TOWARDS INTRINSIC NORMS claim a visual importance comparable to that assigned to the actor. For the same reason, actor-oriented enhancements like filters and diffusion devices were of little use to Ozu. Even after 1932, when Japanese studios changed from arc lamps and orthochromatic film to tungsten lamps and panchromatic stock, his images did not become particularly soft. After the war, with A Hen in the Wind, Ozu resumes the use of arc lighting, and the brilliant blacks and whites of subsequent films exploit the range of effects which this (and perhaps faster film stocks) could achieve. The constraints operating in camera position, set design, and lighting can be seen in the realm of color as well. For his color films, Ozu insisted on controlling the hue of every object in the shot.42 He could design shots involving many color schemes, but he favored neutral or pastel shades for floors and walls and bright, saturated colors for objects. In this way, a prop would stand out vividly. He was especially fond of red ('People who like red are either geniuses or madmen,' he told Atsuta43) and Shimogawara kept a special reserve of red matchboxes, cups, teakettles, and other props.44 In these films, Ozu will occasionally edge-light not the human figures but the colored objects, making them still more prominent. Color is for him a purely pictorial factor, a compositional resource to be explored through careful observation. 'There are about ten different shades of red,' he told an interviewer. 'When you look at this beer bottle [where did this interview take place?], you can see the different shades and hues of color in its various parts.'45 Lighting would have to bring these out. Eventually, Ozu claimed, he hoped to use all ten varieties of red as distinct colors.46 Ozu once quoted a sutra, 'Form is nothing but emptiness and emptiness is nothing but form,' and pointed out that the Sanskrit word for 'form' is the same as the Chinese character for 'color'. In a typically deflating move, he added punningly that the priest who devised the sutra may have 'taken color' - that is, gotten sexually aroused.47 Like narration generally, color could be the object of rigorous inquiry conducted in a playful frame of mind. Since at least the second decade of the century, a central convention of narrative cinema has been that the film's fabula, or story action, will highlight the human being as a causal agent. In watching a narrative film, we watch people, or at least people-like entities, and our expectations are geared to their behavior and its changes. Ozu's problem of'homogenizing' the image, of elevating it to a level of intrinsic interest, is thus posed most acutely with respect to actors. Directors who want pictorial qualities to dominate the drama face the need to define a distinctive performance style. Like Tati and Bresson, Ozu cultivated a 'behaviorist' acting that confirmed the director's conception of the image. As a studio director, Ozu could imagine his shots peopled by stars under contract. Roles were written with particular players in mind. During filming, Ozu would deploy the actors within all the technical coordinates that the shot's visual design required. First the shot would be set up, with doubles used to arrange composition and lighting. Then actors would replace the doubles, and Ozu would look through the camera to decide the exact framing. The lighting would be established exactly; once it was set, it would not change, and the actor's position would be adjusted in relation to it. Then Ozu would turn the lights off so that he could rehearse the actors in 26. An Autumn Afternoon 27. Walk Cheerfully 28. Rosita (Lubitsch, 1923) 83