David Bordwell, author of Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema, discusses some of the key themes and stylistic qualities that define Yasujiro Ozu's work and The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice, in this interview for The Criterion Collection.
David Bordwell was an American film theorist and film historian. After receiving his PhD from the University of Iowa in 1973, he wrote more than fifteen volumes on the subject of cinema including Narration in the Fiction Film (1985), Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema (1988), Making Meaning (1989), and On the History of Film Style (1997). With his wife Kristin Thompson, Bordwell wrote the textbooks Film Art (1979) and Film History (1994). Film Art, in its 12th edition as of 2019, is still used as a text in introductory film courses. His largest work was The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960 (1985), written in collaboration with Thompson and Janet Staiger.