New Materials Records of Ozu Yasujiro’s Last Days: From the Notebooks of Noda Kogo

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In 2023, a diary* recording of the last days of Ozu Yasujiro was discovered.

The diary was found in the notebooks of Noda Kogo, a scriptwriting partner whose work with Ozu dated back to his earliest directorial work. Noda was born in 1893, making him ten years Ozu’s senior. Unlike Ozu, who never married, Noda was a husband and father. His perspective and his depictions of characters undoubtedly gave color to Ozu’s films. The diary is held by the Noda Kogo Memorial Tateshina Writers Research Institute, and is currently being transcribed and deciphered.** The actor Sada Keiji kept a record of Ozu’s illness; Noda filled in an account of Ozu’s deathbed for Sada, whose filming commitments kept him away. Below, excerpts from the diary are indicated with angle brackets.

Urge to create

The record of Ozu’s hospitalization begins on November 18. According to his supervising doctor, he was <in a very dangerous condition>. When Noda visited him there, Ozu told him “<I almost died>,” adding “<I’ve got two stories done>.” This may have been in reference to Daikon to Ninjin (The Radish and the Carrot), which he had begun writing in March. Even while in the hospital, Ozu’s urge to create remained.

Particular about meals

Ozu surprised his hospital visitors by eating three tempura shrimp. He is also said to have made himself sandwiches with breaded pork cutlets and eaten three of those as well. The tempura came from Tenmasa and the cutlets from Horaiya, both restaurants Ozu favored. His particularity about his meals can be glimpsed even in his hospital room.

Affection for children

Learning that photographs of Sada Keiji’s daughter Kie were ready, Ozu recounted “<Very good photos, she looks adorable>.” Another day, finding a child he didn’t know in his room, he asked a nurse to help him up so that he could take the child to eat. Both stories seem typical of Ozu and his affection for the children he worked with on set.

Humor

“<I’m a member of the Japan Art Academy [Geijutsuin] now, but anything ending with ‘in’ is bad news—here I am in the hospital [nyuin] and soon enough there’ll be an ‘in’ on the end of me>,” Ozu punned to his visitors. <Soon enough there’ll be an ‘in’ on the end of me> presumably refers to the typical usage of posthumous Buddhist names. This line shows us Ozu’s ability to turn even hospitalizations to humor. Elsewhere, on November 22, he told a visitor “<I’m not planning to die.>”

Last day

Noda’s diary for December 12 begins <Today was Ozu’s birthday.> Of his appearance in the hospital room, surrounded by relatives, Noda writes calmly <For all his calm expression, he was almost out of his head, seeming near the end.> However, when he left the room briefly at some point after 12:20 in the afternoon, the situation changed. Doctors were working over Ozu. Having returned just in time to be there at the last, Noda wrote <I suddenly wanted to be alone>, inscribing his grief at the loss of Ozu.

The description of Satomi Ton’s <sobs> at the wake in Kita-Kamakura is also moving. Ozu had spoken of using the dialogue in Satomi’s novels as a model; Satomi was among the writers he had become close to both professionally and personally upon moving to Kamakura. The names of young directors can also be found, such as <Shinoda Masahiro did good work>.

The above is a brief selection from Noda Kogo’s diary, which is still being transcribed. The completed transcription is expected to reveal new facets of Ozu and his creative process.

**With the cooperation of the Noda Kogo Memorial Tateshina Writers Research Institute, Miyamoto Akiko is working on the transcription. The content of the diary has been presented in a Yomiuri Shimbun article “Record of Ozu’s last days: His partner Noda’s sense of mission” (morning edition September 26, 2023, p.31) and at reading sessions held by the Noda Institute.