Ozu and Hopper

Edward Hopper - Chop Suey, 1929
oil on canvas

Ozu calls into mind, firstly, Chekhov. Then (and I could be wrong maybe), Hopper: in the sense that Ozu followed with love, and sensibility, and patience, and discretion a universe where dramas are as terrible as anywhere, only here they are hidden.

Yes, Hopper could be a term of comparison: his personages hide something, you feel some tension, you cannot see it, as Hopper is as discreet as Ozu can be.

Well, there are some paintings by Hopper where the tension is obvious (though, as I said, hidden). Think at his Nighthawks.

There are other works of Hopper where I cannot guess the tension at all: look at this Chop Suey for instance. Two women sitting at a table by the window. The sign outside: a Chinese restaurant in Manhattan.

And I realized that Hopper was in love for a universe that he painted tens of times. The tension was emerging now and then, but he was waiting for the drama to come, while he was keeping on in fidelity and patience, day by day.

The same with Ozu. Not all his movies are as famous as his Noriko Trilogy, but that small bar from Banshun is in all his movies: men come to have a couple of drinks, the bartender knows them all, and after watching some of Ozu's movies you start to feel that the bar became very familiar for you, too, that you are there, perhaps at the third drink, and one of the other patrons is teasing you gently.

(Yasujiro Ozu and Setsuko Hara)

(Hopper)