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West Looks East: The Influence of Yasujiro Ozu on Wim Wenders and Peter Handke

1983; College Art Association; Volume: 43; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00043249.1983.10792233

2325-5307

Kathe Geist,

European history and politics

Wim Wenders, West German filmmaker of increasing renown, has declared that Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu is his “only master,” although Wenders did not actually encounter Ozu's films until 1973. By that time Ozu was dead and Wenders had completed film school, made seven shorts and three feature films (Summer in the City, 1970; The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick, 1972; and The Scarlet Letter, 1973), and begun the script for Alice in the Cities. Japanese films are rarely shown in West Germany; Wenders first saw Ozu's films in New York City. He then introduced the films to his friend and sometime collaborator, avant-garde writer Peter Handke, who evidently was also enthusiastic, for he made frequent visual references to Ozu in his film The Left-Handed Woman (1978) and even included a clip from Ozu's silent Tokyo Chorus (1931).