Trivia

Good Morning (1959) is the first film by Yasujirô Ozu to get a theatrical release in the United States.

Yasujirô Ozu said about Good Morning (1959), "Human beings love idle prattle, but when it comes to saying something important at critical moments, they get tongue-tied. I wanted to make that the subject of a film." By the time he actually made the film, his focus for it had changed. "Although this story which was conceived a while ago had a rather bitter edge, as I got older, I was prompted by box office considerations to make a sidesplitting comedy."

Yasujirô Ozu's 50th film and second in color, has much of the same visual style of his earlier films---the low-angle "tatami shots," the cuts instead of dissolves, the static, immobile camera---but this time, the humor is more boisterous. Instead of discretion, there is a running gag about flatulence. The film's silences don't represent quiet longing, they are a protest by two boys against adult hypocrisy, and a gambit to force their parents to buy a television set.

Despite Yasujirô Ozu's reputation in the West as an austere and refined director, Yasujirô Ozu does not shy away from depicting many of the neighborhood boys' flatulence jokes.

The flatulence gag was based on an experience Yasujirô Ozu had during the making his film, The Lady and the Beard (1931). He recalled that his overworked, overtired crew worked five overnights in a row, and amused themselves on those long nights by pushing each others' bellies and passing gas.

Good Morning (1959) has been compared to I Was Born, But... (1932) or described as a remake of that 1932 Yasujirô Ozu silent film. But while the two films share some elements---both are about two young brothers who go on strike against their parents, and relationships within their their suburban community---1959 Japan was vastly different from the pre-war 1932 nation, and "Good Morning" reflects those differences.

Yasujirô Ozu: [movie posters] Yasujirô Ozu pays tribute to his cinematic influences by putting all kinds of film posters all over the wall in his films. In this movie, there are two posters, one of The Defiant Ones (1958) (at 08:30) and one of The Lovers (1958) (at 08:07), both at the neighbors' house.