If you were asked what director had the most consistent, immediately recognizable style, what would you say? Although that sort of thing is hard to quantify, you’d be safe if you answered Yashujiro Ozu (right), the director of an astonishing 54 films over his 36-year career. He’s known for a style so minimalist as to seem not to be a style at all, and one that’s the antithesis of the standard Hollywood style.

But it wasn’t always like that. When he began directing for Japan’s Shochiku studio, his style was much more ornamented. In his early comedic shorts — many of which are now lost — and in his output from the 1930s [such as I Was Born, But ... (Umarete wa Mita Keredo..., 1932) and A Story of Floating Weeds (Ukikusa monogatari, 1934)] he employed a full complement of close-ups, fades and tracking shots. During this period, he became established as the premiere director of films of the shomin-geki (“drama about people like you and me”) genre.

After World War II, he purposefully began to pare down his style. He tied the camera down, shunning virtually all movement: no dollies, pans or tracking shots, just an unmoving, unwinking eye. He lowered his camera almost to the floor, so that all shots are at the level of someone kneeling on a tatami. Finally, he threw out Hollywood conventions like the 180-degree rule and refused to use traditional shot/reverse-shot setups for conversations. Instead, he had the actors speak directly into the camera.

This led to an overall style well-suited to the intimate family dramas that were Ozu’s subject matter. We feel as if we’re right in the middle of it all, as if we’re a participant in the family drama being enacted before us. The low camera angles and head-on conversational style leave us well-placed to catch every nuance of every expression that means so much in an Ozu film.

Here’s a clip from Tokyo Story (Tokyo mongatari, 1953), considered by many to be the height of Ozu’s craft, that will give you a feel for his techniques. Enjoy!