Yasujiro Ozu and Kogo Noda understood how to do it. They wrote many screenplays together, including those for some of the greatest films ever made, from “Late Spring” (1949) to “Tokyo Story” (1953) to “An Autumn Afternoon” (1962). Baths are important. And breakfast. And walks and naps. The important thing to remember is that, for the most part, writing isn’t what happens when you’re at your keyboard. That, to paraphrase embellish Truman Capote, is merely the typing part.

The clip above is from Kazuo Inoue’s 1983 documentary about Ozu, “I Lived, But…” — included in the Criterion DVD edition of “Tokyo Story.”

Jim Emerson

Jim Emerson is the founding editor of RogerEbert.com and has written lots of things in lots of places over lots of years. Mostly involving movies.

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