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

Given the changes at the BFI, it seems that it may take a while to  
purchase it in the USA, although it is on sale in the UK now.

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: [log in to unmask]

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