Book on Kitano Takeshi

[Michael McCaskey]

Congratulations! I just ordered a copy from Amazon.com, and very much hope the book will arrive before the Kitano segment of my course starts Sept. 13, so I can read it and recommend it to my 78 students. A number of students usually write papers about Kitano's films, and this book will be very welcome indeed.

Michael McCaskey
Georgetown Univ. 

----- Original Message -----
From: Aaron Gerow <aaron.gerow at yale.edu>
Date: Monday, September 3, 2007 8:05 am
Subject: Book on Kitano Takeshi

> I have received a number of inquiries over the last couple of 
> years 
> about my long-delayed book on the Japanese film director, Kitano 
> Takeshi (the delays are wholly my fault). I now, finally, can 
> announce 
> that it is out from the BFI as part of the World Directors series. 
> Here 
> is the blurb from the British Film Institute website:
> 
> 	Aaron Gerow. Kitano Takeshi. London: British Film Institute, 2007.
> 
> The award-winning art film Hana-Bi, the stoic gangster elegy 
> Sonatine, 
> the surfer romance A Scene at the Sea, the absurdist comedy 
> Getting 
> Any?, the entertainment samurai spectacle Zatoichi-very different 
> films 
> made under one name "Kitano Takeshi." Who is this varied and 
> sometimes 
> elusive "Kitano Takeshi"? What relationship does he have to "Beat 
> Takeshi," the name he also uses as an actor and immensely popular 
> media 
> personality in Japan? Is he an artistic auteur in the traditional 
> sense, offering a singular vision easily identifiable in all his 
> work, 
> or a new kind of star who manages multiples identities, 
> strategically 
> changing them from film to film and situation to situation? This 
> book 
> will explore these issues of auteurship and stardom in the films 
> of 
> Kitano Takeshi especially as they relate to problems of personal 
> and 
> national identity in a Japan confronting an age of globalization. 
> Starting in his early days as one side of a stand-up comedy duo, 
> Kitano 
> has used pairs throughout his films to deftly play out a liminal 
> space 
> between cinema and television, traditional and modern, Japan and 
> the 
> world. Combining a detailed account of the situation in Japanese 
> film 
> and criticism with unique close analyses of Kitano's films from 
> Violent 
> Cop to Takeshis, the author, a renowned expert on Japanese cinema 
> who 
> himself participated in the debates about Kitano in Japan, relates 
> the 
> director to issues of contemporary cinema, Japanese national 
> identity, 
> and globalism.
> 
> Paperback ISBN: 1844571661
> Hardback ISBN: 1855471653
> 
> Apologies to everyone for the delay (it was supposed to be out 
> about 3 
> years ago, but Kitano kept making films and I kept getting busy). 
> It's 
> ended up the longest of the World Directors books, even though I 
> had to 
> cut about 1/4th of the manuscript to get it down to size.
> 
> Aaron Gerow
> Assistant Professor
> Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
> Yale University
> 53 Wall Street, Room 316
> PO Box 208363
> New Haven, CT 06520-8363
> USA
> Phone: 1-203-432-7082
> Fax: 1-203-432-6764
> e-mail: aaron.gerow at yale.edu
>