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
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 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 too much
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 Horibe in the
police car 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
• Started using the colour unconsciously and
unintentionally
• Conscious use of the colour
Kitano’s Mannerist Style; Mise-en-scène
• Kitano began to use colours more strategically
after HANA-BI
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
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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, and Kubrick
• 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=oWLByMshYIU