Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema

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I was born middle class, but…: Ozu Yasujiro's

shōshimin eiga in the early 1930s

Woojeong Joo

To cite this article: Woojeong Joo (2012) I was born middle class, but…: Ozu Yasujiro's
shōshimin eiga in the early 1930s, Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema, 4:2, 103-118, DOI:
10.1386/jjkc.4.2.103_1

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1386/jjkc.4.2.103_1

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 JJKC 4 (2) pp. 103–118 Intellect Limited 2012

Journal of Japanese & Korean Cinema

Volume 4 Number 2
© 2012 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/jjkc.4.2.103_1

Woojeong Joo
Nagoya University

I was born middle class,

but …: Ozu Yasujiro’s
sho-shimin eiga in the early
1930s

Abstract Keywords
Sho- shimin eiga was a popular film genre in the early 1930s, dealing with the Ozu Yasujiro
everyday life of the urban middle classes in Japan. Ozu Yasujiro, known as the repre- sho-shimin eiga
sentative director of the genre, attempted a sophisticated view of the contemporary sarar ı-man
Japanese society in his sho- shimin eiga by probing the precarious life of the middle patriarchy
class under the threat of unemployment. Through the analysis of two sho-shimin the everyday
eiga, Tokyo Chorus (1931) and I Was Born But … (1932), this article explores Shochiku Kamata
how Ozu’s depiction of the middle-class everyday life develops into a more general Studio
critique of Japanese modernity. Both films suggest the crisis of this modern system
by revealing the contradiction between sararı-man father’s patriarchal status and
economic insecurity that his middle-class family suffers from. Far from appealing to
class consciousness as appearing in tendency films, Ozu instead concentrates on the
possibility of deviation in the everyday, not only through unique sense of humour,
but also in the form of spatial displacement and temporal reconfiguration.

103
Woojeong Joo

As world capitalism faces a sign of serious crisis at the beginning of the

twenty-first century, the worldwide depression of the 1930s is receiving new
critical attention as a historical model for comparison and analysis. The term
globalization was not in fad in the 30s, but the explosion in the West was
certainly felt in the Far East, particularly in Japan for the country’s economy,
having already experienced several crises in the 1920s, was hit hard again by
the worldwide financial collapse. While the answer to their economic woes
was sought in political conservatism, which would see the rise of militarism
and eventually develop into full-scale wars throughout the decade, the indi-
vidual Japanese had to endure an unstable life, threatened by unemployment
and inflation. As if to compensate for this, they took refuge in cultural enjoy-
ment as their American counterparts did; cinemas and theatres in Tokyo’s
Asakusa region thrived with escapism that foregrounded materialistic life and
sexual pleasure as epitomized by the catchphrase, ‘ero, guro, nansensu’/‘erotic,
grotesque, nonsensical’.
Sho-shimin eiga (petit-bourgeois or middle-class film) was a representative
product of this period. As the name literally suggests, the genre was mainly
characterized by its subject matter to deal with the everyday life of the urban
middle-class (namely, white-collar) family. It was Shochiku company’s Kamata
studio, then the only major Japanese studio based in the Kanto region after the
Great Earthquake in 1923, that specialized in this modern genre. In contrast
to Asakusa’s hedonism, sho-shimin eiga rather reflected Kamata’s production
policy (known as Kamata-cho-) to depict the middle-class life as it could be seen
in reality, which I would call ‘everyday realism’. The mood was to be bright
and cheerful, and the theme articulated humanism that could provide audi-
ences with a warm, hopeful vision of life, as conceived by the studio’s head,
Kido Shiro. The appeal of sho-shimin eiga’s middle-classism, however, was not
confined to the urban middle-class audiences who were originally targeted.
Even in rural regions, sho-shimin eiga sold better than other genre films, prov-
ing that it served as a form of cinematic voyeurism for non-sho-shimin audi-
ences, who wanted to ‘forget present life’ by consuming the ‘most progressive
and chic’ image of the urban petit-bourgeois (Shimizu  1931:  53–54). Thus,
in 1932, at the peak of the genre’s popularity, Japanese critic Ikeda Hisao
asserted that ‘almost 90 percent of contemporary commercial films’ dealt with
sho-shimin as a subject matter (1932: 118).
However, such is only one side of the whole picture of sho-shimin eiga.
With regard to the true identity of the middle-class realism that the genre
pursued and its political implication as an ideology, there are many ambiguous
points that have provoked confusion and controversy. Ozu Yasujiro, known
as the representative director of the genre, occupies the central position in
this debate. Debuting in 1927 as a director in Kamata studio, Ozu in his early
career touched on many genres including college comedy, melodrama and
even gangster film, but it was sho-shimin eiga that he became most renowned
for. The first sign of his interest in the middle-class family life can be found in
Hikkoshi fu-fu/A Couple on the Move and Nikutaibi/Body Beautiful, both released
in 1928. In the next year, he developed the format into a more refined form
in Daigaku wa detakeredo/I Graduated But … and Kaishain seikatsu/The Life of
an Office Worker, which drew strong attention from critics. It should be noted
that the sho-shimin eiga Ozu created somewhat deviated from the genre norms
that Kamata (and Kido) designated. Putting more emphasis on the sorrow
and pathos of middle-class families under economic hardship, Ozu drew a
line between his sho-shimin eiga and more typical Kamata films with cheerful

104
 I was born middle class, but …

mood and happy ending. Kido, whose first concern was always the commer- 1. In his autobiographical
writing, Kido
ciality of a film that he produced, did not entirely consent to Ozu’s style; the recollected:
thicker the pathos, the less it appeals to wide audiences was his watchword.
He even seemed to regard Ozu’s sho-shimin eiga as the director’s own inven- [Ozu] started
to do so-called
tion set against the studio’s creed, Kamata-cho-.1 sho-shimin films
This uncomfortable relationship reflects the contradictory position that from around Body
Ozu and his sho-shimin eiga occupied in the Japanese Cinema of the 1930s, the
Beautiful. … When
I returned from
complexity of which will be the main point that I want to address in this article. the US [in April
Ozu was always a contradiction. He was both an exception from Shochiku and 1929], he became
better skilled at
a representative of Shochiku. A well-known (perhaps the best known) artistic it. … It had been
master of Japanese cinema, he in fact was acutely aware of his limitation as an the basic strategy
of Shochiku to
employee of Shochiku’s, who always had to consider the commercial viabil- favorably deal with
ity of his films.2 In terms of sho-shimin eiga, this means that more sophisticated contemporary
perspective is required to differentiate Ozu’s rendition from other typical films sho-shimin people.
However, Ozu did
of the genre. I think that difference rises from Ozu’s attempt to more openly not think petit-
confront the social condition of the times, which led to questioning the funda- bourgeois life a
mentals of Japanese modernization and capitalism, which was undergoing seri- wholly cheerful
one [as in other
ous crisis in the 1930s. Some recent studies on the sho-shimin eiga, which I will Shochiku films],
discuss later, trace its conservative ideologies (such as patriarchy and nation- if not necessarily
a desperate one
alism) suggested in the genre as a solution to the contemporary crisis. But I .… For him, the
will argue that Ozu’s real problematic progressed deeper into the fundamental Kamata-cho- films
issue of Japanese modernity that had originally begun as a national agenda. In until that time
could have seemed
order to prove this point, I will investigate how Ozu dealt with the middle-class cheap. I could sense
everyday life in the depression era, and how he probed for an alternative within from his [stubborn]
the everyday (instead of resorting to reactionary ideologies), by analysing two attitude that he,
finding too much
of his most representative sho-shimin eiga, To-kyo- no ko-rasu/Tokyo Chorus (1931) easy compromise
and Otona no miru ehon: Umareta wa mita keredo/I Was Born But … (1932). with society
[in Shochiku’s
filmmaking],
decided to
The rise and fall of the Japanese middle class overcome it with
all his might.
Tokyo Chorus and I Was Born But … marked the first critical (albeit not (Kido 1956: 74–76)
commercial) highpoint of Ozu’s long career. Contemporary Japanese critics
had already been paying attention to Ozu’s sho-shimin eiga, as evidenced by the
2. He once admitted
that the element
special issue devoted to him by Eiga hyo-ron/Film Criticism in July 1930, analys- of ‘fraternal love,
ing the director’s contribution to the genre. But it was through Tokyo Chorus maternal love, or
paternal love’, which
and I Was Born But … that Ozu’s artistry in film-making was unanimously is now known to be
acclaimed by the critics. The former was mentioned as ‘the first class of the the quintessence of
Ozu’s cinema, was a
first classes among Japanese films’ and the latter was praised to be ‘the best art
- compromise, added
film ever since the Japanese Cinema had begun’ (Otsuka 1931: 91; Yoshimura with an ‘intention to
1936: 52). But as the famous anecdote about I Was Born But … – that Shochiku generate box office
value’ for the company
hesitated to release the film for fear of its too bleak an atmosphere – suggests, (Tanaka 1987: 48).
these films were not particularly commercially successful, even compared to
Ozu’s other films.3 Critics found the reason in the overt sho-shimin (i.e. petit-
3. Two of the most
commercially
bourgeois) consciousness inherent in Ozu’s sho-shimin eiga, which ironi- successful Ozu’s films
cally deterred general audiences, who merely wanted sho-shimin’s image for in the early 1930s were
- Ojo-san/Young Miss
escapism. Otsuka Kyo-ichi indicated that Tokyo Chorus could be a ‘completely (1930) and Shukujo
meaningless and boring film’ to ordinary audiences, except for a small group to hige/The Lady and
the Beard (1931), both
of real urban middle-class people who could ‘understand the sophisticated
- of which were light,
flavor of the film’ (Otsuka 1931: 92). Yoshimura Ko-zaburo- was also very scep- nonsensical comedy.
tical about the commercial appeal of Ozu’s sho-shimin eiga to general audiences,
who ‘loathed realistic depiction of hardships in life in film’ and ‘were not able
to understand the comparably intellectual techniques of the genre’ (1936: 55).

105
Woojeong Joo

4. In contrast, The plots of the two films confirm that they serve the concerns of the
‘shopkeepers,
wholesalers, petty
urban middle classes. Both Tokyo Chorus and I Was Born, But … are stories
manufacturers, and about a suburban nuclear family, whose middle-class identity is seriously
their ill-paid employees’ threatened by the unemployment (or the possibility of unemployment) of a
who had existed before
can be called the ‘old patriarch. Okajima in Tokyo Chorus is dismissed from the insurance company
middle class’ (Gordon he works for after having a brawl with the company head over the lay-off of
2003: 149). his colleague. The rest of the film follows Okajima’s struggle to get by, with
5. It was actually private episodes occurring in his everyday life. It is at the end of the film where he,
railway companies that -
through his old-time school teacher Omura’s help, finds a new job outside
not only constructed
the new suburban lines Tokyo and decides to move with his family for the future. As if it were a sequel
but also developed to this story, I Was Born But … begins with a scene of Yoshii family’s moving to
houses and shopping
centres in suburbs to
Tokyo’s suburb. Unlike Okajima, the patriarch Yoshii in this film manages to
attract middle-class avoid the fate of lay-off, only at the expense of toadying to his boss. At home,
people out of the city. however, he reigns as a strong patriarch. Such a double identity is, however,
A railway transfer
point such as Shinjuku finally revealed to his children, which causes a great domestic conflict in the
accordingly became following sequences. The film ends without clearly resolving the children’s
a commuters’ hub, question whether they are destined to be another feeble sararı-man/salaried
full of shopping and
entertainment facilities worker just like their father.
such as department The depressive family portrait depicted in the two films reflects the contra-
stores, cinemas, music
and dance halls, cafes,
dictory nature of Japanese middle classes, whose identity was caught between
bars and restaurants the dream of material success and the fear of economic collapse. In Japan,
(Tipton 2008: 107). the ‘new middle class’ (i.e. ‘educated salaried employees of corporations and
government bureaus and their families’) began to appear in the twentieth
century in accordance with the rapid development of industrial capitalism4
(Gordon 2003: 149). The national economy’s growth during World War I
(1914–1918) was great enough to provide young university graduates with an
unprecedented opportunity to find office-based jobs in metropolitan centres,
and the term ‘sararı-man’ was first coined in the 1920s to identify this new
group. The 1920s also overlapped with the peak of modern western culture
that transformed the common people into the consuming masses. Modan raifu/
modern life or bunka seikatsu/cultured life became the catchphrase of the new
consumerism of the middle-class families whose shopping list ranged from
kitchenware to suburban house. This modern everyday life was supported by
segregated labour by gender: while sararı-man husband works in a city centre
office, his wife takes care of the household, faithful to the ideology of ryo-sai
kenbo (good wife and wise mother). A new railway system was built in order
to connect these two different worlds in seamless function.5
However, the success of the new middle class was inevitably compromised
by its limitations. As the number of college graduates increased, their career
prospects grew less promising, and more spilled over into the private sector
without landing a new job in government, which had originally been the
place exclusively reserved for the college graduates. And the economic situa-
tion facing them was not always favourable in the 1920s, which started with
a post-war recession, followed by the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 and
successive financial collapses in 1927 and 1929. The result was that so-called
‘intellectual unemployment’ became a ubiquitous phenomenon. While
82 per cent of male university and professional school graduates could find
jobs in 1923, the number plummeted to 54 per cent in 1928 (Nagy 1991: 204).
Overproduced and devalued like other commodities in capitalist society,
Japan’s urban white-collar middle class had to deal with the contradiction
between expectation and frustration, their perseverance often rewarded with
the threat of disposal.

106
 I was born middle class, but …

The crisis of the Japanese middle class was rooted in the failure of the 6. An example is the
Everyday Life Reform
system of the nation’s modernization and thus should be understood in the League (Seikatsu
context of its history since the Meiji Restoration in 1868. From the beginning, kaizen do-meikai)
Japan’s modernization was largely considered as a national agenda. Under the that emerged from a
government campaign
banner of ‘Civilization and Enlightenment’, a clear goal was set to adopt the called the Movement
western model and eventually overcome it, and various projects and refor- to Foster the Nation’s
mations driven by the state followed. As a part of this process, the Japanese Strength (Minryoku
kanyo-) by the Home
government implemented a national higher education system and encour- Ministry, and was
aged young people to take part in this system in exchange for the dream of also sponsored by the
Ministry of Education.
secular success, as summarized in the phrase ‘risshin shusse shugi’ (careerism; As these titles suggest,
literally meaning ‘ideology of standing and advancing in the world’). From the movement pursued
this point of view, the new middle class reflected two opposite and competing a nationalistic end
to reorganize the
tendencies in Japanese modernity – modern individualism and more traditional contours of everyday
collectivism, the balance between which alternated throughout the nation’s personal life, i.e., to
modern history. On the one hand, the sararı-man, as a highly educated labour ‘emphasize efficiency
and economies yet
force, was essentially an outcome of a ‘national initiative, installed almost like encourage people
conscription’ to serve the purpose of building a modern, capitalistic nation to avoid excess and
immersing themselves
(Cutts 1997: 10). But this ‘official’ origin could not exclude an ‘alternative’ too deeply in the new
ideology, one that advocated individual success through the chain of ‘educa- commodity culture’
tion, employment, and rising in the world’ (Gluck 1985: 206). The former, (Harootunian 2000: 15).
emphasizing collectivistic morality such as nationalism and patriarchy, always
made an effort to contain the extent of the latter within a rational boundary,
as evidenced by various national campaigns to promote reasonable domestic
consumption.6
Sararı-man family’s middle-class everyday life was founded upon this
dilemma between individualism and collectivism. It could exist as long as
the tension between them was resolved through a patriarch’s stable employ-
ment and income to support his family’s consumption, and in exchange the
patriarchal order in society as well as at home, which justified the housewife’s
domestic labour and the reproduction of the next generation. The economic
crisis in the 1930s then meant the fundamental breakdown of this principle
of Japanese modernity. If the one side of the balance – the sararı-man family’s
economic independence – was not guaranteed, how could the order of the
other side – patriarchy, more fundamentally, nationalistic modernization  –
be justified and accepted by individuals without a doubt? Ozu’s sho-shimin
eiga, consistently dealing with the issue of sararı-man’s unstable employment,
attempts to confront this essential question addressed to the history of
Japanese modernity.

Criticism on Ozu’s shōshimin eiga

Ozu’s sho-shimin eiga, however, has long been exposed to various criticisms
since its heyday in the 1930s. Their major perspectives commonly pointed out
the director’s ambiguous ideological stance to the reality of the middle class,
which either failed to reach a more radical conclusion faithful to class conflict
or suggested a retrogressive patriarchal and nationalistic solution to the very
modern problem. The former was argued by Ozu’s contemporary Japanese
critics, who, from the Marxist’s point of view, saw the genre as the middle
class’s self-complacency without directly confronting the contradictions of
the bourgeoisie and capitalism. Ignoring socio-structural causes and reduc-
ing every issue to an individual problem, Ozu’s sho-shimin eiga lacked clearer
class consciousness, the kind as seen in such keiko- eiga/tendency film as Nani

107
Woojeong Joo

7. The major critics of ga kanojo o so- saseta ka/What Made Her Do It? (Suzuki, 1930).7 The inherent
this position included
O-tsuka Kyo-ichi, Ikeda
problem of the genre can be attributed to the apolitical nature of the Shochiku
Hisao and Sekino Kamata Studio. Mainly comprising employees of middle-class origin, Kamata
Yoshio, who were was naturally drawn to the sho-shimin eiga to deliver the message of petit-
active in the magazine
Eiga hyo-ron/Film bourgeois class ideology, which was politically ambiguous enough to evade
Criticism. Sekino, for the state’s censorship control (Ikeda 1932: 119; Wada-Marciano 2008: 22).
example, criticized This critical view from the 1930s, however, not only failed to differentiate
the sho-shimin eiga
for ‘never attempting the case of Ozu from other Kamata films as previously mentioned, but more
to touch the essence essentially reflects an ideological bias to indiscriminately apply a leftist frame-
of the situation
but stopping at an
work to a petit-bourgeois genre, which, in retrospect, should be judged by its
extremely superficial own aesthetic as well as thematic merit.
phenomenon’ (1930: 22). In contrast, more recent criticisms of the sho-shimin eiga pay attention to
For Ikeda, the genre’s
main characteristics – the genre’s implied political attitude. Both Jeong Suwan and Mitsuyo Wada-
cheerfulness, humour Marciano articulate the genre’s active role in reconstructing modern subjec-
and pathos – meant no tivity through nationalistic and patriarchal ideas. The sho-shimin films, on the
other than ‘escapism’,
a ‘light stimulant’, and one hand, ‘create a new modern subject, the middle class, and promote the
‘nihilistic sentiment’ idea that Japan has already reached a level of modernization on par with
(1932: 121–23). Since
the sho-shimin eiga
the West’ (Wada-Marciano 2008: 50). However, on the other hand, the devel-
concentrated more opment of ‘materialism in modernization’ and the loss of ‘Japan’s traditional
on the various spirit’ became the cause of the economic hardship that the middle-class char-
sentimental responses
of the sararı-man acters had to suffer (Jeong 2000: 61). What the genre accordingly suggests
and his family than to viewers as an alternative is to ‘enter a nationalist discourse, with which
on active analysis they paradoxically resist modernization … while evoking a lost “traditional”
of and resistance to
their socioeconomic past’ (Wada-Marciano 2008: 50). Such a call to the traditional order was
situation, these most conspicuously revealed through the character of the patriarch. In the
Japanese critics tended
to call the genre – in
sho-shimin eiga, the ‘modern material culture that permeated the family weak-
a negative nuance – ened paternal authority’, and the repercussions of this were suggested in
shinkyo- eiga (state of the end through the ‘longing for an elegiac old Japan and its social mores’
mind film), for which
Ozu occupied the (Jeong  2007: 248; Wada-Marciano 2008: 51). The genre thus operates as a
central position critique of modernity that advocates such a traditional value as patriarchy and
(Jeong 2000: 55). eventually restructures the subjectivity of Japanese people according to the
nationalistic concern.
An example of this retrogressive tendency can be found in Tokyo Chorus.
-
Okajima, unemployed, comes across his former teacher Omura on the street,
-
and decides to help in a small restaurant that Omura runs in exchange for the
teacher’s promise to look for a new job for him. This leads to Okajima organ-
izing a class reunion party in the restaurant. The virtue of collectivism as the
antidote of harsh reality cannot be more clearly articulated than in this last
-
restaurant sequence. Not only Omura and his wife, but also Okajima’s wife,
who once disapproved of her husband’s involvement in menial work, joins
in preparing dishes of curry and rice for the party. Then, changing to a clean
-
kimono and carrying a Japanese-style fan, Omura stands before his former
students to give a welcoming address in which he asks them to ‘struggle
hard’ with an ‘indomitable spirit’ and ‘self-reliance’. His proud and confident
attitude – as seen in his firmly clinched right hand – reminds viewers of the
collectivistic spirit in the PE class in the film’s opening sequence. It is through
-
this ‘patriarchal’ Omura’s help that the main conflict of the film – Okajima’s
unemployment – is finally resolved; a notice of employment timely arrives
-
during the party, which Omura hands to Okajima to the latter’s great joy. After
many rounds of communal drinking and eating, the film ends with everyone
singing a dormitory song in chorus. This is actually not the first ‘chorus’ in
the film. In a previous scene, when Okajima’s family returns home from the

108
 I was born middle class, but …

hospital where his sick daughter has been taken, a delighted Okajima wakens 8. During a preliminary
national survey for the
his house by opening every closed door and window and leads the rest of the Civil Code, the Meiji
family into sitting and singing together in a circle. His wife is startled to find government discovered
that Okajima has sold off her kimono to pay the hospital bill, but Okajima that there existed an
inheritance system
persuades her by saying, ‘Miyoko became healthy, instead’. The first domes- among wealthy farmer
tic crisis is thus resolved through Okajima’s leadership, which is later echoed and merchant families
- that descended
by Omura’s help, both ending up with the harmonious singing together. The
through the lineage of
film thus strongly signals the conclusion that even the social ills of modern mother or youngest
capitalism can be overcome by appealing to a patriarchal figure who would child, which contrasted
the samurai class
take care of the situation. convention of paternal
This ideal vision of familial/social unification reinforces the idea of ie, the lineage system. The
Japanese patriarchal family system devised by the government through such controversy over the
Civil Code continued
principal laws as the Meiji Civil Code (1898). Modelled after the convention for nearly twenty
of the samurai class family, the ie in the Civil Code was an exclusively pater- years, but the maternal
nal inheritance system centring on the lineage between a father and an elder system was eventually
dismissed as a ‘shomin
son. However, as the history surrounding the enactment of the Civil Code (common people)’s
shows, patriarchy was not an inherently absolute condition, but an alternative barbaric custom’ (Ueno
1994: 69–70).
chosen with an intention.8 The segregation of labour based on gender, and
the ryo-sai kenbo that ideologically supported the system, was also as much a 9. Women in Japan,
except a small number
new phenomenon in the twentieth-century Japan as patriarchy was.9 It is thus who belonged to the
important to understand that the patriarchal family as a social system was a samurai class, were
modern concept, based upon ‘a tradition’ but not being necessarily ‘traditional’. traditionally a part of
the productive labour
Through the ie, the Japanese family became ‘suitable for the purpose of a force in the agricultural
modern nation state’, and the nation state was reciprocally shaped to become and domestic industrial
‘suitable for the purpose of the family model’ (Ueno 1994: 69). The father economy. However,
modern wage labour
figure in Tokyo Chorus, as the leader of a harmonious family, suggests that this was mostly entrusted
modern nationalistic system after Meiji can still be valid in spite of the precari- to males, who had to
be away from home
ous economic situation in the 1930s. the whole day for
However, the sararı-man fathers in Ozu’s sho-shimin eiga are much more work, leaving the
complex characters than a simple patriarch. Okajima in Tokyo Chorus is espe- responsibility for
household affairs to
cially distanced from the image of a stern, ‘traditional’ father figure. His lead- their wives (Uno 1991:
ership as a patriarch is rather founded upon the softer side of his character, one 35–38; Ueno 1987:
who takes care of the daughter in sickbed and reads a book and gives a piggy- S78–S79).

back ride to his son. The narrative of the film articulates the contrast between
the familial harmony allowed for this caring father and his despair and frus-
tration as an unemployed man that undermines his status as a patriarch. For
example, on the day of his lay-off, Okajima resorts to a harsh violence when
confronted by the anger of his son, for whom the father cannot afford to buy
a bicycle as promised. This domestic mishap leads to his alienation from the
rest of the family, as visualized by the distance between Okajima in the fore-
ground and the other family members in the background, and a scared look
of the family at Okajima as he approaches his wife to hand over his dismissal
notice. His alienation is confirmed in a later scene, where his family on a
-
passing tram discovers that Okajima is helping Omura to distribute restau-
rant leaflets on a street. This revelation, conveyed as the wife’s point-of-view
shot through a black window frame of the tram, becomes a cinematic expe-
rience for the family, which can be hardly believable as reality. The wife, in
shame, not only denies to her children, ‘how can he be your papa?’, but also
opposes Okajima in a later scene, insisting that she does not want him to do
such menial work. It is important to notice here that the wife’s middle-class
consciousness is dependent upon her husband’s employment status and his
corresponding role as a strong patriarch. Therefore, the crisis of the patriarchy

109
Woojeong Joo

Figure 1: Tokyo Chorus: Okajima in the foreground is alienated from his family
in the background.

Figure 2: Okajima approaches his family to hand his dismissal note. Notice that
Ozu’s camera stays at low height to remove Okajima’s upper body from the frame,
which dehumanizes the father figure into an unfamiliar image, and in effect
emphasizes the scared look of his family.

110
 I was born middle class, but …

-
Figure 3: Okajima is found carrying a banner advertising Omura’s restaurant on the
street, which undermines the middle-class consciousness of his wife. Tokyo Chorus.

in Okajima’s case does not simply arise within the family; the authentic cause
comes from the world outside, infiltrating the domesticity in the form of the
fear of unemployment, as represented by the dismissal notice or the humiliat-
ing working-class image.
Although a much more stern type of patriarch than Okajima, Yoshii in I
Was Born But … is not an exception from the similar process of the revela-
tion of his feeble social identity and the alienation from the family. In the first
part of the film, he acts as a dominating father at home, while currying favour
from his boss at work. Yoshii even asks his boss to write his name on a new
doorplate for his new house, a symbolic gesture of obtaining approval of his
patriarchal authority. This doubled power relationship can be compared to the
Japanese ideal of kazoku kokka/family state, where the relationship between
Japanese emperor and his subjects in society was equated to that of father
and son at home. Such a hierarchy is then re-enacted by Yoshii’s two sons
and their neighbourhood friends in their ‘order and submission’ game: if the
stronger raises his fingers, the weaker must lie on the ground. In fact, the
children are obsessed with the patriarchal image of their fathers as revealed in
their continuing argument about ‘whose father is the strongest?’ The decisive
moment when this fantasy breaks down comes in the famous home-movie
sequence, where Yoshii’s true face – making silly expressions and gestures in
order to please his boss and colleagues at work – is revealed to his sons. As in
Tokyo Chorus, the revelation of Yoshii’s social context appears as a cinematic
experience, producing the same effect of shock, confusion and shame to his
sons. This emotional turbulence also reflects the children’s belief in the strong
father-figure, which reinforces their self-identity as a middle class, as in the
case of Okajima’s wife. But I Was Born But … advances a step further than

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Woojeong Joo

Figure 4: I Was Born But ... Father Yoshii as revealed to his sons, clowning in his
boss’s amateur film. Compare with Figure 3 for the similar effect of cinematic frame.

Tokyo Chorus. If the earlier film evades the unforeseeable future of the middle
class by suggesting an exit through patriarchy and collectivism, the later work
directly raises doubt about the possibility of such a hope through the disap-
pointed sons’ resistance to Yoshii. What the children despair of is not  the
fact that the father is not as great as they believed, but a fearful realization
that such a pitiful sararı-man’s life will be their future as well. Thus, the most
poignant challenge of the elder son is less the daring declaration that he is not
afraid of his father anymore than his tearful wish, ‘I’d rather quit school if I am
only destined to work for Taro-chan [the son of Yoshii’s boss] when I grow
up’. It is not a coincidence that his gesture of resistance is throwing away of
books, a negation of the system that he is supposed to be involved in since he
was born to the middle-class home.
Ozu’s depiction of the middle-class everyday life in the two films confirms
that his concern lies less in the matter of patriarchy than in the bigger dilemma
of the failing Japanese modernity. In terms of space, his emphasis is placed on
the suburbs, whose connection with the city centre is obscured by the melan-
cholic landscape of a long road, disappearing into an endless horizon with
rows of electric poles. This scenery of barren indifference implies the failure
of modernity to deliver on the promises that the middle-class families in both
films have invested in. It is on this road that the son in Tokyo Chorus confronts
his unemployed father in tears for the broken promise of the bicycle, and the
two sons in I Was Born But … return home in shock and anger after watching
the clownish appearance of their father in the home movie. In the opening
scene of moving day in I Was Born But …, the road also becomes the path for
the new suburban home for Yoshii’s family, but, as the first shot of a truck
wheel stuck in the mud implies, the future seems rather a continuation of

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 I was born middle class, but …

hard struggle rather than progress into a sleek modern life. (In fact, the main 10. In the film’s opening
sequence, Naruse
reason Yoshii moves to the suburb is for the potential benefit of living near his employs an almost
boss, not for the enjoyment of a better life.) In comparison, the city centre – documentary-like
the place of capitalistic production and consumption – is largely elided except mode to record a
series of juxtaposed
for indoor office scenes and some sketches of city streets. There is no off- shots of store displays,
work drinking activity of sararı-man as appears frequently in Ozu’s late films. various passers-by,
Consumption is prudently controlled by the housewives, who hardly go out of signboards and street
vendors in Ginza.
their house without a necessity. (In the above-mentioned tram scene in Tokyo The urban modernity
Chorus, Okajima’s wife is out looking for a job for the husband’s sake.) The also continues in the
following interior
trace of the city centre is rather indirectly sensed in I Was Born But … through scene of a kissaten/
the endless passing of trains through the suburb. With its intimidating speed coffee house that is
and black body, along with (inaudible) sound, the train symbolizes the threat filled with the bustle of
cooks, waitresses and
of expanding urban modernity into every corner of the suburban daily life. But customers.
its final destination is never presented to viewers, leaving the suburb practi-
11. Jeong argues that the
cally segregated from the city centre as in the scenes of the empty road. values and lifestyle of
This isolation from the urban centre – and its consumption activity – can Tanaka’s character in
be compared to the more concrete sense of connectivity found in other films the films – she either
asks her husband
of the period. Naruse Mikio’s Kagiri naki hodo/Street without End (1934), for for money to buy an
example, constitutes a ‘remarkable study of life in Ginza’ with its detailed expensive western-
style dress (The
depictions of the urban streets and café spaces in the famous district of Tokyo Neighbour’s Wife and
(Russell  2008:  74).10 The housewife characters played by Tanaka Kinuyo in Mine) or enjoys a free
Gosho Heinosuke’s Madamu to nyo-bo-/The Neighbour’s Wife and Mine (1931) modan ga-ru (modern
girl) lifestyle, wearing
and Jinsei no onimotsu/Burden of Life (1935) are far more inclined towards western suits, having a
commodity culture.11 In Ozu’s Banshun/Late Spring (1949), the famous train- short cut hairstyle, and
ride sequence deliberately builds up a clear sense of direction and process from engaging in smoking
(Burden of Life) –
Kitakamakura towards Tokyo, climaxing with the emphatic shot of the Hattori produces a crisis in the
building, the symbol of the Ginza modernity. Noriko, the protagonist of the traditional order of the
middle-class family,
film, goes out to the city centre for shopping, which then leads to a visit to an which can be overcome
exhibition and a bar with a friend of her father’s. Compared to these films, Ozu’s by the return to the
sho-shimin eiga in the 1930s reveals a more passive attitude to urban modernity. patriarchal domestic
order (Jeong 2000:
Alastair Phillips notices that this distance from the city centre and consumerist 92–95).
culture may be in line with ‘the commonsensical repository of governmental
values increasingly being urged upon ordinary Japanese citizens in the early
years of the 1930s’ (2007: 30). However, it may be more the case that in the
early 1930s the economic reality confronting the urban middle class was harsh
enough that rational consumption was already a matter of survival rather than
cooperation with a governmental agenda. By depicting the severe social real-
ity from the viewpoint of the middle-class everyday life, Ozu’s sho-shimin eiga
functions as a critique of modernity, where the social ills of depression, unem-
ployment and ensuing crisis in patriarchy are understood as the fundamental
contradiction of Japan as a modern capitalist state rather than the superficial
consequences of urban consumption culture.

A possibility within the everyday

Ozu, however, neither analyses the structural cause of the problem nor
suggests a radical change of the system as his contemporary leftist critics
desired. Instead, his way of critique is to find an alternative possibility within
the everyday, the inherent realm of his film-making. Comedy, for instance,
is an important stylistic tool to this end. In Tokyo Chorus, Okajima’s defiant
attitude to the established social order is depicted through comic gestures and
behaviours in the opening sequence of his school days. Here, the PE class

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Woojeong Joo

12. Both O-mura in Tokyo

-
Omura leads is totalitarian in nature, corresponding to the collectivity of the
Chorus and the stern
father Yoshii in I
last reunion party sequence. The teacher not only disciplines the body of
Was Born But… are the students with his commands, but also appropriately deploys his punitive
performed by the same power with a mark book to keep an orderly state.12 His efforts, however,
actor, Saito- Tatsuo,
whose tall but slim are constantly foiled by the students’ clever and timely actions, which devi-
-
body well visualizes the ate from his order. If Omura adjusts a student’s hat, it will soon be returned
authoritative but not to the original position, and if he opens the mark book the students will peek
so genuinely powerful
male characters in the from behind to see who’s being checked. Young Okajima, with insolent and
two films. playful attitude, is ordered to stand alone on the ground, but he is soon found
13. Deviation in Ozu can sitting by a stall bar, striking a match to smoke a cigarette. Such a character
be compared with later becomes the basis of his resistance to the boss at work over the sudden
Michel de Certeau’s
concept of ‘practices’,
dismissal of his colleague, resulting in his lay-off. But, as in the school
which, contrasted sequence, the conflict here is still expressed in the form of a rhythmic gag
with ‘systems of of Okajima and the boss touching or pushing each other’s bodies. Thus, as
Sato- Tadao notes, Ozu’s comedy is ‘not a bizarre and extraordinary kind’, but
production’ that
impose rational order,
construct another ‘comes from the occurrences of everyday life’ (2000: 256). As such, it also does
order of production, not remain a means of laughter, but becomes a physical form of confrontation
which is more creative,
individualized and with and distortion of the everyday order in modern life.
devious. Practices can Ozu often uses a variation of this tactic of loosening the confinement of
subvert the system ‘not
by rejecting or altering
the everyday order, which I conceptualize as a device of ‘deviation’. It not only
[it], but by using [it] means comic gesture, movement and attitude, but also includes an attempt
with respect to ends to step outside of the usual rhythm of everyday life and search for a differ-
and references foreign
to [it]’. De Certeau ent space, time and sensibility. This is, however, different from an evasion of
uses an example of the reality; rather, deviation means the rediscovery of reality through the transpo-
relationship between sition of our point of view.13 A good example of this diverted space and time
the Spanish colonizers
and the indigenous can be found in the vacant lot scene in I Was Born But …, where Yoshii’s two
Indians. Although the sons skip school and spend a peaceful day in a weeded field free from the woes
former imposed their
culture and law on the
of being bullied. The scene is actually split into two parts, the first one show-
latter’s everyday life, ing the children having an early lunch on the lot and the later one in which
the latter made use they forge a grade for a calligraphy class they missed that day. What is impor-
of them to produce
‘something quite tantly inserted between these two moments is scenes of a usual boring day at
different from what school and office, which is ingeniously connected with the vacant lot scenes
their conquerors had in by Ozu’s tracking camera work that many critics have noted (Phillips 2007: 29;
mind’
(De Certeau 1984: xiii). Standish 2005: 47; Rosenbaum 2004: 148–49). The juxtaposition of the vacant
lot and the school/office in editing articulates the contrast in temporality and
spatiality between them, which epitomizes the Ozu-ish moment of the devi-
ated everyday. Hasumi Shigehiko pays attention to the reversal of the spatial
relation expressed in the vacant lot scene, where a lunch that is supposed to
be eaten ‘inside’ is taken ‘outside’ (2001: 40). I think the meaning of deviation

Figures 5, 6, 7: I Was Born But … A day in the life at vacant lot (5) school (6) and workplace (7), each with
different rhythm of the everyday.

114
 I was born middle class, but …

can be more broadly interpreted in this scene, where a sense of freedom, as 14. As an explanation of
the contrast between
exhibited by the children’s arbitrary usage of time and activities (including the systematic
having lunch whenever and wherever they want) and a relaxed atmosphere production and
of the sunny day, provides a sharp contrast to the collectivistic and capitalistic everyday practice, De
Certeau distinguishes
order of the modern everyday life as administered in school and workplace. mapping and touring.
In terms of spatiality, I find in Ozu’s deviations an intermediate quality that While the former is a
is distinct from the operation of public or private space. As Wada-Marciano geographical attempt
to create a ‘transparent
notes, sararı-man father’s predicament lies in the ‘modern capitalist strategy text’ or ‘theoretical …
of creating an imagined separation between the public and private spheres’, simulacrum’ with
a surveying and
which accordingly requires his doubled identity between subordination at work ‘totalizing eye’,
and domination at home (2008: 58). But a tiny step aside from that structure the latter consists
can change the order of public or private daily life into an ambiguous space and of ‘contradictory
movements’, a ‘process
time, introducing a new understanding of the everyday. The vacant lot detached of appropriation of
from the boys’ home and school in I Was Born But … is an intermediate space, the topographical
the use of which cannot be logically recognized as a ‘mapped place’ in Michel system on the part of
the pedestrian’. Such
De Certeau’s concept.14 I also see such a spatial ambiguity in the dark screening arbitrary movements
room for the boss’s home movie. Cinema in fact has always been an everyday of a pedestrian include
sudden turns, detours,
diversion that blurs the border between the public and private, where specta- crossings, wanderings
tors are provided with a chance to ponder the essence of modernity, as Yoshii’s and avoidings, making
two sons do with regard to their father. Such a critical function of the interme- the consequential
paths ‘opaque’ and
diate space can be also found in the public park scene in Tokyo Chorus. This ‘invisible’ to the
park space, though a few steps away from a busy main street and intended for panoptic viewer’s effort
a public purpose (hence a ‘mapped place’), is ‘appropriated’ by the unemployed to map (De Certeau
1984: 92–97)
males as a congregating point and thus in essence private. The characteristic of
deviation is signalled through relaxed mood and slow rhythm as found in the
vacant lot scene in I Was Born But…. While Okajima shares sympathy with his
former colleague who was dismissed on the same day as him, some bored (and
possibly unemployed) male adults are seen in the background see-sawing right
beside a group of children on swings. This unlikely scenery not only makes
another Ozu-ish gag point, but also turns into a critical vision of ‘Tokyo, the city
of unemployment’ as a preceding intertitle declares. The tension with society,
however, does not exist on the street in the form of resistance, but still resides
in the intermediate space as humour and deviation.
-
From this point of view, Omura’s restaurant in the last reunion party
sequence in Tokyo Chorus can be also interpreted as a deviated intermedi-
ated space. As the urban park discussed above, the restaurant has both public
and private spatiality; located on a desolate street, it is open to the public,
but throughout the film there is no customer seen except Okajima and his
friends. The fraternal and joyful atmosphere of the communal meal can be
compared to the relaxed rhythm of a day in the vacant lot or the public park,
which implies that this is a kind of shelter from the harsh outside world for
the sararı-man friends. But, as discussed, Ozu here falls into sentimental-
ism by resorting to a collective nostalgia for the past instead of maintaining
his acute sense of humour and critique. This ‘fortuitous … [and] imperfect
redemption’, as the Japanese critic Okamoto Susumu argued, indicates ‘Ozu’s
self-deception’ (1932: 42). In contrast, I Was Born But … leads to a differ-
ent conclusion. The final morning sequence of the film is a start of another
ordinary day after the brawl between Yoshii and his two sons on the night
of the home movie viewing. As an intertitle, ‘And so, as usual’, indicates,
everyday order is resumed to normal as if nothing had happened. Yoshii will
bow to his boss, pupils will bow to their teacher, and the ‘order and submis-
sion’ game will continue among children. The sons even accept the reality

115
Woojeong Joo

15. Fushimi Akira’s original that their father is not the greatest, and allow him to go and bow to his boss
script of I Was Born
But … has a completely
as if they had finally understood the necessity of compromise. But this seem-
different ending from ing resignation – the typical word for criticizing Ozu – does not mean that the
Ozu’s film. Lacking the problem has been resolved; rather, it remains dormant inside the everyday.
boys’ hunger strike,
it rather follows the As evidenced by their sullen faces, the children have not yet been completely
elder son’s day out on a persuaded by their fate of the sararı-man. They thus engage in a hunger strike
field where he happens in the morning, and on their way to school with Yoshii walk ‘in front of’ the
to meet a group of
marching soldiers and father for the first time, not ‘behind’ or ‘beside’ him as before.15
does an errand for one The strike is of course a failure, and the children, coaxed by both parents,
of them. Meanwhile,
his parents at home
grab a rice ball for breakfast. Albeit a sign of retreat, the quiet breakfast in the
worry about the boy, garden, however, constitutes another moment of deviation in an intermediate
thinking he ran away space with its relaxed atmosphere of eating outside in the bright sunlight and
from home because
of the previous night’s gentle breeze recalling the lunch in the vacant lot earlier. The three-shot of
conflict. But as the day the father and sons sitting side by side looks sorrowful with the implication
closes, the son comes of their same destiny, and the rice they eat must taste bitter. It is the moment
home and everything
goes back to normal. of realization that their burden of life as a member of the middle class will
Sato- Tadao suggests last until they die, as Yoshii emphasized to his wife the previous night. But
that this ‘lyrical’ ending
of the original works to
with all the troubles, their life will still persistently continue as the everyday
‘appease the tension’ activity of eating does. The irony can be compared to solving the wire puzzle
from the previous (called chie no wa, meaning ‘ring of wisdom’) that school children play with
night, while the final
film tries to pursue the in the film’s last scene. With a bit of ‘wisdom’ not ‘force’, as Yoshii’s elder
serious drama to the son demonstrates, the chain can be disentangled, but only momentarily, for
end (2000: 279–80). it is supposed to remain entangled again for the next try. Such a simple truth
implies that their everyday life will continue in an ever-deferred future tense,
as an ever-repeated fluctuation between resistance to and acceptance of their
middle-classness, with an ever-failing effort of deviation.
I think that vision of unresolved continuation, however scanty its hope
may be, is more truthful to what Ozu’s sho-shimin eiga is about than Tokyo
Chorus’s moving denouement of nostalgia and appeal to collectivism. It might
look a too timid, ‘middle-class’ vision, but nevertheless a critical one, casting
some doubt on the working of modern capitalism in the depression era, which
still echoes in the mind of viewers today. It can then be concluded that, with
the sho-shimin eiga, the genre he himself almost created and completed, Ozu
attempted a sophisticated kind of critique of modern Japanese society, the fate
of which looked very bleak in the face of continuing economic depression in
the early 1930s. Upon that historical perspective, the director constructed a
realm of the everyday that not only designated the contour of the middle-
class life, but also provided relief and a new possibility through the deviated
use of space and time. Ozu’s everyday is thus not merely a static world where
nothing ever happens, as the study on him has so far conventionally inter-
preted, but rather a dynamic one, where the fundamental contradictions of
Japanese modernity – including patriarchy as well as industrial capitalism –
are consistently reflected upon and questioned.

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Suggested citation
Joo, W. (2012), ‘I was born middle class, but …: Ozu Yasujiro’s sho-shimin eiga
in the early 1930s’, Journal of Japanese & Korean Cinema 4: 2, pp. 103–118,
doi: 10.1386/jjkc.4.2.103_1

Contributor details
Woojeong Joo has recently completed his doctoral degree at University
of Warwick; his thesis is titled The Flavour of Tofu: Ozu, History and the
Representation of the Everyday. He has worked at University of East Anglia as a
postdoctoral research associate for AHRC funded project, ‘Manga to Movies’.
He is currently a visiting scholar at Nagoya University.
Contact: Graduate School of Letters, Nagoya University, Furocho, Chikusaku,
Nagoya, Japan.
E-mail: juwujung@gmail.com

Woojeong Joo has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that was
submitted to Intellect Ltd.

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