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."