Kogo Noda

Kogo Noda wrote the screenplays for almost all of Yasujiro Ozu's late films, working in the same room with him for months at a time, and the two of them drank their way through the drafts. He was born in Hakodate, joined the Shochiku studio at Kamata in 1923 in its first year, and met Ozu there almost immediately; he wrote Ozu's debut in 1927 and worked on his silent comedies through the 1930s. The partnership resumed in 1949 with Late Spring and continued through Early Summer, Tokyo Story, Early Spring, Tokyo Twilight, Equinox Flower, Good Morning, Late Autumn and An Autumn Afternoon - the run on which Ozu's international reputation rests entirely. Their method was to withdraw to Noda's cottage at Chigasaki or later in the Nagano highlands and write the whole script in order, dialogue first, over a hundred days or more, keeping a diary that records the sake consumed alongside the scenes completed. Ozu said that when they worked together they did not have to explain what a line meant. The scripts are built out of repetition, displaced conversation and things not said, and Ozu shot them as written without improvisation. Tokyo Story, written in 1953 and drawing on the American film Make Way for Tomorrow, is regularly voted among the best films ever made. Noda also wrote for other directors, including Heinosuke Gosho. He died in 1968, five years after Ozu, and is buried near him. The Chigasaki inn where they worked has been preserved. Their writing diaries survive and have been published in Japan. Ozu's grave carries only the character for nothingness, and Noda chose it.

• Lived: 1893 CE – 1968 CE
• Nationality: Japanese
• Roles: writer