PREFACE of Wisconsin-Madison has permitted this book to be as detailed and comprehensive as it is. A Vilas Humanist grant for 1984-6 enabled me to complete the project. The pennant could also serve as a banner for the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, which, thanks to the warm professionalism of Maxine Fleckner Ducey and Linda Henzl, remains an idyllic place to work. Marching under the same standard are my colleagues in the Film division of the Department of Communication Arts: Tino Balio, Don Crafton, Vance Kepley, and J. J. Murphy. Their kindness, wit, and esprit de corps have been precious to me. Vance also offered helpful suggestions on historical aspects of my argument. Finally there are the students, now many of them professors, who have over the years enthusiastically welcomed Ozu to Madison and who have offered their criticism of ideas first tried out in the classroom: Serafina Bathrick, Matthew Bernstein, Marilyn Campbell, Kathryn C. D'Alessandro, Martha Davis, Kerman Eckes, David Fishelson, Terry Fowler, Peter Lutze, Sue Pearson, Jim Peterson, Kathy Root, Maureen Turim, Diane Waldman, and the late, much-missed Tom Wisniewski. I am also grateful to the British Film Institute Publishing Department. Ed Buscombe contracted this book, and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith gave me excellent editorial advice on the manuscript. Tony Rayns gave precious last-minute advice about the transliteration of Japanese and Chinese names. Centrally, of course, there are two fellow researchers and friends: Edward Branigan, the most indefatigable reader one could ask for, and Kristin Thompson, who continues to teach me about Ozu. X 0