Ozu, Yasujiro, 1903–63, Japanese film director. Ozu began working at a Tokyo studio in 1923, became an assistant director in 1926, and directed his first feature in 1927. He made 35 silent films before turning to sound in 1936. His films concentrate on the Japanese middle class. He was adept at portraying conflicts between old and young, and parent and child, and at depicting changes in Japanese society and in the nature of family relations, and is known for using a relatively static camera and for long shots taken from a low angle. Ozu's Tokyo Story (1953) is considered both his masterpiece and one of the finest works ever produced by the Japanese cinema. Among his other works are Late Spring (1949), The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice (1952), Floating Weeds (1959), and An Autumn Afternoon (1962). Ozu, Akira Kurosawa, and Kenji Mizoguchi are considered the greatest filmmakers of Japanese cinema's golden age.
See D. Richie, Ozu: His Life and Films (1977); D. Bordwell, Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema (1988); K. Yoshida, Ozu's Anti-Cinema (2003).
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