Tuitions and Intuitions by William Rothman;

Author:William Rothman;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2019-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

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Robin Wood claims that Late Spring is unambiguously a tragedy.4 Surely it is not: Noriko has a fair shot at a happy life. She would be no less grateful to her father if she knew of his lie, for she would also know the truth behind it, that her happiness is the most important thing in the world to him. The unutterably sad truth that Noriko comes to know in this passage, the knowledge, or self-knowledge, that the shot with the vase invokes, is that what she is losing—the life her father is giving her no choice but to abandon—is precious, and irreplaceable. The truth that we come to know at this moment—whether for the first time or the thousandth, it makes no difference—is that, for human creatures like us, there can be no love without loss.

As I’ve said more than once, in an Ozu shot/reverse-shot sequence each character is filmed from the other’s position, not necessarily from the other’s point of view. It makes no difference, as far as the camera’s position is concerned, whether the characters are looking at each other. And—apart from exceptions that prove the rule—when a shot of a character does correspond to the other’s literal view, it is still not a conventional point-of-view shot, because the person on view is not the object of the other’s gaze, but a subject with his or her own gaze. Likewise, the reverse shot that follows is not a point-of-view shot. Nor is it a reaction shot. Although it is taken from a character’s position, the shot is not expressive of, not limited by, that character’s subjectivity. Neither is it expressive of, nor limited by, Ozu’s subjectivity. Hitchcock’s camera represents him personally, I want to say, while Ozu’s camera—if we can even call it that—is impersonal, impartial. An Ozu shot/reverse-shot sequence effaces or transcends his own self—is this his Buddhism?—so that we may view all the characters filmed by the camera as expressing themselves to us, and to us alone—or to themselves. And yet, paradoxically, what occasions Ozu’s use of the technique is precisely the fact that this character is not alone at this moment, is making a connection, or denying a connection (which is a way of making a connection), with a particular person in the world—a person who is examining his or her mind, or failing to do so, who is responding to his or her passionate appeals, or failing to do so.

Ozu’s characters make moral claims upon each other, particular claims they may or may not have the standing to make. His way of filming their conversations—shooting each from the other’s position, as if each in turn is speaking to the camera—puts us in the best possible position to assess their claims. The most memorable of Ozu shot/reverse-shot sequences exemplify a limiting case—or an ideal case—in which a meeting of minds approaches the condition we call “soul-searching.” The screen as window, and the screen as mirror, converge.

Not all conversations in Ozu’s films have this quality. But when they do not, we know they do not.

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