Postwar Ozu: Ozu’s Occupation-era Film and Tokyo Regained

Abstract

This chapter examines the postwar’s impact on Ozu and his films of the late 1940s and early 50s, which include his representative works such as Late Spring (1949), Early Summer (1951) and Tokyo Story (1953). Based on the discussion of the change (and changelessness) in the postwar Japanese society and film industry in the first section, the chapter moves on to the analyses of Ozu’s films from this era, in terms of gender relationship (notably, between aging parents and the daughters), US Occupation and its cultural influence on Japanese society, and the conflict between the lingering past memory of war and the present everyday life, which exhibits Ozu’s sophisticated temporal consciousness. The spatial contrast, as epitomised by disparity between war-stricken Tokyo and other traditional spaces such as Kyoto or Nara, is also discussed in relation to the generational and gender divide prevalent in the films from this period (often in the form of marriage narrative).