Ozu

One of my favorite directors is Ozu Yasujiro. Ozu began making movies during the silent film era. He later made a number of "talking" films during the 1940's and 1950's, some of which are classics. Perhaps the most famous one is Tokyo Story which critics consistently rank among the top films of all time. My personal favorite is Late Spring (Banshun). Ozu's movies usually don't have much of a plot. He tells the stories of ordinary families leading ordinary lives. The beauty of his movies is that he shows us the joy and sadness of human relationships without spelling it out. He leaves it up to the audience to discover the truth for themselves. The film critic Roger Ebert described Tokyo Story this way: "...it is about our families, our natures, our flaws and our clumsy search for love and meaning. It isn't that our lives keep us too busy for our families. It's that we have arranged them to protect us from having to deal with big questions of love, work and death. "

In his autobiography, the legendary director Kurosawa Akira mentions how he probably would have never made it in the film industry, were it not for Ozu. Both men were working for the same movie company during World War Two. Kurosawa's first film was made at a time when Japanese movies were subjected to government censorship. The censors were ready to reject Kurosawa's film, but Ozu, who sat on the review board, intervened on his behalf.