In this Blog I really want to start to discuss some of the ideas that I hope to look at in my essay – and I have already begun to think about- since watching Tokyo Story.
I feel that Tokyo Story is such a beautiful, yet personal, story. It feels monumentally unimportant yet at the same time leaves you with so many ideas about family that it feels more important the more you think about it.
I was reading one critic’s account of the film and he stated that it was one of the greatest films of all time. I have to say I disagree completely with this comment. Not because it is a bad film, I found it very enjoyable. However I feel that this film simply doesn’t set out to be a ‘greatest film of all time’ unlike films such as King Kong and Titanic. It aims for something much more personal, much more micro. It echoes a quite sentiment, a sadness that is neither grand nor great but instead poignant in its simplicity.
The film is at time stagnant, the staging is so rigid and false it seems at times to miss opportunities where the characters feelings could have really been explored. Yet the emotion is still there and its encouraged instead by universal characters that allow us to reflect upon our lives and situations. When I watched the film I thought about my own only surviving Grandmother. She is such an important person in my life, yet sometimes when she is around I find myself spacing out in our conversation and I know I don’t visit her enough anymore. I hate that I’ve actually written that down because, like the movie suggests, we don’t want to admit these bigger things in life and instead focus on smaller things like work, weather and TV. To me the message was very simple yet very true.
Interior in the film also blocks emotion, and contains the characters just as they contain their emotion. The film is shot about three feet above the floor, giving it a two dimensional feeling and the camera never moves. This encourages a composition of interior that feels like the audience is not a part of the action, we to are emotional disabled by the film. This use of camera stillness and framing of shots also encourages the audience to feel as if they are looking in on the action. It seems as though we are the nosy neighbor looking in on a family.
Another thing I really like about this film is the old couple. Their contentment and comfortable emotion around each other is so real. They’ve know each other for so long there is no need to talk about emotion or acknowledge their connection. Yet the love is there, maybe hidden by years, but its there and despite death it remains in that contented, old fashioned way. The film makes you value emotion and connectedness. It’s not the passionate love of Fountainhead, but it’s more real and to me more enviable.
I feel that Tokyo Story is such a beautiful, yet personal, story. It feels monumentally unimportant yet at the same time leaves you with so many ideas about family that it feels more important the more you think about it.
I was reading one critic’s account of the film and he stated that it was one of the greatest films of all time. I have to say I disagree completely with this comment. Not because it is a bad film, I found it very enjoyable. However I feel that this film simply doesn’t set out to be a ‘greatest film of all time’ unlike films such as King Kong and Titanic. It aims for something much more personal, much more micro. It echoes a quite sentiment, a sadness that is neither grand nor great but instead poignant in its simplicity.
The film is at time stagnant, the staging is so rigid and false it seems at times to miss opportunities where the characters feelings could have really been explored. Yet the emotion is still there and its encouraged instead by universal characters that allow us to reflect upon our lives and situations. When I watched the film I thought about my own only surviving Grandmother. She is such an important person in my life, yet sometimes when she is around I find myself spacing out in our conversation and I know I don’t visit her enough anymore. I hate that I’ve actually written that down because, like the movie suggests, we don’t want to admit these bigger things in life and instead focus on smaller things like work, weather and TV. To me the message was very simple yet very true.
Interior in the film also blocks emotion, and contains the characters just as they contain their emotion. The film is shot about three feet above the floor, giving it a two dimensional feeling and the camera never moves. This encourages a composition of interior that feels like the audience is not a part of the action, we to are emotional disabled by the film. This use of camera stillness and framing of shots also encourages the audience to feel as if they are looking in on the action. It seems as though we are the nosy neighbor looking in on a family.
Another thing I really like about this film is the old couple. Their contentment and comfortable emotion around each other is so real. They’ve know each other for so long there is no need to talk about emotion or acknowledge their connection. Yet the love is there, maybe hidden by years, but its there and despite death it remains in that contented, old fashioned way. The film makes you value emotion and connectedness. It’s not the passionate love of Fountainhead, but it’s more real and to me more enviable.
4 comments:
I like to hope that the 'greatest film of all time' would not be a special-effects blockbuster, but a beautiful, poignant, personal story. I guess it depends on the definition of 'greatest'.
I guess my point was - it is a great film- but those 'Blockbuster' films set out to be 'the greatest film' where this one doesn't. it manages to be great without trying.
I agree with your statement that interior is used in Ozu's film to block emotion. The restrictive shots used really emphasise the coldness of these characters.
The old couple is sweet. I particularly like the air-cushion exchange at the beginning of the film. I was expecting an "I told you so" from Tomi, but its absence attests to the patience that they’ve developed for each other over time. The subtlety of this is great.
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