I’m surprised by the degree to which Antonius and DFC see the mother as cold, bitter, and uncharitable. She’s completely sacrificed any hope of personal success in order to help her son, who subsequently cuts her out of his life because he’s too embarrassed to be truthful with her. When she comes to visit her son, she is destitute but not ready to burden him with the knowledge of her condition. She is unaware of the degree to which he is poverty-stricken himself. When she discovers that he is giving up on any hope of ever succeeding, she has every right to feel some bitterness toward him, and the degree to which she comes to accept his situation is honorable. At the end, her son says that he will work hard and sacrifice for his son, and this seems to be viewed as positive -- in which case, we shouldn’t lightly dismiss the similar sacrifice that his mother made for him. I think the criticism of the movie is much more aimed at the socio-economic realities of poverty than at the mother.
Should I assume that we all agree that the title The Only Son refers to two generations (two only sons) and not just one?
Regarding tracking shots in Ozu: If I remember correctly, the one tracking shot in Tokyo Story is very similar to the one showing a walk through the field in The Only Son. Both are exteriors, shot at a low upward angle, with a slow movement on the track. Ozu uses this shot very sparingly but to great effect in both cases. In The Only Son, the two tracking shots don’t seem to share a common purpose, even though they’re both exteriors. The one with the boy gives us a sense of the boy’s energy. The one with the adults captures a moment of shared compassion.
Regarding Fixing standings: So far, out of 16 movies, I’ve seen three from 1936 that I’d unhesitatingly consider for 3-vote Best Picture status: Swing Time, The Only Son, and Modern Times. At this point, The Only Son has no three-vote competition for Best Actress, and would receive serious three-vote consideration for Director, Cinematography, and Screenplay, as well as one-vote consideration for Actor, Supporting Actress, and Supporting Actor. I love the music at the beginning and end, but since it is adapted, I’m not sure if it qualifies. But I still have two Renoirs and two Mizoguchis to watch, as well as around five others, so nothing’s close to definite yet.
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kerpan
21 years ago
...was very patrilineal. The eldest son of an eldest son would have a more elevated position (in law and theory) than the younger brother of that son's deceased father. That said, it does not appear that the family at the center of this film had any close collateral relatives. I suspect that Ozu used a very minimalist family here because he wanted to distill the situation down to essentials.
I would say that Ozu views the mother as a "paragon" even if she is not "perfect". ;~}
1936 was certainly an outstanding year in the history of world cinema.
MEK
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Antonius Block
21 years ago
that you somehow got the impression that I was thinking the mother was "cold, bitter, and uncharitable," especially considering what I was most taken with in this film is the importance of her charitable sacrifice (in point of fact, I both italicized and bolded that word in my original post to stress its relevance to her persona). I'm really at a loss to explain how you could have read my thoughts in this way. In other words, I agree completely with your first paragraph.
As for the tracking shots, I had another idea (at least about the first one) which I like much more than my original take. The tracking shot is (despite your keen eye) rather subtle. Ozu could have used another static shot here, and if he did we would see the boy walking across the frame (if it were from the same angle). This is exactly what he does after the boy is kicked by the horse, in which the various adults come running out and Ozu shoots it so that they come from behind the screen and from the side, in each situation crossing the frame diagonally. This gives this sequence a great sense of dynamism that contrasts significantly with most of the rest of the film -- it is probably the closest we get to genuine suspense. How is this related? Because Ozu actually uses a tracking shot to show the boy approaching the group, he does not move within the frame. Instead, he remains very tightly in the center. The background moves, but very very slightly. I actually think that this technique is purposefully not dynamic, so that when the adults come running it is a sharp contrast to anything we've seen this far in the film and really grabs our attention, giving the event a very real seriousness. Therefore the mobile camera ironically reduces, not augments, the dynamism in this sequence. But I can't say the same about the other usage, so perhaps this is yet another instance of reading too far into the film.
"A film permits one to give the appearance of reality to that which is unreal" -Jean Cocteau
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lee-109
21 years ago
Here's the sentence of your's that had me thinking that you largely agreed with DFC:
However, I am even more convinced than before that her one charitable deed is one of the keys to the film.
I'd credit the mother with three charitable deeds: Allowing her child to go to school despite its meaning a long-term life of sacrifice on her part, the way she tells her son that his act of kindness is more important than material success, and finally the gift of money for the grandson.
Great analysis of the tracking shot. Your interpretation makes a lot of sense. Did you notice the low-angle shot where the horse's powerfully shifting body frames the action? Kurosawa later used that effect frequently, including in
The Seven Samurai, to add urgency to an action scene.
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Antonius Block
21 years ago
It never occurred to me that by singling out the gift of money at the end that I was underplaying her larger sacrifices throughout the film -- but I now see why you interpreted my sentence in that way. I see the gift of money as metonymic of all the sacrifices she has made, so that may be why I worded that sentence in that manner. I think we agree on what the film boils down to, at any rate.
I'm glad that notion of the tracking shot's purpose makes sense. And I remember the low-angle shot in which the horse frames the action, but I didn't make the Kurosawa connection. From what I've read of Kurosawa, he doesn't seem to be Ozu's biggest fan, although that doesn't mean he didn't borrow from the guy. It's been awhile since I've seen Seven Samurai (I know you and DFC saw it not too long ago); were there any specific scenes you recall seeing this?
"A film permits one to give the appearance of reality to that which is unreal" -Jean Cocteau
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kerpan
21 years ago
during the war years -- by standing up for him and defending his films when they were criticized as not sufficiently "politically correct".
Regarding the horse -- my sense is that it stands as a symbol (and mini-parable) of the overall socio-economic situation -- it's an object of power that exercises powers of attraction for the wary and naive -- and then kicks them to pieces when they come to close.
;~}
MEK
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DFC-2
21 years ago
I’m surprised by the degree to which Antonius and DFC see the mother as cold, bitter, and uncharitable. She’s completely sacrificed any hope of personal success in order to help her son, who subsequently cuts her out of his life because he’s too embarrassed to be truthful with her. When she comes to visit her son, she is destitute but not ready to burden him with the knowledge of her condition.
And I am bowled over by the wholesale endorsement of the Mother as some altruistic saint. Perhaps if we had ever seen her smile except when she was trying to put on a public face. Maybe if we had ever seen her ever do more than keep her son on edge, even as a child. A view of her telling the truth to the teacher or coworkers would have helped show her pride in her son and that her way of handling him was fair and loving. Perhaps one of you can tell me why the son was so reluctant to tell this paragon of virtue the truth. I'm so stupid, it looks to me as though he knows telling her the truth will not do any good unless he simply craves being made to feel small or enjoys being cuffed. A certain amount of this, perhaps, is cultural, but I see her behavior as very different from the Mothers in
Good Morning. I certainly don't see her as evil, but I never see her as happy either. It seems to me that her bitterness is of her own making. Many parents sacrifice for children who then leave home and live in a different world. It seems to me that a child who knew he was loved regardless, would be unafraid of being totally honest with his family about hardships outside his control as an adult and expect his Mother to wish him every success in life as a child.
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kerpan
21 years ago
I've explained the specific context of the exceptional sacrifice she made. I think you are minimizing the importance of keeping a "game face" in traditional Japanese society -- and the mother here has not adopted new-fangled more heart-on-the-sleeve ways. (The world in "Good Morning" was urbanized and modernized and Westernized -- none of these apply to the world of the mother here). I'm afraid I can't say anything else on this score that will convince you.
;~{
MEK
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DFC-2
21 years ago
Whatever. It just seems to me that she was not interested in her son except as a means for fulfilling her dreams of an easy old age. It was his failure to match her dreams that left her bitter and at a loss. If she had sought happiness within herself, she need not have been as unhappy as she was.
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kerpan
21 years ago
...I think your analysis of her motivations is totally unfair -- and contrary to the clear intent of the film. If the mother had wanted a comfortable old age, she would have refused to let her son continue his education (and he would have had no recourse -- and he would have gotten over his "whim" soon enough). She was willing to give up her relatively assured future in order to let HIM achieve HIS dream (not hers) -- she gets angry because he has given up on the dream HE had -- and for which she sacrificed all her comfort and security (in order to allow him to pursue it).
Moreover, for ordinary traditional people in Japan of that area "seeking "happiness within oneself" simply wouldn't be a notion that anyone would have comprehended. The family was still the basic (and completely essential) building block of any sort of normal existence.
MEK
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DFC-2
21 years ago
I think your analysis of her motivations is totally unfair -- and contrary to the clear intent of the film. If the mother had wanted a comfortable old age, she would have refused to let her son continue his education (and he would have had no recourse -- and he would have gotten over his "whim" soon enough). She was willing to give up her relatively assured future in order to let HIM achieve HIS dream (not hers) -- she gets angry because he has given up on the dream HE had -- and for which she sacrificed all her comfort and security (in order to allow him to pursue it).
There is no doubt, both by title and focus, that Ozu wanted us to focus on the Mother's predicament. The title also, however, implies a focus on the son and on the only grandson.
She was ready to do just as you say until the teacher came by and exagerrated the steady road to progress. When she relented, it was only with the express command that her son make good. How long had it been since she stopped paying his bills? Presumably, before he got his first job which means she had been living and earning just for herself for at least a year. I know of other poor families who worked like dogs to put kids through college. My own family had huge medical bills as a young married couple relating to numerous operations on my sister. Many of my single-parent employees have almost no savings because they have put all their money into their child's or children's education. She, as a parent, made her own choice about what she allowed her son to do, but it was not a unique choice among parents or single parents. Her child was not even going to tell her that he wanted to go to school and was not old enough to be held to a signature in blood for being party to her self-conceived contract. As much as anything else, Ozu seems to be presenting a common image relating to a worldwide depression.
As for the son, perhaps it was extraordinary for him to be able to find work at all since the depression began while he was still in school and his older teacher had been unable to find a teaching job. He himself expressed no question that his duty was to go into debt and accept his wife's gift of money from the sale of her kimono to show his Mother as much of a good time as possible. Where is your sympathy for his sense of family obligation to her? Where is your recognition of his selfless compassion in giving the money from the sale of the kimono to his neighbor for her bills? I can't believe that you and lee choose to buy into the woman's conception of her son when Ozu directly shows only the son with a truly altruistic sacrifice.
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DFC-2
21 years ago
Were they all Christians then? I thought Buddhism had made inroads into Japan by then .
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kerpan
21 years ago
I think you are not giving sufficient recognition to the fact that, in traditional Japanese society, duty trumps absolutely everything else. Personal considerations (such as "happiness") never provided an excuse for failing to fulfill one's duty.
When the teacher comes to congratulate the mother for "agreeing" to let her son attend middle school, he (unknowingly) convinces her that, given her son's intelligence and potential, it is her duty to let him continue his schooling. Once she believes this (against her will and self-interest), "it can't be helped" -- she must do her duty. As a matter of fact, legally speaking (and by custom), the son was, in fact, master of the household. The power of a mother rested solely on absttract filial devotion and concrete personal affection.
MEK
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DFC-2
21 years ago
especially for the poor, is to give them a leg up through education. From the cultural awareness workshops I attended in Chicago, I gathered that taking advantage of education and getting ahead through learning is not just a Western concept. I agree that the general sense of duty is different in the East, but wishing one's child every success it can attain is fairly universal. No one was in a position to know at that time that her son would be better off uneducated and working in some capacity in a rural setting. To me, if she had refused to let him go, she would have been seen as selfserving. In either case, it was up to her within herself and for herself to be satisfied or unsatisfied with the results.
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