It is possibly risky to say, but the chief reward in Late Spring is not in its materials, gratifying though they are. The highest benefit—as in Tokyo Story, though less strong—is appreciation of the artist himself. One is moved by a great deal in the film, but the ultimate and most moving of responses is one's regard for Ozu. This is in no way due to exhibitionism; most certainly it's not because of virtuosity à la Fellini. It's because everything in an Ozu film derives from his utter subscription to a view of life as infinitely sacred and of art as the most sacred exercise in life. He serves, rather than making anything serve him. (p. 127)

The motion of this quiet-motion picture is in the effort by which the widowed father, a professor, turns his daughter away from the security-and-resentment ambivalence of her life with him toward...