Contemplative Cinema: Ozu's Late Films

September 1–October 30, 2016

Ozu’s thoughful and poetic postwar films focusing on middle-class life, including the Noriko trilogy starring Setsuko Hara.

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  • Early Summer

  • Equinox Flower

  • Late Autumn

  • An Autumn Afternoon

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • An Autumn Afternoon

    • Sunday, October 30 4 PM
    Yasujiro Ozu
    Japan, 1962

    Chishu Ryu once again plays a widowed father planning to marry off his daughter in Ozu's beautiful, bittersweet last film. "Quietly tears your heart to pieces” (Terence Davies).

  • Late Autumn

    • Saturday, October 15 7:45 PM
    Yasujiro Ozu
    Japan, 1960

    Coming full circle from Late Spring, Setsuko Hara plays a widowed mother pushing her unwilling daughter to marry. "Exquisite and not to be missed” (New Republic).

  • Good Morning

    • Saturday, October 8 4 PM
    Yasujiro Ozu
    Japan, 1959

    Two little boys refuse to talk until their parents buy them a new TV in Ozu’s genial comedy of manners and tweak of domestic conformity. “The wildcard of Ozu’s career” (Rick Prelinger).

  • Equinox Flower

    • Saturday, September 24 8 PM
    Yasujiro Ozu
    Japan, 1958

    Teenage girls quietly rebel against their traditional parents' plans. "Gentle and amused in the way that it acknowledges time's passage, the changing of values, and the adjustments that have to be made between generations” (NY Times).

  • Early Summer

    • Sunday, September 11 7 PM
    Yasujiro Ozu
    Japan, 1951

    "I wanted to depict the cycles of life, the transience of life" (Ozu). An exquisite, faintly melancholy portrait of a family, with Setsuko Hara as the daughter upon whose marriage everything depends.

  • Early Spring

    • Friday, September 9 7 PM
    Yasujiro Ozu
    Japan, 1956

    A salaryman's marriage is threatened when, stifled by routine, he indulges in an affair. "I wanted to . . . let the viewer experience the peculiar sadness of the office man's existence” (Ozu).

  • Tokyo Story

    • Saturday, September 3 7:30 PM
    Yasujiro Ozu
    Japan, 1953

    This simple, sad story of the gap between generations in a Japanese family revealed to Western viewers the poetic acuteness of Ozu's style. "Wonderful . . . One of the manifest miracles of cinema” (The New Yorker).

  • Late Spring

    • Thursday, September 1 7 PM
    Yasujiro Ozu
    Japan, 1949

    Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara star as father and daughter in a deceptively simple, eloquent story of filial devotion and parental sacrifice. A near-perfect film, and one of Ozu's own favorites.