All language subtitles for Tokyo-Ga (1985)

[Wim Wenders] If in our century
there are still sacred things,

if there were something like a sacred
treasure of the cinema,

then for me it would have to be

the work of the Japanese
director Yasujiro Ozu.

He made 54 films.

Silent films in the Twenties,

black-and-white films in the
Thirties and Forties,

and finally, color films until his
death on December 12th, 1963,

on his 60th birthday.

With extreme economy of means

and reduced to but the bare essentials,

Ozu's films again and again
tell the same simple story,

always of the same people
and the same city: Tokyo.

This chronicle, spanning
nearly 40 years,

depicts the transformation
of life in Japan.

Ozu's films deal with the slow
deterioration of the Japanese family,

and thereby with the deterioration
of a national identity.

But they do so not by pointing with dismay

at what is new, Western,
or American,

but by lamenting with an unindulged
sense of nostalgia

the loss taking place at the same time.

As thoroughly Japanese as they are,

these films are, at the same
time, universal.

In them I've been able to
recognize all families

in all the countries of the world,

as well as my parents, my
brother, and myself.

For me, never before, and
never again since,

has the cinema been so close to
its essence and its purpose:

to present an image of
man in our century,

a useable, true and valid image

in which you not only
recognize himself,

but from which, above all, he may
learn about himself.

[train whistle blows]

- Good morning.
- Oh, good morning.

- Leaving today?
- Yes, this afternoon.

This is our chance to see
all our children together.

They must be looking forward
to your arrival in Tokyo.

Keep an eye on our house
while we're gone, will you?

Don't worry.

I'm jealous that your children
have all turned out so well.

You're lucky!

I suppose so.

The weather is really splendid.

It's a blessing.

Have a safe trip and have fun.

Thank you.

I can't find the inflatable cushion.

It has to be here.
Look again.

Wait, here it is.

- Find it?
- Yep, got it.

[Wenders] Anyway, Ozu's work
does not need my praise,

and such a sacred treasure
of the cinema

could only reside in the realm
of the imagination.

And so, my trip to Tokyo was
in no way a pilgrimage.

I was curious as to whether I still could
track down something from this time,

whether there was still anything
left of this work.

Images, perhaps, or even people.

Or whether so much would
have changed in Tokyo

in the 20 years since Ozu's death,

that nothing would be left to find.

[Wenders] I don't have the
slightest recollection.

I just don't remember anymore.

I know I was in Tokyo.

I know it was the spring of '83.

I know.

I had a camera with me,
and I shot footage.

These images now exist, and they
have become my memory.

But I can't help thinking

if I'd been there without the camera,

I'd now be able to better remember.

[Wenders] On the flight over,
they showed a film.

And like always, I tried
not to watch it,

and like always, I found
myself watching it.

Without the sound, the images on
the tiny screen up front

seemed only that much more empty to me.

A hollow form, feigning and
imitating emotion.

It felt good just to look
out the window.

"If only it were possible to film
like that", I though to myself,

"like when you open your
eyes sometimes.

Just to look, without wanting
to prove anything."

[people talking in Japanese]

[Wenders] Tokyo was like a dream.

And today, my own images
appear to me

as if they were invented,

like when, after a long time,
you find a slip of paper

on which you once had scribbled down a
dream on the first light of dawn.

You read it in amazement,

and you don't recognize a thing,

as if it were someone else's dream.

And so, I now find it
hard to believe

that I actually stumbled
upon this cemetery,

where, beneath the blossoming
cherry trees,

picnicking groups of men sat
and drank and laughed,

cameras were clicking everywhere,

and the cawing of the ravens kept ringing
in my ears for sometime to come.

[ravens cawing]

[Wenders] It was only upon seeing
a little boy in the subway,

a boy who simply didn't want
to take another step,

that I realized why my images of Tokyo

seem to me like those of a sleepwalker.

No other city, along with its people,

has ever felt so familiar
and so intimate to me

long before I ever managed
to go there,

mainly for the films of Ozu.

I wanted to rediscover
this familiarity,

and it was this intimacy that my images
of Tokyo were trying to find.

In this little boy in the subway,

I recognized one of the many rebellious
children from Ozu's films.

Or maybe I just wanted to recognize.

Perhaps I was searching for something
that no longer existed.

[game machines buzzing]

[buzzing]

[beeping]

[metal balls dropping]

[beeping]

[beeping and buzzing]

[Wenders] Late into that night,

and then late into all the
following nights,

I lost myself in one of the
many Pachinko parlors,

in the deafening noise where you sit
in front of your machine -

one player among many,

yet for that reason, all
the more alone -

and watch the countless metal balls

dance between the nails
on the way out,

or once in a while into
a winning game.

This game induces a kind of hypnosis,

a strange feeling of happiness.

Winning is hardly important.

But time passes.

You lose touch with yourself
for a while

and merge with the machine,

and perhaps you forget what you
always wanted to forget.

This game first appeared
after the lost war

when the Japanese people had a
national trauma to forget.

Only the skillful or the lucky,

and of course the professional players,

can considerably increase
the number of balls

and trade them in afterwards
for cigarettes, food,

electronic gadgets, or
for credit slips

which, although illegal, can be
exchanged for cash

in one of the neighboring alleys.

[TV playing]

[Wenders] I took a taxi
back to the hotel.

[TV playing in taxi]

[singing in Japanese]

[applause on TV]

[commercial playing, in Japanese]

[sports announcers speaking Japanese]

[Wenders] The more the reality of Tokyo

struck me as a torrent of
impersonal, unkind,

threatening, yes, even inhuman images,

the greater and more powerful
it became in my mind

the images of the loving,
ordered world

of the mythical city of Tokyo that I knew
from the films of Yasujiro Ozu.

Perhaps that was what
no longer existed:

A view which still could achieve order
in a world out of order.

A view which could still render
the world transparent.

[speaking Japanese]

[Wenders] Perhaps such a view is
no longer possible today,

not even for Ozu, were he still alive.

Perhaps the frantically growing
inflation of images

has already destroyed too much.

Perhaps images at one with the world

are already lost forever.

[American movie dubbed in Japanese]

[Wenders] When John Wayne left,

it wasn't the Stars and Stripe
that appeared,

but rather the red ball of
the Japanese flag.

And while I was falling asleep,
I had the craziest thought:

"Where I am now is the
center of the world.

"Every shitty television set,
no matter where,

"is the center of the world.

"The center has become
a ludicrous idea,

"and the world as well:

"An image of the world,
a ludicrous idea.

"the more TV sets there
are on the globe.

"And here I am in the country that builds
them all for the whole world

so that the whole world can watch
the American images."

On one of the following days,

I visited the actor Chishu Ryu.

He had played in nearly
all of Ozu's films

ever since the days of the silents,

often in the roles of men much
older than himself.

In many of Ozu's films,
he was the father,

although he himself was barely older

than the actors and actresses who
played his sons and daughters.

I once saw him in two different films
of Ozu on one and the same day.

In the first film from
the early Thirties,

he portrayed the life of a man
from youth through old age.

And in the second film from
the end of the Fifties,

he himself really was as old as
the role he had played then.

The characters in the stories
in both films

were nearly identical.

Never before have I felt such
respect for an actor

as on this day for Chishu Ryu.

I tried to explain this to him,

but my compliment only
embarrassed him.

He sidestepped it modestly.

[Wenders] At that time, he said,
his real age was 30,

and the role I'd asked him about
was that of a 60-year-old.

The point wasn't to act old age,
but only to look old.

He didn't concern himself with anything
else except looking old.

Ozu always told him how to do something,

and then he carried out his orders without
giving it a second thought.

Anyway, acting under Ozu was
much less a matter

of bringing discoveries and
experiences to a role

as of precisely carrying out
Ozu's instructions.

[Wenders] I asked him if Ozu
had rehearsed much.

[Wenders] That depended on how
difficult the scene was.

Many times two or three rehearsals
were enough,

and then the scene was shot.

But in his case, that he
had to admit,

Ozu was rarely satisfied with
a first or second take.

With him, Ryu, things took
quite a while.

He remembered once rehearsing a
scene more than 20 times

and then shooting it more than
20 times as well.

He himself didn't have any idea
what he was doing wrong

and simply thought to himself,

"Even a poor marksman will
hit the bull's-eye

if he just keeps blasting
away long enough."

Afterwards, Ozu merely asked
him, in all friendliness,

"Ryu, today's not one of your
better days, is it?

Or are you trying to
test my patience?"

At any rate, with other actors,

better actors than himself,

Ozu was often satisfied with
one or two takes.

But working with him, Ryu, must
have been difficult,

and so he had to consider himself in
the ranks of the less talented.

[Wenders] For Ryu, the
relationship to Ozu

was always that of a pupil
to his teacher,

or of a son to his father.

Although Ozu was only a year
older than he was,

there was an enormous distance

between the two of them in
terms of intellect,

and Ozu was always the teacher,

the master from whom he, Ryu,
had only to learn,

from beginning to end.

[Wenders] Ozu, the master,

possessed an incredible
force of character

and left his imprint on
everything around him.

And so, everything became
an extension of Ozu.

In the studio, for instance,

he not only concerned himself with the
sets and decorations in general,

but with every detail and
every little thing.

He positioned every cushion

and put every single object
in its place.

Nothing was left to chance.

He would even straighten out the actors'
costumes just before a take.

And there's nothing wrong with
that, Ryu concluded,

when someone is so sure
of what he wants.

[Wenders] Ryu said that under Ozu,
he learned to forget himself,

to become an empty page.

He thought about nothing
but his work,

and that meant, above all, to never have
a fixed notion about this work.

On the contrary.

How to come as close as possible
to the Ozu idea,

how to move in harmony with the
master's instructions.

His thoughts had revolved
constantly around this,

and this had been his preparation.

[Wenders] Other films or actors

hadn't influenced him,
explained Ryu.

He had only tried to become but one
color upon Ozu's palette.

The luckiest day of his life
was when Ozu chose him,

him of all people, from
among all the others.

Otherwise his life certainly would
have taken a different turn.

Ozu had given him a role and
had taught him things,

now and then, with gentle pressure

which he never would have
learned otherwise.

He started out a nobody,
and thanks to Ozu,

he became someone with
the name of Ryu.

Ozu made him what he was.

There was simply no other way
for him to think of it.

[Wenders] The women had
recognized Chishu Ryu

because he had recently appeared in
a popular television series.

Nowadays, no one would still
recognize him

from his roles in the Ozu films,
he later told me,

as if apologizing.

We took the train to the nearby cemetery
where Ozu is buried:

Kita-Kamakura.

The train station appears in
one of his own films.

[Wenders] Ozu's gravestone
bears no name,

only an old Chinese character, MU,

which means: Emptiness, nothingness.

[Wenders] I thought about this symbol
on the ride back in the train.

Nothingness.

As a child, I'd often tried
to imagine nothingness.

The idea of it had filled
me with fear.

"Nothing simply cannot exist",
I'd always told myself.

"Only what's there can exist,
what's real.

Reality."

Hardly any other notion is more empty and
useless when applied to the cinema.

Each person knows for himself

what is meant by the perception
of reality.

Each person sees his reality
with his own eyes.

One sees the others above all
the people one loves.

One sees the object surrounding
himself,

sees the cities and countrysides
in which one lives.

One also sees death,
man's mortality

and the transitoriness of objects.

One sees and experiences love,
loneliness, happiness,

sadness, fear.

In short, each person sees
for himself: Life.

And each person knows for himself
the extreme gap

that often exists between
personal experience

and the depiction of that experience
up there on the screen.

We have learned to consider
the vast distance

separating cinema from life
as so perfectly natural

that we gasp and give a start

when we suddenly discover something
true or real in a movie,

be it nothing more than the gesture
of a child in the background,

or a bird flying across the frame,

or a cloud casting its shadow over
the scene for but an instant.

It is a rarity in today's cinema to
find such moments of truth.

For people are objects to show
themselves as they really are.

That's what was so unique
in Ozu's films,

and above all, in his later ones.

There were such moments of truth.

No, not just moments.

Long-range truth lasting from the
first image to the last.

Films which actually and continuously
dealt with life itself,

and in which the people,
the objects,

the cities, and the countrysides
revealed themselves.

Such a depiction of reality,
such an art,

is no longer to be found
in the cinema.

It was once.

MU: Nothingness...

what remains today.

Back in Tokyo, the Pachinko parlors
were already closed.

Only the Kogichi, the "nail men",
were still at work.

[Wenders] Tomorrow, all the balls
would run a different course,

and a machine which could still have
made you a winner today

would only make you a desperate
loser tomorrow.

[Wenders] Shinjuku.

A section of Tokyo with one
bar after another.

In Ozu's films, many such
alleys appear

in which his abandoned or lonely
fathers drown their sorrows.

I set up my camera and filmed
like I always do.

And then a second time.

The same alley, the same
camera position,

but using another focal length:

the 50 millimeter, a lens with a
very slight telephoto effect,

the one Ozu always used for
each and every shot.

Another image presented itself,

one that no longer belonged to me.

[ravens caw]

[Wenders] At the cemetery
the next morning,

the same invisible ravens cawed

and the children played baseball.

And up on the roofs of the
skyscrapers downtown,

the adults played golf,

a sport to which the Japanese
have become addicted,

even if only very few ever get the chance
to play on a real golf course.

[Wenders] In some of Ozu's films,

the enthusiasm for this sport
is depicted ironically.

Nevertheless, I was amazed
by the degree

to which it was practiced
here as pure form,

as beauty and perfection of motion.

The real aim of the game, to
get the ball into a hole,

seemed totally abandoned.

I only found a last single solitary
defender of this idea.

[man speaking Japanese
over P.A. system]

[speaking Japanese]

[Wenders] I only left the huge
and rattling golf stadium

to grab a quick bite to eat.

As always, you could see all
the foods from outside

in the showcase of the restaurant.

Then I headed back to the stadium,

now inundated with floodlight.

[chatter in Japanese]

[Wenders] In the clubhouse
later that evening,

the day came full circle,

ending with images of baseball.

And since the same imitation food

was on display here as well,

I decided to pay a visit
the next day

to one of the places

where these utterly realistic-looking
things were produced.

[Wenders] It all starts
with real food...

over which a gelatinous mass

is poured and then cooled.

The finished molds that result

are filled with wax,

and then these wax forms

are trimmed, painted, and
worked on further.

The wax must be kept warm
all the while.

Other than that, the preparation
of the wax sandwich

is not at all unlike the preparation
of the real one.

[spraying]

[Wenders] I stayed there
the entire day.

The only time I wasn't
allowed to film

was during the lunch break,
which was a shame.

All the employees sat amidst
their wax creations

and ate the food they had brought,

which looked exactly like the imitations
all around them.

You could almost imagine one of them

biting into a wax roll by mistake.

[sizzling]

[jazz saxophone]

[Wenders] On top of
the Tokyo Tower,

I met with a friend of mine -
Werner Herzog -

who was stopping over in
Japan for a few days

on his way to Australia.

We talked.

These days there are simply
not many images left.

If you look around here, it's almost
entirely just buildings,

images almost aren't possible anymore.

Therefore one has to dig like an
archeologist with a shovel...

to see if there's still anything left to
find in this offended landscape.

Very often it of course comes
to taking risks,

and I would never shy away from those.

And I see nowadays there are not
many people in this world

who would dare to really do something
for this need that we have...

...namely we don't have enough adequate
images. We desperately need images

which are in harmony with the state of our
civilization and our inner selves.

And...

then one has to go into the middle of a
war, or whereever it is necessary.

And I would never complain that
it's, for example, sometimes hard...

that, let's say, one has to climb
8000 meter up a mountain

to get images which are pure,
clear and transparent...

because you can't find that here anymore.

So one really has to search.

I would also fly to Mars or Saturn with the
next space shuttle I could hop on.

For example, NASA has a program

with this SKYLAB, errr... space shuttle

where they sometimes maybe take
biologists with them,

and people who are testing new
technology in space.

I would very much like to join
them with a film camera.

Because it's not easy anymore to find on this Earth
the thing that makes the transparency of images

...that which once was.

I would go anywhere.

[Wenders] No matter how much I
understood Werner's quest

for transparent and pure images,

the images I was searching for

were only to be found down here,

below, in the chaos of the city.

In spite of everything,

I couldn't help being
impressed by Tokyo.

That afternoon, I went to the
newly opened Disneyland

just outside the city gates.

But the sobering thought of
seeing an exact copy

of the park in California
made me reconsider,

and I made a U-turn.

Moreover, it was pouring with rain.

I didn't regret my decision,
though,

because in one of the
city's parks

I ran into some people who refused
to let a little rain

stop them from being an American.

# Rock 'n' roll #

# Gonna rock, gonna rock #

# Around the clock tonight #

[rock]

# Well, tutti fruiti #

# Aw rootie #

# Tutti fruiti #

# Aw rootie #

# Tutti fruiti #

# Aw rootie #

# Tutti fruiti #

# Aw rootie #

[Runaway playing]

[Elvis Presley's Don't be Cruel]

# Don't want no other lover #

# Baby, it's just you
I'm thinking of #

[rock] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!

[screaming]

[girls scream]

[girl screams]

[screaming]

[Johnny B. Goode playing]

# Who never ever learned to
read and write so well #

# But he could play a guitar just
like ringin' a bell #

# Go, go #

# Go, Johnny, go, go #

[Call Me playing]

[whistle blows]

[whistle blows]

[whistle blows]

[whistle blows]

# Color me your color, baby #

# Color me your car #

[blows whistle]

[Peppermint Twist playing]

# Yeah, the name of this dance
is the Peppermint Twist #

# You like it like this,
the Peppermint Twist #

# It goes 'round and 'round
up and down #

# Summer #

# We're on safari to stay #

# Tell the teacher we're surfin' #

# Surfin' USA #

# At Haggarty's and Swami's #

# Inside, outside, USA #

# Pacific Palisades #

[rock, fast beat]

[rock]

[At the Hop playing]

[moody jazz]

[electronic gunshots]

[explosions, gunshots]

[electronic beeping]

[electronic reverberations]

[moody jazz]

[Wenders] That night, I met
the French filmmaker

and cat lover Chris Marker

in a bar in Shinjuku...

a bar bearing the name of one
of his films - La Jetee.

Only in the coming days was
I to see his new film:

the beautiful Sans Soleil,

in which there are images of Tokyo

inaccessible to the camera of
a foreigner like me.

Like so many photographers,

Chris Marker doesn't like
to be photographed.

But tonight, he did risk

showing an eye after all.

[moody jazz]

[Wenders] The trains.

The trains.

All the trains in Ozu's films.

Not a single film

in which there isn't at
least one train.

[train passes loudly]

[train roars]

[train approaching]

[loud chugging]

[noise recedes]

[Wenders] Yuuhara Atsuta was the
second camera assistant

on Ozu's early silent films,

later his longtime first assistant,

and finally, for almost 20 years,

Ozu's cameraman.

He showed me how Ozu worked
in an interior set.

We were able to get hold
of an old Mitchell,

the very same one Atsuta and Ozu
had actually used

to shoot their last films.

Over the years, Yasujiro Ozu
had simplified

more and more his visual means
of expression.

Whereas in the early films

there are still occasional
tracking shots and pans,

he gradually eliminated even these

until finally he shot only
with a fixed camera

always set at the eye level

of someone seated on the floor

and always fitted with
the same lens...

[speaking Japanese]

...the 50 millimeter.

[speaking Japanese]

"This set-up here was the
standard position

used for a long or medium-long shot",

explained Atsuta.

"For a close-up or medium-close-up,

"the camera position was
always raised.

"The reason for this was
that Ozu wanted

"to avoid image distortion which
would've occurred

"if the camera were kept in
the lower position

"and tilted upwards for
the close-up.

"That's why the camera was always
elevated for close-ups,

even if only slightly."

[Wenders] "This was the camera support
designed by Ozu himself",

Atsuta told me,

"in order to achieve the camera position
for exterior shots,

"even lower than the one permitted

by the usual triplex."

"The shortest available tripod
came up to here.

"But Ozu wanted to have the
camera even lower,

"which meant that as a cameraman

"I had to lie on the floor to look
through the viewfinder.

"Then it was advantageous

that we almost never
did any panning."

[Wenders] "When Ozu wanted
to set up a shot

"and the assistants had
positioned the camera

"according to his instructions,

"Ozu looked through the camera

"and very carefully decided
on the framing.

"Then he said, 'That's it',

"and the assistants fixed the camera
in this position.

"Once set, nobody was allowed
to touch the camera.

This was an iron-clad rule."

"Then, during the first
few rehearsals,

"Ozu again looked through
the viewfinder,

directed the actors, and gave
them their positions."

"After making final adjustments,

"the camera was secured
once and for all.

"And now was the time when
everyone had to be

"really careful not
to bump into it

"and upset the positioning
of the shot.

We were really nervous
around the camera."

Atsuta continued:

"Ozu didn't like shooting exterior
shots on location,

"especially when a crowd of
spectators gathered.

"That's why we always did the exterior
shots as fast as we could,

or, if possible, avoided
them altogether."

"Ozu gave me his stopwatch..."

"...as a keepsake.

"I'd like to show it
to you later.

It's the only remembrance
I have of him."

"The script girl always
started her watch

"along with Ozu.

"And since we were filming
with sound,

"you could hear the two clicks.

"And every time, the sound engineer
would listen and say,

"'What on earth was that noise?'

"Ozu considered it important

"to time things as accurately
as possible.

"Each take was timed,

"and when we watched the rushes,

the time was taken once again."

"I always used these childish things.

"Isn't that a bit embarrassing?

"I was always running around
with a mat like this

under my arm."

[laughs]

"It really was a hell of a job."

[speaking Japanese]

[Wenders] "This is the stopwatch

"which Ozu had specially built.

"He used it all through the years.

"With this watch, he
recorded the times

for every scene, including inserts."

"The red line shows how much
film stock has been shot

"in the standard 35 millimeter format.

"The middle line gives the seconds.

"And the third one here indicates
the footage

for the 60-millimeter format."

"This stopwatch was important for Ozu

"in order to precisely measure time

"in seconds and in frames.

I wanted you to see it."

Atsuta loaned me the original of
one of Ozu's screenplays

for a few days.

I leafed through it, reverent
and helpless.

I couldn't decipher a single word...

not even the title.

[indistinct chatter]

[Wenders] How long were you
his assistant?

[Interpreter speaking Japanese]

"From the beginning
to the end.

His camera assistant
for 15 years."

[Interpreter speaking Japanese]

[Wenders] And then you became
Ozu's cameraman?

"Yes."

[Interpreter speaking Japanese]

[Wenders] How did that come about?

[speaking Japanese]

"Very simply. He said,

"'From now on, this is
your job. Okay?'

"He was a man of few words.

[Atsuta speaking Japanese]

"I just said, 'Thank you.'"

[speaking Japanese]

"And my gratitude to Ozu continues
to this very day."

"I was the caretaker of the camera...

"and that's not meant as
false modesty.

I was proud to be the caretaker
of Ozu's camera."

[Atsuta speaking Japanese]

"All the more so because already
as an assistant,

"I had come to know and admire him.

"At that time, all the other
assistants

"had long become cameramen...

"and I was still nothing but the
assistant on Ozu's crew.

"One day, he said to me,

"'Since you are going to be a
cameraman sooner or later,

"'why don't you be patient

and become the dog of a big house?'"

"I appreciated his work.

"Many of my colleagues were
making more money.

"Above all, the newsreel cameramen

"were very well paid.

"But I stayed where I was.

"I wanted to remain at Ozu's side.

That was my view."

[Wenders] Did you discuss
much with Ozu

before you began shooting a film?

"No. I wouldn't say we
had discussions.

"We simply talked together
like always,

"and also not at any great length.

"Anyway, I had little to say to him

"and nothing as regards direction.

"At most, I would ask him things like,

"'What period of time is
covered in the film?

"'A few weeks? A few months? A year?'

"And that only because of the lighting,

"in order to get an idea
of the seasons.

"Ever since the days when
Ogawa showed his films,

"he never used any lens other
than the 50 millimeter.

"I remember him often saying,

"'Ogawa, why do you keep suggesting

"'the 40 millimeter?

"You know very well I like
the 50 better.'

"Later, I myself once asked him

"to take a look at a scene
through another lens.

"Just once.

"He peered through the viewfinder
and said,

'Just as I thought - not as good
as the 50.'"

"So I put the good old 50 right
back on the camera,

"gnashing my teeth a bit.

"And from that day on,

I, too, never again questioned
the 50 millimeter."

"Using a lens with a wider angle

"increases the image field
on both sides

"and also in terms of height.

"But that just wasn't to Ozu's taste.

"During the time of the silent films,

"I mean, with the change
over to sound,

"the width of the frame became
a bit narrower

"because of the added soundtrack.

"Before, you could use the entire
width of the negative,

"but not anymore.

I think that affected his sense
of image composition."

"He left me in complete charge
of the lighting."

"In the film, there was a father.

"There's a scene near the end

"in which the father dies.
You remember?

"I lit the hospital room

"so that it was extremely bright...

"as if the sun were shining in.

"In a place like that,
in a hospital,

"one is filled with compassion
when it's lovely outside.

So I had the sunlight pour in the
room with great intensity."

"Ozu turned to me and said,

"'What have you done?

"'Why?

"'That's not bad at all.'

"And I replied, 'To be perfectly honest,

"'I just didn't want to let the
old man die in the dark.

"'I wanted him to be surrounded
by light

at the moment of his death.'"

"'We shoot it exactly like this',

was the praise Ozu gave me."

"In general, he never told me

"what he thought of the shots

"or even if he liked them.

"I never heard Ozu say
something like,

"'That was a good take.'

"At the very most, a few days later
he would say,

"'That wasn't bad at all
the other day.'

Yes, that was typical of him."

[Interpreter speaking Japanese]

"Once he asked me,

"'Do you have a girlfriend?'

"And I said, 'Yes. She has three legs.

"'And I always carry her around
on my back.'

"I was talking about my tripod.

"It became a running joke between us.

"'Your girlfriend, the three-legged one',

"he would tease me,

'She's not so bad-looking.
A real cutie.'"

"I was quite fond of him.

"I had a special feeling for him
right up to his death,

and Ozu knew it."

"I know something like this might
sound a bit strange...

"...but I'm probably the only
cameraman in the world

"who remained with one single director

"for such an outrageous
length of time...

"from assistant right to the end.

"No, I don't think anyone else
can make that claim.

To have served Ozu... that's
my pride and joy."

"Interior shots were always
done in a studio,

"never on location.

"The only exceptions were
the train shots.

"Whenever we had to shoot
inside a train...

I always said to Ozu, 'Anything
but the studio.'"

"And he accepted that."

"No matter what you do,

a train never looks right
in the studio.

"Everything shakes, and
in the wrong way.

"That's why I always wanted us
to film in real trains.

"And you can be sure

"that in every post-war film by Ozu

the trains are real ones."

"We always spent a lot of time
scouting for locations.

"But we never used a car.

We went on foot... always on foot."

"There was even a joke about it:

Location scouting is over only
when you pass out."

[Atsuta speaking Japanese
with interpreter]

[Wenders] This will be
the last question.

"Yes."

Did you work with other directors

after Ozu's death?

"Yes, I did."

"But I was completely miserable
on the job.

For a long time, I felt dazed."

"How can I explain it?"

"I continued to work for a while,

"but without any feeling for my work

"or for the director I happened
to be with.

Something was gone."

"Ozu got the best out of me...

"and I gave him my best.

"With the others...

my best was no longer there."

[speaking tearfully]

"I'm indebted to Ozu.

Sometimes one feels lonely."

"Leave me now."

"I thank you."

"Yes...one becomes lonely."

"What you call 'spirit',

that can never be explained
to anybody else..."

"That's why...the people,

"the people he worked with,
he cared about them.

"He was more than a director.

"He was like a king.

"Now...at this moment...

he must be pleased."

"I'm just not myself today."

"Please...go now

and leave me here alone."

"I apologize."

"Yasujiro Ozu was a good man."

[sobbing]

[children singing]

[singing continues]

[train becomes deafening]

[train wheels' rhythm]

[train whistle blows]

[whistle fades]

[boat motor clacking]

[clacking continues]

You must be sad.
They all left you alone.

It was just so sudden.

- She was a headstrong woman,

but if I had known that
this would happen

I would have been kinder to
her while she was alive.

Living alone, the days
will seem very long.

- Lonely indeed... how sad.

[motor clacking]

[boat horn blows]