GREAT SCENES
Late Spring (Yasujiro Ozu, 1949) 

“That’s the order of human life and history: to expect such immediate happiness is a mistake. Happiness isn’t something you wait around for. It’s something you create yourself. Happiness comes only through effort.”

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Born today — 12 December: Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu (小津 安二郎), who, despite never marrying, captured gentle, profound portraits of families through the lens of marriage, death and generational differences in postwar Japan.

After a protracted battle with cancer, Ozu passed away in his hometown of Tokyo on his birthday in 1963. He was 60.

Ozu’s signature style — static visual compositions and austere, contemplative frames — has gone on to influence a generation of contemporary filmmakers, among them Jia Zhangke, Mike Leigh, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang and Wim Wenders, who once called Ozu his “only master.”