Good Morning (1959)

I.

Introduction
A. Original title ohayo
B. Directed by Yasujiro Ozu
C. Country- Japan
D. Language- Japanese
E. Genre- comedy drama

II.

Yasujiro Ozu (1903-1963)

A. Japanese Film director and screen writer
B. Began his career in the era of silent films
C. Before 1930s he directed short comedies
D. Some of his outstanding work include late spring(1949), Early summer(1951), Tokyo
story(1953) and floating weeds(1959)
E. Special style of cinematography
1. camera is always still (no pan or dolly shots)
2. No dissolve or fade transitions
3. Specially known for low angle tatami shots even when no one is sitting , such as a
characters walked down hallways
4. Uses ellipsis a lot
5. Rather than Typical over-the-shoulder shot in his dialogues, the camera gazes on the
actors (places the viewer in the middle of the scene)
F. Reputation continued to grow after death and is counted one of the worlds most influential
director
G. His movies are very close to reality
H. Considers movies related to Japanese family
1. Changes in modern Japanese family
2. How generation gap is affecting family

3. How modernization and old traditional values are changing.

III.

Socio Economic Condition

F.
G. Good Morning satirizes television ownership. It was released in the year that attendance at
Japanese cinemas began to decline, primarily as a result of rising numbers of TV sets
H.

IV.

Plot
A. The film takes place in suburban Tokyo, and begins with a group of boy students going
home.
B. The film steers into a subplot concerning the local women's club monthly dues. Everyone in
the neighbourhood club believes that Mrs Hayashi (who is the mother of Minoru and
Isamu)has given the dues to the chairwoman, Mrs Haraguchi but she denies it. They gossip
amongst themselves who could have taken the money, and speculate that Mrs Haraguchi
could have used the money to buy for herself a new washing machine.
C.

Later Mrs Haraguchi confronts Mrs Hayashi for starting the rumour and ruining her
reputation, but Mrs Hayashi states that she has indeed handed the dues money to her
mother. Only later does she realize it was her mistake (her mother being quite senile and
forgetful), and she apologizes.

D. The boys are all attracted to a neighbours house because they have a television set, where
they can watch their favourite sumo wrestling matches. (At the time of the film's release in
Japan, the medium was rapidly gaining popularity.) However, their conservative parents
forbid them to visit their bohemian neighbours because the wife is thought to be a cabaret
singer.
E. As a result of this, the young boys, Minoru and Isamu, pressure their mother into buying
them a television set, but their mother refuses. When their father comes to know about it,
he asks the boys to keep quiet when they kick a outburst. Minoru throws an anger fit, and
states that adults always engage in pointless details like "good morning" and refuse to
say exactly what they mean. The boys decide on a silence strike against all adults. The first
neighbour to bear the effect of this rejection is Mrs Haraguchi.
F. Mrs Haraguchi, angered by this rejection, speculates it is Mrs Hayashi who instigates this in
revenge over their earlier misunderstanding, and tells this to bigmouth Mrs. Tomizawa.
Soon, everybody thinks Mrs Hayashi is a petty, unforgiving person, and is all queueing up to
return their loaned items to her.

[Title]

Page 2 of 4

G. The boys continue their strike in school, and even against their English tutor. Finally, their
schoolteacher visits to find the root of their silence. The two boys run off from home with a
pot of rice due to hunger, but are caught by a passing policeman. They disappear for hours
into the evening, until their English tutor finds them outside a station watching television.
H. At the end of the film, the boys find out their parents have indeed purchased a television set
to support a neighbour in his new job as a salesman. Jubilant, they stop their strike at once.
I.

V.

Their English tutor and their aunt appear to be starting a fresh romance.

interpretation
A. Devoted to both the profound necessity and the sublime silliness of gratuitous social
interaction, ohayo is a rather subtler and grander work than might appear at first.
B. Ohayos setting is middle class Tokyo suburban, central family is firmly settled unlike the
other neighbor (cabaret singer) who has settlement issues and moves away.
C. Old age, unemployment and isolation are issues highlighted in the movie
D. the intricacy becomes apparent only when one realizes that each detail intimately links up
with every other. Rhythmically, this is expressed by the alternation of simply stated
miniplots with complex camera setups, less bound by narrative advancement, depicting the
physical layout of the neighborhood itself; the perpendicular passageways between houses
and the overhead road on the embankment behind brilliantly suggesting certain structure
as well as strictures in a society of interdependent ye insulated busy bodies.
E. In a context where banal greetings among neighbors, schoolboy farting contests, and sweet
nothing between a couple are treated as structural equivalent, and sliding door sand
F. A poster for the defiant ones , for instance , alludes not only to the recalcitrant sons, but the
sense of antagonistic parties chained together by circumstances that often seems to
function just below the surface of the everyday pleasantries.
G. A grandmother muttering gripes in between her prayers, a drunken Tomizawa coming
home to the wring house, the young scat-singing couple being quietly hounded out of the
community, a thought full Keitro wondering if television will produce 100 million idiot or
pondering his future retirement: all these moment are characteristically uninflected and
each goes straight to the heart of the film
H. Mainly designed to look as casual and as in consequential as its title, GOOD MORNING
gleefully embraces a painful world that is out there.

VI.

Conclusion
A. [Restate topic]

[Title]

Page 3 of 4

B. [Summarize three main points]

C. [Revisit introduction or tie all ideas together]

[Title]

Page 4 of 4