Ozu Yasujiro’s Cinematic City Space (1949-1962)

As a prominent director in cinema history, Yasujiro Ozu reflects a legend. The meaning of legend in this case is more than his precise 60-year-old age and his graceful film style; it is also about the dramatic change of the criticism on his works after his death. From an almost unknown figure outside Japan to a widely recognized film master, who even tends to overtake Akira Kurosawa and Kenji Mizoguchi-the two most renowned Japanese directors in terms of traditional film studies-such great change cannot be convincingly explained by the existing Ozu studies. This thesis initials a study on Ozu from the perspective of city space, trying to find a reasonable explanation on how this change took place.Therefore, this thesis will be mainly based on space theory that is firstly argued by Henri Lefebvre and include Michel Foucault’s definition of heterotopia and Michael Dear’s theory on film space, combining, in the mean time, cultural study, feminist study, postcolonial study, etc. Through the careful reading of the city space in Ozu’s works, this thesis tries to provide an explanation on Ozu’s meaningfulness to the current human world, which is Ozu creates a highly distilled virtual world that is disguised by a seemingly realistic cover and offers an imagined world that transcends the real one. No matter from the perspective of text or from that of context, Ozu’s cinematic space is more real than pure imagination, meanwhile, is more fascinating than the real world. Such images can only be defined by the notion of "heterotopia" that is suggested by Michel Foucault. In effect, this quality of embodying both truth and imagination altogether precisely answers why Ozu’s films are worth reexamining in today’s world.