A STORY OF FLOATING WEEDS (67)

Directed by: Yasujiro Ozu (1934)

Starring: Takeshi Sakamoto, Hideo Mitsui, Chouko Iida

FLOATING WEEDS (54)

Directed by: Yasujiro Ozu (1959)

Starring: Ganjiro Nakamura, Machiko Kyo, Hiroshi Kawaguchi

The Pitch: A troupe of travelling players find themselves broke and stranded in a small Japanese town, where the head of the troupe reunites with his ex-girlfriend and illegitimate son.

Theo Sez: Might've gone a few points higher on the original, at least if I hadn't just seen the last 15 minutes repeated almost verbatim in the remake. Structurally they're almost identical - the only thing added is more time with the troupe, and the actor who steals from his friends after lecturing them on Ingratitude - but the remake is half an hour longer, and it's easy to see why: Ozu's style has stultified into a kind of stiff pictorialism, and in fact seeing the two together is a perfect illustration (to me) of what I like in movies - economy over weightiness, comedy over pathos, a moving camera (even if it's just a couple of dolly-shots along a theatre audience) over a static one, a sense of life over a sense of Rigour. Our hero - the head of the troupe - is a younger man in the original, more virile, less self-conscious; the people in general seem different, even their body language is more expressive - they're forever scratching themselves and fidgeting, there's a snap to their movements, a gleam in their eye; the piece they're performing is a comedy (not a deliberately antiquated drama), the young kid is a little scamp (not a whiny baby), the hero doesn't cling so much (significant detail: he begs and wheedles his son into going fishing with him in the remake, whereas it's the son's idea in the original); and the women too seem stronger, more worldly, the seduction of the young man less of a big deal ("I'm not interested in children," is the actress's response in 1934 when the idea is mooted; "But I don't even know him," is the more staid equivalent in 1959). Obviously a case for the remake being a more transcendent experience, in making the actors superannuated remnants of an earlier age - which is poignant, or at least sentimental - in the dazzling colours that express their craft (set against the more drab colours of village life), and in laying more emphasis on them as actors: the ending, when the hero vows to become a better actor so his son can be proud of him, is a lot more meaningful in the remake (there's an existential rightness to the notion of an Actor living his life, by definition, qua Actor); and of course it's much more beautiful - at least if by 'beautiful' one means pretty colours in tasteful combinations rather than the sketchy shadow-life of a train station at night, or the arc of a lonely country road overhung with telegraph wires. Clearly a matter of taste, but I know which I prefer. Incidental bonus in seeing both versions back-to-back: catching the in-jokes, like ex-girlfriend in the remake asking hero if his shoulders are better now - "Last time you were here, you said your shoulders hurt", which of course is what he'd said in the original. How Ozu expected people to get this stuff after 25 years - pre-video! - is anyone's guess...