Ishiguro

Long before he wrote Booker-winning novels and Oscar-nominated screenplays, the Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro wrote bad songs. In his own words, these unheard lyrics were “mostly ghastly” but they enabled him to find his voice. He worked through the gauche and the pretentious before alighting on the simpler first-person style that would define his fiction: “understated, almost mundane lyrics, with emotions placed between the lines, only occasionally pushing to the surface”.In 2002, Ishiguro chose a track by the American…

The Japanese-born British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro is one of the most critically acclaimed authors writing in English today: the now 68-year-old was twice selected in the Granta Best of Young British Novelists issue, in 1983 and 1993, before going on to bag the Booker prize, the Nobel prize in literature and a knighthood. Earlier this year, he picked up Bafta and Oscar nominations too, for his adapted screenplay of Living, starring Bill Nighy. David Sexton suggests some good places to start for those who haven’t yet dipped…

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cinematic email for freeKazuo Ishiguro how a “eureka moment” in the back of a London taxi resulted in Oscar nominations.The author of books including Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go adapted Akira Kurosawa’s Japanese film Ikiru into a London-set drama titled Living, which was released in 2022.Ishiguro wrote the script, which has been nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at this year’s Oscars, which…

Breadcrumb Trail Links Movies Culture Books 'I thought there was something to remake,' the novelist and screenwriter says cautiously of the 1952 classic. 'I hesitate to say improved' Get the latest from Chris Knight straight to your inbox Sign Up Kazuo Ishiguro with Bill Nighy, who stars in Living Photo by Sony Pictures Classics Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made…

At the end of an evening with friends, actor Bill Nighy and novelist Kazuo Ishiguro decided to share a taxi home, a simple yet fateful decision which in time led to the new movie “Living.” “I kind of said almost spontaneously, ‘Oh, Bill, I know this fantastic role for you that will win you all these awards,’” says Ishiguro, the 2017 Nobel laureate in literature, whose novels include “Klara and the Sun,” “Never Let Me Go,” and “The Remains of the Day.” “And my wife, Lorna, said immediately, ‘Stop bothering, Bill; he’s got…

Sentiment and understatement meet in this beautifully melancholy (end-of-) life drama, based on Akira Kurosawa’s low-key 1952 gem, Ikiru. Elegantly directed by South African film-maker Oliver Hermanus (who helmed the 2019 adaptation of André Carl van der Merwe’s autobiographical Moffie) and boasting deeply affecting performances from national treasure Bill Nighy and rising star Aimee Lou Wood (regular of the hit Netflix series Sex Education), this deceptively gentle 50s-set film addresses weighty matters of life and death…