theloudestvoice:

Happy birthday Yasujirō Ozu (December 12, 1903 - December 12, 1963)

Yasujirō Ozu was a Japanese director and screenwriter, and among the first generation of directors to grow up watching films. As a child and teenager he was a movie buff, collecting movie memorabilia, writing fan letters to his favorite benshi, and missing exams to go to the movies. He became a fan of many of the Hollywood personalities he saw projected on screen, including serial queen Pearl White, western star William S. Hart, and comedian Harold Lloyd.

But he also had an excellent memory, which served him well when he joined the Shochiku Film Company in 1923. Both the silents and sounds he made over the years fondly reference those films he grew up watching as a boy, while becoming something different, something uniquely Ozu. He created new trademark camera angles, new ways to explore a conversation, new ways to telegraph the ending of a scene, and he examined family life with a sense of humor and a deep sympathy for human beings of all ages.

Ozu never married, and lived with his mother up until her death in 1961. He continued making films up until his death from cancer on his birthday in 1963.

(Source: BFI)