Tokyo Story Realism

Tokyo Story was a film unlike any I have ever seen. There was a blatant moral in the end about appreciating your family, reminiscent of Aesop’s Fables from when I was a child. I enjoyed the film, though the breaking of the 180 degree rule from classic Hollywood films threw me off a little bit. The fourth wall was broken to the point where I felt uncomfortable at times.
Practices of Looking had an extensive chapter on the prominent continuity editing technique. It went into great detail on the subject.
Tokyo Story conveys realism in every sense of the word, though a classic Hollywood film edited with continuity in mind only gives the illusion of realism. Tokyo Story to me represented all that a film can portray in real life, the conversations that we have among ourselves and the daily lives that we live. Even though I liked the message, I found it difficult to sit and watch the film because there was a lot included that didn’t need to be included in order for the film to work. Tokyo Story brought us through every word of every conversation through every action, every movement and the unnecessary facets of life that I wasn’t used to seeing in a movie. Maybe its just because I’m so used to the classic Hollywood American style of editing a film.
On the other hand, classic continuity editing cuts down the realism of a film and condenses the actions that in reality would take much longer and much more effort than the film actually conveys to the viewer. This works because our eyes interpret the information that we see and “fill the blanks” so to speak, and the plot continues even though we didn’t see the protagonist go down ALL the flights of stairs. Cutting was always down on action so as to further give the illusion of reality within the subject.
I enjoyed both the reading and the film because they both added a new aspect to keep in mind when creating my films and writing my scripts.