Takeshi Kitano interview

[Mark Schilling]

 On April 2 Shelley Silver wrote asking:

Whether (Kitano's) critique of these institutions wasn't from a somewhat
> traditional right wing (American right wing not Japanese) point of view.
> 
> Does one have a sense of his view on the above from his films? 

   In 1996 Kitano published "Takeshi no 20 Seiki Nihonshi" (Shinchosha), a
collection of columns from "Shincho 45" in which he expounds on Japanese
history, the effect of the constitution on Japanese society, and the state
of Japanese youth today. Reading the columns again over the past several
days, I found it hard to put him into any of the usual ideological pigeon
holes. He despises postwar Japanese politicians for knuckling under to
Washington, ridicules the "peace" constitution and the endless mea culpas
for the war (his solution: send the Asian nations calling for a "sincere"
Japanese war apology big fat checks),  thinks that the importation of
American-style democracy has been a disaster (in America, he writes,
democracy is a way of making decisions, in Japan, it has become a way to
evade responsibility) and only half-jokingly proposes that Japan follow
Singapore in imposing a defacto dictatorship. 
      On the other hand, he calls the postwar system of forcing everyone
into the same middle-class mold -- good test scores to get into a good
school and find a good job with a good company -- a form of fascism. Where,
he asks, is the freedom to fail?  Where is written that a Monbusho-dictated
education is the only route to happiness and success? 
      He also writes in one column that he hopes to live out the rest of
his life avoiding young people as much as possible (they are not Japanese,
he feels, but space aliens). In another, he confesses that, when he is with
the younger members of his gundan ("army" of comic disciples), he finds
himself talking on their level and that being able to shift mental gears
this way is essential for keeping his comic muscles in condition. 
     Just as Kitano is a man of many parts, his mind has many compartments
-- not all of which fit together! The films obviously reflect that mind,
though none can be called overtly ideological or didactic. Kids Return is
one example -- at one level it is a middle-aged man's object lesson for the
younger generation on real-world realities, on another level, it shows a
certain sympathy for the two punk heroes, who are modeled on acquaintances
from Kitano's own less-than-reputable youth. 
      He is, in short, an artist who generates creative energy from his
various contradictions, not an ideologue who embraces a rigid consistency. 
 

Mark Schilling (schill at gol.com)