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Ozu and the Ethics of Indeterminacy

Cover of Ozu and the Ethics of Indeterminacy features a skyline with trees and the outline of a large industrial looking object against a grainy dark blue night sky. The black object has two red orbs on it evoking eyes. Read the Introduction

Book

Pages: 290

Illustrations: 85 illustrations

Published: March 2026

Author: Daisuke Miyao

Ozu and the Ethics of Indeterminacy re-examines cinema studies through the work of Japanese filmmaker Yasujirō Ozu, employing the multiple methodologies and indeterminacy of Ozu’s films as a model for discussions of cinema’s relationship to the world and the formation of film studies as a discipline. Centering a selection of Ozu films in each chapter, Daisuke Miyao builds a method based on the way films directed by Ozu avoid unitary perspective and allow multiple possibilities of standpoint and spectatorial position, which Miyao calls the ethics of indeterminacy. Analyzing Ozu’s use of cinematography, narrative, and color, Miyao theorizes the indeterminate in film—the seen and unseen, human and nonhuman, domestic and international—to initiate a multi-directional dialogue on the study of cinema that reaches beyond auteurism and culturalism to establish a new basis for disciplinary conversations.

Praise

“In this highly original and richly illustrated work, Daisuke Miyao examines the work of master filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu from fresh perspectives. Ozu’s use of color and camera movement are discussed more thoroughly than ever before. Miyao reveals how Ozu films emerged from Japanese society as only a critic deeply knowledgeable of both that culture and the international influences of film history could manage.” - Tom Gunning, author of The Attractions of the Moving Image: Essays on History, Theory, and the Avant-Garde

"Daisuke Miyao beautifully reveals how Ozu turns every color choice, every cut, every object and moment of transience into an act of compassion for the spectator. His luminous book captures the quiet humanity inside Ozu's cinema and reminds us that how we look at film - and life - determines how gently we move through it." - Daniel Raim, director of, The Ozu Diaries

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Author/Editor Bios Table Of Contents Rights Additional Information Funding Information

Author/Editor Bios

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Daisuke Miyao is Professor and Hajime Mori Chair in Japanese Language and Literature at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author and editor of several books, including Japonisme and the Birth of Cinema, The Aesthetics of Shadow: Lighting and Japanese Cinema, and Sessue Hayakawa: Silent Cinema and Transnational Stardom, published by Duke University Press.

Table Of Contents

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Preface  ix
Introduction.  Cinema and the Ethics of Indeterminacy  1
1. Cats and the Gaze of Things: Record of a Tenement Gentleman (Nagaya shinshiroku, 1947)  29
2. Coca-Cola and “Asian Cinema”: Late Spring (Bansbun, 1949)  49
3. Camera Movements and Ethics: Early Summer (Bakusbū, 1951) and The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice (Ochazuke no aji, 1952)  74
4. Clocks and Melodrama: Tokyo Story (Tokyo monogatari, 1953)  127
5. Color Environment and Red: Floating Weeds (Ukikusa, 1959)  155
Conclusion  211
Acknowledgments  219
Notes  221
Bibliography  243
Index  263
 

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Additional Information

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Related Links Paper ISBN: 978-1-4780-3332-5 / Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4780-2987-8 / eISBN: 978-1-4780-6207-3 / DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478062073

Funding Information

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This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to the generous support of the University of California Libraries.