Walk Cheerfully
(Hogaraka ni Ayume)
Screening on Film
With Hiroko Kawasaki, Minoru Takada, Satoko Date.
Japan, 1930, 35mm, black & white, silent, 100 min.
Audacious and packed with action, Walk Cheerfully is the story of a new kind of hoodlum who began to appear in westernized Japan of the era: a man with a taste for movies, jazz, flappers, and snappy suits, he seemed to have walked off the mean streets of America. Kenji, a petty thief and swindler known as “Ken the Knife,” falls hard for a virtuous woman, decides to go straight, and ends up a window washer. His girlfriend (her Louise Brooks bob signaling evil) plays the femme fatale, attempting to lure him back into his old life of crime. Despite its film noir compositions, rapid editing, and virtuoso moving camerawork, Walk Cheerfully is full of trademark Ozu themes, motifs, and devices, including his famous “tatami shot,” in which the camera is placed at the level of a person sitting on a tatami mat.
Part of film series
Screenings from this program
Woman of Tokyo / A Mother Should Be Loved
Where Now are the Dreams of Youth?
The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family
The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family
Record of a Tenement Gentleman
I Was Born But...
The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice
An Autumn Afternoon
