nearly bare trees, which introduces a "tree-motif" associated with Noriko; a shot of a single leafy tree, appearing immediately after the Noh play scene and before the scene depicting Noriko and her father walking together, then separating; and a shot of one of the pagodas of Kyoto during the father and daughter's visit to that city late in the film. The vase scene The most discussed instance of a pillow shot in any Ozu film—indeed, the most famous crux in the director's work—is the scene that takes place at an inn in Kyoto, in which a vase figures prominently. During the father and daughter's last trip together, after a day sightseeing with Professor Onodera and his wife and daughter, they decide to go to sleep, and lie down on their separate futons on the floor of the inn. Noriko talks about what a nice person Onodera's new wife is, and how embarrassed she feels for having called Onodera's remarriage "filthy." Shukichi assures her that she should not worry about it, because Onodera never took her words seriously. After Noriko confesses to her father that she found the thought of his own remarriage "distasteful," she looks over to discover that he is already asleep, or seems to be. She looks up towards the ceiling and appears to smile. There follows a six-second medium shot, in the semidarkness, of a vase on the floor in the same room, in front of a shōji screen through which the shadows of leafy branches can be seen. There is a cut back to Noriko, now looking sad and pensive, almost in tears. Then there is a ten-second shot of the same vase, identical to the earlier one, as the music on the soundtrack swells, cuing the next scene (which takes place at the Ryōan-ji rock garden in Kyoto, the following day). Abé Mark Nornes, in an essay entitled "The Riddle of the Vase: Ozu Yasujirō's Late Spring (1949)," observes: "Nothing in all of Ozu's films has sparked such conflicting explanations; everyone seems compelled to weigh in on this scene, invoking it as a key example in their arguments." Nornes speculates that the reason for this is the scene's "emotional power and its unusual construction. The vase is clearly essential to the scene. The director not only shows it twice, but he lets both shots run for what would be an inordinate amount of time by