217 Tokyo Story

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Mr Sausage
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Re: Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)

#251 Post by Mr Sausage » Fri Jul 01, 2016 4:41 pm

bottled spider wrote:
Jonathan S wrote:Assuming “Tokyo Story” is an accurate translation of the Japanese title...
Tokyo Story is indeed a direct translation of Tokyo Monogatari. That monogatari occurs in many Japanes film titles: Mizoguchi's Ugetsu Monogatari (Ghost Story) and Zangiku Monogatari (Story of the Last Chrysanthemum), and Ozu's Ukigusa Monogatari (Story of Floating Weeds). I have a vague recollection that the commentary track of one of the Criterion discs briefly discusses the literary connotations of monogatari, but I don't remember which one.
It's a word found in the titles of some of Japan's foundational texts, like Genji Monogatari and Heike Monogatari, although it's usually translated as "tale". It's definitely a word of some significance in Japanese narrative, more than the simple English 'story' would convey.

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swo17
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Re: 217 Tokyo Story

#252 Post by swo17 » Tue Jul 19, 2016 3:22 pm

Not sure if this has been previously reported but I finally saw the BD-only release in a store and it's not a digipak.

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fiddlesticks
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Re: 217 Tokyo Story

#253 Post by fiddlesticks » Sat Aug 26, 2017 1:15 pm

I've been thinking about this film a lot lately, and I wonder if, as a modern Occidental, I can ever fully understand it. I hope some of our Japanophiles can help (I'm looking at you, Michael Kerpan, but anyone who is familiar with post-war, or perhaps post-occupation is nearer the mark, Japanese middle class norms is welcome to chime in.)

I'm becoming more and more aware that I am imposing at least some 21st century American expectations on the Hirayama family, and that I can't really put myself fully into the geta of a 1953 Japanese middle-class moviegoer. I'm particularly interested in the character of Shige (Sugimura Haruko.) Shige, of course, comes across as a totally self-involved bitch who can't be bothered to attend to her parents' least wishes (or even inquire as to what those wishes may be) unless there's some personal gain in it for herself. Shocking behavior to modern western audiences, but what would the contemporary Japanese expect of a 40ish married daughter? It seems that daughters (in traditional families, at least) more or less exited their birth families to join their husband's family upon marriage. (This, of course, is a common Ozu theme.) Take Noriko, for example. Her birth family is never mentioned (maybe signifying nothing; Ozu did love elisions) and she seems to see herself as a full-fledged Hirayama. (Interestingly, the family does not seem to fully agree; Noriko is always just a bit outside of the circle when the family is seated, she and unmarried daughter Kyoko act almost as servants to Koichi, Shige, and Keizo, and even Shukichi goes somewhat out of his way to point out to Noriko that she's "not even a blood relative.") Very little is seen or mentioned of Shige's husband's family (elision or significant?); Kaneko himself doesn't even attend Tomi's funeral with his wife. But shouldn't we mid-century Japanese expect that Shige would be too busy with her husband and family -- to say nothing of her business -- to pay much attention to her somewhat high maintenance birth parents? Might contemporary Japanese be less disturbed by her behavior because of cultural norms than Westerners decades later are?

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bottled spider
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Re: 217 Tokyo Story

#254 Post by bottled spider » Sat Aug 26, 2017 3:17 pm

I often feel there are aspects of Ozu's films I'm not entirely understanding because of unfamiliarity with the culture, including Tokyo Story.

To address a mere aside within your post, my take, for what it's worth, is that the viewer is meant to read between the lines that Noriko's parents have passed away. This would account for no one asking after them, and is perhaps part of the reason she has such a strong bond with her parents-in-law. Moreover the manner in which she consoles the two younger siblings suggests familiarity with the same loss.

Others will have to comment on how a Japanese audience of the time would react to Shige, but for myself, the more I watch Tokyo Story the less unlikable she seems -- she simply is who she is. And the film does intimate that there might be good reasons she doesn't have a warm relationship with her parents.

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Re: 217 Tokyo Story

#255 Post by Jack Phillips » Sat Aug 26, 2017 10:41 pm

Kerpan will have a better handle on this, and I'm sure he'll be weighing in soon, but one thing Westerners need to understand about family dynamics in Japan has to do with the Koseki, the family registration system. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koseki" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) When someone gets married one member of the couple must officially leave his/her birth family and become part of their spouse's family (this is usually the woman, but not always). This person's name is transferred from their original Koseki to the new one. It is not that the person who leaves one family for another loses all contact with their birth family, but the commitments to the new family can be so overwhelming that it can be effectively so. Geographic relocation often plays a role as well. We don't know the details of Noriko's birth family, and it may be that her biological parents are dead, but it is not necessarily so. Clearly, though, Noriko joined her husband's family when she married him, and even though he has died, she has not been officially released from that family. Obviously, if she remarried, she would have to transfer Koseki again and leave her present family--which she clearly loves--behind (Shige is an interesting case in this regard: perhaps her husband left his family for hers when they married. Again, though, this is not necessarily the case).

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fiddlesticks
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Re: 217 Tokyo Story

#256 Post by fiddlesticks » Sun Aug 27, 2017 12:37 am

Jack Phillips wrote: (Shige is an interesting case in this regard: perhaps her husband left his family for hers when they married. Again, though, this is not necessarily the case).
Thanks for that interesting and helpful information. It certainly doesn't seem to me that Kaneko has joined the Hirayama Koseki, as he never appears at any family gathering (train station, funeral, &c.) and only interacts with the family when they appear at the beauty shop. It's almost as if Shige and Kaneko belong to no family but their own, apparently childless, one.

Another factor that may complicate the Japanese audience's reaction to Shige is that she is a working woman, albeit as an owner rather than as a shopgirl or Office Lady. What this suggests about Kaneko (who appears to be some sort of salesman) and/or his family is unspoken, but imagine what the prewar Toda family would have thought of this. Of course it is true that both Noriko and Kyoko work, but Noriko would hardly have had a choice, and Kyoko may be expected to give up her career upon marriage. The childless, employed Shige who seemingly quarreled with her father over what she evidently considered to be his excessive drinking (how bad could it have been if he was the head of the local school board?) might elicit a whole set of audience sympathies -- or antipathies -- that I can't understand today.

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: 217 Tokyo Story

#257 Post by Michael Kerpan » Mon Aug 28, 2017 6:36 pm

Just back from several days of folk festival in Bangor (Maine). Will think about this when I recover. ;-)

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: 217 Tokyo Story

#258 Post by Michael Kerpan » Mon Aug 28, 2017 8:46 pm

I think the first thing one needs to take into account is that the parents visit Tokyo with almost no forewarning. Yes, they have talked for years (probably ever since the father retired) about coming to Tokyo to visit. But once they decide to come, they do it unilaterally, without any attempt at accommodating their children's schedules. I think it is safe to assume that the children would not have had the schedule flexibility that we take for granted in middle-class America. (The fact that the children were in the middle of a school term would also make things logistically more difficult).

Ozu viewed Shige as a bit of comic relief -- not as any sort of villainess. She is a business proprietor and clearly has a fair amount of responsibility (not just as a business owner but as an officer in some sort of professional association). Except for the fact that she is married, she is a close analogue of the sort of characters played by Choko IIDA in Tokyo Inn and Tenement Gentleman. A female middle-class business owner would have been a relatively new thing in post-war Japan. We get no clue as to what Shige's husband does for a living, but one gets a sense he may not have that much free time. He is easygoing (a necessity in dealing with Shige, I suspect), but has a clear sense of social duty (no question as to the need to put up Shige's father for the night) and is not stingy (he makes a point of offering treats to his in-laws despite Shige's contention this isn't necessary). I don't think it would be unusual that he not accompany Shige on ordinary visits to her relatives. Given that Shige can travel to Onomichi with her brother, it is also probably not surprising that he does not make the very length trip with her (probably a 10-12 hour train trip in each direction, pre-airplane and pre-shinkansen). Had the funeral been in or near Tokyo instead, it is safe to assume that he would have attended (and would have been expected to attend). (Shige's husband has his own family name -- so there is not the slightest possibility that he has joined the Hirayama family -- and no reason he would have done so, as the family has 2 living sons -- and no business necessity for yet another).

I finally warmed up to Shige when (in the midst of laughing at her predicament -- with drunken father and his crony) I realized she was having a flashback to her childhood (quasi-PTSD), when she experienced the same sort of frightening (to her) behavior and saw the familial discord it caused (young Shige did not fight with her father over his drinking etc., but her mother certainly did). One also sees that certain of Shige's characteristics can be found in her mother -- for all that the mother (now) has softer edges, she can still be a bit of a back-biter (also clearly displeased at how "unsuccessful" her children were, compared to her expectations -- as was her husband).

Kyoko would, without any doubt, stop working as a teacher once she married (assuming she did not marry downwards -- which would not be likely). Shige, having come of age in the era of considerable hardship (and socio-economic dislocation) would have had more freedom to work (and keep working once she wound up not having to raise children) than Kyoko would (Japan reasserted the primacy of nuclear families with stay-at-home wives as soon as the economic situation improved -- just as was the case in post-war America). Noriko's opportunities for remarriage were probably not very good -- having no status or wealth and being a war widow. But until "freed" by the Hirayamas, she probably couldn't even consider this option. And, as Noriko (basically) admitted, she was also too cowardly to face such freedom.

BTW -- I think Toda Family is, possibly, Ozu's least typical surviving film -- retaining too much of the uncharitable harshness of its McCarey inspiration.

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Re: 217 Tokyo Story

#259 Post by artfilmfan » Wed Aug 30, 2017 8:57 pm

I think that without Shige being the way she is, Tokyo Story might have not been a great film that it is. Shige serves as a counter-balance to Noriko. Although the 1953 audience (or the audience of any time for that matter) might have reacted negatively toward Shige's character, I think it is very likely that it had a positive effect on them. Shige served to remind one to try not to treat one's parents the way she did (such as being stingy).

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: 217 Tokyo Story

#260 Post by Michael Kerpan » Wed Aug 30, 2017 9:29 pm

What I like best about Noriko is that she clearly articulates real problems about her attitude/behavior -- but audiences (at least Western ones) seem to ignore everything she says about herself. ;-)

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Re: 217 Tokyo Story

#261 Post by colinr0380 » Thu Aug 31, 2017 4:30 am

The thing that I most like about Noriko's character is that she's arguably set up as the most 'contrived' character in some senses, in that were it not for the death of her husband (the son of the family we're following), she'd probably be much more like the other families we see in the film. Maybe with her own business like Shige, maybe looking after her own school age son, as with the older brother's wife.

But being a widow has thrown her out of the standard life cycle to a certain extent. She gets contrasted a little with the youngest son, who is trying to build up a name for himself at his job with everything else secondary - something you're probably expected to do when younger before settling down (but Noriko is still in that situation despite being older), and especially the youngest sister complaining about the attitude of the other siblings to the mother's death by saying that its just life and they have their own families to look after, that Noriko herself would be moving on if things were different and that eventually the youngest sister herself will leave her father behind and move on with her life. It doesn't mean that they don't love each other, but daily life has its own inexorable routines. And Noriko knows full well that she's sort of on the margins of them, but is able to have that outsider's perspective on family dynamics as a sort of compensation.

I especially like that Noriko's worse situation is the thing that allows her to have those moments with the elderly parents that the other blood-related siblings don't really have the opportunity to do. Because Noriko has no life of her own - or is assumed to have no life of her own with things going on because of her 'worse' social position. See the way that, because of the parent's impulsive visit, she gets called in when everyone else is too busy with work to spend some time with them. We get the scene of Noriko asking for some time off from her boss, but she never tells anyone else that she's had to forego her own job as well, in order to see the parents. And it makes sense that she wouldn't, as I'm sure Noriko wants to see them too. But its there for the audience to note, compared to the (also self-employed compared to Noriko's office employee) siblings complaining about the unplanned imposition more vociferously!

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Re: 217 Tokyo Story

#262 Post by Jack Phillips » Thu Aug 31, 2017 3:47 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:What I like best about Noriko is that she clearly articulates real problems about her attitude/behavior -- but audiences (at least Western ones) seem to ignore everything she says about herself. ;-)
That's because Western audiences can't imagine self criticism that isn't a feint. But man, Kerpan, what a great point.

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: 217 Tokyo Story

#263 Post by Michael Kerpan » Thu Aug 31, 2017 5:48 pm

Noriko's self-criticism is completely true (and heart-felt) but as her father-in-law recognizes -- it is not a full picture of who she is. But it is absolutely important for viewers to take into account its validity -- and not simply brush it off as more evidence of her "saintliness". It is likewise important to see the parents as selfish and imperfect (just like real people of that age -- like myself, for instance) and not as innocent helpless pawns mistreated by nasty children (even Shige doesn't merit such a characterization). I find it amazing how massively wrongly this film was perceived by Western (or US) audiences for so many years. And I never have understood how people did not notice that this starts out like a family comedy and stays that way for quite a long while, even as discordant notes start popping up more often as the film progresses.

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