SV: Kitano/Kijujiro/Buffoon--Addition re Furansu-za

[Henrik Sylow]

Saki, Kitano's Mother, came from a military family and was brought up to by
discipline. The reason why she was so hard on her kids has to be seen in
light of her upbringing and of the job / education situation in post-WW2
Japan. I believe that the reason that Kitano eventually became a Futen and
later a comedian was a protest against his upbringing and an attempt to
break free from his mother. However, she played an important part throughout
of his life, for instance it was Saki who talked him out of divorcing his
wife, and she continued for some time to pay his tuition, even after he had
dropped out, as she hoped that he would return.

During the shooting of Kikujiro, Saki broke her leg, and Kitano could only
visit her so often. Kitano treasured his mother. Just before her death,
Kitano had cancelled all work for three days to spend with her, a which also
is the reason why he pasted her into Kikujiro; the most honest moment in any
of Kitano's films.

The relationship between Kitano and Saki also has to be seen in light of,
that Kitano is two personas: While Beat is rebelling against her, Kitano
takes her advice and did everything to make her proud; When Kitano received
his bachelor last year, he talked about how proud she would be of him now.

About his father, Kitano actually sat by his deathbed each night for over
three weeks, when he had a heart attack. Each day after work, Kitano would
rush to the hospital and then spend the rest of the day and the night by his
side, and according to an interview, Kikujiro's last words to Kitano was
"I'm sorry." 

I believe that the death of Kikujiro was the catalyst for the almost 15 year
long self-destructive battle between Kitano and Beat, which ended with his
accident in 1994. 

As such, in view of that Kids return and Hana-bi are films where Kitano is
making peace with himself and his past, Kikujiro is a film where Kitano is
making peace with his parents, after which he spoke about having ended a
chapter in his life, which leads to reading Brother as him killing off Beat,
which again leads to his third period, beginning with Dolls, where Kitano is
in charge.

I've always found it interesting to read the mother in Kikujiro as an
abstraction over the real Kikujiro, perhaps a haunting fantasy of Kitano
about his father having another family somewhere; much more that, than
reading Kikujiro as the real Kikujrio. I also like to see the kid and
Kikujiro as Kitano himself, the kid being an abstraction of Kitano as a
child, Kikujiro a failed Kitano as an adult, them both mirroring eachother
ending up more alike and the wiser.

Henrik Sylow



-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: owner-KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
[mailto:owner-KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu] P? vegne af Michael
McCaskey
Sendt: 11. august 2006 22:44
Til: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Emne: Re: Kitano/Kijujiro/Buffoon--Addition re Furansu-za

The one thing is that, in light of Kitano's books Kikujiro to Saki,
ISBN4-10-122524-9, a memoir of his early years, and Asakusa kiddo,
ISBN4-10-122512-5, about his days in Asakusa in early adulthood at the
Furansu-za, etc., it seems as if much of the Kikujiro no natsu film is
really Kitano's own story.

Kitano's father was in fact named Kikujiro. He was a house and interior
painter, who apparently was drunk part of the time he was home, and bullied
all his kids sadistically almost all the time. Kitano speaks, or writes, of
him with fairly undisguised hatred, and if Kitano's accounts are true, the
hatred was fully justified.

Kitano's mother was a bit nicer, but spent a lot of time crticizing Kitano
and making little of everything he did, even after he became successful. She
ended with Altzheimer's, and never made peace with Kitano. She is Kikujiro's
mother in the film.

Kitano and his brother and sister were at least semi-orphans. Sometimes they
went off and hid when their father was home, and their mother was not very
sympathetic.

Kitano gave his father's name to Kitano's character in the film--perhaps
partly because the character is irresponsible, and at times violent, like
Kitano's father. But the Kikujiro film character is really nice--to his wife
and to the kid, at least.

But from Kitano's descriptions, his own father was never nice at any
time--he enjoyed doing cruel things to his children, such as one day
casually killing his young daughter's pet chicken, for no reason, and having
it boiling in a pot to greet her when she got home from school--apparently
because he had nothing better to do that day. He was never at all sorry
after doing things like this--just a so-what, who cares, attitude all the
time. He was most likely psychotic.

The Kikujiro in the film is perhaps more like the hoped-for father that
might have been nice after all, and the kid is Kitano, looking for a real
parent.

Please feel quite free to disaree with my amateur psychoanalysis if you
wish.

Michael McCaskey
Georgetown


----- Original Message -----
From: Lorenzo Javier Torres Hortelano <ljth2006 at gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, August 10, 2006 7:22 pm
Subject: Re: Kitano/Kijujiro/Buffoon--Addition re Furansu-za

> That's an interesting relation, Michael. What do you think then, 
> about the
> relation with Chaplin's "The Kid": you can find some similarities 
> in the
> plot (searching the lost mother), some atrezzo elements (angels) 
> and some
> significant graphic matches (movie poster with Kikujiro and Masao 
> on the
> beach looking back that is very similar to the classic one of 
> Chaplin and
> the kid with the mother's house in the background).
> 
> Thanks for your interest.
> 
> Lorenzo J. Torres Hortelano
> Universidad Rey Juan Carlos
> Madrid, Spain
> 
> 
> 2006/8/11, Michael E Kerpan <kerpan at attglobal.net>:
> >
> > I would also suggest that Kitano's Kikujiro needs to be seen in 
> relation> to
> > Ozu's "Nagaya shinshiroku".  Many elements of Ozu's film (which also
> > featured
> > a problematic adult forced to care for a taciturn little boy) 
> show up in
> > Kitano's.
> >
> > Michael Kerpan
> > Boston
> >
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Lorenzo J. Torres Hortelano
> 




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