Page 7 - Cine Appétit Issue 01
P. 7
Cine Appétit THE EASTERLY
PAGE 07
A LOOKBACK TO THE
DISAPPOINTING LIFE -
“TOKYO STORY”(1953)
B Y
S H A N T A N E E L N A N D I
In the year 1953, director Yasurijo Ozu made own form of cinematography is very plain and
his ultimate masterpiece “Tokyo Story” written simple, lacking the grandiose tracking shots
by Ozu himself and his frequent writing and subjective angles. He often shoots from a
collaborator Kogo Nada. The film stars Chishu very low angle and this form of shooting is
Ryu, Chieko Higashiyama and Setsuko Hara. coined by the critics as the “Tatami Shot”.
The film is a minimalistic plot about an aging Through this, Ozu further emphasizes on the
couple who travel to Tokyo to visit their composition and framing of the camera. Also
children. The film has worldwide acclaim and very rarely does the camera move. In the
in the year 2012, it was voted in the “Sight & entire film, the camera moves only twice and
Sound” film magazine by a poll of film instead of the industry-standard of ‘over the
directors as the 'greatest film of all time' shoulder’ shots for dialogue, Ozu uses ‘frontal
surpassing that of Orson Welles's masterpiece medium hit shoulder shots’. Ozu's composition is
“Citizen Kane”. The use of the camera in this simple but profound. In this film, he shoots
film is very unique, breaking most traditional within narrow confines, placing his actors in
Hollywood conventional methods of the background and a set in the foreground
cinematography and also remains putting an emphasis on the household instead
uninfluenced by the father of film himself of the characters and shows the simple daily
D.W.Griffith, which emphasizes on subjective lives of the characters as they
cinematography. However, Ozu's
