The Cinema of Takeshi Kitano: Flowering Blood

by Sean Redmond

The Cinema of Takeshi Flowering Blood is a detailed aesthetic, Deleuzian, and phenomenological exploration of Japan's finest currently-working film director, performer, and celebrity. The volume uniquely explores Kitano's oeuvre through the tropes of stillness and movement, becoming animal, melancholy and loss, intensity, schizophrenia, and radical alterity; and through the aesthetic temperatures of color, light, camera movement, performance and urban and oceanic space. In this highly original monograph, all of Kitano's films are given due consideration, including A Scene at the Sea (1991), Sonatine (1993), Dolls (2002), and Outrage (2010).

Genres: Film, Japan

129 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 1, 2012

Reviews

[Patrick McCoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was curious about how Sean Redmond would approach the films of Takeshi Kitano in his book, The Cinema Of Takeshi Kitano: Flowering Blood (2012). From the introduction, I was under the impression that it might be a personal take on the director, country, and Tokyo itself. And while Redmond begins each chapter with a personal account of his physical and intellectual journey most of the book is concerned with far reaching turgid theoretical musings on the Kitano's body of work. In short, too much discussion of Deleuze and Foucault and too little discussion of the actual movies themselves. I fear that this book adds little to the scholarship done by Aaron Gerow in his comprehensive book on Kitano, Kitano Takeshi (World Directors). Redmond discusses the body of work to date, which includes films left out by Gerow's book (published in 2008), the last film he discusses is Zatoichi (2003)-Takeshis' (2005), Glory to the Filmmaker! (2007), Achilles and the Tortoise (2008), Outrage (2010), Beyond Outrage (2012). Of those film I couldn't bring myself to watch the navel gazing trilogy past Takeshis'. And I think the Outrage films have moments of entertainment, but seem to be repetitive and over exploitative in the use of violence. All in all, I feel that Kitano peaked with Hana-Bi in 1997. Redmond frames his discussion in the following format: Introduction: "Becoming Lost in Tokyo," Chapter 1: "Time, Space and Whatever," Chapter 2. "Flowering Blood," Chapter 3. "Intense Alterity" Chapter 4. "Starring Kitanos," Chapter 5. "This is the Sea," Conclusion: "Standing Outside Office Kitano," and Postscript: "I Welcome the Pain of it Already." I suspect that this book would be only of interest to academics or hard-core Kitano fans.

[DD · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was not the Takeshi Kitano I was looking to read.

[TJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interessant, men var dessverre tungt å ta til seg selv for sin enkle innhold og tekst. Bra bok, men kanskje dårlig tidspunkt å lese? Har lyst til å ha fysisk bok og kanskje deretter sette meg ordentlig inn i det selv for ikke så mye interesse i film analyse som da er en stor del av boka.