We met the Nobel Prize in Cannes | EUROtoday

Dhe obtained the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2017, Kazuo Ishiguro is used to a cobecent reverence accompanies the least of his appearances. So, with a really British humor (he was born in Nagasaki in 1954 however, raised within the United Kingdom from the age of 5, written solely in English), the creator of Day stays Has used to place everybody relaxed.

So the opposite day in Cannes, in the course of the presentation of Pale mild on hills From Kei Ishikawa: “When I was 25, I wrote a very bad book,” mentioned Kazuo Ishiguro as an introduction to the Debussy auditorium scene the place the movies of the Un sure Look are screened. This is his first novel, revealed in 1982, an evocation stuffed with thriller of the post-war years in a Nagasaki nonetheless in shock from the atomic bomb … “But in the history of cinema, there is a long history of bad books which give great films. I knew Kei Ishikawa would get out. »»

On this point, Kazuo Ishiguro is right: the director – born in 1977 – got out, and in beautiful way. Pale light on hills (Room release planned in the fall) is a film of great beauty, which braid – like the original novel – the temporal strata, coming and coming between the early 1980s when, in England, Niki (Camilla Aiko) tries to understand the life of her mother Etsuko (Yoh Yoshida) and the memories mentioned by the latter (younger by the wonderful Suzu Hirose Hirokazu kore-eda), necessarily complex memories since they have Nagasaki as a framework in the early 1950s. “I all the time wished this novel to be tailored to the cinema, particularly by somebody youthful than me,” says Kazuo Ishiguro, himself an authentic film buff to the point that a film of Howard Hawks (Luxury train1934) appears in his speech to receive the Nobel.

The point: Why do you want a filmmaker adapts Pale light on hills ?

Kazuo Ishiguro:First of all because I was not satisfied with this novel. I was a beginner writer, this is the first text I wrote, almost. I was not a child or a teenager who wrote, and just before Pale light on hillsI worked on one or two news, but finally, it stopped there, for the rest, I wrote song lyrics! I was therefore a beginner writer and I am aware of the structural faults of the novel. I wanted a filmmaker at the top of his art – this is the case with Kei Ishikawa – resumes all of this and arrange these faults. I am very attached to the filmmaker’s freedom: if someone adapts one of my novels – as was the case of James Ivory for The remains of the day (his 1989 novel adapted in 1993 with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, editor’s note) and as Taika Waititi will do it with Klara and the Sun -, I want him to take it with great freedom. But in the case of Pale light on hillsthere was also something else: you had to make a film which is aimed at a contemporary audience, and in particular to young Japanese.

Why did this seem important to you?

At the heart of the book, there is the Second World War, the atomic bomb, the traces that this trauma has left among the Japanese. I was born in 1954 and my own mother was in Nagasaki in August 1945, she survived the bomb. My mother had a particular affection for this novel among all the others, because she wanted Nagasaki’s experience to be transmitted to the youngest. In the same way, I think today of those who are very far from this story, we have just celebrated the 80th anniversary of the end of the war, and witnesses are now counted on the fingers of the hand. I think there is a specific memory of what happened in Japan, the horror of the bomb, and at the same time something universal: trauma, how we suit it, how we live with it, all this is part of the human experience and the film evokes these questions with force.

The film as the book emphasizes the difficulty of emancipating itself for Japanese women …

It seems to me that the film is part of a very feminist tradition of Japanese cinema. The company was very restrictive, and yet Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujiro Ozu showed complex female characters, far from being simple objects of contemplation.

Tell us about the political dimension of the history and the character of the stepfather, Mr. Ogata, a former school director who we understand that he married the imperialism and militarism of the regime during the war …

When I wrote the novel, it passed me. I was thinking of writing about female characters-the two friends Etsuko and Sachiko-but in fact, this older man, Mr. Ogata, has become more and more important. And when I finished the book, I continued in this vein with my novel A floating world artist (1986) where we find the same type of character. And finally, the butler, Mr. Stevens, in The remains of the day is a bit of the British version of this same man! These characters are not bad people in essence, but they lack perspective. They are immersed in history and cannot have the necessary perspective to act morally. We are all a bit like that. We try to understand the world around us, but the broader context escapes us, it is often with the decline of time that we understand the issues of what we have experienced. These characters approach old age and realize that they have not understood their time, that they have missed their lives. Mr. Ogata believed the regime blindly, Mr. Stevens did not see that he was at the service of a fascist. They spoiled their best years or worse, because they were at the service of evil. In fact, it is impossible to escape politics, whether one is a teacher like Mr. Ogata or Majordoma like Stevens.

Does this destiny are watching us all?

Yes, it is a very widespread tragedy. Because even when we live out of the dramatic context of a war, politics is part of our lives. The real tragedy for most people is not to be lucky, to fall in the wrong place at the wrong time. I think a lot at the time in which we are, this time when it becomes common to choose its own truth. Today, we detached ourselves from facts and expertise. You just have to believe something with enough strength to decide that this thing is true.

In this context, what is the mission of the novelist?

This is a real question, which concerns me a lot. A fiction author is not there to be a historian, to establish facts. He seeks emotional truth. Now today, it is something that appears to me to be dangerous, because society in general values ​​emotional truth so much, it makes it pass in priority. It’s too much! Are we in a world where everything is nothing more than fiction? I believe that I now want to write about it, on the fact that in our world, we are convinced that believing something with enough strength is enough to bend reality so that it conforms to our desires.

Your novel Klara and the sun evokes the dangers of AI. But Klara, the AI ​​of the novel, has great emotional reserves itself …

To uncover



The kangaroo of the day

Answer

What worries me in synthetic intelligence is totally linked. If AI learns to make us snicker and cry, if it has manipulation capability for feelings, then the hazard can be most, will probably be a formidable political manipulation device. We have already seen it within the final American elections: we goal the voters with nice precision to speak a message to them. The different scary topic is in fact army use, determination -making as a part of a struggle. The subsequent step is that AI manages to manage folks’s feelings. I spoke to nice IA specialists particularly throughout my analysis to Klara And they had been very clear about the truth that sure, it may and was in all probability going to occur. I’m not very fearful about whether or not AI can write novels – good or unhealthy -, or movie scripts. The stake is stronger than that. It is existential.

The entire work of Kazuo Ishiguro is on the market at Gallimard, in folio.