Good Morning

“One filmmaker that really kind of changed how I thought about film is Ozu. And I just don't think I knew you could make films like he does, that you could just put the camera somewhere and rely on the composition, and you've just sort of like the image and the cut and the sort of rhythm of it. His storytelling sort of ends up transcending itself by the end, and he's sort of somehow doing melodrama, but completely undercutting it by his pace, and like skipping like the big event in the film, which in an American film normally you would like show the wedding or you'd show the big thing. And he really changed who I am, I think. I think he's one of like the great artists of the 20th century.”

“So yeah, I guess I'll start with Good Morning because this one kind of made a big impression on me and it was I think the first Ozu movie I have ever seen, and I've seen a few of them since then. And it sort of deals with all the familiar themes that he deals with, mostly concerning parent-children dynamics and shifting dynamics and generational gaps. And have you seen this movie, actually? Yeah, so there's a lot of fart humor in this movie, actually, which was unexpected. And you know, the kid shits his pants and all that, and it's it's really cute. And it's such a simple story, actually. I think he made this movie in as a silent film first called I Was Born, But... Which is another really special movie. And I had a very special experience watching that movie with a friend that I hadn't seen in years, and actually now our friendship has taken root again since we saw that movie together. So he's a powerful filmmaker. And it's a pretty simple story of the kids want a television set to watch sumo wrestling and stuff, and the parents don't want to buy the television set. It's sort of like, you know, industrialization and the future, and like the Western world creeping in this post-war Japan. And the parents are against it, but they realize that they can't win that battle, and the kids take a vow of silence against them to get their ways, and they win. And it's just a beautiful film. And I really love Japanese films, which is something I learned about myself a few years ago, and so I wanted to put that one in my collection just to because it's like the first thing that got me started down that road, I guess.”

“I have to say this is the film that we remade with Little Men. So this is one of two films that Ozu made. This was in the '50s and in the '30s he made another film called I Was Born, But... And they're both about kids who go on strike against their parents. So we took that plot and we wrote our own film, Little Men, and these are better.”

“[Translated] Wow! Good Morning, Ozu. Good Morning by Yasujiro Ozu. A very rare and exquisite comedy. The family is buying a TV, something the kids have been looking forward to. Japanese society's transformation period, and through two little kids...”

“I got Good Morning by Yasujiro Ozu. This is recommended to me by you. There's a poster outside. Apparently it's a fart movie from Japan in 1959. That's its own genre, fart movies.”