Late Spring
A striking fact about Ozu's late films (of which "Late Spring" is the first instance) is that transitions between scenes are accomplished exclusively through simple cuts. According to one commentator, the lost work, "The Life of an Office Worker" ("Kaishain seikatsu", 1929), contained a dissolve, and several extant Ozu films of the 1930s (e.g., "Tokyo Chorus" and "The Only Son") contain some fades. But by the time of "Late Spring", these were completely eliminated, with only music cues to signal scene changes. (Ozu once spoke of the use of the dissolve as "a form of cheating.") This self-restraint by the filmmaker is now seen as very modern, because although fades, dissolves and even wipes were all part of common cinematic grammar worldwide at the time of "Late Spring" (and long afterwards), such devices are often considered somewhat "old fashioned" today, when straight cuts are the norm.