening, the weather, and so on. The frame doesn’t direct the viewer’s gaze; it frees it to wander.

Besides these people there are many directors I revere as teachers: Shimazu Yasujirō (1897–1945), Yamanaka Sadao (1909–1938), Mizoguchi Kenji, Ozu Yasujirō and Naruse Mikio. When I think about these people, I want to raise my voice in that old song: “… thanks for our teacher’s kindness, we have honored and revered.…” But none of them can hear me now.

(Joan Jonas) ...Jonas her gün aynı rutini tam olarak takip etmese de, genellikle sabah yedi buçukta kalkıp minyatür kanişi Ozu'yu yürüyüşe çıkarıyor. Ondan sonra yakındaki çok sevdiği bir kafede kahvesini içip gazetesini okuyor. Jonas çatı katına dönünce çalışmaya başlıyor ve genellikle arka planda müzik dinleyerek bütün gün devam ediyor. (s.221)

En fin. Hace un rato vi "Buenos días", la bellísima película de Ozu. Qué alegría más grande saber que existe esa película, que puedo verla muchas veces, que puedo verla siempre.

What is both disconcerting and marvelous about Kakuro Ozu is that he combines a sort of childish enthusiasm and candor with the attentiveness and kindliness of an old sage. I am not accustomed to such a relationship with the world; it seems to me that he views it with indulgence and curiosity, whereas the other human beings I know display either wariness and kindness (Manuela), ingenuity and kindness (Olympe) or arrogance and cruelty (everyone else). Such a combination of eagerness, lucidity and magnanimity is delightfully unusual.

El estilo trascendental no es una experiencia, sino una forma. El estilo trascendental no pretende hacer que el espectador comparta las lágrimas de Hirayama; lo que intenta es purgar esas lágrimas e integrarlas en una forma más extensa.