Kazu Hiro did not have a particularly happy childhood. He grew up in Kyoto, on a small, busy street lined with markets, where his father was a fishmonger and his mother sold clothes. "I was sensitive," he told me. He felt bullied by his parents, so he tried his best to keep to himself. "I hated school," he said. He dreamed of leaving Kyoto and his family behind. In kindergarten, he would sculpt or paint in the corner of the classroom. "That was my obsession: making something."
When he was eight, he saw "Star Wars" and became fascinated with the film's special effects-he was particularly curious about what Chewbacca's hair was made of. "Star Wars" seemed like an evolutionary leap from the "cheesy" feel of such Japanese movies as "Godzilla." As a teen-ager, he took a bus each weekend to a store that carried imported books and magazines, hoping to learn everything he could about filmmaking and special effects. One day, he found an issue of Fangoria, a movie magazine for blood-and-guts enthusiasts. Hiro was squeamish, yet horror films were where a lot of the innovations in makeup and low-budget effects were happening. He read an interview with Dick Smith, one of the most influential makeup artists in Hollywood, renowned for his work on "The Godfather"-notable not just for
Smith's aging of Marlon Brando but for the special blood bladders he devised to make gunshot wounds more realistic and "The Exorcist," whose remarkably visceral scenes of demonic possession remain the benchmark for scary movies.
Esta historia es de la edición December 04, 2023 de The New Yorker.
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Esta historia es de la edición December 04, 2023 de The New Yorker.
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INSIDE JOB-"Hit Man"
Years before Hannah Arendt coined, in the pages of this magazine, the phrase \"the banality of evil,\" popular films and fiction were embodying that idea in the character of the hit man. In classic crime movies such as \"This Gun for Hire\" (1942) and \"Murder by Contract\" (1958), hit men figure much as Nazis do in political movies, as symbols of abstract evil.
WHATEVER YOU SAY
Rereading Jenny Holzer, at the Guggenheim.
SUBCONSCIOUSLY YOURS
Does every generation get the Freud it deserves?
BY A WHISKER
Louis Wain and the reinvention of the cat.
Beyond Imagining
Bessie, Lotte, Ruth, Farah, and Bridget, who had been lunching together for half a century, joined in later years by Ilka, Hope, and, occasionally, Lucinella, had agreed without the need for discussion that they were not going to pass, pass away, and under no circumstances on.
STATES OF PLAY
Can advocates use state supreme courts to preserve-and perhaps expand-constitutional rights?
THE LONG RIDE
The surf legend Jock Sutherland's unlikely life.
ARE WE DOOMED?
A course at the University of Chicago thinks it through.
GOD EXPLAINS THE RULES OF HIS NEW BOARD GAME
Guys, want to play this new board game? It’s called Life. No, it’s not “one of God’s impossible-to-understand games that take three hours to learn.” It’ll be fun, I promise!
RED LINE
With the election approaching, the U.S. and Mexico wrangle over border policy.