MATSUZAKA CITY
His father believed that children
should be educated in the country.
In my opinion,
while our father
was living in Tokyo,
he really missed the country.
SHI NICHI OZU - OLDER BROTHER
He was very homesick,
and he longed to have a country lifestyle.
That was the reason, I guess.
He probably thought
Tokyo was no place for children
and that there were
too many bad influences around.
He might have felt that way.
And my brother was no model child.
Bad influences
would have had free reign.
Our father knew this.
He knew his sons very well after all.
In 1916, Ozu entered high school
and started living in the dormitory
of the Mie public boarding school.
So back then, he was-
You know those conduct reports.
The teachers get together
and grade the students.
They come up with something.
My brother probably got bad grades.
M. OKUYAMA, S. KEI KOI N, S. NAKAI
HIGH SCHOOL FRIENDS
In his fifth year of high school,
Ozu was almost expelled, wasn't he?
Well, it wasn't quite that serious.
He wrote this letter
to a younger student.
It caused a lot of trouble.
The superintendent shouted at him.
TOWN OF KAWASAKI
He was either suspended
or put on probation.
Later, after summer vacation,
the restrictions were lifted,
but he had to leave the dormitory,
with the added condition that
he come and go directly
between home and school.
When he came home,
our mother would write down
his arrival time and stamp his book.
He had to show it to a teacher
the next day, every day.
He soon got tired of all this.
He started writing down the time himself
and showing it to the teacher.
He called it his ''stamp book'.'
He used to carry it in his pocket,
along with a photo of Pearl White.
That's how he used to go to school.
He was almost expelled
from school, as I said,
but it wasn't all that serious.
My father used to say that Yasujiro
believed other people too easily,
that he was gullible,
and that he should be more careful.
Ozu was socially active
and had many friends.
His high school days
were important to him.
Looking back on that time,
he would later say,
I WOULD GLADLY RELIVE
MY MIDDLE SCHOOL DAYS.
''I read the novels of
Tanizaki and Akutagawa,
but I only went to see foreign movies.
It may sound snobby,
but I despised Japanese films,
which were so immature
compared to others.
FORMER SITE OF KANRAKUZA THEATER
Back in those days,
the movies just told simple stories
without any emotional depth.
Then I saw an American film,
Civilization by Thomas Ince.
I was completely overwhelmed
by this masterpiece of the time.
It was then that I decided
to be a film director. ''
PEARL WHITE
Ozu graduated
from high school in 1921.
His father convinced him to apply
to the trade school
his brother was attending,
but he failed and
had to wait another year.
In 1922, after failing twice,
he became a grade-school
substitute teacher in Miyamae.
After an hour train ride
from Matsuzaka,
it was a long bus trip to the small town
deep in the mountains.
He never forced lessons on us.
EIZO MORIMOTO - FORMER OZU PUPIL
He just said,
''If you don't learn this, it's your loss.
I'm teaching you
because it's my job.
If you don't want to learn,
that's not my problem.
It will be your loss.
If you want to learn, then learn.''
He often said that.
Naturally, I got better grades
when he taught us that way.
And every Sunday
he walked up the mountain?
- Yes.
- That mountain?
- That one?
- Yes. It's 3,450 feet high.
That's right.
And he liked
wearing wooden sandals.
Big ones.
They were like cutting boards.
Wearing those big sandals and a kimono -
he always wore Japanese clothing -
he'd set out for the mountain.
Wasn't there another
teacher at the school,
a beautiful woman?
Very beautiful.
Were they in love?
Well, let me see.
I was only 10 years old then.
If there was anything going on
between them, I didn't know.
Ozu spent his days in the mountains.
He sketched