Directed by Ozu Yasujiro.
With Saito Tatsuo, Sugawara Hideo, Tokkan Kozou.
Japan, 1932, 35mm, black & white, silent, 90 min.
Japanese intertitles with English subtitles.

Live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis

One of Ozu’s earliest successes, A Picturebook for Adults: I Was Born, But… is full of the low-brow humor one would expect from a film chronicling the antics of schoolboys. However, masterfully woven into the film are the seeds of a generational divide he would obsessively revisit throughout his career. As young Keiji and Ryoichi Yoshi contend with the arbitrary hierarchies of the playground, they begin to question their father’s own importance. The film’s central question then emerges: what truly separates children from adults? A potential answer can be found in its very form. Ozu’s frames are marked by a still sophistication whose maturity is highlighted by the film’s bold comedic editing. The movie’s youthful spirit dwells in these cuts because of their potentiality: whereas a frame is decided, a cut is a surprise that can lead to any new image. It is this curious gap between the child’s unlimited future and the adult’s rigid past that has kept Ozu’s early masterwork resonant for almost a century. - Gunnar Sizemore, Harvard College '27

Harvard Film Archive New Dog, New Tricks: Youth in Cinema, film series. View Harvard Film Archive website for ticketing details.