"Yukite Kaherenu" Director Negishi Kichitaro: What the years leading up to filming brought about [Director's Interview Vol.473]

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2025.02.21Fumio Koda

The hard part is finding what you want to do

Q: It took quite a long time from when you came across the script to when it was made into a movie. Were there any parts of the content that you changed?

Negishi: I think the script has changed quite a bit. At first it had more elements of Taisho-era romance, but we narrowed the focus to the relationship and conflict between the three characters. In order to get people to watch it in theaters in this day and age, we thought it would be better to focus on the conflict between the three young characters, rather than a Shakespearean worldview.

Q: Yasuko Hasegawa, Chuya Nakahara, Hideo Kobayashi and others are immersed in the creative world and in a sense are detached from the world. What did you talk to the actors about when portraying them?

Negishi: Well, they're a little detached from the world, but anyway, they're talented. Nakahara and Kobayashi in particular have extraordinary talents. But even people like that have their own lives and love lives. They experience sadness, worries, and suffering on a different level to their talents and creativity. Of course, they are special in the sense that they are talented, and while I portrayed how they acknowledge each other's talents, the rest of them are just people like us.

Nakahara and Kobayashi not only acknowledged each other, but also believed that they were the ones who discovered each other's talents. In the midst of this special relationship between the two, Yasuko Hasegawa exists not only as an equal, but in a way that looks down on her. There's something strangely interesting about it.

Q: My last question is, please tell me what you were taught at school.

Negishi: The hardest thing is finding what you want to do. It's the same for us, but to find out what you really want to do, you have to watch a lot of movies. Then you find things, people, places, etc. that you want to shoot. So directing can come later. It's fine as long as you study without rushing, and in fact I'm still able to shoot movies without saying anything (laughs).

Even though I'm like that, I say lots of little things on set, like "Move like this," "Look this way," "Take more time." In the end, it's because there's a discrepancy between the image in my head and what the actors and camera are doing in front of me. It's about finding that discrepancy and correcting it. It's about being able to spot when "something's not right." That's what I tell them.

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Director: Kichitaro Negishi

Born August 24, 1950 in Tokyo. After graduating from the Department of Theater, School of Letters, Arts and Sciences, Waseda University, he joined Nikkatsu. His directorial debut was Orion no Murder, Affair no Equation in 1978. In 1981, he won the Blue Ribbon Award for Best Director and the Japan Arts Festival Newcomer Award for Distant Thunder, and in 2005, Wishing on the Snow won the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's Art Encouragement Award and four awards at the 18th Tokyo International Film Festival, among other film awards. In 2009, he won the Best Director Award at the Montreal World Film Festival for Villon's Wife: Cherries and Dandelions. In 2010, he was awarded the Medal with Purple Ribbon. His major directorial works include "Crazy Fruit" (1981), "Detective Story" (1983), "A Flake of Snow" (1985), "Uhohho Expedition" (1986), "Half of Eternity" (1987), "Bonds" (1998), "The Tree of Translucent Light" (2004), and "Dog in a Sidecar" (2007).

Interview and text: Fumio Koda

Editorial staff and writer for CINEMORE. My favorite movies are ``The Goonies'' and ``Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.'' My recent favorites are 4K digitally remastered classics by Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu.

Photography: Kazunari Aoki

"Go and never return"

Friday, February 21st, TOHO Cinemas Hibiya and other theaters nationwide

Distribution: Kino Films

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