SCREEN-L Archives

September 2007, Week 1

SCREEN-L@LISTSERV.UA.EDU

Options: Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Show All Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Subject:
From:
Aaron Gerow <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 5 Sep 2007 10:10:08 -0400
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (54 lines)
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]

----
For past messages, visit the Screen-L Archives:
http://bama.ua.edu/archives/screen-l.html

ATOM RSS1 RSS2