Q 01/05

Tokyo Story, voted the greatest film of all time by directors in the 2012 Sight & Sound poll, was released in which year?

A) 1953

B) 1955

C) 1957

D) 1959

Answer · why

A) 1953

Japanese exporters judged it "too Japanese" to sell abroad, and it was not screened abroad until 1957.

Q 02/05

Ozu's trademark low camera position, roughly at the eye level of someone kneeling on a mat, is known as what?

A) The zabuton shot

B) The tatami shot

C) The pillow shot

D) The shoji shot

Answer · why

B) The tatami shot

His camera was often even lower, one or two feet off the floor, requiring special tripods and raised sets.

Q 03/05

Which studio hired Ozu as a cinematography assistant in 1923 and employed him for virtually his whole career?

A) Shochiku

B) Toho

C) Daiei

D) Nikkatsu

Answer · why

A) Shochiku

His uncle acted as go-between; his father was against it.

Q 04/05

Setsuko Hara played a young woman named Noriko in three Ozu films. Which is NOT one of the so-called Noriko trilogy?

A) Early Summer

B) Tokyo Story

C) Late Spring

D) Late Autumn

Answer · why

D) Late Autumn

The three Norikos are unrelated characters linked only by their status as single women in postwar Japan; in the fourth film Hara plays a widowed mothe...

Q 05/05

Which actor appeared in at least 32 of Ozu's 54 films and shorts, including every one of his post-war features?

A) Keiji Sada

B) Chishū Ryū

C) Nakamura Ganjirō II

D) Shin Saburi

Answer · why

B) Chishū Ryū

He was only 32 when he played a failed middle-aged schoolteacher in his 1936 breakthrough, the first of many "elderly" roles.