A geometrização do espaço na cinematografia de Yasujiro Ozu

Abstract

Yasujiro Ozu was born in Tokyo on December 12, 1903. His life spanned exactly six decades. During those six decades, Ozu would come to affirm himself as one of the most important filmmakers in the brief history of cinema, his work representing an imbrication of life and cinema. Ozu died on December 12, 1963, also in Tokyo. At his own insistencel, the headstone on his grave makes no reference to any name or date. On it is inscribed a single kanji character that represents the term mu. Mu can be translated as “nothing” or “void”. A denial of existence that can also be seen as the space which, for example, a body occupied. Ozu’s cinematography, recognized for its ability to capture scenes from real life, thrives on a particular emptiness, in which space, in the cinematographic approach to it, functions as a field of geometries. This article seeks to establish a relationship between Ozu’s cinematographic options, centered on the capturing space in general and architectural space in particular and a universe organized under the direction of a particular geometry, that is eminently Eastern in character. In the article “Yasujiro Ozu: The Syntax of His Films” (1964), Donald Richie compares Ozu to a craftsman, to a carpenter who builds a house. A house where neither paint nor wallpaper is used; natural wood is used. Just as in traditional Japanese architecture, in his films we can see all the supporting elements of a structure that works only as a whole. In the introduction to Hokusai Manga (1814) by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) one reads: “The great workman can teach people how to use compasses and squares, but he cannot impart skill to them… It is something the heart must grasp and the hand respond to, though the heart and the hand are not conscious of it…”