the measure of most filmmakers." To one commentator, the vase represents "stasis," and is thus "an expression of something unified, permanent, transcendent." Another critic describes the vase and other Ozu "still lifes" as "containers for our emotions." Yet another specifically disputes this interpretation, identifying the vase as "a non-narrative element wedged into the action." A fourth scholar sees it as an instance of the filmmaker's deliberate use of "false POV" (point of view), since Noriko is never shown actually looking at the vase the audience sees. A fifth asserts that the vase is "a classic feminine symbol." And yet another suggests several alternative interpretations, including the vase as "a symbol of traditional Japanese culture," and as an indicator of Noriko's "sense that... [her] relationship with her father has been changed." The French philosopher-film theorist Gilles Deleuze, in his book L'image-temps. Cinéma 2 (Cinema 2: The Time-Image, 1985), cited this particular scene as an example of what he referred to as the "time image." Simply put, Deleuze sees the vase as an image of unchanging time, although objects within time (for example, Noriko) do change (e.g., from joy to sadness). "The vase in Late Spring is interposed between [Noriko’s] half smile and the beginning of her tears. There is becoming, change, passage. But the form of what changes does not itself change, does not pass on. This is time, time itself, ‘a little bit of time in its pure state’: a direct time-image, which gives what changes the unchanging form in which the change is produced… The still life is time, for everything that changes is in time, but time does not itself change… Ozu's still lifes endure, have a duration, over ten seconds of the vase: this duration of the vase is precisely the representation of that which endures, through the succession of changing states." Interpretations Like many celebrated works of cinema, Late Spring has inspired varied and often contradictory critical and scholarly interpretations. The two most common interpretations of Late Spring are: a) the view that the film represents one of a series of Ozu works that depict part of a universal and inevitable "life cycle", and is thus either duplicated or complemented by other Ozu works in the series; b) the view that the film, while similar in theme and even plot to other Ozu works, calls for a distinct critical approach, and that the work is in