A Different Postcolonialism: the Cultural Ethics of Yasujiro Ozu’s Late Spring Patrick Colm Hogan
Abstract (E): Critics have tended to conceive of the postcolonial condition too narrowly (in historical and geographical range) and too broadly (in temporal duration). These limitations become salient when we consider Japan from 1945-1952. Of course, Japanese responses to the American occupation were not uniform. To isolate one important strain of that response, this essay explores the cultural ethics of Ozu‟s Late Spring (1949). Ozu does not affirm “tradition,” “modernization,” or “hybridity” as such. Rather, he affirms the value of one or the other only insofar as it bears on our attachment relations with those who are vulnerable, whatever their identity category.
Abstract (F): Les critiques ont souvent eu tendance à définir la notion de condition postcoloniale de manière à la fois trop étroite (en termes historiques et géographiques) et trop large (en termes de durée). Ces problèmes deviennent tout à fait visibles quand on considère le cas du Japon des années 1945-1952. Bien entendu, les réponses japonaises à l‟occupation américaine étaient tout sauf uniformes, mais un aspect important de cette réponse peut être reconstruite à travers l‟analyse de l‟éthique culturelle d‟un film d‟Ozu, Printemps tardif (1949). Ozu n‟affiche pas les notions de « tradition », « modernisation », ou « hybridité » comme telles, il n‟en affiche la valeur qu‟à travers la manière dont ces notions influent sur nos rapports avec ceux qui sont vulnérables, quelle que soit leur identité.
keywords: Yasujiro Ozu, colonialism and film, attachment, tradition and modernity, cultural identity
Article
Colonialism did not begin with Britain and France, nor is it confined to a few paradigmatic cases. Colonialism is, in fact, vast in its historical and geographical scope. Postcolonial theory has, in this respect, greatly underestimated the extent of what might be called “the postcolonial condition,” which is, in effect, a recurring subtype of the human condition. At the same time, the human response to colonialism is more variable and “unstable” than current writers tend to assume. A tacit assumption of much postcolonial criticism is, roughly, “Once a colony, always postcolonial”—or at least “postcolonial for a very long time.” But, in fact, societies seem to shift their conditions frequently and sometimes rapidly.
In short, theorists and critics have tended to conceive of the postcolonial condition both too narrowly (in terms of historical and geographical range) and too broadly (in terms of temporal duration). This has led to a somewhat biased understanding of the nature of the postcolonial condition generally, and even to a narrowing of our understanding of particular forms of modern colonialism. Some limitations of standard approaches to postcolonialism become salient when we consider the case of Japan from 1945-1952, the period of the American occupation.
After outlining some general issues in defining the field of postcolonial studies, the following essay considers the specific case of Japan. Of course, Japanese responses to the American
occupation were not uniform. In order to isolate one important strain of that response, I explore the cultural ethics of Yasujiro Ozu‟s Late Spring (1949). Though subjected to censorship under the American occupation, Late Spring exhibits a great concern with colonialism and culture. (On censorship under the occupation, see chapter two of Hirano; on the censorship of Late Spring in particular, see 49, 54, 70, and 84.) However, it suggests a very different attitude toward cultural ethics than we commonly find treated in postcolonial studies. The ethics suggested by the film do not, I believe, affirm “tradition” or “modernization” or “hybridity” as such. Rather, they affirm the value of one or the other only insofar as it bears on our attachment relations with those who are vulnerable. The point is inseparable from narrative, for in order to examine these issues, Ozu takes up two cross-cultural narrative prototypes—the stories of romantic love and parent/child separation—with their associated ethical and social concerns. Part of Ozu‟s genius is the way he varies these standard story lines in ethically consequential ways.
Some Problems with Postcolonialism
When literary critics and theorists think about “postcolonialism,” they most often seem to have in mind a small number of exemplary cases, including British India, British Nigeria, British Kenya. Sometimes they may add British Ireland, French Algeria, French Senegal, Australia, New Zealand, and a few others. In short, they commonly have in mind colonies that were part of enduring English and, to a lesser extent, French empires during the 19th and 20th centuries. As John McLeod puts it, “the term „postcolonial‟ achieved its primary currency in English and anglophone scholarly contexts” (11).
Moreover, within these exemplary cases, they focus almost entirely on Anglophone and Francophone works. For example, there is relatively little attention to Arabic language writings and almost no attention, among prominent postcolonialists, to Hindi, Urdu, and so forth. As Aijaz Ahmad notes, “rare would be . . . a major literary theorist in Europe or the United States who has ever bothered with an Asian or African language . . . . The upshot is that major literary traditions—such as those of Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and half a dozen others from India alone—remain . . . virtually unknown to the American literary theorist,” in contrast with “the few writers who happen to write in English” (97-98).
In itself, there is nothing necessarily wrong with circumscribing one‟s attention in this way. After all, we cannot thoroughly explore every form of colonialism. Moreover, given the linguistic and cultural constraints of most postcolonial critics, it makes sense to focus on works in English or French, rather than trying to venture into works written in Hindi or Vietnamese.
On the other hand, this highly selective view of postcolonialism does raise some questions. Two, closely interrelated issues are particularly significant. First, is our theoretical account of colonialism impoverished by the fact that it is based on a small number of cases, however important these cases may be? Second, do biases in our account of colonialism generally react back on and distort our understanding of particular colonies that we do study? In other words, does our limited attention to instances of colonialism lead us to recognize certain features of those colonies and ignore others, thus misunderstanding even those colonies we do study?
The idea fits with recent work on category formation. “Postcolonial” is a category. Categories are generally prototype-based (see Rosch). Prototypes result from implicit, weighted averaging across instances. In other words, our minds take instances of a category, highlight (or “weight”) those features that are distinctive relative to some related category, and average across
those instances. Subsequently, in responding to a new instance of a category, we are particularly sensitive to prototypical features. Take, for example, the category “man.” We form the prototype “man” by averaging distinctive properties relative to such related categories as “woman” and “boy.” Thus our prototypical man is more “manly” (i.e., less like a woman and less like a boy) than the actual, statistically average man (on these contrast effects in prototype formation, see Kahnemann and Miller 143). The point becomes even more obvious when we turn to cases where our experience of instances is extremely limited. For example, suppose I form my prototype for “Tibetan” on the basis of the Dalai Lama and two or three monks interviewed in documentaries about Tibetan Buddhism. Alternatively, suppose someone forms his or her prototype for “American” on the basis of George Bush and several people in his cabinet. In each case, we are obviously dealing with important instances of the category. But it should be clear that the result will be a distorted prototype—and, at least for a time, a distorted understanding of other instances of the category (other Tibetans or Americans). The same point holds for “postcolonial” and related categories.
Of course, postcolonialism involves not only spontaneous prototype formation, but also self-conscious theorization. This could, in certain circumstances, mitigate the problem with selectivity. However, it may also exacerbate it. Specifically, in theorization, we formulate analytic principles that we use to understand subsequent cases. This is particularly true in a hermeneutic undertaking, such as literary study, where the data (cultural artifacts such as novels and films) appear so highly malleable. As poststructuralist and reader-response critics have shown repeatedly, it is quite easy to make a case for almost any reading of a given work (see, for example, Fish 346). This is not to say that there are no arguments that are better than others. It is merely to say that, in a recursive process of interpretation/theorization/re-interpretation/re-theorization, and so on, we are unlikely to find accumulating errors corrected by the interpretation of cultural artifacts.
One possible response to this situation is to confront our prototypes and theories with a highly non-prototypical case. This case should share enough relevant features to fall under the same general (postcolonial) category. At the same time, it should have features whose salience inhibits our inclination to fully assimilate new instances to our prior prototypes and theories. Japan under U. S. occupation seems ideally suited to this task.
Japan, Colonialism, and Culture
For roughly seven years, Japan was subjected to an intense form of colonial occupation by nearly one million American troops (Dower 206) with a virtual dictatorship by General MacArthur, “the indisputable overlord of occupied Japan” (Dower 205). As Dower explains, during that period, “Japan had no sovereignty and accordingly no diplomatic relations.” The country was, in fact, worse than most colonies—it was, in effect, a sort of prison, for “No Japanese were allowed to travel abroad until the occupation was almost over.” Moreover, “no major political, administrative, or economic decisions were possible without the conquerors‟ approval; no public criticism of the American regime was permissible.” The occupiers had the usual sense of racist superiority and cultural arrogance as well. They viewed the occupation as “total control over a pagan, „Oriental‟ society by white men who were (unequivocally, in General MacArthur‟s view) engaged in a Christian mission. The occupation of Japan was the last immodest exercise in the colonial conceit known as „the white man‟s burden‟” (23).
Thinking of Japan in terms of colonialism almost immediately disturbs many of our standard assumptions. It is at least problematic for our tacit presumption that the postcolonial condition is durable. It seems odd to characterize Japan in the 1980s, for example, as “postcolonial.” Certainly, Japan, like any other society, is marked by its history. Thus the period of American occupation continues to have effects. But it no longer seems right to see that occupation as having a predominant place. In other words, it seems odd to categorize Japan as first and foremost a former colony, to interpret its literature and film fundamentally as instances of postcolonial art, and so on.
There are other ways in which Japan leads us to question our assumptions about colonialism. If Japan became a postcolonial colony in 1945, it had been a postcolonial colonizer since its conquest of Formosa in 1895—intensively, since 1931, with its acquisition of Manchuria. Indeed, if the years of American occupation present us with an intensified version of a colonized country, the years of the war present us with a no less intensified version of a colonizer. The point is obvious in the film and literature of the period, which was also subjected to censorship (see Hirano 13-24).
In addition, the intensity of Japan‟s experiences as both colonizer and colonized, as well as the sharp gradient of change from one to the other, also serve to make salient certain features that may be present, but less obvious, in other contexts. For example, leaving aside the small collaborationist stratum, we tend to think of colonized peoples as pure victims (even if we would not put it this way, as it may suggest a patronizing attitude). But, in fact, countries colonized by Europe in the modern period often did have colonial or similar structures in place. Moreover, though modern colonizers are rarely furnished with a Pearl Harbor attack, they do commonly justify their aggression by reference to some incident, some putatively unprovoked attack by the group they are aiming to colonize. We see instances of both in, for example, the recent U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Of course, for students of literature and film, the crucial aspect of colonialism is not, typically, political or economic. It is, rather, cultural. The arrogance of the colonizers, combined with their prestige, power, and wealth, tend to be connected with a widespread denigration of the culture of the colonized people and a widespread celebration of the culture of the colonizer. The colonizing culture always takes up some aspects of the colonized culture (e.g., the use of certain spices). Moreover, there is almost invariably a segment of the colonizing population that finds both deep and widespread value in the colonized culture (e.g., Americans who immersed themselves in Buddhism during the Vietnam war). But, as a general tendency, the colonizing culture is hegemonic, both in the period of direct colonial domination, and for some period afterward.
This hegemony often becomes a central concern for colonized people, sometimes more than politics, and almost always more than economics. This is unsurprising from a cognitive perspective since the colonial nature of cultural change is salient. The cognitive point holds for Japan just as much as it holds for India or Africa. After the war, widespread hunger in Japan was undoubtedly due in part to policies of the occupation government. But when people went to look for work or to buy food, the faces they saw were Japanese. The role of U.S. policy was not salient. In contrast, when parents found themselves in conflict with daughters or husbands with wives, it was often clear that the dispute was related to cultural practices of the colonizer—often signaled quite obviously by preferences in dress or hair style. Indeed, a recurring feature of colonial domination involves conflicts over dress and hair style (see, for example, Cosgrove 168-169, on Ireland in the 14th and 16th centuries). Cultural issues are likely to be even further
foregrounded in cultural products, such as literature and film, due in part to the interests of the cultural workers who produce them.
Cultural Hegemony and Postcolonial Response
Colonized people have many different and complex responses to this situation. We cannot consider even the main patterns of response in a short essay. However, it is valuable to make a few basic points.
First, it is crucial to distinguish between one‟s practical identity and one‟s categorial identity. One‟s practical identity is one‟s various competencies and one‟s various related interests or motivations. Insofar as these competencies and motivations are widely shared within a culture, we may refer to the practical identity as cultural—keeping in mind that two people‟s practical identities will never be identical. Consider language. Part of my practical identity is fluency in English. In 1945, the practical identity of most people in Japan included fluency in Japanese, but not in English. Thus we would say that speaking Japanese was part of the cultural practical identity of Japan at that time.
Categorial identity, in contrast, is the set of categories one takes to define oneself. These categories commonly include sex, religion, ethnicity, race, and nationality. Categorial identities are related to practical identities in the sense that people sharing particular categorial identities often share some practical identities related to that category. For example, during the period of the Latin Mass, a wide range of Catholics shared knowledge about what sorts of response to make at what point during a Mass. However, categorial and practical identity diverge in three crucial ways. First, when active, a shared categorial identity is widely seen as having pervasive consequences. It does not simply tell us some facts about a person‟s competencies. It tells us something about what they are. If I learn that Jones is Catholic, I do not simply infer that he has certain practical competencies. I have a much broader sense of his inclinations, interests, character, etc. (Contrast, for example, the descriptions “someone who is Catholic” with “someone who knows how to drive.” The latter rarely stands as a categorial identity.)
This is related to the second difference. My evaluation of Jones as a Catholic is inseparable from my own categorial identifications and their relation to that of Jones. In other words, categorial identifications define in-groups and out-groups. As is well known, we tend to judge members of our own in-groups as superior on a broad range of value scales (see Duckitt 68-69).
Finally, this superiority is itself connected with the third difference. Categorial identity is typically associated with ideals. Here we may return to language. Suppose I am in India and I speak Hindustani. Thus my practical identity includes vocabulary from Persian, Arabic, Sanskrit, and other sources, indiscriminately. Suppose further that my religious categorial identity is Muslim. Insofar as this identity is salient, I may think of Urdu (a version of Hindustani) as a more proper language. I may even seek to “purify” my speech; I may set out to alter my practical identity by avoiding terms associated with Hinduism and orienting my vocabulary toward Persian and Arabic sources (characteristic of Urdu).
To a great extent, debates over culture in colonized countries—thus responses to the cultural hegemony of colonizers—tend to concern the assertion of categorial identities and the formulation of relevant ideals for such identities. Indeed, it tends to be the case that cultural activists see categories as carrying with them ethical imperatives. That imperative may be to “uphold tradition,” to “modernize,” or something else.
But there are problems with these options. Traditions are multiple. Conditions of colonialism tend to distort just what aspects of tradition are selected—or simply invented (as Hobsbawm and Ranger put it)—in formulating an ideal for any such identity. “Modernization” is, if anything, even more problematic. Often, it simply means adoption of the hegemonic culture—itself usually reduced to a simplified and distorted form. For example, in the case of Japan, it might mean Americanization. Really, the idea of modernization should be reserved for the adoption of recently developed techniques (e.g., techniques for treating of certain illnesses) that advance previously existing goals found in the society (e.g., curing those illnesses). In this way, very little of what passes for a conflict between tradition and modernity is reasonably treated in these terms.
One currently popular response to the apparent opposition of tradition and modernity—or indigenous and foreign tradition--is to celebrate hybridity. Advocates of hybridity stress that there is always some degree of cultural synthesis. Thus any pursuit of “purity” is bound to fail. This is no doubt rhetorically valuable when responding reactionary traditionalism (or fundamentalism)--which claims to affirm the need for maintaining a pure traditionalism, while simplifying and often disfiguring the traditions it invokes. But it is hardly a solution to the problem. The problem is not that aspects of one cultural tradition have simply appealed to people from the other tradition. In our terms, the problem is not that practical contact has produced alterations in practical identity (as when Japanese learn they like bread and Americans learn they like sushi). The problem, rather, is that such cross-cultural influence is skewed by hegemony. Practical identity becomes oriented toward a culture (e.g., American culture, in the case of occupied Japan) because it is ideologically established as superior. It is true that both cultures are hybrid. But the process of cultural influence is radically unequal, with many features of the colonized culture virtually disappearing due to the spread of the colonizing culture.
Thus hybridity may indeed be inevitable, but that hardly helps our understanding, nor does it aid colonized people in responding to cultural hegemony. On the one hand, I suspect many of us feel that there is something wrong when a conquered nation rushes to embrace the trivialities of a hegemonic culture, particularly when that involves allowing indigenous traditions to languish. The fact that Japanese youth seem more likely to know about American pop tunes than about Japanese traditional music seems unfortunate. But, at the same time, in each individual case, many of us feel that this particular Japanese girl and that particular Japanese boy should be able to listen to “Thriller” rather than “Ogi no Mato” (“The Folding Fan as a Target”) if that is what he or she wants.
Here, then, we return to the issue of one‟s normative relation to tradition after colonization. I have noted the usual approach, which grounds the ethics of culture in categorial identity. But there are ways in which the ethics of culture may be grounded in practical identity as well. Basic and simple cases of this occur, once again, in language. There is nothing inherently superior or inferior about any language. Thus no language is legitimately established as an ideal over any other. Of course, none of us has any necessary relation to any language. For example, there are no ethnic tendencies that suit me more for Irish language than for English, Hindi, or Japanese. In this way, there is no real ethical issue relating to what language I acquire as a child. However, there are issues that relate to my practical engagement in the world once I have acquired a language. Obvious cases of this sort include the establishment of a colonial language as the language of law or education (e.g., Sinhalese in Sri Lanka [see Swami 15, 25]). Such an establishment has directly deleterious consequences for the wellbeing of colonized
people (such as Sri Lankan Tamils) who do not speak that language. The issue here is directly one of practical identity.
A wide range of such problems arise in the public context of law, education, and government service. However, many normative issues of culture and colonialism arise in the more intimate relations of practical family life. This too is an area that is underdiscussed in postcolonial theory and criticism. Yet, for most people in a postcolonial society, it may be the area in which issues of culture arise with the greatest intensity and frequency.
This brings us to Ozu. It is commonplace to observe that Ozu‟s films are “domestic dramas.” They address problems of family relations, primarily the relations between parents and children, particularly in connection with marriage and parent/child separation. Ozu rarely turns to larger, more “public” issues. Even when he does, his concern seems to be primarily with the impact of public events on the private, intimate lives of individual men, women, and children, sharing a home or leaving that home. This apparent narrowness of focus allows Ozu to explore issues of familial relations with rare depth and nuance. During and just after the American occupation, it allowed him to explore those issues as they related to normative cultural concerns raised by colonialism and the associated hegemony of American culture. On the one hand, Ozu gives repeated and clear indications of the colonial situation—indeed, rather bold indications, in the context of occupation censorship. However, he gives this broad, social situation importance, not in relation to categorial identity, but through its impact on practical identities in intimate personal relations of attachment. Moreover, he does this in ways that we are likely to find surprising from the perspective of standard approaches to postcolonial literature and film.
Before going on to Late Spring, however, I need to say briefly how this relates to narrative.
Morals and their Stories
Our moral decisions are not simply abstract choices made according to abstract principles. If they involve any action whatsoever, they are necessarily motivated decisions, choices that involve emotion. On the other hand, when we make moral decisions, we are not simply reacting to some immediate stimulus. A moral response involves some elaborative thought, some developed reflection on the problem at hand. That elaborative thought usually comprises an understanding or imagination of our own past and potential action, the actions of other people, the actual or possible outcomes of our actions and their actions, etc. In keeping with the particularity of such imagination, our practical moral thought is less a matter of logical inference and more a matter of narrative—the simulation of people engaged in actions, with beginnings, middles, and ends.
Here as elsewhere we would expect our narrative thought to be guided, not by logical definitions, but by prototypes. Cross-culturally, the most prominent narrative prototypes are heroic, sacrificial, and romantic. (See my The Mind for a fuller formulation of these structures and an outline of the cross-cultural evidence.) The first concerns the usurpation of right leadership in a society and foreign threat to a society‟s sovereignty. As this suggests, the heroic plot is fundamental to nationalism. It is also particularly bound up with categorial identity and the establishment of ideals for that identity. In contrast, the romantic plot concerns two people falling in love and the opposition they face from society (often parents). Romantic narratives are perhaps the most insistent in favoring practical preferences when these come into conflict with in-group/out-group divisions defined by identity categories (e.g., “Montague” and “Capulet”). In
terms of ethics, then, the heroic plot points toward brave and militant defense of one‟s in-group and its hierarchy. The romantic plot tends toward an ethics of tolerance for individual idiosyncrasy, as well as empathy for human desire and attachment, even when these conflict with identity categories.
Many of Ozu‟s films, including Late Spring, involve some romantic plot. However, they embed these romantic narratives in another cross-cultural genre. Though less prominent than heroic, sacrificial, or romantic stories, the story of parent/child separation and reunion recurs significantly across cultures and historical periods (see chapter four of my Affective). This too involves an ethics, an ethics that stresses the importance of respect for feelings of attachment, the necessity of adjusting one‟s actions and judgments to the vulnerability of other people— particularly old parents and young children—and the fundamental value of non-contingent mutuality, which is to say, fulfilling one‟s own obligations, whether the other party fulfills theirs or not. This is the practical ethics of Late Spring. It contrasts sharply with the ideas and actions of colonial occupation, both American and Japanese. It does so independently of categorial identification.
Ethics and Emplotment: Late Spring
Late Spring begins with a tea ceremony attended by Noriko and her aunt Masa, as well as the widowed Mrs. Miwa. The scene is interesting is several ways. It shows a lighthearted and practically engaged interaction between the two women as they comically discuss how to make further use of worn-out clothing. At the same time, it presents the ceremony beautifully. In general, this seems to be the film‟s attitude toward Japanese tradition—appreciative, but not reverential. The scene already begins to suggest the subordination of custom to personal relations. (See figures 1 and 2.)
Figure 2. . . . during the tea ceremony.
The following scene introduces Noriko‟s father, Shukichi Somiya, a scholar who is finishing up a manuscript with the help of his assistant, Hattori. Noriko returns home. The brief interaction among the three suggests an easy affection and respect.
Subsequently, Noriko is shopping in the recently reconstructed Tokyo. She meets her father‟s friend, Onodera, a widower who has remarried. This scene is significant for two reasons. First, it shows us Noriko‟s utter repulsion at the idea of an older man re-marrying. This may suggest her own ambivalence about sexuality. But, from her behavior later in the film, I doubt that this is this case. Rather, I take it to point toward the value she places on loyalty, particularly loyalty to attachment relations. Second, it presents an instance of playful, friendly relations between the sexes. This is an important aspect of the film. Reactionary traditionalism often involves rigid separation of the sexes, in order to preserve the “honor” of the in-group‟s women. This would have been a particularly pressing issue in Japan, given the common relations between Japanese women and American GIs. But Ozu presents the relations between Noriko and Onodera as both flirtatious and innocent. The point is particularly significant because Noriko dresses in a very “Western” style, in a way that could easily be associated with women who have set out to seduce American soldiers. But she is entirely sympathetic.
In the following scene, we learn that Noriko became ill during the war, in part due to forced labor and malnutrition. The illness was severe enough that it manifest itself in long-lasting abnormalities in blood count that are only now stabilized. This illness and the lack of a mother have made her particularly vulnerable. The result is that her father has become both father and mother to her. We see this later when he brings tea to Noriko and her friend and when he picks up some piece of clothing she has left on the floor—typically the job of the wife or mother. Thus their attachment bond is particularly strong, and in many ways exclusive. This, however, potentially poses problems for her future.
A meeting between the father and Onodera leads to a suggestive reference to Yoritomo‟s shogunate. This reference concerns Japanese militarism in the context of the great Tale of the Heike as Yoritomo was the ultimate victor in that conflict. Here some critics might see a barb aimed at the occupation forces, a moment hinting at categorial identification. But I am not inclined to read the reference that way. The two friends have just been speaking of the devastating effect the war had on Noriko. She has, in fact, recovered during the occupation. It seems unlikely that Ozu wants to indicate anything positive about Japanese militarism. It is much
more likely that he wishes to recall the relation between Noriko‟s condition and this history of militarism.
In subsequent scenes, Ozu develops our expectation that Noriko will marry her father‟s assistant, Hattori. She goes on a bicycle ride with him and he talks with her about how she is inclined toward jealousy. In the course of the ride, Ozu dwells on the road signs appearing in English and on an advertisement “Drink Coca-Cola,” reminding the viewer of the colonial context of the film. But, here too, the points seem unrelated to the main concerns of the story. Or, rather, they are related only in a very indirect way. For, once again, we have the westernized young woman out with a man—alone, bicycling together. But even when they stop at a beach and no one is present, they simply talk. (See figures 3 and 4.) Again, it is an image of male/female friendship that is natural. This does not fit entirely with traditional ideas or with the new practices connected with the American soldiers. In this way, Ozu is scrupulously avoiding any assertion of categorial identity, any alignment of category and practice (e.g., westernization and sexual laxity).
Figure 3. Noriko and Hattori go cycling . . .
Despite the lack of physical intimacy, this scene does prepare us for romance between Noriko and Hattori. Moreover, when discussing Hattori with her father, Noriko makes it clear that she likes him very much. But, she explains, is already engaged—to a woman several years younger than she is. Though she laughs at the very idea that she might have married Hattori, she almost certainly does regret that they cannot be married. In the next scene, Hattori and Noriko meet. Hattori explains that he bought tickets for them to attend a violin recital. This scene, which takes place at “Balboa Tea and Coffee,” is designed to parallel and contrast with the opening tea ceremony. The connection between Noriko and her aunt is inverted in the new disconnection between Noriko and Hattori. Noriko says that she cannot go to the concert. They refer to jealousy. Hattori ends up going alone. He sits beside an empty chair. The music is no less beautiful than the tea ceremony. Only the strain of the personal relationship is jarring. At this point, it may seem that pursuing her relationship further would have been both immoral and in some sense Western. In other words, here again the scene—with its suggestions of a colonial context (most importantly through the music)--may seem open to a reading in terms of cultural identity categories (“Japanese” versus “Western”). Subsequent scenes will, however, suggest that this is not the case. The crucial factor in this scene does not seem to be a matter of Noriko‟s or Hattori‟s cultural category. Rather, it seems to be primarily a matter of Noriko‟s emotional vulnerability.
On the other hand, the following scenes do indicate some of the sexual problems connected with the occupation, showing that issues of colonialism are far from absent in the film. Noriko‟s friend Aya is introduced. She is divorced and very bitter about her ex-husband. She mentions that his name is “Ken.” Noriko‟s father immediately fills in “Kenkichi.” But I suspect that the first response of many viewers is to assume that the terrible ex-husband is an American soldier. Given censorship practices at the time, Ozu would only be able to include a suggestion of this sort by immediately undercutting it—thus by explaining that “Ken” is “Kenkichi.” As Hirano notes, references to “fraternization between occupation personnel and Japanese women . . . were forbidden until after the end of the occupation” (58).
Subsequently, Aya tells of a mutual friend who is pregnant, but unmarried. She whispers the “horrible” story to Noriko. Since there is no one in the room, the only reason for whispering is to keep the information from the viewer—or, rather, from some viewers. The obvious viewers from whom Ozu would need to conceal information are the people in charge of censorship, thus the occupation authorities. One obvious possibility for this unwed pregnancy is a relation with a soldier. As one would expect, given general censorship policies, the subject of “mixed-blood children fathered by American soldiers” was also prohibited during the occupation period (Hirano 58).
In the course of the occupation, there were three types of relations with soldiers that could have resulted in the situation recounted by Aya. The first involved the prostitution of Japanese women to GIs. This prostitution itself took two forms—the usual form of women seeking gainful employment in economically difficult times and the less usual form of a government-organized program in which women were recruited to sacrifice their bodies for the good of the nation (see Dower 123-139). The government program was instituted by the Japanese authorities in order to limit rape. As Dower explains, “According to one calculation, the number of rapes and assaults on Japanese women amounted to around 40 daily” while the program was in effect, “and then rose to an average of 330 a day after it was terminated in early 1946” (579n.16). Clearly, rape too could lead to the situation reported by Aya. Finally, it was not
uncommon for Japanese women to date American soldiers. This was in part due to the fact that these soldiers had money to spend on dating; they were wealthy, relative to most Japanese at the time (see Dower 136-138, 207-209). But it resulted also from the fact that women had relatively few options. Many young Japanese men had died during the war. It was not an easy task for a young woman to find a husband. (In 1947, women between twenty and twenty-nine outnumbered men “in this age group . . . by over one million” [Dower 107].)
Of course, Noriko‟s classmate might have become pregnant by a Japanese man. But the involvement of the American military is a prominent possibility. Is this, then a matter of identity categories? I do not believe so. Rather, in this case and the case of Ken, the ethical violation involves a betrayal of intimacy that either was or should have been linked with attachment. Thus, the ethical concern is, once again, a matter of practical identity, and particularly that part of practical identity that is involved with bonding.
In the next scene, Noriko once again visits her aunt, who now has a marriage prospect for her. The aunt explains that the young man looks like Gary Cooper—or, rather, his mouth is like Gary Cooper, whereas the top half of the face is different. Here again we have an allusion to the occupation. The hegemonic culture governs popular entertainment and, more importantly, defines aesthetic ideals. The two are related. It is well-established that we judge facial beauty by averaging across instances of faces (see Langlois and Roggman). Generally, this should mean that Japanese people see many Japanese and form an aesthetic ideal that averages Japanese features, whereas Europeans see many Europeans and form an aesthetic ideal that averages European features. However, European domination of cultural production presents Japanese with European faces frequently and intensively. (We look at an actor‟s face on screen more fixedly and for a longer period than we look at the faces of ordinary people in daily life.) This is likely to affect aesthetic norms. In itself, such cross-ethnic effects are not a bad thing. They may expand our sense of facial beauty. The problem comes when the effects are asymmetrical, affecting one group, but not the other. (How many Americans would cite a Japanese actor as an exemplar of masculine beauty?)
The aunt‟s qualification, regarding the top half of the prospective groom‟s face, is important as well. It alludes to the standard, racist view of Japanese as having distinctively narrow eyes—a view that gave rise to the derogatory term “slant” for a Japanese person. In some ways, Ozu seems almost continually aware of the occupation censors as part of his audience. Here, it is as if he is politely bowing to his censors and saying indirectly, “Of course, no handsome American actor would have slanty Japanese eyes.” But, at the same time, it is difficult to take this seriously. Indeed, it seems to be a prime case of what Homi Bhabha refers to as “sly civility” (quoting Archdeacon Potts [99]). Sly civility is extreme politeness that ends up being ambiguous between self-deprecation (“Unlike Gary Cooper, we are slanty eyed”) and criticism of the addressee (“I suppose some of you [e.g., the occupation censors] must be thinking—„How could some slant look like Gary Cooper?‟”). (Perhaps the censors had some inkling of this, leading to their initial objection regarding this reference [Hirano 84].) The sly civility interpretation becomes more likely when Noriko discusses the young man with her friend, Aya. Noriko says that her prospective husband looks like their electrician. She then admits that the electrician looks very much like Gary Cooper. I take it that the point here is two-fold. First, Noriko shifts from an American standard of male beauty to a more ordinary, Japanese example. That might seem to make this a matter of categorial identity. But the implication evaporates immediately when Noriko also acknowledges the resemblance between the electrician and Gary Cooper.
This leads to the second purpose of the comparison, which is to undercut the racist view that overstresses some statistical tendencies toward difference in appearance across ethnic groups. Of course, the young man, the electrician, and Gary Cooper are not identical triplets. There are some differences in their appearances. But it is only when one begins with a racist prototype, based on an identity category, that one focuses on and exaggerates such putatively definitive racial differences as “slanted” eyes.
The concern with practical identity continues with Noriko‟s response to her aunt‟s suggestion regarding this young man. She says that she will not marry because, “If I left home, father would be lost.” In fact, it seems that she has two motivations here. First, she is genuinely concerned about her father and is genuinely considering his needs. This is part of the ethics of Ozu‟s film. Particularly in attachment relations, we should be concerned first and primarily with the other person‟s wellbeing. Much of the rest of the film will involve Noriko‟s father pursuing Noriko‟s wellbeing at the expense of his own. Here, we see this impulse on Noriko‟s part.
However, there is something else going on. Noriko clearly was attached to Hattori. She is able to accept his marriage in part because she has a strong bond with her father. But it is emotionally crucial for her to maintain that bond. This is particularly true because the loss of her mother would necessarily have given rise to some insecurity in her attachment relations, an insecurity no doubt exacerbated by the marriage of Hattori.
We first get a sense of this when Noriko‟s aunt says that Noriko‟s father might remarry. Mrs. Miwa is the prospective bride. Noriko is both hurt and angry and she responds in a childish, but moving way to the idea. Her feelings are presumably complex. There is anger at the implied disloyalty to her mother. But there is also a sort of panic at the threat to the father/daughter bond on which she has become so dependent.
The point is developed in the following scene. Noriko and her father attend the performance of a Noh play. (Noh drama had been “removed from preperformance censorship” in September 1947 [Dower 432].) During the course of the play, Noriko‟s father sees Mrs. Miwa in the audience and bows to her. Noriko, noticing this, clearly sees it as evidence that what her aunt said was true. (The “visual logic” of this is explored in detail by Ritchie [178-180]. See figures 5 and 6.) But this only gives one part of the problem. While they are at the play, Hattori brings his wedding pictures to their home. One of the servants remarks that she had thought he would marry Noriko. Moreover, the Noh play they are watching (Kakitsubata [The Iris], attributed to Zeami) concerns, in part, separated lovers (“Separation and/after, traces of bitterness” [73]). I take the point of this to be two-fold. First, at the personal level, Noriko is facing a particular crisis of attachment loss. Hattori is married and her father too might replace her with a new wife. Second, at a social level, the danger in her relation with Hattori—the danger that led her to excuse herself from the violin concert—is not a function of Westernization. This point is suggested particularly by the Noh play. The occupation and its associated cultural dislocation no doubt increased the likelihood that a young woman might be left alone and hurt (as suggested in the cases of Aya and their schoolmate). But such situations are not fundamentally a function of identity categories—thus Japanese versus American—and their associated ideals. They are, rather, a matter of the way people react to the particular circumstances in which they find themselves, reactions that do not always involve loyalty to attachment relations. The relevance of the occupation here is simply that colonialism creates conditions where the violation of attachment relations is far more likely.
Figure 5. Noriko‟s father greets Mrs. Miwa at the Noh performance . . .
Figure 6. . . . and Noriko infers what this greeting may suggest.
This is followed by a heartbreaking sequence. Noriko toughly leaves her father, as if she has no feelings about his re-marriage other than moral disdain. But, when she reaches Aya‟s home, we learn that, far from being tough, she sees only a terrifying void in her future. Conscripted to forced labor during the war, she does not have the skills needed to make a career for herself, once she loses her father to Mrs. Miwa. She is now asking Aya if she can learn to be a stenographer (the loan word from English is clear in the film).
When she returns home, her father asks her about the possibility of her marriage. She insists that he needs her and he insists that he has kept her serving him too long. In order to understand this scene, it is valuable to contrast it with the more standard father/daughter interaction over marriage in the romantic plot. In this prototypical story structure, the daughter willfully chooses to marry against her father‟s wishes and the father seeks to assert his authority over her, trying to bend her will to his. Here, in contrast, we have what is perhaps the essence of Ozu‟s ethics—parent and child each genuinely working toward the interests of the other.
But there is still an asymmetry. Noriko is genuinely concerned about her father. But she is vulnerable as well. She is vulnerable both emotionally and materially. The father of course has his own emotional vulnerabilities. Life without Noriko would be lonely. But he has his work. Moreover, he realizes that in the present circumstances, once he dies, she will have nothing. Because of this asymmetry, he tells her that he will re-marry. Though Ozu is reputed to have said
that Chishu Ryu was “not a skillful actor” (Ritchie 147), he acts this scene brilliantly. When he tells her that he will remarry, his lip trembles. This is the one manifestation of the character‟s struggle between his own immediate emotional impulse to retain Noriko for himself and his reflective inclination to do what is best for her long-term wellbeing.
In the end, we will learn that he never intended to marry Mrs. Miwa. The false claim was, rather, a way of convincing his daughter to marry. Here, we see part of the parent/child separation plot, specifically in the form of the parental self-sacrifice—one common variant of that narrative prototype. Like Stella Dallas, Mr. Somiya pretends that he has a romantic interest in order to push his daughter “out of the nest.” But, unlike many melodramas of parental self-sacrifice—such as Stella Dallas or Guru Dutt‟s Kaagaz ke Phool—this sacrifice does not entail the virtual loss of a parental relationship. In this way, the father‟s act seems more unequivocally good than that of Stella or the father in Guru Dutt‟s film. The difference, I take it, is that in those films the material wellbeing of the child supersedes all considerations of attachment. In Ozu‟s film, in contrast, it is precisely the attachment relation that is crucial. The point of Mr. Somiya‟s deceit is not to replace Noriko‟s attachment relation with wealth, but to provide her with a husband, then children, and thus to prevent her complete loss of attachment relations when he dies.
Subsequently, Noriko talks with Aya about her possible marriage. She does seem to like the young man. Her objection at this point is, in effect, ideological. She explains that she is opposed to arranged marriages. Aya responds that Noriko will never marry unless it is through an arranged marriage. In the context of post-war Japan, with its drastically reduced number of eligible young men, Aya is probably correct. Moreover, the point speaks to Noriko‟s attachment insecurities. Having lost her mother, then Hattori, and now (apparently) her father, she would necessarily be hesitant to pursue new attachments. This insecurity is a primary reason why she needs prodding from friends and family.
At the same time, the point is not merely personal. It is also cultural. Ozu is expressing a degree of resistance to the American antagonism against arranged marriages. (Indeed, the censors were so opposed to arranged marriages that they marked parts of Ozu‟s script for censorship on this score [see Hirano 70].) But, once again, Ozu‟s point contrasts sharply with that of cultural traditionalists who base their views on categorial identity. Ozu is not affirming the value of arranged marriage as the way “we Japanese” do things. Rather, he is suggesting that arranged marriage can be valuable as one possibility, given individual propensities and circumstances. Here, too, then, the context is one of practical identity. The value of arranged marriage is measured by its consequences for attachment bonding and security, not by its putative relation to the traditions of an in-group.
Of course, arranged marriages are always open to abuse. For this reason, Ozu presents Mr. Somiya as carefully inquiring about whether his daughter really does wish to marry and is not feeling coerced. Once again, Ozu differentiates his position from that of a cultural traditionalist—or, for that matter, an advocate of “modernity.” The father‟s attachment to his daughter, and his recognition of her attachment to him, lead him to question the degree to which she is voluntarily marrying. Once more, a traditional practice is both developed and interpreted in relation to situated, worldly practical identities, particularly attachment relations, not in relation to identity categories.
Before her marriage, Noriko and her father go on a trip to Kyoto. They once again meet Onodera. Now, Noriko comes to know his new wife and she feels guilty for having condemned the marriage earlier. After going to bed one night, she says this to her father. She then begins to
say something about his remarriage. But Mr. Somiya either is or pretends to be asleep. I suspect we are to view him as pretending. It would be difficult for him to lie to her again—and, without the lie, she may back out of the marriage.
Mr. Somiya‟s ambivalence is again brought out in the following scene. Alone with his friend, he is speaking of his daughter‟s marriage. It is clear how sad he is that she will be leaving him.
When they are packing up their belongings to leave Kyoto, Noriko makes one final plea to stay with him. She explains that it is alright even if he remarries. He avoids the topic of remarriage but refers instead to his own death, hinting at what her condition would be at that time, should she stay with him now. He goes on to insist that she must now transfer her love from father to husband. Thus he places the wellbeing of his daughter completely above his own interests. She reciprocates by saying “Forgive me for being so selfish” and “Forgive me for worrying you.” He responds, “[J]ust be happy. You‟ll try, won‟t you?”
This is the apex of ethics in the film—each party addressing only the needs of the other. If one wished, one could connect it with the Mahāyāna Buddhist stress on compassion, idealized in the bodhisattva who sacrifices his or her own spiritual release in order to cultivate the spiritual release of all others. Indeed, enlightenment is stressed in the final lines of the Noh play chanted during the film. But, here too, I do not believe the cultural and ethical point is so narrow. Ozu is not affirming one tradition over another. He is, rather, affirming a sort of ethical commitment that is manifest in the Buddhist tradition, certainly, but is manifest elsewhere as well. Indeed, the feelings of the father and daughter are more mundane and particular than the lofty ideal of Buddhist compassion. Even the Buddhist references in the play seem to stress the worldly condition of human pain that inspires compassion, not the resolution of that pain in enlightenment.
In fact, far from being spiritual, the mutuality here is less a matter even of ethics than of cultivated feeling. Mr. Somiya is, in a sense, not being unselfish, but rather being rationally selfish. Given his attachment relation with his daughter, her wellbeing is in fact of critical importance to his wellbeing. This is part of the reason Ozu can be deeply moral without being moralistic. Moralism too tends to be bound up with categorial identity—often religious identity. In this way, Buddhism enters, not as the source of true morality, but simply as a component of the practical identities of many people, one of many factors that form the practical self. The final indication that Ozu is not being moralistic here, and not affirming a particular, religious morality, comes when Mr. Somiya packs the book he has been reading. He turns it unobtrusively toward the camera. It is Nietzsche‟s Thus Spake Zarathustra. Of course, there are countless ways in which Ozu‟s film is far from being Nietzschean. But there is at least one point of connection. Like Nietzsche, Ozu is insistently rejecting moralism.
A subsequent scene takes us to the wedding, or rather the preparations just before the wedding. Noriko has been dressed. Recalling the attachment themes and particularly the inevitable attachment loss that is part of life and death, her aunt says, first in delight, then in tears, “Such a beautiful bride. I wish your mother could see you.” Before leaving for the marriage, Noriko kneels before her father. This recalls the kneeling with which the film began, as the women entered the room for the tea ceremony. However, here, we are not dealing with a simple convention of behavior. Noriko thanks her father for his love and care. This is an ideal because it honors an attachment relation, a personal bond, not because it is part of a tradition linked with an in-group. Her father twice wishes her happiness.
Just after the wedding, Aya and Noriko‟s father are drinking sake in a restaurant. Aya explains that she can have only five cups of sake. When she finishes the five, she stops. On the one hand, it may seem indecorous that she is drinking at all. In another context, this could be a criticism of her Americanization. But Ozu makes it not only normal, but actually superior to drinking by men. Though there is no drunkenness in Late Spring, Ozu‟s other films give ample testimony to men‟s lack of restraint when consuming alcohol. Aya, in contrast, is sensible. She knows her limits and stays within them. Once again, the dividing line is not an identity category—for example, “Japanese women.” (It is worth recalling that, in 1940, the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs had prohibited films from showing “women . . . drinking” [Hirano 16].) Rather, the only appropriate division is one of practical identity. It is a matter of individual capacities and inclinations, not of being male or female, Japanese or American.
Here, at last, we learn that Mr. Somiya has been lying all along. He had no intention of remarrying. Aya exclaims, “What a man!” and impulsively kisses him on the forehead. At first, Somiya looks terrified. This has two purposes. First, it shows that the physical contact is not sexual. They are another instance of the male/female friends that we have seen repeatedly in the course of the film. Second, he is presumably expressing a tacit judgment that such a kiss is highly indecorous. But, after a moment, his look softens. (See figures 7 and 8.) Why shouldn‟t she give him such a kiss? That is her expression of attachment to her friend‟s father. Indeed, though she too encouraged Noriko to remarry, she has suffered a loss through this wedding as well. A divorced woman, she will have few if any opportunities for remarriage. Now she will not have the same close relationship with Noriko as well. Like Somiya, she too has suffered an attachment loss. Despite her bravado, she too is vulnerable. She says that she will visit him and he says he hopes she will. Here, too, we see attachment concerns overriding the strict rules of decorum that might follow from categorial identification.
Figure 8. . . . but, within seconds, accepts the gesture of affection.
Ozu‟s film, then, combines the romantic plot with the parent/child separation plot to suggest a cultural ethics with the following features. First, it grounds ethical response to culture not in identity categories, but in intimate relations of attachment. In other words, one‟s obligations are not to culture as such, but to persons. Apparent obligations to culture are only a function of the degree to which cultural practices further the obligations of attachment relations. These relations are mutual and non-contingent (i.e., one‟s obligations hold whatever the behavior of the other person might be). However, they do vary in intensity with the degree of vulnerability of the other person.
In this way, one‟s cultural obligations bear on practical, not categorial identity. Colonialism impacts personal relations. As such, it may easily have a distorting effect on human attachments. But this should not lead to an assertion of tradition or modernity or even hybridity. Rather, it should lead to a recognition of diverse practical identities and the formation of ideals based on attachment in those relations.
As developed in Ozu‟s film, this view of ethics also contrasts with the moralism of much postcolonial cultural ethics. Ozu‟s film does not establish some lofty cultural greatness toward which we should all aspire. Rather, it suggests that there is something in human relationships— most importantly, the needs and vulnerabilities of attachment—that is or may be served by cultural forms. The forms are important only insofar as they continue to serve those relationships. They do not have importance in themselves or because they are part of our identity category (here, “Japanese”). Rather, they have importance insofar as they bear on the loneliness of a doting father and the insecurity of a devoted daughter.
In developing this analysis, I clearly disagree with critics who see Ozu as a conservative, celebrating the family and insisting that “traditional Japanese values . . . be continued within the context of the family,” with a strong emphasis on “filial piety” (Mellen 321). Such critics have, in my view, misconstrued the alternatives. The crucial grid for Ozu‟s film is not that of Japanese tradition and Western modernity. Nor is it the related division of filial piety and filial disrespect. Rather, the key opposition is between a humane and empathic openness to attachment with those who are vulnerable and a sort of narcissistic enclosure within oneself or one‟s kin or one‟s nation. Both options are available in both Japanese and Western practices. Ozu does present a sort of idealized family. But the idealized family is not the traditional family as such. It is, rather, the family in which there is a genuine expansion of openness to attachment and a genuine concern for those who are vulnerable and thus most in need of the care that comes with
attachment. Put differently, I am largely agreeing with critics such as Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell who see the film as presenting “a liberal view of family relations and marriage” (Bordwell 307). However, my difference from Thompson‟s compelling analysis (echoed by Bordwell) is that I do not see the film as oriented primarily toward the thematization of a particular political ideology. Rather, I see its liberalism as a sort of epiphenomenon, deriving from underlying ethical commitments. Moreover, even those ethical commitments are not a matter of ethical theory and the advocacy of certain moral ideas. They are, rather, a function of the motivating emotional systems that give ethical commitments force—particularly a deep sensitivity to attachment relations and an enhanced empathy that goes along with those relations. I take it that the film both expresses and works to such cultivate feelings. The film‟s relation to colonialism is a function of that expression and cultivation.
Again, the literature and film of post-War Japan are rarely, if ever, examined in the context of postcolonial theory and criticism. Ozu‟s film suggests that this may be unfortunate for our understanding of Japanese literature and film as well as our theoretical accounts of colonialism and its aftermath and our critical practices with respect to other postcolonial works. Ozu faces many of the same cultural (as well as political and economic) issues faced by authors in more prototypical colonies. At the same time, the particular conditions of post-War Japan help to indicate what are common features of the postcolonial condition and what features are more idiosyncratic. As such, the case of Japan—along with other non-prototypical cases—should help us to understand postcoloniality more generally. Finally, with its stress on attachment, Ozu‟s work presents a particular perspective on issues of cultural identity. He effectively repudiates categorial identity for an ethics of practical identity. Moreover, he does not focus on the broadly social practical identities of law and politics, but on the intimate practical identities of personal attachments. This perspective clearly has implications far beyond Japan in the late 1940s.
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Patrick Colm Hogan is a professor in the Department of English and the Program in Cognitive Science at the University of Connecticut. He is the author of a dozen books, including Colonialism and Cultural Identity (2000), Empire and Poetic Voice (2004), Understanding Indian Movies (2008), and Understanding Nationalism (2009).
