TAKESHI KITANO

Humour is like violence. They both come to you unexpectedly, and the more unpredictable they both are, the better it gets.

When people tell me I'm an artist, I say, 'What?' It's impossible for me to take the idea seriously.

I thought maybe I could become like the next Van Gogh. I bought a sunflower and painted it, and it looked like the work of a 6-year-old.

I don't really expect much from my life. So when I heard my films are premiering in film festival circuits I was glad of course but I thought it was lucky accident.

One thing I hate in movies is when the camera starts circling around the characters. I find that totally fake.

My film directorial career has been nothing but repetition of one failure after another!

I paint for the sheer joy of painting. I have never sold any of my paintings. I'd rather give them to people for free.

Sword fighting in film is not about how good the fighter is, but how good the actor receiving the blows is.

The thing about art for me is that you can go on theorising your work forever, because it's open to interpretation.

I intentionally shoot violence to make the audience feel real pain. I have never and I will never shoot violence as if it's some kind of action video game.

I do all these various activities like painting and writing, comedy and films probably because not that I'm good at everything but because I'm not good at any of these things.

For me comedy and violence has a lot in common. Just as you expect, comedy always lurks behind the most unexpected of circumstances.

I always come to conclusions very fast. Well, that is one way of thinking, and the other way would be that I lack the necessary perseverance to stick to one thing that really fits me. I don't know if it's a good thing or bad thing.

In people's minds, I'm a comic, so it took a lot of time before I was recognized as a director. I had to be patient until the public accepted me. As a result, my early films didn't get a lot of attention. As a serious film actor, things didn't take off, either. Only my comic talents were recognized.

Being a TV comedian, actor, writer, columnist, and all that is quite helpful to me in acquiring wide varieties of knowledge, which is crucial for filmmaking.

Eventually, this is how I would like to be remembered at the end of my career: He was never the best in anything he did - comedy, acting, filmmaking, writing, etc. But nobody was better at doing different things at the same time than he was.

I think my way of showing violence is unique from that of other filmmakers, in that when I show it, it hurts. It happens unexpectedly and looks painful. That's how it is in real life, and that's how it should be expressed. I don't glamorize it, nor do I depict it without necessity or inevitability.

My philosophy is that one shall not resort to violence unless one is resolved to become the subject of violence at any time.

I think I am more of a coward than anybody. It's a very weird feeling. The more I fear violence, the more I'm inclined to depict it in films.

Comparing filmmaking to a plastic model, shooting is the process where you mold and color each piece, and editing is where you build a finished whole from the pieces you molded and colored. Obviously, the latter is the most enjoyable part in the making of plastic models, so editing is the process in filmmaking I enjoy the most. But at the same time, editing can be a painstaking task, too.

I hate seeing people getting hurt or hurting other people. I hate seeing blood. I am very intolerant of physical pain. I find violence horrifying, so much so that I can't help being intrigued by it.

Having total freedom to direct my own movies is more difficult than those I was hired for, where the framework has been already furnished. Unlike with my own work, I don't have to deny or feel embarrassed at the straightforwardness or orthodoxy of the directorial style, because I can say in excuse, "This is how I was asked to direct by those people."

Doing TV shows helps me a lot in my screenplay writing and filmmaking, especially since my TV shows are in different formats: comedy sketches, talk shows, debate programs, art variety shows, quiz shows. These enable me to meet interesting people with interesting stories and to learn about interesting subjects, all of which I can reflect into film.

Cinema is a composite art into which you can include all conceivable art or entertainment forms. In film, I can work with novelistic elements, comedy, drama, music, and other forms of entertainment. Film is a versatile expression, combining all elements into one art form.