Keywords: Japanese cinema, yakuza-eiga, Takeshi Kitano

E. L. KATASONOVA

Doctor of Historical Sciences

Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences

He is called the Japanese Tarantino and the most famous gangster of the Japanese screen, as well as a man-orchestra: director, actor, producer, editor, showman, TV host, journalist, writer, screenwriter, artist and even singer. Once in an interview with the Guardian newspaper, he pointedly, and not without reason, said:: "You'll never be able to tell what I'll do next!"¹

And it really is. We are talking about the unpredictable, "great and terrible" Takeshi Kitano-a living legend of Japanese gangster cinema - Yakuza eiga.

Kitano's directorial debut took place quite late - in 1989, when the largest film company "Shetiku" began filming its next crime thriller "Cruel Policeman". And he, already a well-known comedian, was invited to play the main role in this tape. By the time he was 42, Kitano didn't have much experience in film, but he had already appeared in several films. The film of the famous director Nagisa Oshima "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" (1983) became fateful for him. Then on the set Kitano first met with the cult writer and actor Yukio Mishima. And his screen partner was the famous English actor and singer David Bowie. Looking ahead, it should be said that in 1999, Kitano had a chance to star with Oshima in the last picture of the master "Taboo".

FATE OR VOCATION?

Soon Kitano would meet with another major professional in the field of crime films - Kinji Fukasaku. However, in the process of preparing for filming, the famous director unexpectedly refused to participate in this project, and did not agree with the studio management about the work schedule. Then, unexpectedly for everyone, this project was offered to the charismatic Kitano. He successfully coped with a difficult task, and not only met the tight deadlines for filming, but even managed to make a number of significant amendments to the script of the tape. So began the director's biography of Takeshi Kitano.

As an actor, Kitano made his debut in the comedy duo Two Beats, performing under the name Takeshi Bit along with his regular stage partner Kiyoshi Kaneko, who called himself Kiyoshi Bit. By the way, Kitano has retained his first acting pseudonym to this day and continues to use it widely in his acting and stage activities, while as a director he has long been called Takeshi Kitano.

TWO BITS

The comedy duo "Two Bits" quickly gained popularity with the audience, playing out humorous buffoons on stage in the style of the traditional conversational genre of mandzai, so beloved by the Japanese, but at the same time allowing themselves large deviations from the text and risky improvisations. Two young men amused the audience with funny anecdotes and sharp jokes, flavoring them with strong words, obscene dialogues, obscene jokes and other antics on the verge of what was allowed. And soon these liberties turned into severe censorship for the two Bits, harassment in official circles and harsh criticism of colleagues.

Salvation unexpectedly came from television, which opened the doors wide for them. In 1980, two infamous comedians were invited to the program " Mandzai-boom "("Comic boom"). Black humor, harsh expressions and other liberties, coupled with the incredible speed of pronouncing words, became the" calling card " of two Bits. The program, as well as its participants, were repeatedly scolded for outright obscenities, but this did not affect its ever-growing rating among viewers. Uncomplicated jokes of comedians began to spread among the people. And in June 1980, a collection of jokes from "Mandzai Boom" was published with a circulation of 850 thousand copies, which was instantly sold out by fans of the duo.

The peak of their fame was approaching: two friends were increasingly invited to participate in concerts, in various rating TV programs, and even offered a cameo role in a popular TV series. Soon, the satirical duo was already among the top three most successful in Japan. But in the summer of 1982, the comedians unexpectedly broke up, and at the initiative of Kitano, who was planning a solo career. And just a few years later-in the mid - 1980s-his name began to be called among the most prominent television comedians in Japan.

During these years, Kitano became the host of almost a dozen humorous and entertaining TV programs broadcast on various TV channels at once. Perhaps the most famous of them was the program "Takeshi Castle" (TBS channel), which in some ways resembled the live computer game "SuperMario". Then radio programs were added to television, as well as the actor's participation in the development of computer games, the release of the first album of songs performed by him, and the first concerts. At this time, he also tries his hand at literary creativity (in total, he wrote about 50 books with poems and film criticism, as well as several novels).

In one of his early novels, he first told the reader about his childhood, which he always preferred to keep silent about in the future. There is a second forbidden topic for Kitano, which he carefully tries to avoid in conversation with journalists. This is his relationship with the Japanese mafia. Perhaps this is the reason why Kitano rarely and cautiously gives interviews, hiding the secrets of his personal life under the guise of a funny and funny person.

A BIT FROM THE BIOGRAPHY

Kitano was born on January 18, 1947 in the Adachi district of Tokyo, then in post-war ruins. His early childhood years coincided with the difficult period of the American occupation of Japan. He was brought up in a poor family, living in a small room, in which, in addition to Kitano and his parents, lived four other brothers, one of whom died in infancy. Taking care of the children was entirely on the shoulders of the mother, since the father, a house painter by profession and an artist by vocation, spent all his free time drinking hot drinks and occasionally making beautiful cardboard figures. His father's name was Kikujiro, and in many years he would become the prototype for Kitano's 1999 film Kikujiro.

An important stage in Kitano's life was studying at the oldest private Meiji University in the Faculty of Mechanics, where he entered at the insistence of his mother, which completely coincided with his own life plans. The young man dreamed of participating in the popular Formula 1 car races and dreamed of working as a mechanic at a car factory. He always studied well both at school and at the university, but he soon had to give up his studies due to numerous absences from classes.

In those years, Kitano, like many of his classmates, joined the democratic youth movement that swept the entire country in the 1960s. And he also attended fashionable parties of artistic bohemians. Instead of studying at the university, he hurried to the Shinjuku and Ikebukuro districts, where public protests were raging and a new alternative culture was gaining momentum. Kitano was particularly passionate about jazz at that time and soon became a great connoisseur of it. He often visited the Village Vanguard jazz bar, working part-time as a waiter. There, he also meets representatives of the Japanese underground and, thanks to music, gets close to one of the most infamous Japanese directors, Koji Wakamatsu, who shot Kitano in cameo roles in his early films.

Over the years, Kitano has changed more than one profession, having managed to work as a waiter, a salesman in a candy store, a street vendor, a laborer, a taxi driver. His plans for life all this time remained uncertain: either he saved up money and was preparing to go abroad to study as a professional translator, or he intended to devote himself to art, studying in an amateur theater circle. In the end, the search for a vocation, or rather, at that time, another job, led the former student to the Asakusa district - to an entertainment institution called "France", where he got a job as a simple elevator operator, hoping to gain acting experience at the same time. There Kitano meets his future partner Kiyoshi Kaneko.

Finally, he had a wonderful teacher-izvestia-

artist and art director of this club Senzaburo Fukami. He immediately saw in the young man a great talent and a rare sense of humor and began to give him comedy lessons. Soon Kitano began to appear on stage in comic interludes, tap dancing, etc. However, the institution went bankrupt, and the future director was forced to look for work again.

And then, together with Kiyoshi Kaneko, they decide to try themselves in the popular genre of mandzai. To do this, I had to take advantage of an acquaintance with the famous comedian Corombia Raito, who worked under contract with a solid record company Columbia Records. He also helped young actors organize their first performances in his theater. And in search of additional earnings, the two friends began to perform in the nearest strip bars, cabarets and other entertainment venues. But the tipsy public had little interest in their art. This irritated Kitano, provoked a sense of protest in him, and often ended in another loud scandal or drunken spree of the actor. And in order to somehow defuse the situation and not lose his job, his partner on stage prepared jokes on duty in advance for all occasions.

And yet fate once smiled on them. It happened again in the Asakusa area on the stage of the Setiku company by chance, when aspiring comedians were asked to perform, replacing artists who were late for a performance in the entertainment program. Thus began their professional career. And then the already well-known events unfolded rapidly.

IN SEARCH OF INDIVIDUALITY

In his work, Kitano did not seek to reproduce with photographic accuracy what he once saw in life, but rather passed real memories through a rich artistic imagination. This is how his original directorial style was born, which will mark all future works. Clearly articulate the features of this style is difficult, but, as the researchers note: "Outwardly, his gangster films are intricately intertwined with outright violence and ironic comedy, a minimum of dialogue and a maximum of action, clear frame construction and "soft" film editing"². And "cinematography from Kitano" is also distinguished by the so-called long freeze frames, in which almost no action takes place, or the consequences of the events that occurred are immediately shown, bypassing the intermediate stages.

But the main secret of Kitano's success is that his so-called "black ribbons", although they reflect the nihilistic attitude of the master to life, are almost always filled with warmth and attention to their characters. Despite the bloodshed, shocking cruelty and crude humor, they carry deep philosophical overtones and raise questions of morality, giving food for serious and prolonged reflection.

In 1990, his second directorial film "Boiling Point" was released, where Kitano simultaneously acted as both a screenwriter and an actor, playing the role of a marginal yakuza. And this bold cinematic discovery later turned into one of the distinctive aspects of his work. After all, Kitano has always been and remains, first of all, a great and original actor, brought up on the traditions of Kabuki theater with its grotesque and largely conventional play of actors and the vivid images of villains and criminals created by them.

Kitano drew a lot from the cinematic experience of his predecessors and, first of all, from the legendary actor Ken Takakura, who embodied the images of numerous samurai and Yakuza on the screen: samurai stoicism and fatalism, contempt for death. But the characters of Kitano are much closer to life and modern reality, they are almost devoid of the aura of criminal and samurai romance, so characteristic of Takakura's performance style. And because they look much more like real prototypes of the Japanese criminal world, which Kitano was so familiar with both from childhood memories and from working in entertainment venues.

TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY

In 1993, the director completes the filming of his famous film "Sonatina", in which he plays the role of Tokyo mafia Murakawa, tired of his criminal life and dying in a fight with a rival gang in Okinawa. This tape, consisting of a series of tragicomic episodes and imbued with a cruel

farce, was highly appreciated in Japan, including by such a strict critic as the writer Kenzaburo Oe. But the film became very popular in the West, where for the first time the talented Japanese director was truly appreciated, and even Quentin Tarantino was among his many new fans. Five years later, the celebrated American director will return to this film and Kitano's work, creating a kind of American remakes of his "Sonatina" - Violent Cop (1998) and Boiling Point (1999).

But after a loud creative triumph, Kitano was waiting for a big life tragedy: he gets into a terrible motorcycle accident and literally miraculously survives. His severe injuries left him paralyzed on the right side of his body, and despite the complex surgeries he had to undergo, one side of his face remained almost motionless, like a frozen theatrical mask, as if divided into two parts, expressing both laughter and sadness. So Kitano had a new brutal image of a man with a split personality of a comedian and a tragedian, which hides the "infinite dialectic" of his life and work.

No one believed then in the director's imminent return to the profession. But he did it by starting acting in other directors ' films. In 1994, he played one of the main roles in the film "The Birth of a Shepherd", created according to his script by director Toshihiro Tammy. Equally brilliant was his acting work in the 1995 film Gonin, directed by Takeshi Ishii. And in the same 1995, he already presented to the public his new comedy film " Did you shoot someone?" with the main character dreaming of having sex in the car. And although the tape somewhat resembled a parody of popular Japanese films such as the beloved "Godzilla", it did not arouse interest among the Japanese audience. But Kitano continues to actively shoot. In 1996, his largely autobiographical film "The Guys are Coming Back" was released on the screens of the country. It also became a passageway in Kitano's work, but attracted attention for its symbolic name, which is not difficult to unravel the beginning of a new stage in the director's work.

During these years, he seriously took up painting. His colorful drawings in the primitivist style, somewhat reminiscent of the works of Marc Chagall, he began to place as illustrations in his own books, print on the covers of soundtracks to his own films, and show at art exhibitions. But most vividly and interestingly, he presented his artistic creations in the film "Fireworks" (1997), where they organically complement the imaginative system of the tape. Even the name of the film itself, which is written in Japanese in two characters-flower and fire - also sounds very "picturesque" and symbolic-like an eternal struggle of opposites: life and death, tenderness and cruelty, etc.

This film - one of the most successful in the work of the master - was awarded the highest award of the Venice Film Festival (1997) - "Golden Lion" for directing. But here Kitano is also great as an actor. He plays the role of a retired police officer who decided to rob a bank. He needs the money to fulfill the deepest wish of his dying wife and go with her on the last trip of their lives together to the places where she has always dreamed of visiting. And when it's time to pay for what he did , he solves all the problems with one shot of a gun in the temple.

After" Feyervek " Kitano, it would seem, has already parted with the crime genre forever, after which he shot a touching and at the same time funny film - the film "Kikujiro" (1999), inspired by the memories of his father. This film is about the complex father-son relationship of an orphan boy and a drunken man, judging by the tattoo, a small, bad Yakuza in the recent past. His role was played by Kitano himself. And here, the Kitano director gives the Kitano actor unlimited opportunities to show off his comedic talent. ³

But "Yakuza Brother" (2000) is a new variation of the yakuza-eiga genre using completely unusual material for the director. The film takes place in the Japanese quarter of Los Angeles, where gangs of Japanese and American mafia clashed to the death. The peculiarity of this tape is that the Yakuza images look like they are embedded in the canvas of an American action movie. But in the United States, against the backdrop of the American underworld, the Yakuza ... -

they become like modern criminals who still live largely in accordance with the samurai code of honor. Otherwise, the film, like most of his paintings and portraits of Japanese crime figures, resembles American action films. This is why Kitano's film was understood and received with great interest in the US and other countries.

INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION

Thus, Japanese yakuza-eiga gangster films, which for many years were focused exclusively on the tastes of their domestic audience, thanks to Kitano's work, gained huge popularity abroad in the 1990s. And the director himself is becoming the face of Japanese cinema in the West in the 1990s. As noted by the famous Japanese scholar Yu. Georgiev: "The peculiar fusion of elements of old Japanese gangster films, tinged with the unusual romance of samurai chivalry for Western audiences, with the traditions of American action films, obviously creates that explosive mixture that attracts everyone's attention to Takeshi Kitano and makes him an idol of fans of gangster films not only in Japan,but also far beyond its borders." ⁴

Literally everything worked for Kitano's success and popularity in the West, including his brutal appearance, natural eccentricity and acquired extravagance over the years. Interviews with him and photos of him as a Yakuza - in a black elegant suit and with a gun in his hands-are published in the most popular glossy magazines. Leading documentarians create films about him. And even the world - famous manufacturer of household appliances-Panasonic also did not fail to exploit the image of a celebrity, making it its "advertising face". So the name Kitano became a symbol of success in the West.

ENTERING A NEW AGE...

Both audiences and critics had high expectations for the release of his tenth anniversary film, Dolls (2002). In" Dolls, " Kitano, known for his gruesome and bloody stories, first ventured to tell the story of a tragic love affair. However, there was also death, wounds, and blood. Not for nothing did he even once call "Dolls" "the cruelest of his creations"⁵. Meanwhile, the film turned out to be extremely poetic and picturesque. Its script is based on plays written by the famous playwright Monzaemon Chikamatsu (1653-1725) for the Bunraku puppet theater, and the entire style of the tape is designed in the traditions of this medieval art. Here are landscapes of unprecedented, almost unnatural beauty, resembling theater sets, and delicious costumes from the famous fashion designer Yamamoto Yoji, and an extraordinary intensity of human passions, which only the heroes of ancient dramas are capable of. In general, a complete stylization of life under the medieval theater with its conventions, hyperbolization, symbolism and poetics, which are surprisingly combined in the picture with the most relevant achievements in the field of editing, color solutions, sound, etc.

The film became an art house hit in our country in 2002, and in Venice it caused a storm of applause and rave reviews, but, to the surprise of many, did not receive the well-deserved jury award. Kitano himself later admitted that he made a lot of mistakes in "Dolls" ⁶ and even regretted that he did not release this film under a pseudonym. "Then it would be easier to take 'Zatoichi', because it is a real movie from Kitano, " the director remarked in an interview with ⁷.

Kitano's doubts were in vain. The film" Zatoichi " (2003) was well received in many countries, won the Silver Lion for Best Director in Venice and the audience award in Toronto. And in Russia, the film was recognized as the main "hit of the year"⁸. In it, Kitano again acted not only as a director, but also played the role of Zatoichi himself, a wandering blind masseur, a virtuoso swordsman, ready at any moment to stand up for the offended and punish the enemies, drawing his sword with lightning speed. This folk film character-a kind of Japanese Zorro or Robin Hood-was extremely popular in Japan in the 1960s and 1970s. thanks to the artist Shintaro Katsu, who brilliantly played this role. But Kitano didn't try to emulate his predecessor's previously uncovered cinematic finds, aiming to make a completely different film.

both from the point of view of style and from the point of view of directing.

And to do this, he, as always, freely and boldly handled the well-known plot, filling it with a moderate share of comedy and irony. The image of the hero himself was given eccentric features that contrast with traditional ideas about him. And the director, as usual, does not think of his creation without splashes of computer blood, without tough showdowns of mafia clans and swear words. And yet, this film, despite its resemblance to a gangster movie, opened a new page in Kitano's work. The director, who has so far made films only about modernity, for the first time turned to the historical plot. And until now, the film "Zatoichi", perhaps, remains his greatest cinematic success, including in Japan.

The director's creative failures became especially evident in the twenty-first century, when the crisis in Japanese cinema passed. Against the background of new bright cinematic names, Kitano began to lose out to many directors, and this was noticed even in the West. Take his 2005-2008 trilogy of Takeshiz, Banzai, the Director, and Achilles and the Turtle. In them, the director again tried to get away from the usual crime genre. And from the point of view of his already mature age and extensive cinematic experience, for the first time he allowed himself to reflect with the audience on the problems of fame and creativity. But the audience did not understand these intellectual delights, and Kitano was again forced to return to the" circles of his own " - to the yakuza-eiga genre.

His film "Mayhem" was released in 2010, when the whole country celebrated the 80th anniversary of Kinji Fukasaku. And this tape is perceived by many as a tribute to the great master, with whom Kitano was lucky enough to work on the set of his last tape "Battle Royale" (2000). Kitano starred in it as a sadistic teacher who calmly watches the carnage in which his students are senselessly killed. This hard and bloody film did not leave anyone indifferent at that time. But the audience and critics reacted rather coolly to "Lawlessness", not appreciating this very professional work in the field of genre cinema. As always, the acting work of Kitano deserves all praise, brilliantly playing the role of gangster Otomo-a master of dirty deeds, working for the order of the mafia. She certainly joined the gallery of the most memorable Yakuza eiga heroes. But "Mayhem" did not end there, and in 2013 the audience saw its sequel with the even more shocking title "Complete Mayhem".

As it sometimes happens in Japan, and the most vivid confirmation of this is the difficult cinematic fate of the legendary Kurosawa, Kitano's films do not have the same huge box office success as in the West. Kitano's fame as a director of clever and unexpected art-house films continues to grow around the world, but the Japanese public sees him more as a popular TV host and talented comedian.

Perhaps the Japanese audience is pretty tired of the rivers of blood and merciless murders that Kitano so often shows on the screen, and most of his works seem to his compatriots "too cruel and cynical to meet the standards of mass distribution"⁹. And, according to some critics, "Kitano is generally devoid of the Fukasaku energy to be considered a yakuza-eiga reformer, but he is also devoid of the eccentric talent of Seijun Suzuki to become a genre original." ¹⁰

Kitano has been called "the youngest of the triumvirate of Japanese cinema classics: Kurosawa-Oshima-Kitano" ¹¹. Perhaps this is still an exaggeration, a certain advance, but there is no doubt that Kitano is the number one director in the genre of Japanese gangster cinema today.

¹ Guardian. 29.05.2003.

^{Georgiev Yu} .2 New gangsters in the films of Takeshi Kitano / / Japan Today. p. 31.

^{Denisov Ivan.} 3 Yakuza eiga. Genre movies in Japanese - http:www.russ.ru/pole/YAkudza-eiga

^{Georgiev Yu} . 4 Decree. Op.

^{Smirnova A.} 5 "Almost without words" / / Bolshoy gorod. 31.01.2003.

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ Kitano is a stubborn cook. Sam Klebanov's interview for Kinopark magazine - http://www.cinemasia.ni/docs/sections/5/_27/_9/279.html

⁸ The main artistic hit of the year may be the samurai action film "Zatoichi" by the cult actor and director Takeshi Kitano // Izvestia. 4.10.2003.

^{Тот Mes and Jasper Sharp.} 9 The Midnigt Eye Guide to New Japanese Film. California, 2005. P. 159.

^{Denisov Ivan.} 10 Decree. Op.

^{Gudkom V.} 11 Zhivye muppets teatra Bunraku v rukakh direktora-yakuza [Live dolls of the Bunraku Theater in the hands of a Yakuza director].

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