Criterion Collected
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Ozu Seasons
11 minutes Posted Apr 16, 2015 at 4:00 am.
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Roger Ebert's voice introduces us to a new, "seasonal" (in more than one sense) series focusing on Yasujiro Ozu.

Part 1 in Ozu Seasons, an ongoing series

  • Roger Ebert's commentary track (briefly excerpted here) can be heard in full on Criterion's release of Floating Weeds (1959), a remake of A Story of Floating Weeds (1934). Our excerpt was taken from the same opening minutes found in Criterion's tribute post to Ebert, published just after his passing.
  • David Bordwell's indispensible Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema is available for free as a PDF by following a link on his website.
  • The vast majority of Ozu's surviving filmography is available to U.S. listeners on Criterion's Hulu Plus channel (there's a 2008 movie mistakenly listed in the last row, ignore it).
  • A current listing of Ozu's films available from Criterion, on disc and otherwise via iTunes or Hulu Plus, including the trio that make up next week's Eclipse 42: Silent Ozu - Three Crime Dramas, which I may have blogged my way into predicting a few years ago, during my most just-previous pass at covering Ozu.
  • Next time, we start digging into the early-career films you would never expect from a director known for mature, calm, and considered family dramas: slapstick college comedies, a samurai movie he didn't finish directing, crime melodramas, and more.