Dolls — Director information
The director of Dolls is a very strong personalty with a checkered past. Personally, I would describe him as an often talented, self-taught, hit-or-miss artist best summed up as a nihilistic comedian director.
KITANO Takeshi, usually known as "Beat Takeshi"
From wiki:
"Takeshi Kitano (北野 武 Kitano Takeshi?, born 18 January 1947) is a Japanese film director, comedian, singer, actor, film editor, presenter, screenwriter, author, poet, painter, and one-time video game designer who has received critical acclaim, both in his native Japan and abroad, for his idiosyncratic cinematic work. The Japanese film critic Nagaharu Yodogawa once dubbed him "the true successor" to influential filmmaker Akira Kurosawa.[1] With the exception of his works as a film director, he is known almost exclusively by the name Beat Takeshi (ビートたけし Bīto Takeshi). Since April 2005, he has been a professor at the Graduate School of Visual Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts. Kitano owns his own talent agency and production company, Office Kitano, which launched Tokyo Filmex in 2000." (Takeshi Kitano)
But, a few things about that: Beat Takeshi has always been very motivated to manage his public profile. No doubt this wiki page has been heavily managed by him. He once had his yazuka friends occupy the offices of a journal that published what he claimed was false information about him:
Not long after he had become a success with "Takechan-Man" and thereby had been given a public nice guy image, he would rebel against it. Thus, in 1982, he would begin flashing his genitals on live TV. Another such rebelling stunt was his 1986 attack on the offices of the weekly gossip magazine "Friday". [In and of itself not one of the most respectable outfits, though popular: typical cover example.] Prior to the incident, it had shown a picture of Kitano with a woman they claimed was his mistress. Kitano became furious and together with Gundan, he broke into the office, beat up the staff members and demolitioned the place. Kitano would later try to excuse the incident as a joke. It happened to take place on the anniversary of the Chuushingura raid, so he and Gundan thought it would make a funny gesture. (kitano takeshi biography by Henrik Sylow [Kitanotakeshi.com February 2005].)
Kitano has struggled hard and achieved much, but he started his directing career with gangster films (he started in show business as a comedian) and his relationship with them remains, I think, live in some ways. He knows the streets (born in a tough neighborhood, son of a gambler, then years in the streets of Shinjuku and Asakusa), the entertainment industry, and so forth and so his films have a certain grittiness to them. However, he can show incredible tenderness. It is difficult to tell whether he is genuine or always presenting himself to the outside world. He was in a motorcycle accident once that almost killed him because he was not wearing a helmet.
... August 2, 1994. Kitano had been out drinking with the Gundan and was very drunk. There are different versions of where he intended to drive, but they all come down to Kitano getting on his new scooter and with a unstrapped helmet crashed directly into a rail road barrier. He was rushed to a local hospital with open skull fracture, brain contusions and a fractured cheekbone. His mother, Saki, would visit him and be sweet and full of humour, "If you want to die, don't be such an idiot and crash on a scooter, do it in a Porsche like James Dean." (kitano takeshi biography)
Initially he was humbled by the experience but over the years it has transformed into an "important moment" in his process of maturing. Still, he can describe it like this:
In most interviews, Kitano would comment on his accident as a blessing, something to contemplate, something that matured him. Yet, in his writings, no such thing. While contemplating his near death experience in "Soredemo Onnaga Suki", Beat would say, "I was thinking, 'Maybe I should live a more thoughtful life, now that they have repaired me' Then my eyes caught the ass of the nurse, who just made my bed and my dick stood up instantly. Not a chance." (kitano takeshi biography)
Kitano can be darkly humorous, satirical, ironic and cynical. It is difficult to know what his values actually are. However, in Dolls, the sub-story of the yakuza boss has distinct overtones of the importance of loyalty and faithfulness, and perhaps the movie, overall, positions itself close to those values. Nevertheless, the strongest "flavor" is nihilism: the world is randomly cruel, kindness does not change fate or cruel accident and cannot be expected to bring rewards, the well-intentioned nature of others is obscured by random events that make others look worse than they are, and so on.
A note on "nihilism": Nihilism is a loosely related group of ideas, not a single philosophical system. My sense is that Kitano's claims about being a nihilist (and the comments of others that he is), right or wrong, said with seriousness or as a joke, probably revolved around "existential nihilism." This from a Wiki entry on existential nihilism gives a sense for that flavor of nihilism: "Existential nihilism is the philosophical theory that our life has no intrinsic meaning or value. With respect to the universe, existential nihilism suggests that a single human or even the entire human species is insignificant, without purpose and unlikely to change in the totality of existence. According to the theory, each individual is an isolated being born into the universe, barred from knowing 'why'. The inherent meaninglessness of life is largely explored in the philosophical school of existentialism, where one can potentially create their own subjective 'meaning' or 'purpose'. Of all types of nihilism, existential nihilism has received the most literary and philosophical attention."
This film is based, again, on the puppet theater (bunraku theater), like Double Suicide. We saw a cinematized version of "Double Suicide at Amijima." The primary story line of this film is based on "Double Suicide at Sonezaki" which has a very similar plot. However, Kitano takes from it only its michiyuki (walking the path) which is the final segment of the play as the lovers walk to their death. We are to understand, at the moment Matsumoto and Sawako begin to walk that it is only a matter of time until they die.
Random anecdote related to Three Times (Taiwan, 2005) director Hou Hsiao-hsien:
While in Cannes [1996], Kitano met and became friends with Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien. During a party, Kitano had spotted him thru the crowd, would sit down next to Hou and say, "I knew straight away that I shouldn't mess with you." Hou seemed confused and Kitano continued, "I bet you were a wild guy when you were young." Hou had indeed been a wild one and asked how Kitano would know, to which he answered, "I sense the same vibe in your work that I have in mine. It tells me that your motivation comes from all the crap you've gone thru in the past." (kitano takeshi biography)