'd like, too,
you know. But I do without.
Take them back.
It's too late. I can't.
Yes, you can.
Take them back.
To begin with, golf is not meant
for low-ranking salarymen like you.
On the rare day you come home early,
you're too tired to do anything anyway.
So forget golf. Give it up.
An Autumn Afternoon
was my only film with Mr. Ozu.
KYOKO KISHIDA - ACTRESS
I remember a scene where I come in
carrying something and have to turn,
and my natural instinct -
perhaps it's not so natural -
but my instinct was to avert my eyes
a bit as I turned, like this.
But Mr. Ozu told me
I absolutely mustn't lower my eyes.
When I turned, I was to keep my gaze
level all the way around.
It seemed so fresh and original,
like he was telling me to just keep it
simple - no distracting flourishes.
I've always wished that hadn't been
my only film with him.
Shall I play your favorite march?
March? Sure, play it.
Let's drink up, Captain.
How I love it!
Come on Captain. You salute, too.
Not like this.
Like this.
Clear weather ahead,
with seas remaining high.
In attack and in defense
Its steel sides lean out
Stop it and go to bed.
A floating fortress standing tall
On it we can rely
What are you muttering about?
Hurry up and come to bed.
I'm going to bed.
Mind you don't catch cold.
I'm already asleep.
We have to get up early, you know.
I'll cook you breakfast.
Utterly alone, huh?
The floating fortress will before
the rising sun protect...
LATE SPRING
A daughter marries,
and a father is left behind.
Late Spring had already shown us
a similar figure.
In this lonely, aging father,
we can see life's uncertainty.
THE ONLY SON
Could this then be the mu
that Yasujiro Ozu kept trying to express?
On December 2, 1962,
Ozu went to Mount Koya with his siblings
to lay his mother's ashes to rest.
He described the poem he wrote about it
as ''a nursery song for the aged. ''
RECITED BY KYOKO KISHIDA
''Pilgrimage to Koya
To toss my mother's ashes
we came to Koya's mount.
Windblown snowflakes fell
from the clear blue sky
on the towering cedars.
Sunset rays angle through the trees
to light the mossy gravestones
of ancient ministers and regents.
Apoor woman's candle
flickers in the Inner Pavilion.
Incense smoke once again curls up
through the lingering maple leaves.
Though I am no Ishidomaru,
the brevity of human life,
fleeting as a bubble on water,
presses through my abstracted daze.
But to the night's lodgings and dinner
my thoughts quickly drift.
Eager to eat, eager to drink,
there's no use in lingering.
I descend from Koya's mount
in indecent haste.
Here and there lamps flicker to life
as dusk descends on the monastery.
On the altar, left behind,
one tiny urn.
In it, my mother's ashes.
How cold she must feel.''
Ozu often said,
''Actors shouldn't do their own thing,
trying different things on each take.
I'm the gardener. I'm the one
who prunes the trees and shrubs
according to how I want them
to look in the end.
I can't have the trees and shrubs
moving or growing however they want.
If they do that,
I can't prune them properly.''
Ozu worked as if
he were directing a puppet play.
He moved the actors
precisely as he wished.
But the only way inanimate puppets
can move a human audience
is if their operators
are able to give them souls.
Ozu was trying to do
the same with his actors,
to give them souls
according to his vision,
and to capture them on film.
I think that's what
he was trying to do.
Ozu was famous
for requiring lots of takes,
FUJIO SUGA - ACTOR
and your performance gets stiffer
as you repeat it over and over.
Ozu said, ''An actor has to be able
to do the exact same thing twice.
And another thing.
If an actor just does what he thinks will
be good, it'll almost always look bad.''
That's what he used to tell me.
Ouch.
Ozu told me I had
a traditional kind of sex appeal,
MUTSUKO SAKURA - ACTRESS
so I wasn't suited
to roles in Western