Kitano Takeshi Mannerist Aestheticism Mannerist Style Mannerism the

Kitano Takeshi Mannerist Aestheticism

Mannerist Style • Mannerism - the aesthetic style that uses exaggerated and artificial (as opposed to naturalistic) expression to produce drama, tension, exuberance and grandeur in painting, and sculpture. • Mannerism was born as a reaction to harmonious and naturalist ideals of Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo.

• Rafaello Madonna in the Meadow • Parmigianino Madonna with a Long Neck

Kitano’s Mannerist Style Conventional filmmaking ⇔ Mannerist filmmaking • STORYTELLING • Medias res (Latin for ‘into the middle of the things’) - is a literary and artistic technique where the narrative starts in the middle of the story instead of from its beginning (ab ovo, or ab initio). • e. g. Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas and Quentin Trantino’s Pulp Fiction (Classic beginning of a film: Alfred Hitchcock, Strangers in Train http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=7 bj. A-4 no 1 ZY

Kitano’s Mannerist Style Storytelling • Radical ellipsis • Ellipsis (Greek for ‘omission’) - a narrative device: omitting a portion of the sequences of events, allowing the reader to fill in the narrative gaps. • Kitano omits significant portions of narrative. • e. g. Ozu Yasujiro’s films and his own, Kikujiro

Kitano’s Mannerist Style Storytelling • Constant narrative diversions • Episodic storytelling which is only loosely connected with the main story line. • The longest diversion is the middle part of Sonatine, in which time seems to have stopped and almost absurd episodes are accumulated.

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Mise-en-scene of Kitano’s films: creation of ascetic and clinically clean atmosphere • Stillness, silence, emptiness, nothingness • Empty sea, empty land, empty school ground, empty swimming pool

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Empty sea in Okinawa • Boiling Point

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Empty beach • A Scene at the Sea

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Empty road and beach • Sonatine

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Empty school ground and underpath • Kids Return

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Empty sea with Horibe and empty lake with Nishi and his wife • HANA-BI

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Empty swimming pool and empty river bank • Kikujiro

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Empty snow-capped mountain top and empty path in autumn colours • Dolls

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Static composition - a shot in which nothing moves as if frozen. • Small subject sizes and protracted shots • e. g. Murakawa’s men aftermath of the bombing of the Anan’s office

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Mannerist distortions of the cinematic conventions • Spatial treatment and screen composition • e. g. medium shot of three people with unusually large head space in Boiling Point • e. g. medium shot of the killer whose face is cut by the top edge of the screen

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Unconventional composition • Main figures and objects placed in the dead centre of the frame • Textbook composition - main figures and objects must be placed slightly off-centre, particularly in a widescreen format.

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Wim Wenders’ classic widescreen composition in Paris, Texas

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Frontal shots - as if you were watching still photos. • Long and medium shots are norm in Kitano’s early films. More close-ups in his later films, though they are not many.

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Frontal shots of Azuma • Violent Cop

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Frontal shots of Yakuza, and Uehara and Kazuo • Boiling Point

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Frontal shots of surfers, and Takako and Shigeru’s surfing board • A Scene at the Sea

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Frontal shots of Murakawa and an assassin • Sonatine

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Frontal shots of two kids • Kids Return

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Frontal shots of Nishi, and Nishi and his wife • HANA-BI

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Frontal shots of Kikujiro after seeing his mother and after saying farewell • Kikujiro

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Frontal shots in Dolls

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Is there such a thing as ‘Kitano Blue’? • Conscious use of thick blue colour

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Conspicuous since Sonatine • Aesthetic and atmospheric rather than symbolic meaning

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Blue first used unconsciously and unintentionally later became a benchmark of Kitano’s film.

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Kitano began to use colours more strategically after HANA-BI

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène • Minimalist visual style: simple settings (empty space); simple compositions (frontal shots); simple camera movements (static shots); long take • Minimalist visual style renders Kitano’s films pensive mood

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Montage • Editor since his second film, Boiling Point • Languid pace, relying on long takes →　pensive mood • Effective use of dissolves and overlaps

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Montage • Jagged editing ignoring continuity - A scene abruptly cut in the middle of an action - A scene abruptly begin in the middle of an action →　Estrangement (endfremden) effects →　Preventing the audience from psychologically being involved in actions → Action ends abruptly, refusing to show the emotional reverberation caused by it. Emotional reticence

Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Montage • Frequent use of cross-cutting • Contrast and correspondence • Horibe is painting a lyrical picture while Nishi is painting his police car in HANA-BI • Azuma is playing baseball while his sister is gang-raped by yakuza in Violent Cop

Reference to Other Films • Kitano refers to and quotes from other films, works of Ozu, Coppola, Kubrick, Cimino, Fukasaku, etc. • Static shots and frontal composition • Cross-cutting • Representation of violence • Stanley Kubrick’s An Clockwork Orange and Kitano’s Violent Cop (openings) • http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=o. WLBy. Msh. YIU

Reference to Other Films • Static shots and tranquility • Associated with Ozu’s films

Reference to Other Films • The opening of Violent Cop, in which a homeless is attacked by the youth was directly lifted up from An Clockwork Orange

Reference to Other Films • Kitano’s violent cop is Don Siegel’s Dirty Harry (1971)

Reference to Other Films • The Russian roulette scenes are taken from Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter (1978)

Reference to Other Films • Kitano owes a lot to Fukasaku’s Yakuza films – particularly Yakuza Paper • Crooked camera angles and mannerist representation of violence