"late spring" has been seen by some commentators as a transitional work in terms of the home as a recurring theme in japanese cinema. tadao sato points out that shochiku’s directors of the 1920s and 1930s—including shimazu, gosho, mikio naruse and ozu himself—"presented the family in a tense confrontation with society." in "a brother and his young sister" ("ani to sono imoto", 1939) by shimazu, for example, "the home is sanctified as a place of warmth and generosity, feelings that were rapidly vanishing in society." by the early 1940s, however, in such films as ozu’s "there was a father", "the family [was] completely subordinate to the [wartime] state" and "society is now above criticism." but when the military state collapsed as a result of japan’s defeat in the war, the idea of the home collapsed with it: "neither the nation nor the household could dictate morality any more."