The rest of the title, however, is even farther off; the heart of the story is not, in fact, a gentleman, but a hardened widow who only gradually warms to a lost child she has reluctantly taken in. Shinshiroku translates literally as "gentleman's book" or "gentleman's record," akin to a directory or Who's Who. It has been suggested, that the title might more properly be "A Who's Who of the Back Streets."
That's fitting enough for a story that also touches on the lives of the widow's neighbors in their ramshackle community. Each of them - a singer-storyteller reduced to telling street-corner fortunes, a former actor now practicing calligraphy and mending pots and pans, a geisha house mistress, et al. - is trying to survive in the face of loss and hardship, portrayed with Ozu's characteristic gentle humor and abundant sense of humanity, always avoiding mawkish sentimentality. Even in the midst of destruction and deprivation, there is a sense of community among these neighbors, a makeshift family created within their common location and struggle, united over the raising of the lost boy and perhaps others to follow.
Nagaya shinshiroku was Ozu's return to filmmaking after a five year absence. In 1937 at the age of 34, he was drafted into the army during the Second Sino-Japanese War. He returned from China after his service was complete in 1939, making two more pictures before being conscripted back into the army in 1943 to make propaganda films that were never finished. He spent the next few years in Singapore, where he was able to see a number of American movies for the first time, before returning to Japan in early 1946.
The downtown Tokyo neighborhood portrayed in the film (shitamachi or "Low Area") had been razed by the time Ozu began shooting, so the picture was done almost entirely in the studio.
As he would throughout his career, he cast actors with whom he worked many times. Choko Iida, who plays the widow, appeared in 17 of his pre-war films, although she would never work with him again after this. Hohi Aoki, the lost boy, worked with Ozu twice more, including his early masterpiece Late Spring (1949). The most recognizable cast member for Ozu followers is Chishu Ryu, who appeared in 37 of Ozu's films, among them Late Spring, Tokyo Story (1953), and the director's final film, An Autumn Afternoon (1962).
The crew is also made up of Ozu regulars, most notably cinematographer Yuharu Atsuta and art director Tatsuo Hamada. Both worked almost exclusively with the director during their long careers, contributing greatly to the look and tone of a remarkable number of his films: 50 each.
Record of a Tenement Gentleman was not a financial or critical success. Two years later, Ozu would release one of his finest and most deeply felt works, Late Spring, which would restore him to his place as one of the greatest Japanese directors. It was many years before his films were seen very widely in the West, in part due to the reluctance of Japanese distributors. Believing him to be "too Japanese" for other cultures, they were averse to putting much money and effort into getting his work out to an international audience.
With wider availability, much of it after his lifetime, his films became recognized for their artistry. As critic Roger Ebert noted in 1993: "[Ozu's] trademark rigorous style--static shots, often from the vantage point of someone sitting low on a tatami mat; patient pacing; moments of transcendence as represented by the isolated beauty of everyday objects--has been enormously influential among directors seeking a cinema of economy and poetry."
To one degree or another, Ozu's work from the immediate postwar years until his death in 1963, the period of his greatest films, subtly and deftly recorded the vast changes in Japanese society and way of life following the war. With its bombed-out streets and displaced children, Nagaya shinshiroku more obviously depicts the chaos of urban life and the harsh realities of a country defeated in war, but his aim was never truly sociological. This relatively obscure film, rarely seen outside of Japan, is a worthy introduction to his masterful portraits of family life and relationships observed with Ozu's characteristic gentle humor and abundant sense of humanity.
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Producer: Mitsuzo Kubo
Screenplay: Tadao Ikeda, Yasujiro Ozu
Cinematography: Yuharu Atsuta
Editing: Yoshi Sugihara
Art Direction: Tatsuo Hamada
Music: Ichiro Saito
By Rob Nixon
