Ozu's figuration of the modern woman

​Ozu’s Late Spring (1949) has inspired division surrounding his political alignment regarding the context of post-war Japan. Though it may seem obligatory to place a laser focus on discerning his personal attitude to the issues facing Japan during this time - I propose that Ozu focuses on manifesting a “depiction of contemporaneous social change and its specific effect on gendered cultural milieux and social relationships” (Phillips 2003: 155) to engage the viewer with their own social positions rather than his own. In other words, Ozu’s drifting and unclear political alignment which has allowed it to be so furiously debated, is in fact purposefully impartial to inspire an introspective response from audiences.
Noriko’s freedom as a ‘modern woman’, is embodied in the Bike ride scene which emulates “new kinds of movement and relationships between spaces and citizens” (Phillips 2003: 158). This scene becomes tied to the western intervention of modernity that relates to the American occupation of Japan, as the “freedom and spontaneity of a seaside bicycle ride is linked with the prominence of a Coca Cola sign” (Phillips 2003: 159) (see figure 1). Noriko’s happiness in this moment is evident, however after deciding reluctantly to enter an arranged marriage, Noriko states in a conversation with her father “I don’t believe that marriage will make me any happier”. Catherine Russell asserts that in post-war Japan “resistance to “women’s liberation” was implicitly linked to the protection of traditional values” (Russell 2003: 34). However, Ozu parallels this with traditional ideas of obtaining happiness, such as when Shukichi (her father)  “my life is nearing its end, yours is just beginning… That’s how life and history progress…happiness lies in the couple creating a new life together”. He suggests that, regardless of whether it is built upon romantic love, she must develop a “good marriage so that eventually she will find happiness” (Thompson 1988: 321) within the social order. A social order which at the time responded to a “widespread fear of the loss of the intrinsic spirituality of the people, a dilution of the cultural essence of the Japanese folk” (Phillips 2003: 157). In this way, Ozu’s depiction “can be seen as both invested in tradition and open to the change offered by the new Japan” (Parks 2016: 286), presenting a concurrence that doesn’t tell you how to feel, but is “simply illustrative of contemporary issues” (Parks 2016: 287).

Figure 1

This leads us to question whether the film ends in harmony or resignation. However, to choose between these outcomes is to accept their mutual exclusivity. Instead, I propose that LS (Late Spring) ends in a synchrony of both. Ozu’s films have often been wrongly attributed to a “inevitable corollary, that the values the films enact are in a clearcut, unambiguous way, very conservative, reactionary and traditional.” (Wood 1998: 100) as stated by Robin Wood. However, in departing from Wood’s reading which favours Ozu’s alignment with universal progressive ideas, I suggest as evoked by the films simultaneously resigned and harmonic ending that nor yet does Ozu choose to align himself with the progressive nature of modernity. It is difficult to not conclude that Noriko’s conformity to tradition in accepting an arranged marriage, is framed as an unfortunate choice. In one of the final scenes for instance, she is dressed in traditional wedding clothing, but appears solemn throughout the scene; looking downward on the brink of tears as a non-diegetic somber melody plays (see figure 2). However, it is important to question whether Noriko’s sorrow is framed as wholly reasonable, and whether it is down to a desire to be a ‘modern woman’. Robert Ebert claims that “Noriko has a hidden well of disgust about sex” (Ebert 2005), attributing her despair to this specifically. In conversations with her father, she opposes marriage when vocalising that “I just wanted to be with you [Shukichi]”, suggesting an unwillingness towards change. When she calls a family friend ‘the impure one’ for remarrying, seemingly due to the suggestion of him being sexual with another woman, she is ridiculed and concludes that this was ‘rude’. As highlighted, she contends with personal change and natural development. Whilst there are constant references to how her struggle is precipitated by “women's role in Japanese society that had been initiated in the later years of the nineteenth century to strengthen the country against the hegemony of the West” (Phillips 2003: 160), her eventual resolution is achieved as she overcomes these subjective personal pressures through resignation to conformity.

Figure 2

Both Noriko’s happiness and traditionalism are evocatively entrenched in beauty in LS, the openness and joy of the bike ride scene and the tranquillity of the culturally significant gardens in a scene after her acceptance of marriage are illustrative of this. In its neutrality, it remains a sentimentalised ingemination of a cultural phase, succeeding in its attempt to passively “imagine what Japanese domesticity might look like in this new world” (Atkinson 2012).

Bibliography:
Atkinson, Michael. (2012). Late Spring: Home with Ozu, <https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/421-late-spring-home-with-ozu> [accessed 17 February 2021]

Ebert, Robert. (2005) Sadness Beneath the Smiles, <https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-late-spring-1972> [accessed 17 February 2021]

Parks, Tyler. 2016. ‘Change, Horizon, and Event in Ozu’s Late Spring (1949)’, Film-Philosophy, 20(2-3): 283–302

Phillips, Alastair. 2003. ‘Pictures Of The Past In The Present: Modernity, Femininity and Stardom in the Postwar Films of Ozu Yasujiro’, Screen, 44(2): 154-166

Russel, Catherine. 2003. ‘Three Japanese Actresses of The 1950s: Modernity, Femininity and The Performance of Everyday Life’, Cineaction: 35-44

Thompson, Kristin. 1988. Breaking the Glass Armor: Neoformalist Film Analysis, (Princeton: Princeton University Press)

Wood, Robin. (1998). Sexual Politics and Narrative Film: Hollywood and Beyond (New York: Columbia University Press)

Filmography:
Late Spring, dir. By Yasujirō Ozu (Shochiku, 1949)