Noriko Smiling

I was inspired to read Adam Mars-Jones' book on Yasujiro Ozu's 1949 film Late Spring, Noriko Smiling (2010) after reading about it in Film Comment. I own the film so I watched it again before starting the book and I may have to go back and watch it again to confirm some of Mars' observations of the film that I couldn't corroborate. Most of the book is related to his observations and theories of the film, but clearly he has also read everything he could find in English about it and has a wealth of interesting things to say about this film, Ozu, Japan in 1949, censorship during the occupation, and even Akira Kurosawa. It turns out Kurosawa released his film noir master work (that I have written about in journal articles twice) Stray Dog in 1949 as well. Kurosawa also faced troubles with the censors and acted much the same as Ozu-following some suggestions and ignoring others. At any rate, Mars is not afraid of challenging celebrated critics: "When (Donald) Richie turns Ozu into a religious artist, to be approached only by the initiated, I think he's plain wrong. Sometimes works of art need to be defended against their advocates, and great films rescued from their reputations. Masterpieces are not fragile but robust. They can stand up to more than a reverent dusting." He also has problems with Paul Schrader's focus on the Transcendent and says :" Sometimes Schrader seems like a true believer who will use thumbscrews on you if you  don't accept the principle of non-attachment."  He discusses a book by Lars-Martin Sorenson called Censorship of Japanese Films During the Occupation of Japan (2009) and reveals some interesting tidbits about this topic. First of all, the offices for the two groups involved in censorship were housed in the Hattori Building in Ginza that is used as the Tokyo establishing shot twice in the film-a sort of inside joke. He also identifies some changes that needed to be made and others that were ignored. Another interesting observation Mars made about the film suggests that two shots of English signage that I missed or didn't pay attention to were inadvertently showing that there were occupational forces there: a Coke-a-Cola sign and signage on weight limits on a bridge. His big theory, which has some merit, is that Noriko experience some sort of sexual trauma when she was doing forced labor during the war. And that would explain her aversion to marriage and her attitude about her father's friend Mr. Oonodera being dirty for having remarried after his wife died. I find Noriko's behavior difficult to understand and this makes as much sense as any other explanation to me.