Richie, Donald. "Shooting." Ozu. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974. 105-158.

In this section, Richie takes apart the elements of Ozu's films through the techniques of shooting the films. He discusses composition, camera angles, symbolism, and visual aspects in general of Ozu's films.

Richie's analysis of the tracking shots Ozu uses in Tokyo Chorus reveals the parallels Ozu was attempting to make between "the lives of schoolboys, office works, and the unemployed." He also discusses Ozu's low camera position, which he states may have originated from the scene in Tokyo Chorus in which the scene was framed for the children and the audience initially only sees the parents from the waist down. Richie says this explanation may be a valid one, "for it fully accords with Ozu's unique conception of the role of composition in cinema." He contrasts the pictorial composition of Mizoguchi, which involves "the Japanese kind of nature portrait," with the pictorial compositions of Ozu--which were affected by "the great influence of American cinema on Ozu." Richie describes the Ozu set as "almost like a school [where] the director taught the actors how to do everything." This is reminiscent of Lubitsch's methods, in which he would act out the scenes for the actors to see. He quotes Chishu Ryu referring to Ozu, "Sometimes he acted out the role himself." The two directors, Ozu and Lubitsch, shared a common directing method--they were both extremely fastidious about the scene being acted out exactly as they envisioned it in their mind.

Bock, Audie. "Yasujiro Ozu." Japanese Film Directors. Kodansha International Ltd.: New York (1978): 69-98.

Bock describes Ozu's career chronologically, beginning with a short biography of his personal life, then the beginning of his career as an assistant to big Japanese directors, and then moving into analyses of the themes and style demonstrated in his films.

Bock reveals that Ozu "thought deeply about film grammar" and again brings up the quote in which Ozu claims not to have been influenced by anyone else. Beginning from the film I Was Born, But... (1932), one year after the making of Tokyo Chorus, Ozu starts to reject fade transitions, "finding them, like dissolves, not to be essentials of film grammar, but rather 'attributes of the camera.'" This section offered particular insight into the themes of Ozu's films, which concern matters of the family; as Bock states, "the core relationship among these ordinary people of the Ozu film is that between parent and child." Bock points out that Ozu's films were social-realist films, which is true also of the films in Hollywood at the time.

Geist, Kathe. "Yasujiro Ozu: Notes on a Retrospective." Film Quarterly 37.1 (1983): 2-9.

Geist analyzes the differences between Ozu's prewar and postwar films by looking at Ozu's camerawork in various film examples.

Geist points out that "in his prewar films Ozu used cinematic means to both tease his audience and create humor. A favorite device was to show some portion of a person's body without identifying the owner." Several years after the schoolyard drill scene in the beginning of Tokyo Chorus, we are only shown the hands of a man picking up a mirror. The audience may assume that it is Shinji, the main character introduced in the drill scene, but we are not sure until a couple scenes later when Shinji's face is shown as he ties his tie in the mirror. Geist also uses Tokyo Chorus specifically as an example of the montage Ozu uses to imply a sequence of events, showing "objects with or without unidentified hands or feet manipulating them...by way of teasing his audience." Classical Hollywood films also utilized the montage as a means of compressing a large passage of time into a shorter on-screen period. For example, the span of several years may be compressed into a few scenes with a montage of cycles of changing seasons. The montage Ozu uses in Tokyo Chorus is not to indicate a passage of a long period of time, but rather to tease his audience, as Geist puts it.

Yasujiro Ozu only developed his signature style with the making of his film Tokyo Story in 1953. To what degree do his films made prior to 1953, such as Tokyo Chorus (1933), demonstrate the influence of the Hollywood style? Ozu especially admired the films of Ernst Lubitsch; what characteristics do his early films share with those of Lubitsch's?

Wrigley, Nick. "Yasujiro Ozu." Senses of Cinema (2003). 29 Nov. 2008 <http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/ozu.html>.

This article was written one hundred years after the birthdate of Yasujiro Ozu. It gives a brief biographical background on the director, synopses and analyses of several of Ozu's films, and discusses Ozu's legacy. The bulk of the article is about Ozu's films.

The article presents some of Ozu's influences, including American films and in particular "those of Ernst Lubitsch" though "in other conversations, Ozu seems unwilling to admit influence." Wrigley includes a quote from Ozu that says "I formulated my own directing style in my own head, proceeding without any unnecessary imitation of others...for me there was no such thing as a teacher. I have relied entirely on my own strength." Though Ozu's statement may be true about his later films, I believe that his earlier films, prior to establishing his signature style in Tokyo Story (1953), demonstrate the influence Hollywood had on his films.