attitudes to Ozu

[Aaron Gerow]

While I think there are still some Japanese out there with the "Ozu is 
too Japanese to be understood by foreigners" attitude, opinion in the 
critical community now is much more complex. Just consider the case of 
Hasumi Shigehiko, Japan's most prominent film critic/scholar over the 
last 20 years who has penned the most influential book on Ozu in Japan. 
He actually begins that book by reviewing foreign scholars on Ozu 
(mostly Schrader, Richie and Bordwell) and argues against them not by 
stating that they don't understand Ozu's Japaneseness, but rather that 
their either don't understand that Ozu has little to do with 
Japaneseness (Schrader and Richie), or, more importantly, that they 
don't understand cinema itself (Bordwell). Ozu then becomes the 
representative not of Japaneseness, but of cinema, with the argument 
being that foreign scholars have lost touch with the ineffabilities of 
the medium. (Why Hasumi begins his book signaling out foreign critics 
is curious, if not disturbing, especially since there were plenty of 
Japanese critics he could have faulted.) Just look at Umemoto Yoichi's 
review of Bordwell's Ozu book and you can see this attitude persisting. 
It kind of culminates in Hasumi's infamous statement that Todai is the 
only place in the world that properly teaches film studies, and 
explains in part the rather isolated state of some sectors of film 
studies in Japan (evident in the lack of translation of foreign work or 
interaction with foreign scholars--of a certain kind).

Aaron Gerow
Film Studies and East Asian Languages and Literatures
Yale University