CANNES, France (AP) 鈥 Kazuo Ishiguro ‘s mother was in Nagasaki when the atomic bomb was dropped.
When Ishiguro, the Nobel laureate and author of 鈥淩emains of the Day鈥 and 鈥淣ever Let Me Go,鈥 first undertook fiction writing in his 20s, his first novel, 1982’s 鈥淎 Pale View of Hills鈥 was inspired by his mother’s stories, and his own distance from them. Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki but, when he was 5, moved to England with his family.
鈥淎 Pale View of Hills鈥 marked the start to what’s become one of the most lauded writing careers in contemporary literature. And, now, like most of Ishiguro’s other novels, it’s a movie, too.
Kei Ishikawa’s film by the same name premiered Thursday at the in its Un Certain Regard section. The 70-year-old author has been here before; he was a member of the jury in 1994 that gave 鈥淧ulp Fiction鈥 the Palme d’Or. 鈥淎t the time it was a surprise decision,鈥 he says. 鈥淎 lot of people booed.鈥
Ishiguro is a movie watcher and sometimes maker, too. He penned the Movies are a regular presence in his life, in part because filmmakers keep wanting to turn his books into them. Taika Waititi is currently finishing a film of Ishiguro’s most recent novel, 鈥淜lara and the Sun鈥 (2021).
Ishiguro likes to participate in early development of an adaptation, and then disappear, letting the filmmaker take over. Seeing 鈥淎 Pale View of Hills鈥 turned into an elegant, thoughtful drama is especially meaningful to him because the book, itself, deals with inheritance, and because it represents his beginning as a writer.
鈥淭here was no sense that anyone else was going to reread this thing,鈥 he says. 鈥淪o in that sense, it鈥檚 different to, say, the movie of 鈥楻emains of the Day鈥 or the movie of 鈥楴ever Let Me Go.鈥欌
Remarks have been lightly edited.
AP: Few writers alive have been more adapted than you. Does it help keep a story alive?
ISHIGURO: Often people think I鈥檓 being unduly modest when I say I want the film to be different to the book. I don鈥檛 want it to be wildly different. But in order for the film to live, there has to be a reason why it鈥檚 being made then, for the audience at that moment. Not 25 years ago, or 45 years ago, as in the case of this book. It has to be a personal artistic expression of something, not just a reproduction. Otherwise, it can end up like a tribute or an Elvis impersonation.
Whenever I see adaptations of books not work, it鈥檚 always because it鈥檚 been too reverential. Sometimes it鈥檚 laziness. People think: Everything is there in the book. The imagination isn鈥檛 pushed to work. For every one of these things that鈥檚 made it to the screen, there鈥檚 been 10, 15 developments that I鈥檝e been personally involved with that fell by the wayside. I always try to get people to just move it on.
AP: You’ve said, maybe a little tongue in cheek, that you’d like to be like Homer.
ISHIGURO: You can take two kind of approaches. You write a novel and that鈥檚 the discrete, perfect thing. Other people can pay homage to it but basically that鈥檚 it. Or you can take another view that stories are things that just get passed around, down generations. Even though you think you wrote an original story, you鈥檝e put it together out of other stuff that鈥檚 come before you. So it鈥檚 part of that tradition.
I said Homer but it could be folktales. The great stories are the ones that last and last and last. They turn up in different forms. It鈥檚 because people can change and adapt them to their times and their culture that these stories are valuable. There was a time when people would sit around a fire and just tell each other these stories. You sit down with some anticipation: This guy is going to tell it in a slightly different way. What鈥檚 he going to do? It鈥檚 like if Keith Jarrett sits down and says he鈥檚 going to play 鈥淣ight and Day.鈥 So when you go from book to film, that鈥檚 a fireside moment. That way it has a chance of lasting, and I have a chance of turning into Homer.
AP: I think you鈥檙e well on your way.
ISHIGURO: I鈥檝e got a few centuries to go.
AP: Do you remember writing 鈥淎 Pale View of Hills?鈥 You were in your 20s.
ISHIGURO: I was between the age of 24 and 26. It was published when I was 27. I remember the circumstances very vividly. I can even remember writing a lot of those scenes. My wife, Lorna, was my girlfriend back then. We were both postgraduate students. I wrote it on a table about this size, which was also where we would have our meals. When she came in at the end of the day, I had to pack up even if I was at the crucial point of some scene. It was no big deal. I was just doing something indulgent. There was no real sense I had a career or it would get published. So it鈥檚 strange all these years later that she and I are here and attended this premiere in Cannes.
AP: To me, much of what the book and movie capture is what can be a unbridgeable distance between generations.
ISHIGURO: I think that鈥檚 really insightful what you just said. There is a limit to how much understanding there can be between generations. What鈥檚 needed is a certain amount of generosity on both sides, to respect each other鈥檚 generations and the difference in values. I think an understanding that the world was a really complicated place, and that often individuals can鈥檛 hope to have perspective on the forces that are playing on them at the time. To actually understand that needs a generosity.
AP: You’ve always been meticulous at meting out information, of uncovering mysteries of the past and present. Your characters try to grasp the world they’ve been born into. Did that start with your own family investigation?
ISHIGURO: I wasn鈥檛 like a journalist trying to get stuff out of my mother. There’s part of me that was quite reluctant to hear this stuff. On some level it was kind of embarrassing to think of my mother in such extreme circumstances. A lot of the things she told me weren鈥檛 to do with the atomic bomb. Those weren鈥檛 her most traumatic memories.
My mother was a great oral storyteller. She would sometimes have a lunch date and do a whole version of a Shakespeare play by herself. That was my introduction to 鈥淗amlet鈥 or things like that. She was keen to tell me but also wary of telling me. It was always a fraught thing. Having something formal 鈥 鈥淥h, I鈥檓 becoming a writer, I鈥檓 going to write up something so these memories can be preserved鈥 鈥 that made it easier.
AP: How has your relationship with the book changed with time?
ISHIGURO: Someone said to me the other day, 鈥淲e live in a time now where a lot of people would sympathize with the older, what you might call fascist views.鈥 It鈥檚 not expressed overtly; the older teacher is saying it’s tradition and patriotism.
Now, maybe we live in a world where that鈥檚 a good point, and that hadn鈥檛 occurred to me. It鈥檚 an example of: Yes, we write in a bubble and make movies in a kind of a bubble. But the power of stories is they have to go into different values.
This question of how you pass stories on, this is one of the big challenges. You have to reexamine every scene. Some things that might have been a very safe assumption only a few years ago would not be because the value systems are changing around our books and films just as much as they鈥檙e changing around us.
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has covered the Cannes Film Festival since 2012. He鈥檚 seeing approximately 40 films at this year鈥檚 festival and reporting on what stands out.
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