Make Way For Tomorrow (Leo McCarey, 1937) (Patreon)

Back when I taught Film 101, I always showed Tokyo Story. In general, students responded well to it -- as well as they responded to anything foreign and in black-and-white, which was a tepid reaction compared with Hitchcock, which struck them as the beginning of "real" movies. But without fail, some students would mistakenly interpret Ozu's formal restraint, and his work with actors in particular, through cultural stereotypes. They were confused that what, to them, should have been a melodramatic scenario was so subdued, and tended to attribute it to Japanese cultural mores, and a perceived embarrassment about overt emotion.

This always made me want to show them some Mizoguchi, or even some Seijun Suzuki, to disabuse them of this misconception. But now, I think I would just show them Make Way For Tomorrow, a film from an ostensibly "expressive" culture that is, in its own way, even more withholding than Ozu. While in Tokyo Story, the children are simply incapable of accommodating their parents or adjusting their routines, Make Way For Tomorrow often displays cruelty and dysfunction. 

But the elderly parents absorb every emotional blow, offering minor crankiness as their only resistance. Lucy Cooper (Beulah Bondi), in particular, simply wants a place to exist, and when she is upbraided by her spoiled granddaughter Rhoda (Barbara Read), or read the riot act by her daughter-in-law (Fay Bainter) over a relatively minor infraction, Lucy simply takes it. One could argue that she has some passive-aggression at her disposal, but this is nothing compared with the anger and derision directed her way.

Bark (Victor Moore), the father, is a bit more cantankerous, but he is subjected to more open hostility. His daughter Cora (Elisabeth Risdon) treats him like a bother, especially when he gets sick. To keep up appearances, she quickly moves him from the couch to her bed when the doctor comes, and when Bark's storekeeper friend Mr. Rubens (Maurice Moscovitch) comes to visit him, the woman is rude and defensive. Cora has no interest in caring for her father, but doesn't want anyone else caring for him either, because that would show her up.

The structure of Make Way For Tomorrow is rather ingenious, even though it can seem plodding in the moment. The first two-thirds of the film only show us Bark and Lucy within the context of their extended family, for whom they present a set of complications and annoyances. Once the couple strikes out on the town for one last date, we are able to really get a sense of who they are and what they mean to each other. Naturally, the pacing of the film drops from about 45 to 33 RPM, because we are now out of the bustle (and cross-cutting) of the Cooper family and thoroughly ensconced with an elderly couple, literally claiming their own time. 

Although they do not state it explicitly, they both know this is their farewell to one another. They are repeating various gestures from their honeymoon in New York, back before they had children, and they have deliberately excluded their kids from this valedictory scene. This outing serves to bookend their marriage with a recollection of their love, when it was at its best. They are writing a final chapter, because what awaits them is perhaps more painful than death.