Ozu's Interiors - LATE SPRING
Here I present a series of screen-grabs from Yasujiro Ozu's lovely, moving film from 1949, Late Spring. Specifically, I chose shots of uninhabited interiors - most from the house shared by a father and daughter played by Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara, Ozu "regulars" who appeared together in five of the director's films.
Theres a sort of superficial sameness to all of Ozu's films which, I have to admit, I find a little tedious. But I think about his movies often, anticipate the ones I've yet to see and discover all sorts of nuances upon repeat viewings. My nascent appreciation was roused and finally cemented when I began to think about his films as variations on a theme - much like a painter will offer several slightly different canvases of the same still life, or like a familiar piece of music that isn't as familiar as you think.
The mature idiom of Ozu's later films is well known and regarded as one of the most distinctly identifiable, austere (in the best sense of the word?) and ultimately lovely film languages exercised by any director. Countless (maybe too many, in fact) words have been written - by writers better and historians more knowledgeable and insightful than me - on his working methods and aesthetic motivations, and the remarkably restrained palette that yielded such emotionally complex results. 
Films such as Tokyo Story or Late Spring are "simple" stories of common human behaviors and habits which clothe deep affections, longings, shames and regrets. His work examines and respects the vulnerability and worth of even the most humble, otherwise unobserved lives.
What engages me most, though, is how Ozu communicates all of this: told in a manner that appears repetitive, yet upon closer scrutiny instead reveals itself to be carefully modulated and restrained. There's a fine line between discipline and formula, and I think Ozu errs on the former side of that distinction.
Ozu is famous for his "pillow shots" - while this might have a pornographic connotation (ha!) it really just refers to the short, almost decorative transitional shots separating one scene from another: grass, clouds, empty streets, passing trains, etc. The caps I've posted here aren't quite pillow shots; most are the beginnings or ends of scenes, just before or after the characters enter or leave the frame.
Still, I'm fascinated by how frequently Ozu shows a vacant room - even if just for a second - and feel it adds space and interest to the rhythms of his storytelling. I find myself obsessing over the compositions of these shots; not that they're "complete" without the presence of his actors, but I do see something really beautiful there.
I don't claim to have a great knowledge of Japanese art, but I believe it has a long tradition of "flatness" - a decided avoidance of perspective - that I find very appealing.
In these brief shots of interiors, I sense some of that tendency. While Ozu certainly doesn't abandon or obfuscate depth, he does arrange the planes of walls and furniture parallel to one another, and photographs their overlapping edges or tangential corners as one, almost abstract composition. Occasionally he'll shoot from an angle, but rarely. As silly or obvious as this might sound, some of these shots remind me of Mondrian's work.
It's also worth noting how seldom Ozu ever utilized a zoom lens, pans or tracking shots. I know they're not entirely absent from his work, but when any sort of camera action occurs, it's startling - not so much in "remarkable" way, but just because your eye gets so acclimated to the stillness of his style. I remember seeing a zoom in Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice and thinking I was hallucinating.
Another thing I noticed while gathering these was that even though the space within each of the rooms is fairly well-defined, I'm not sure the houses as wholes make sense. I attempted to map a floor plan based on what we see of the building the characters live in, but could not do it...
This could definitely be the result of my own perceptive shortcomings (spatial or otherwise) but I also imagine Ozu felt it unnecessary to establish a "total" physical world for his characters. This strikes me as a little theatrical, if that's the case, and the flat, perpendicular camera set-ups might tend to reinforce that idea. Of course, I could be totally wrong about that.
Anyway, have a look at these - I haven't included every single instance of an empty room, but instead chose those frames that I felt best illustrated my point (whatever that might be). Nor have I arranged them chronologically, rather placing multiple shots of the same room or hallway one after another, to illustrate subtle differences in lighting, etc. There are differences worth noting - the disappearance of furniture, etc. is especially heartbreaking once you've seen the film.
By the way, the cinematographer on this (and many of Ozu's others) was Yuuharu Atsuta, and these pics were taken from the Criterion Collection's handsome 2-disc edition of the film.
This shot is unusual because of the "western" style and arrangment of the furniture; still, Ozu manages to frame it like any other of his intereriors.
