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page 234
both already have, presumably for our benefit. But why do we need to know these facts? They’re never referred to again. Like so many of Ozu’s choices, this moment is both puzzling and highly deliberate. In a screenplay loosely based on a pre-war novel, there can be no question of it being part of the source material. It has been included for a reason. But why should Noriko in particular be felt to have suffered in the war? Her contemporary and schoolmate Aya doesn’t seem to have experienced anything comparable. ‘Forced labour’ is a strong phrase, usually associated with prisons. The hard labour to which Oscar Wilde was sentenced broke his health. Someone made to carry out forced labour would not normally live at home, and would therefore lack the protection of family. The mention of ‘days off’ doesn’t quite fit this picture. The phrases ‘forced labour’ and ‘days off’ belong in different worlds. The first time I saw Late Spring I was very struck by this scrap of dialogue. Blame those few unemphatic lines for this whole book. From that moment on, I was on a quest. I was on a mission. Actually I just went to the library, but it comes to the same thing. The censors who saw the script of Late Spring were also struck by this exchange, and drew attention to an ‘unnecessary’ mention of the war. It’s hard to disagree, except that Ozu clearly felt it was 228
page 235
necessary in some way. The original script specified that Noriko’s forced labour was ‘in the Navy’. Ozu left things vague in the final film – but he resisted the pressure to cut the mention of the war, and forced labour, altogether. He even added a line to the scene, the one about ‘days off’, though ­Sorenson supplies a slightly different translation, saying that Noriko ‘spent her rare holidays scrounging for food’. So this little bit of conversation between ­Onodera and the professor has deeper roots in the process of making the film than the famous vase, that Johnny-come-lately of timeless meaning, which isn’t in the script. Not only was this piece of dialogue there from the beginning, but Ozu defied the censorship authorities to keep it, after they objected. His motive wasn’t sly humour, as it was in the case of the Hattori building (though at least half of that twinned joke would have been lost on the original audience). His motive must have been something serious. So what am I saying? Well, that what we have is a wisp of back story according to which the heroine has been ill-treated in some way, while the whole story is concerned with her reluctance to get married. If the point is to explain why her marriage prospects haven’t been considered before, then bad health not related to the war would make for a cleaner plot point. Japanese films are so shrouded in a protective 229

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both already have, presumably for our benefit. But why do we need to know these facts? They’re never referred to again.

Like so many of Ozu’s choices, this moment is both puzzling and highly deliberate. In a screenplay loosely based on a pre-war novel, there can be no question of it being part of the source material. It has been included for a reason. But why should Noriko in particular be felt to have suffered in the war? Her contemporary and schoolmate Aya doesn’t seem to have experienced anything comparable.

‘Forced labour’ is a strong phrase, usually associated with prisons. The hard labour to which Oscar Wilde was sentenced broke his health. Someone made to carry out forced labour would not normally live at home, and would therefore lack the protection of family. The mention of ‘days off’ doesn’t quite fit this picture. The phrases ‘forced labour’ and ‘days off’ belong in different worlds.

The first time I saw Late Spring I was very struck by this scrap of dialogue. Blame those few unemphatic lines for this whole book. From that moment on, I was on a quest. I was on a mission. Actually I just went to the library, but it comes to the same thing.

The censors who saw the script of Late Spring were also struck by this exchange, and drew attention to an ‘unnecessary’ mention of the war. It’s hard to disagree, except that Ozu clearly felt it was

228

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