{"id":308,"date":"2010-11-19T11:15:30","date_gmt":"2010-11-19T19:15:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/hansenke\/?p=308"},"modified":"2010-11-19T11:54:00","modified_gmt":"2010-11-19T19:54:00","slug":"308","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/hansenke\/2010\/11\/19\/308\/","title":{"rendered":"Record of a Tenement Gentleman"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Analysis of Ozu\u2019s The Record of a Tenement Gentleman<\/em><\/p>\n

The Record of a Tenement Gentleman<\/em> (Nagaya Shinshiroku), directed by Yasujiro Ozu and starring Chouko Iida as Tane and Hohi Aoki as a young boy, was released in 1947 by Shochiku.\u00a0 It narrates the story of small Japanese town a few years after the Second World War.\u00a0 Focusing around events in a small tenement housing, a lost boy is entrusted to Tane by a neighbor after the boy refuses to be left alone on the streets to wander.\u00a0 The story then focuses on the personal conflicts experienced by Tane, specifically on her seeming confusion about whether to allow the boy to live with her, or to force him to return to the streets.\u00a0 This kind of film borders on the drama\/melodrama shomin-geki<\/em> genre, which emphasizes human emotion and its propensity to relate to the hardships being experienced by other people, and the inherent character of every person to desire to offer assistance to others who are in need, resulting in a film that exhibits a theme basically entrenched in the human consciousness.<\/p>\n

There are examples that prove the validity of this film as being solely focused on human emotion.\u00a0 First are the conflicts that show the superficiality of human characters who refuse additional duties and responsibilities.\u00a0 This can be evidenced in the initial stages of the story, when the self-declared astrologer\/artist first brings the young boy into the tenement, showing the other characters who are reluctant to assume the responsibilities of parent. \u00a0It is worth noting that the problem is only solved through deceptive techniques, which eventually force Tane to accept responsibility.\u00a0 In another instance, the human psyche is again revealed after Tane fails to return the boy to his original family in a town far from her own.\u00a0 Despite her anger for such failure, she still provides the boy with a few pieces of bread.\u00a0 It clearly reveals that despite her anger, Tane could not resist the desire to offer her help, which shows a facet of her humanity.\u00a0 Lastly, the scene that shows Tane admonishing the young boy and ranting, \u201cYour father\u2019s a hard-hearted man.\u00a0 You didn\u2019t get lost, you were deserted\u201d (Ozu, 1947), shows the inherent human tendency to blame others for problems that she is experiencing.\u00a0 Here, it is likewise evident that despite her disgust, she has already learned to love the boy and intends to keep him as her own son, as evidenced by her sadness over the boy\u2019s later disappearance.\u00a0 In all of these instances, it is evident that the film intends to convey the true nature of the human psyche; that we are naturally inclined to care for others and that despite of what we may vocally imply, we are truly compassionate beings.<\/p>\n

In its attempt to illustrate life in its most honest and truthful depiction, the film incorporates several techniques.\u00a0 Firstly, costumes convey the specific representation of\u00a0 each character.\u00a0 Hence, we see Tane with cheap kimonos that clearly highlight her domestic and less affluent lifestyle, her rich friend has expensive kimonos\u00a0 implicative of her high social status, and the young boy who is always in street clothes, indicating his role as a wanderer.\u00a0 Also, a deliberate effort is made to justify the plot as being a war-torn town. This can be seen not only with the extensive coverage of the destruction, but also with the seeming simplicity that the houses and set designs portray.\u00a0 This depicts a country presently recovering form the economic crisis brought on by war.\u00a0 Lastly, the clear attempt to convey this film as a shomin-geki, <\/em>or a film about everyday people, can be expressly distinguished by all of the characters presented in the film, both major as well as insignificant participants.<\/p>\n

Concerning the relationship between the film\u2019s technicality and its effectiveness, the several techniques are used.\u00a0 First, there are the camera shots consistently remain at eye-level throughout the film, at times even engaging in close-up shots of Tane to capture her emotions. \u00a0This allows for the audience to view themselves as part of the story by being able to view all the scenes from a normal perspective.\u00a0 Also, it is apparent that several images were repeated to emphasize on a particular theme of a specific scene, such as the repetitive camera panning of the war-torn city horizon that seems to constantly remind the viewer of the film\u2019s plot.\u00a0 Another instance of this technique can be found in the scene where Tane is trying to abandon the young boy by outrunning him by the seashore, especially with the scene being taken that portrays the two characters in silhouette forms on top of the sand mounds.<\/p>\n

After watching the film, I am inclined to believe that the film is able to confirm its effectiveness through simplicity, both in its technicality and in its artistry.\u00a0 This observation is not in any way meant to diminish its quality, but rather to emphasize that its minimalist approach perfectly accentuates the artistic style that the film intends to convey.\u00a0 As such, the film does not find it necessary to result to violence, offensive language, or sexual depictions just to relate its intended theme, but has in fact proven that methodical employment of cinematic techniques such as camera panning, set designs, and theme-enhancing repetitive techniques, among others, are more than enough to effectively communicate with its audience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Analysis of Ozu\u2019s The Record of a Tenement Gentleman The Record of a Tenement Gentleman (Nagaya Shinshiroku), directed by Yasujiro Ozu and starring Chouko Iida as Tane and Hohi Aoki as a young boy, was released in 1947 by Shochiku.\u00a0 It narrates the story of small Japanese town a few years after the Second […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2350,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42920],"tags":[43285],"class_list":["post-308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shomin-geki","tag-dir-ozu-yasujiro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/hansenke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/hansenke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/hansenke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/hansenke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2350"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/hansenke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/hansenke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/hansenke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions\/310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/hansenke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/hansenke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/hansenke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}