Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema - Tapa dura

"The author's main thrust comes in the application of a historical poetics of cinema, that is, the formalist theory of narration that he has proposed and developed elsewhere.... This refreshing book is thought-provoking and rich in questions beautifully pondered by the author."--Keiko McDonald, Monumenta Nipponica

"David Bordwell's book is ... in the best sense, a labour of love. The writing here is often brilliant, and, in general, the book gives an extremely vivid sense of the richness and variety of Ozu's early career up to the end of the war."--Mark Le Fanu, Sight and Sound

"This is an engaged and always engaging text that brings a new standard of historically and culturally based criticism to the formal analysis of cinema. Bordwell's primary concern is nothing less than an understanding and objectification of Ozu's entire output, placing it within the variety of contexts that constrain all film: biography, industry, genre, national culture, international cinema, and authorial intention."--David Desser, The Journal of Asian Studies

Over the last two decades, Yasujiro Ozu has won international recognition as a major filmmaker. Combining biographical information with discussions of the films' aesthetic strategies and cultural significance, David Bordwell questions the popular image of Ozu as the traditional Japanese artisan and examines the aesthetic nature and functions of his cinema.