Steven H wrote:I've always been slightly partial to the "Noriko is gay" reading of Late Spring, and knowing what I do about Ozu, I don't think him being a closet homosexual is too out there. He was definitely a "bachelor".
I'm certain this has been gone into elsewhere, perhaps in this forum, though I think it is in Andrew Britton's brilliant book on Katharine Hepburn, that the Noriko of EARLY SUMMER is perhaps lesbian. The film contains a scene in which Noriko's sexual orientation ("Is she that way?" or something to that effect, per the Criterion disc) is questioned, by a male co-worker, I believe. Then a female co-worker reassuringly says something like, "No, she's just overly fond of Audrey Hepburn." The use of "Audrey" on the Criterion disc I'm certain of, though I believe the spoken Japanese is simply "Hepburn"?
Regardless, as EARLY SUMMER is 1951, the reference must be understood to be the bisexual Katharine, an international superstar who clearly read "dyke" to the Japanese, as well; and not Audrey, who was a working film actress, though just, and still rather obscure, two years from being a star, let alone an internationally-recognizable, exportable commodity. Hopefully the inevitable Criterion Blu-Ray upgrade will correct this problem. As it is now the allusion is nonsensical. But a Noriko (Hara) who moons over/identifies with Katharine Hepburn and resists marriage the way she does is someone else entirely.
