Landmark films by Japanese directors Yasujiro Ozu and Juzo Itami will be featured in "Two Pillars of Modern Japanese Cinema," a spring semester film series sponsored by the Council on East Asian Studies. The movies will be screened in Japanese with English subtitles at 7 p.m. on Thursdays in the Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St. The series and related events are open to the public free of charge.
The first portion of the film series will be devoted to the works of Mr. Ozu, who has been described as "the most Japanese of Japanese directors." He has gained a worldwide reputation for his portraits of people whose ties to each other and to their families become increasingly fragile as modern influences overtake them.
Works spanning three decades of the director's career will be screened in the series, which begins on Jan. 23 with "A Story of Floating Weeds" 1934, considered Mr. Ozu's finest silent feature. Before the screening that day, at 6 p.m., the director's work will be discussed by a panel that includes Peter Grilli, executive director of the Donald Keene Center for Japanese cultural studies at Columbia University; Miryam Sas, assistant professor of Japanese and comparative literature at Harvard University; and Xinmin Liu, Yale graduate student and scholar of Asian cinema.
Other films by Mr. Ozu in the series will be "Late Spring" 1949, on Jan. 30; "Tokyo Story" 1953, on Feb. 6; "Early Spring" 1956, on Feb. 13; and "An Autumn Afternoon" 1962, the director's last movie, on Feb. 20.
The second half of the series will feature films by Juzo Itami, a commercial artist and popular essayist who became an award- winning actor before making his directorial debut in 1984 with "The Funeral," a smash hit in Japan. Mr. Itami's works are known for their quirky, sometimes comic characters and for the director's gentle jibes at the conventions of society.
"The Funeral" will be shown on March 27. Prior to the screening, at 6 p.m., a panel of experts will discuss Mr. Itami's work. They will include Carole Cavanaugh, assistant professor of Japanese at Middlebury College; Kyoko Hirano, director of the film program at the Japan Society of New York and author of several books on Japanese cinema; and Xinmin Liu.
Other films by Mr. Itami in the series will be "Tampopo" 1986 on April 3; "A Taxing Woman" 1987 on April 10; "A Taxing Woman's Return" 1988 on April 17; and "The Family Game" 1984 on April 24.
For further information, contact the Council on East Asian Studies at 432-3426.