Kitano Takeshi

Kitano Takeshi

DeconstruactAing Violence

Kitano Takeshi• Born on 17, January 1947• His father, Kikujiro, was a

house painter, a failed yakuza (?)

• Excelled in math and science, though he was a college drop-out.

• Found a job at France-za, a striptease club - being elevator operator and bringing in customers.

Kitano Takeshi

• France-za, striptease, entertainment theatre

Kitano Takeshi• Tutored by Fukami

Senzaburo to be a comedian.

• Kitano came at the end of the illustrious list of Asakusa entertainers since the pre-war period - Enomoto Ken’ichi, Furukawa Roppa, Atsumi Kiyoshi, Hagimoto Kin’ichi.

Asakusa Comedians

Kitano Takeshi • With Kaneko Kiyoshi, Kitano formed a duo standing comedian team, Two Beats.

• Anarchic stage performance - full of black homour, discriminatory jokes, obscene words and actions breaking broadcasting ethical codes, though popular.

• Two Beat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FuLi_UYGbk

Kitano Takeshi as Actor• 1969 Yuke Yuke Nidome no Shojo (Go, Go,

Second Virgin) by Wakamatsu Koji (as extra)• http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=9cAH_J8JQw4

• 1980 Makoto-chan as voice actor • 1981 Danpu Wataridori (Truck Driver

Wanderers) as a supporting actor

• 1981 Manon by Maeda Yoichi

• 1981 Sukkari Sono Ki de (Completely Serious)　 Main character

• 1981 Natsuno Himitsu (Secrets of Summer)

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=9cAH_J8JQw4

Kitano Takeshi as Actor

• 1983 Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence as Sgt. Hara

Kitano Takeshi as Director

• Violent Cop (1989)

• Directed by Kitano Takeshi

• Written by Nozawa Hisashi (and Kitano Takeshi uncredited)

• Photographed by Sasakibara Yasushi

• Edited by Kamiya Nobutaka


• Boiling Point (1990)


• Written by Kitano Takeshi

• Photographed by Yanagishima Katsumi

• Edited by Kitano Takeshi and Toshio Taniguchi

• Shochiku Fuji and Bandai


• A Scene at the Sea 1991)




• Edited by Kitano Takeshi

• Office Kitano


• Sonatine (1993)





• Shochiku Dai’ich Kogyo


• Getting Any (1995)• Directed by Kitano

Takeshi• Written by Kitano Takeshi• Photographed by

Yanagishima Katsumi• Edited by Kitano Takeshi• Office Kitano


• Kids Return (1996)





• Office Kitano, Bandai, Ota Publishing


• Hana-bi (1997)



• Photographed by Yamamoto Hideo

• Edited by Kitano Takeshi and Ota Yoshinori

• Office Kitano, Bandai, TV Tokyo, Tokyo FM


• Kikujiro (1999)





• Office Kitano, Bandai, Nippon Herald, FM Tokyo


• Brother (2000)





• Bandai, Office Kitano, FM Tokyo, Little Brother Inc.

Kitano Takeshi as Director• Dolls (2002)• Directed by Kitano Takeshi• Written by Kitano Takeshi• Photographed by

Yanagishima Katsumi• Edited by Kitano Takeshi• Designed by Isoda Norihiro• Costume by Yamamoto Yoji• Office Kitano, Bandai, TV

Tokyo, FM Tokyo


• Zatoichi (2003)





• Office Kitano, TV, Asahi Asahi Broadcasting Co. FM Tokyo, Dentsu


• Takeshi’s (2005)





• Costume by Yamamoto Yoji

• Office Kitano, Bandai, TV Asahi, FM Tokyo, Dentsu


• Kantoku Banzai (2007)





• Office Kitano, Bandai, Dentsu, TV Asahi, FM Tokyo

Kitano Takeshi as Director• Achilles and the Tortoise

(2008)• Directed by Kitano

Takeshi• Written by Kitano Takeshi• Photographed by

Yanagishima Katsumi• Edited by Kitano Takeshi• Design by Isoda Norihiro• Office Kitano, Bandai, TV

Asahi, FM Tokyo


• Outrage (2010)





• Costume by Kurosawa Kazuko

• Office Kitano, Bandai, TV Tokyo, FM Tokyo, Omnibus

Subversion of Genres

• Action Film - Violent Cop (1989), Boiling Point (1990), Sonatine (1993), Brother (2000), Zatoichi (2003)

• Youth Film - A Scene at the Sea (1991), Kids Return (1996)

• Melodrama - (A Scene at the Sea ), Hana-bi (1997), Dolls (2002)

• Slap-stick Comedy - Getting Any? (1995) • Drama on himself - Kikujiro (1999), Takeshi’s

(2005)


• What makes Kitano auteur is not his consistent themes but his deconstruction of them.

• Not about violence but about the disintegration of its meaning.

• Not about love but about the loss of its meaning

• Not about life styles, but about the ambiguity of their meaning

• Conventional cinema concepts and traditional genre formulae are questioned, distorted and demolished.

Subversion of Genres: Violent Cop

• Violent Cop as an cop action thriller

• A lone police officer attempts punish a criminal organization and his own corrupt institution, taking justice into his own hands (in the tradition of Dirty Harry, French Connection)

Subversion of Genres: Sonatine

• Sonatine as a yakuza action thriller• A Tokyo yakuza was commissioned to take his

men to Okinawa to settle the local dispute between two clans only to find that this is a set up. While he is away, others can take over his territory. (The Yakuza Paper and other gangster films)


Deviation from the rules of the genre

featuring violence and violent actions

Movies with Violent Actions

• Devoid of catharsistic functioning of violence

(Catharsis - Aristotelian concept of pleasure obtained by releasing heightened tension)

→ e.g. justice is done through fulfilling a violent revenge


→ violence as a spectacle

→ violence as a game

→ violence as a means to satisfy sadistic / masochistic desire


• Violence and revenge• e.g. Godfather • Michael Colreone kills a mafia boss and a

corrupt police cooperator who have nearly got his father assassinated.


• Violence as a spectacle• e.g. Bonnie and Clyde• Well-choreographed deaths of the hero and

heroine which provokes sadness and sympathy among the audience.


• Violence as a game

• e.g. Tarantino’s films

• Virtual violence devoid of realistic meanings


• Violence as a means to satisfy sado-masochistic desire

• Ultima grida dalla savanna (1975)

• A pseudo-documentary about every sorts of shocking events


Violent Cop

• What is the purpose of violence in this film?

• Punishment - this purpose is undermined by the excessive violence shown by the cop.

The cop and the gangster are equal in their obsession with violence.


• Revenge - loses its meaning when it loses its sight of what to achieve.

The cop kills his own sister at the end of the

film.

• Good and evil interchangeable


• Meanings of violence are further undermined by the frequent inclusion of jokes.

• Ambiguity of violence

Its function

Its morality

• Ambiguity in attitudes towards violence - criticizing or romanticizing? Demystifying or glorifying?


Sonatine

• Opaqueness in narrative, inner psyche of the characters, and motivation for their actions

• Obvious death wish of the protagonist - where does it come from?


• Absurd and irrational

• No explanation of motives: no cause and effect

→ Make the meaning of violence unclear and ambiguous.

Kitano and Other Genres

• Melodramas A Scene at the Sea and Hana-bi - blocking the audience from involving in the actions of the film.

• Love unfulfilled because of death or being overshadowed by death


• A Scene at the Sea

• A part-time garbage collector, who is deaf and mute, finds a cracked surfboard. He practices surfing and his girlfriend, who is also deaf, watches on. Summer turns autumn. One rainy day, the girl sees her boyfriend surfboard but not him.


• Scarcity of dialogues

• Lack of emotional highs and lows

• Alienate the viewer as the characters in the film are emotionally alienated.


• Hana-bi

• Action/Melodrama or Action/Melodrama/Comedy

• The film refuses fundamental classification


• Sentimental - but interruptions, ellipses, discontinuities, and frequent flashbacks in narrative prevents the viewer from identifying with characters in the film.


• Biographical and auto-biographical films

• Kikujiro is based on the memory of Kitano’s father, Kikujiro, but its accuracy is doubtful.

• It includes many biographical and autobiographical elements, but they are unreliable.

Documents

Kitano Takeshi