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Yasujiro Ozu

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Filmmaker

The Resume

    (December 12, 1903-December 12, 1963)
    Born in Tokyo, Japan
    Directed the films 'I Graduated, But...' (1929), 'I Was Born, But...' (1932), An Inn in Tokyo' (1935), 'There Was a Father' (1942), 'Last Spring' (1949), 'Tokyo Summer' (1951), 'Tokyo Story' (1953), 'Tokyo Twilight' (1957), 'Floating Weeds' (1959), 'Late Autumn' (1960), 'The End of Summer' (1961), and 'Autumn Afternoon' (1962)
    President of the Directors Guild of Japan (1955-63)

Why he might be annoying:

    He failed the entrance exams for Kobe University and for a teacher training program.
    During his military service in the Sino-Japanese War, he served in a unit handling illegal chemical weapons (1937-38).
    He was a heavy drinker who measured his progress while writing scripts by how many sake bottles he had consumed.
    He lived with his mother until her death in 1961.
    His films were considered 'too Japanese' for overseas release, so he remained little known outside of Japan until after his death.

Why he might not be annoying:

    At age three, he was in a coma for several days after contracting meningitis.
    He developed a distinctive visual style, featuring scenes shot in unbroken takes, minimal camera movement, a lack of fades or dissolves between scenes, and low-angle tatami shots (named because the camera was placed at the height of a person kneeling on a tatami mat).
    Roger Ebert wrote, 'In thirty years of teaching evening film classes for the University of Chicago, I have shown only one film that made the audience cry, and that was 'Tokyo Story.''
    'Tokyo Story' was named the greatest film of all time in a Sight and Sound poll of filmmakers (2012).

Credit: C. Fishel


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