event details

Tokyo Story (1953)

Friday, May 9, 7:00 pm

Hamilton Building, Lower Level

While his countryman Akira Kurosawa is better known in the West, the great Yasujiro Ozu is often deemed the most distinctively Japanese director of his era. Ozu began directing in the late 1920s, but it wasn’t until the 1950s that his films, often variations of the shomin-geki (home drama) genre, gained international renown. Considered by many to be Ozu’s masterpiece, Tokyo Story (Tokyo monogatari) is a sublimely simple drama about an elderly couple’s visit to their two grown children in the capital. Not unlike King Lear, the couple (Chishu Ryu, Chieko Higashiyami) is treated with common indifference by their Westernized offspring and receive kindness from only their widowed daughter-in-law (Setsuko Hara). As opposed to Kurosawa’s dynamic editing and camerawork, Ozu’s hallmark “transcendental style” is the cinematic equivalent of haiku. The static camera, long takes, and attentively low camera angles give rise to a beautiful, Zen-like purity of expression.

Directed by Yasujiro Ozu, 139 min., B & W. Show begins at 7 pm, seating at 6:30 pm.

Tickets

$7 DAM members, senior citizens, students with ID; $8 others

Series Tickets

Order a series ticket to attend all eight films in our spring series, Take Two: Film and Its Inspirations.

A service charge of $1 per ticket will be added to online orders. To order by phone, call 1-866-942-ARTS from 9 am to 5 pm daily. A service charge of $3 per ticket, plus an optional $3.50 delivery charge, will be added to phone orders. To avoid service charges, buy your tickets on-site during regular museum hours.