Yasujiro Ozu, 12/12/03-12/12/63

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Yasujiro Ozu, the great Japanese movie director, as well as his 110th birthday. It is reasonable to assume that he is still unknown to most Americans, who would probably compare watching his masterpieces with the observation of drying paint. All of the Hollywood techniques that stampede a storyline forward were anathema to him. It has been 60 years since Tokyo Story, widely regarded as his chef d’oeuvre and certainly his best known picture in the U.S., evoked the post-war collapse of traditional Japanese esthetics and family values and the ineluctable adoption of American ways. Ozu was fascinated by technology–his camera sometimes lingered for long, long seconds on electric power lines, as if to ask what on earth are these strange things doing here?–and would no doubt have been stunned by nuclear reactors.  Like other Japanese film makers who worked under the eyes of Occupation censors, he laced his work with subtle, nonetheless hilarious digs at American business and fashionIn men, hyperprolactinemia viagra professional australia or prolactinoma can cause erectile dysfunction and infertility. The basic idea is high levitra without prescription great web-site potassium magnesium and fiber, and low fat. To do this, however, requires a technology that makes such an assessment convenient generic cialis canadian and affordable. All the generic drugs (including levitra line selling here) are manufactured as per the guidelines of the FDA. . His message was that a beloved past (no bed of roses) was being replaced by an utterly alien present that was incomprehensible to older generations and impossible to forestall. The war’s total defeat was signaled by a paucity of men in the wartime military age bracket and a wan sadness that pervaded every cinematic moment. “Isn’t life disappointing?” a young woman famously asks near the end of Tokyo Story.  Ozu’s films captured his era as vividly as Hiroshige’s woodblocks portrayed the 19th century.  They both require patience from our attention-deficit crippled minds, but the reward is profound.

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