Ozu title changes

[Michael E. Kerpan]

On Wed, 30 Aug 2000, "Randy Man" <ranman at csf.edu> wrote:

> I would say that this is not a "goof" in translation but rather obviously an
> attempt on the part of the US distributor to give the film a title that
> would appeal to whomever they saw as its most likely audience. 

But the choice is clueless -- because they picked the wrong season.  Surely
they could have asked someone knowledgeable from Japan what the titles were
trying to evoke.

>Nobody in
> their right mind was ever going to try to distribute a film in the US under
> the title "Taste of Mackerel"(!) I mean REALLY!!

Well, there was "A Taste of Honey".

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"J Rand" <axis at freeuk.com> wrote:

>For example, Early Summer he had called Coming Autumn. 

Bordwell says that "Early Summer" is really something like "Barley Harvest
Time".  I am not an expert on Japanese agriculture, but I would be very
surprised if barley was harvested there in early summer.  Beginning of autumn
seems much more probable.

Since Ozu's seasonal imagery is important, it really seems unfortunate that it
was ignored in the (English-speaking) West.



Michael Kerpan
Boston, MA
kerpan at attglobal.net