Shukichi, Noriko, Wayne discussed on Filmspotting
Automatic TRANSCRIPT
Comparisons became a recurring source of amusement. Was it Tom or Wayne? Or Jeff? You could just take back that one line. Yeah. Was it Tom? Or Wayne? Or Jeff? That relationship between her and her father that you do explore here in this film. If you read her new book, which I'm just a little ways through, but the first chapter of it, Pauly's memoir called run towards the danger, that first chapter in particular. I'm sure others do as well, but that first chapter in particular really is about her interesting life as a child actress and the dynamic between her and her father that really had them. It harkens back to say anything a little bit, really had them as equals, but they never should have been. She was way too young, and he was almost surely allowing way too much. And was it providing enough guidance and enough guardrails. So if stories we tell was a film that connected with you and you were interested in that relationship, you can dive in even further in that new book from Polly. Yeah, I can't complain too much on this cheat. It is a nice pairing and I love stories we tell as well an honorable mention for me on this list. Absolutely. Okay, I think we're down to our number one picks. We're here. Mine is shukichi and noriko from late spring. It's homework time. As soon as listeners started sharing suggestions on social for this list, I knew that I would be catching up with a yasujiro ozu film for consideration. On Twitter, Aaron bergstrom. He put a plainly when I asked what titles I should put on my list. Most ozu movies. And then on my lesson on film, Facebook page, former production assistant, Andy Mitchell Gregory. He named late spring his number one pick, listener Kevin mcclendon, posted an image after that from the movie and added there is one correct answer to this question. So I did indeed watch late spring, not only because of Andy and Kevin's nudging, but also because it's one of the titles still embarrassingly left on my official blindspotting list. We put that together out of. I think it was 2015. I've had plenty of time to watch late spring, but it wasn't until now that I finally did it. The story centers on shuichi, a 50 something widower played by Chi Shu yu, who lives with his 27 year old daughter, no ricoh played by Hara. They have a teasing tender relationship, noriko wears this wide smile in the early scenes, walks around with an air of contentment, laughs off her father's gruffness about bringing him tea and things like that. They both seem very happy with their lot in life, even if it's a bit unusual compared to how other families are structured or at least young women's lives are structured at this age. Even so shukichi, who is influenced by noriko's medley ant suggests to his daughter one day that she strongly consider getting married. And then to move things along, he even hints that he's considering marriage himself to a younger widow. Now, if you've seen any ozu and sadly, this is only my third film of his, so I still have more work to do. You know that this familiar family drama is told with quiet reservation. You have static carefully composed shots, reserved conversations, but ozu brings piercing perception that has this emotional intensity brings an emotional density to the material. And the demure but powerful lead performances. They have a lot to do with this as well. I don't even want to say how things unfold. It doesn't seem like it, but suspense, you know, plays a role in this narrative. I do want to point though to one late film conversation that shukichi has with a friend.