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Miyazaki's 'Spirited Away' Wins Best Animated Picture
DavidBrown writes "Moments ago, Hayao Miyazaki won the Best Animated Picture award for 'Spirited Away.' It's about time."
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Cripes, it was only minutes ago. I hope we don't hear every little detail before its done. :)
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"I'm not bright. Big words confuse me. But Wanda loves me and that should be enough for you." - Cosmo
Just curious, how long was this one in the preview que (or whatever) before it got posted to Slashdot?
Posting as directed.
features Chihiro interacting with a monkey called mono. great cartoon :^)
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Does this mean I'll have to start caring about the Oscars?
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[Big Brick Wall]
I showed this movie to my whole family. Great flick and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys watching fantasy. The story is very good-hearted and the plot and fantasy aspects are amazing.
Some would compare it to Harry Potter, but really it's much more... intellectual.
Best. Webhost. Ever. Dreamhost.
Let's see now if Disney makes good on its promise to re-release Spirited Away to theatres with equal backing as Lilo and Stich was given.
was the BEST movie that i saw in a long time. It had a wonderful story that appealed to adults and children. The cinematography was excellent as well. It too bad americans still make a distinction between animated movies and live action ones.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
this is a very deserved Oscar! :P
the movie deserves it, Miyazaki deserves it and anime deserves it.
this is a good thing for anime
p.s. and the other movies all sucked compared to this
Smile... tomorrow will be worse.
But then again, Disney and Dreamworks put forth anything *that* good or *that* original.
Spirited away had originality and a nice fuzzy feeling with it too, with a sense of wonder too.
And it's gonna change the way the critics view anime from now on, too. I wonder if maybe they'll do "Best anime film..." Nah...
It isn't from Disney. Disney just dubbed it into English for the American audiences.
Best. Webhost. Ever. Dreamhost.
Disney only distributes/markets Miyazaki/Ghibli's films here in the US.
Miyazaki has directed an unusually large number of very nice animated pieces, and Studio Ghibli is well known as delivering some of the highest quality films out there, live or animated. I hope that this may do something to bring more mainstream appreciation to animation as an adult story telling medium in the United States.
As a note, if anyone is interested in seeing a list of other films by Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, they can look at nausicaa.net.
...The movie is coming out on Region 1 DVD April 15, 2003. Along with Kiki's Delivery Service and Castle in the Sky.
Spirited Away was fighting against such notable animated features as "Treasure Planet."
In the field of drawn animation, Japan is a whole other ballgame.
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
but storylines like the ones that Little Ninjai has blow me away. Its a wonderful myraid of anime but for some reason it seems americanized in a way. I know this is a little offtopic but if you look at it in a way I am talking about something similar to the subject and sort of "pimping out Little Ninjai" for those of you who havn't seen it. I'd just like to see more of that "something" that most anime's seem to lack. Don't get me wrong, I loved Tenchi Meauo (I know thats spelled wrong, but just pronounce it)
This is a Good Thing[tm] but I'd say its victory is mostly due to the extremely unremarkable American animated features this year. When an anime movie wins best foreign language move wake me up.
p.s. does "Harry Potter" not count for anything because it was a UK production?
It's exactly the details that make it wonderful.
As Kirosawa used to say...
Q: What's the message of your movie?
Kirosawa: If I could answer that, I would have printed it on a card and held it up in front of the camera.
See this movie. It's art, and it's very finely crafted. Truly a masterpiece.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
I had to drag and con my 4 kids into seeing this film. They'd never heard of it, or seen ads or anything and they really did not want to go, nor did my partner. In the end we went (I used a pointed stick :-) and they all absolutely loved it and went and told all their friends by which time they movie was pulled from all local cinemas. My daughter (10) especially loved the movie, as did my partner. Wonderful stuff!
pithy comment
At least, in my opinion. Miyazaki has done many, many films, and Spirited Away was actually one of my least favorite. Don't get me wrong, I still loved it, but anyone who liked Spirited Away really needs to see:
* Laputa - Castle in the Sky (Possibly the best anime ever)
* Girl From the Valley of the Wind
* Princess Mononoke
* Kiki's Delivery Service
* Porco Rosso (this one's just weird, but very good)
* My Neighbor Totoro
He's done plenty of others, but those are the best, IMHO.
I'd suggest getting the whole "Studio Ghibli Collection" from Anime on DVD.
Just my two cents...
...but it's being eaten...by some...Linux or something...
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
So let's get this straight. Spirited Away wins the Oscar, yet Disney didn't market this movie worth sh*t! I'm in a top 15 media market and all the ass clowns at Disney do is put it in a couple art houses.
Well deserved -- I'm not an anime fan (and I'm not young) but I loved this movie. It was more surreal and fantastical than I expected and that was a very welcome surprise.
Maybe I speak for myself, but I found this superior to the previous "most popular anime flick in the mainstream," Princess Mononoke. That movie was also great, but like other anime movies I've seen, the plot was thin, long and wandering, which I think are qualities that turn off most (western) audiences. For some reason I didn't think that Spirited Away suffered from the same problem.
Now I've gotta cross my fingers for Chicago to win the Best Live-Action Feature Oscar ;) I'm also wondering which film will win (or has won?) Best Animated Short... I hope it's Das Rad (aka Rocks).
Which of these you prefer most will depend entirely one your taste, I think. One of the great things about Miyazaki is that he has a great range - all his stuff isn't the same like so many others.
I prefer Kiki's Delivery Service the best, and Spirited Away next, then Princess Mononoke. I haven't yet seen the others, but I've got some of his comics, like Nausicaa and some others.
It's so great that his work is finally coming out on Region 1 DVDs soon. Yay!
My favourite line in Kiki:
"Helloooo, Kitty!"
- Gigi
I'm really glad to see that they won. Spirited Away was an excellent, excellent movie, beautifully drawn and positively enthralling in my opinion. I was certain Lilo & Stitch would take this category simply because it was the headline Disney release this year. Kudos to Miyazaki on an absolutely fantastic piece, and kudos to the academy for recognizing it. Bet Disney wasn't expecting this...
...though bear with slow response, as Nausicaa.net is already pretty well experiencing the Slashdot effect. My traffic-shaping rules are helping the site hold its own, but you may have to tolerate sluggish reply at the moment. :)
--Rachel (Nausicaa.net sysadmin)
--Rachel
Nope, the US DVD lack the red tint. The storyboards extra on the second DVD is tinted, but not the main feature.
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Sig.
I'm sure this will get modded as off-topic or flamebait, but these awards ceremonies are nothing buy self-congratulatory nonsense. I go to work. I do my job. I don't expect people to watch a TV show about me getting recognized for doing what I'm paid to do. I don't need an emmy, a grammy, an oscar, an MTV award, a Blockbuster award, a golden globe, or a people's choice award to know whether I'm good at what I do or not.
... but for what the industry costs and what the participants earn ... everything that hits the screen aught to be worthy of an award.
I apologize for not making reference to this movie that won the award, and mod this as you please
Sorry, I submitted this post, so I guess I'm responsible. It's significant not just because it's recognition of Hayao Miyazaki and his body of work (Nausicaa, Porco Rosso, Cagliostro's Castle, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, Kiki's Delivery Service, etc.), it's also an historic Hollywood recognition of Anime as an art form. This is the first time that any Anime has won an Oscar - and it was up against "Ice Age", a CG wonder, and two Disney films, "Treasure Planet" and "Lilo and Stitch".
It's also recognition that animated films don't have to be musicals for children in the Disney style.
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The weird thing about PM is the way Disney tried to "localise" the English version. Fortunately they didn't meddle with the story. But they hired a bunch of Name Actors to do the dubbing. Which was a waste of money, because none of the people they chose has a really distinctive voice!
Weirdest of all is hiring Neil Gaiman to "adapt" the script. God knows what that means. He didn't even make the obvious change: correcting the translators misnaming of various smoothbore weapons as "rifles".
So you owe them.
Really? With all the lobbying DisneyCo did to get the Bono Act passed?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Miramax hired one of the best writers alive today, Neil Gaiman, to do the American version of Mononoke Hime. He went to Japan, studied the language and culture, met prominent artists there, and did his damn best (and also teamed up with Yoshitaka Amano to make a wonderful companion book to The Sandman) to not only translate it, but make it sound just as good as the original version, and yet still seem as if his script were the original. Unfortunately(?), Disney used some of its own writers to dub Spirited Away, so it's most likely not up to the caliber of Princess Mononoke, but (knock on wood) they couldn't have screwed it up too bad, right?
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subject line says it all
668: Neighbour of the Beast
I was very disappointed with the DVD edition of "My neighbor Totoro".
That's because it was a shoddy, quick-job done by Fox so they could get it out the door just under the gun of their distribution rights expiring. You can expect Disney/Buena Vista to release a very nice 2 disc version (just like Spirited Away, Kiki, and Laputa/Castle in the Sky are getting on the 15th) at some point in the future.
jello.
aka aron.
My Japanese wife collects all of Miyazaki's movies. Spirited Away definitely deserved to win. If you enjoyed this one I highly recommend seeing his other movies as well. Interestingly, Spirited Away and Totoro (one of my all-time favourites) are the only ones I've seen either in English or subtitled, and I don't understand Japanese, but it hasn't detracted at all from my enjoyment of these movies. Basically, I just read an English summary of the movie on the Internet and then go enjoy. "Princess Mononoke" is incredible (but gory - not for young children) and you don't have to understand Japanese to enjoy it un-subtitled. "Castle In The Sky" is also great and is so vivid in it's animation you can "see" the words and intentions of the characters.
Any parents among you should introduce your child to "My Neighbour Totoro". This is by far my most favourite animated film ever and my 3 year-old daughter's as well. The magic in Miyazaki's story telling is just incredible.
For those who didn't watch: Ice Age, Lilo & Stitch, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, and Treasure Planet.
I can only claim to have seen two of these, but I think I can say that "Lilo & Stitch" was the only worthwhile competition in this category. Still, it should rightly be considered remarkable that a dubbed foreign film won in this category, especially since Disney put almost no effort into promoting this film when it was released.
And on that note, it looks like Miyazaki's film "Castle in the Sky" will be released in the US on DVD at the same time as "Spirited Away", both of which should get a lot more attention from Disney now than they did last calendar year. Hey, whatever works....
Lilo and Stitch was a damn fine movie too. It had been awhile since Disney released a movie that got that special balance between kid-friendly and more sophisticated adult humor. And it was beautiful (being set in Hawaii helped there). No silly music, (except for THE KING), and a weighty plotline too.
Spirited Away wasn't up against just any flavor-of-the-year Disney flick. The fact that Disney lost out to an import in the category carries extra weight.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Supposedly, someone at Disney claimed that they had already set aside a much larger advertising budget similar to that Lilo and Stitch got for a S.A. rerelease if it won the Oscars. Traditionally, films that win the Oscar take on new legs and get wider release after that: for instance, Life is Beautiful. The details are somewhere in the Nausicaa.net archives; I lack the time to dig them up now.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
No, they bought the world-wide rights to Miyazaki's works so they could make substantial profits on selling it everywhere else in the world where Miyazaki was known and revered, including Japan. The USA, where people still think cartoons are for kids, wasn't the subject of some sort of great cover-up--it just wasn't a priority.
Maybe now that will change.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
It's about time." Isn't this the second year of that particular category? The impressive thing isn't that it took so long it's that it happened so fast. To have a japanese film win the second time the animation award was given is quite an accomplishment. At least it didn't end up being a tug of war between Disney and Dreamworks. Adds a lot of legitimacy to the award.
Why does any criticism of this invasion of Iraq garner such strong feelings of hatred?
I mean you live in a democracy suposedly where people are free to voice there concerns.
Just seems weird is all.
I mean who hear, blindly supports anything in other areas of their life to the extent that criticism illicits such strong hatred?
ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE: Adrien Brody THE PIANIST
ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: Chris Cooper ADAPTATION
ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE: Nicole Kidman THE HOURS
ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: Catherine Zeta-Jones CHICAGO
ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: SPIRITED AWAY Hayao Miyazaki
ART DIRECTION: CHICAGO John Myhre (Art Direction); Gordon Sim (Set Decoration)
CINEMATOGRAPHY: ROAD TO PERDITION Conrad L. Hall
COSTUME DESIGN: CHICAGO Colleen Atwood
DIRECTING: THE PIANIST Roman Polanski
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE Michael Moore and Michael Donovan
DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT: TWIN TOWERS Bill Guttentag and Robert David Port
FILM EDITING: CHICAGO Martin Walsh
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: NOWHERE IN AFRICA Germany Directed by Caroline Link
MAKEUP: FRIDA John Jackson and Beatrice De Alba
MUSIC: (SCORE) FRIDA Elliot Goldenthal
MUSIC: (SONG) 8 MILE 'Lose Yourself'
Music by Eminem, Jeff Bass and Luis Resto; Lyric by Eminem
BEST PICTURE: CHICAGO Martin Richards
SHORT FILM: (ANIMATED) THE CHUBBCHUBBS! Eric Armstrong
SHORT FILM: (LIVE ACTION) THIS CHARMING MAN (DER ER EN YNDIG MAND)
Martin Strange-Hansen and Mie Andreasen
SOUND: CHICAGO Michael Minkler, Dominick Tavella and David Lee
SOUND EDITING: THE LORD OF THE RINGS - THE TWO TOWERS Ethan Van der Ryn and Michael Hopkins
VISUAL EFFECTS: THE LORD OF THE RINGS - THE TWO TOWERS Jim Rygiel, Joe Letteri, Randall William Cook and Alex Funke
WRITING: (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY) THE PIANIST
Screenplay by Ronald Harwood
WRITING: (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY) TALK TO HER
Written by Pedro Almodóvar
While I used to enjoy the Oscars, I think they are quickly losing their relevance. Ever since Titanic won all sorts of awards back in 1997 it's been more or less evident that the Oscars are little more than a popularity contest. If this ceremony were held two months ago, which movie would have walked away with the awards? My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Here we have another underdog, Chicago, which Miramax sent out on limited release to generate lots of positive buzz, and has since carefully expanded the number of locations in which it is playing. Chicago gets fabulous word of mouth and ends up walking away with Best Picture. Fine, so lots of the voters like this movie and musicals are making a comeback. But best costume design? Best editing? The movie may be good, but certainly it doesn't deserve these. Of the hundreds of movies released last year, and of the few dozen which were truly good, does one movie deserve to win these coveted awards just because it's popular right now?
When movies start picking up several oscars, it's just a sign of that movie's popularity at the moment. The voters get all carried away with one movie and it ends up sweeping the whole show. Ridiculous.
Ok, perhaps I'm just jaded because of the movies that *didn't* win, like Two Towers for Best Editing or Episode II for Best Costume, Sound, Editing, or something. But I agree, (in order to keep this post on-topic), Spirited Away was definitely the best animated feature of the year. But what about the rest? Treasure Island, anyone?
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True, it's finely crafted. Nearly everything Miyazaki has ever done is. But I wouldn't put it in the masterpiece category. It certainly isn't his best work IMO. I'd put Laputa: Castle in the Sky or My Neighbor Totoro above it. Of course, you know, IMO, YMMV, and all that.
You had me at "dicks fuck assholes".
Actually the title is a reference to a place in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, and yes, he really did intend the pun.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
It's too bad that I cannot find any *serious* comments about Spirited Away even here at Slashdot. It's not a simple animation film for children. Nor is it a fun movie for mature adults either.
The main point of the movie is how Western civilization *devastated* the Japanese people, especially in the form of capitalism. One funny (and tragic) reality addressed by the director is that Japanese are totally ignorant of the fact that they have lost their Japanese identity adopting capitalism and that the western people enslaved (I hate to use this word) Japanese people under the hierarchical structure of capitalism.
Notice that this film is overpainted with Japanese cultural artifacts everywhere. However, only Yubaba shows characteristics typical in the Western people. A big nose, flurry dress, and her big room with carpet and bonfire, to name a few. Her room is located on the very *top* of the building, dominating all other Japanese workers.
Haku symbolizes Japanese people who strived to learn the power from the Western civilization. He wanted to learn the *magic* from Yubaba, but what he actually experienced was that he had to lose his own name in order to do that. How Yubaba enslaved Haku? Haku himself had to *sign a contract* which forced him to *lose* his name.
So, what happened? The japanese lost their souls. The poor people who lost their identities do not have any virtues in their life other than to get more gold to be rich. The remaining value created from their priceless labor is *stored* as a form of gems in Yubaba's safe.
Why does Yubaba have a twin sister? It symbolizes director's view that the Western culture became a mutant from its origin. The _good_ western culture is the other twin Yubaba. Notice that Yubaba's sister also lives in a totally western environment. A small cottage, hand-cooked cake, tea, and so on. She, the original tradition of the western culture, is a person with bright rationaility.
Then what must Japanese do in order to destroy this terrible structure created by the evil Yubaba? Do they have to organize a revolution? Do they have to kill Yubaba?
Miyazaki Hayao's message is superior to that. Chihiro succeeds in finding and sympathizing with the common values appreciated both by Japanese people and Yubaba's sister. She symbolizes the young, future Japanese generations. From the sympathy and understanding of the *rational* Yubaba's twin sister, she proceeds on to the next stage of mutual understandings. She wakes up Haku, and he realizes his Japanese identity. After Chihiro came back to Yubaba, Yubaba is no longer her boss. She calls her name as "Oba-tsang", not as "Yubaba-sama", which can be translated into "grandmother" and "my boss Yubaba". She peacefully disarms Yubaba with her Japanese identity.
Overall, "Spirited Away" should be a movie that many Western people will get angry with (or be ashamed with); however, the great point of this movie is that it shows a way to solve this conflict peacefully, especially with the language of *rationality*, a concept which Western people are so accustomed to. It suggests a way that leads to the mutual understandings and the world peace. Here lies the greateness of this movie.
So, please, take this animation seriously. Although Yubaba's sister totally became friends with Chihiro, Yubaba refused to understand Chihiro to the end of the movie. The reason Yubaba released Chihiro and her parents is only because her contract with Yubaba became void. She is still ignorant of the terrible mistakes she inflicted on the Japanese people. I do not like to see Western people watching this movie continue to repeat this foolish mistake of Yubaba's in real world. Just by trying to remember Yubaba's twin sister, you will be able to sympathize _at least_ with the japanese people.
Buy the R1 DVD. It has a Japanese dialogue track with English subtitles.
My other first post is car post.
Uh... cinematography is usually setting up lighting on a set and choosing cameras and lenses and film and how to use those tools to render a scene with actors onto a photographic negative. In an animated film like Spirited Away, none of that needs to be done. The "camera angles" are chosen by the director when they do the storyboards. Individual frames are drawn by hand and scanned and sometimes composited with CG or edited on a computer. The ultimate output is made to print film that gets run through a projector at your theater. So there is film involved... but only at the final step.
My other first post is car post.
"Good or bad but not much in between"? Did we see the same movie? Name one unequivocally bad character.
I found it quite simple to sum up the moral of this story: Any evil can be conquered with love, courage and good manners.
The good manners are the most important part.
Not true. Disney owns worldwide distribution rights to much of studio Ghibli's work, including Spirited Away(Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi). Disney released it in july 2002 undre Buena Vista Home Entertainment
This film has so much charm and grace. I can only hope now, just maybe, a subtitled version will be show in Austin.
It has been a long time since I saw a subtitled anime on the big screen.
It is important to mention that, whilst Ghibli accepted the award, nobody came to the ceremony to collect their Oscar.
Miyazaki is a well documented Marxist (look at Mirai Shounen Conan and the book it is based upon, The Incredible Tide, for proof), so I doubt he would attend an awards ceremony at a heart of American capitalism. Not to mention that he is hugely anti-war anyway.
Whilst he very much deserves the award, there are other more poltical agendas at work here.
Cacophanus
http://cacophanus.net/
I'm not pissed off that he is against the war. First of all, his comments were inappropriate for the Academy Awards... it's not the time to get up on your soapbox. Second, to say that we live in "Fictious times" while there is a very real war going on is sickening. People are over in Iraq dying and he's ranting from his safe little place on stage in California. All he had to say was "Support our troops, bring them home."
Finally, what is really interesting is that he is against something whose end result might give the same freedom he just exercised to millions of people who haven't had that freedom in more than 24 years.
--
"What do you want me to do? Whack a guy? Off a guy? Whack off a guy? Cause I'm married."
I know I will probably get flamed for this, but let's be honest. "Spirited Away" is not Miyazaki's best. In fact, I'm sorry, story, animation, soundtrack, characters, and simply EVERYTHING was simply not up to par considering his older works, like Nausicaa and Laputa. Look, I think it's great that Miyazaki finally got the recognition he deserves. But that is just it-- I honestly think that Miyazaki is only being awarded because of his body of work, and largely because he has been ignored by the Hollywood mafia for two decades already. Furthermore, Spirited Away was up against some extremely weak competition. I mean, "Ice Age", "Treasure Planet"? I've seen more riveting animation in crapcan 70's Hanna Barbera saturday morning cartoons. Reality check: I'm sorry, but if Spirited Away went up against "Shrek", it would have been toast. That said, I'm glad that Anime has it's foot in the door now. I guess Disney can stop making these horrible musical cartoons now, and Hollywood will start taking more Anime directors, like Oshii, far more seriously. But the sad reality is, this reeked of the typical Academy behavior of awarding a person based on a body of work rather than a truly great film.
I got a laugh out of Moore.. guy is kind of tactless but very brave I think.
But Brody.. wow. A summary for those who missed it:
Brody gets up on stage, looking completely floored. He says he didn't write a speech because whenever he did for any award in the past, he didn't win. He goes on for a while, flustered as hell, then he mentions they're already flashing the "Time's up" at him, but he's just getting started on his thank yous, to his parents, to the filmmakers, etc.
Now he's WAY over max time, and they cut into his speech with the ceremony music, you know, the "OK, we're done being polite and subtle, get OFF THE STAGE NOW" music, and this is where things got REALLY interesting. He looks up and says, "Just a second. Just one more second" The music continues, uncaring. But Brody's determined, he knows he can do no wrong in this particular instant of time and space. "I mean it. Turn that stuff OFF!" he says.. and the music actually STOPS. I was cheering. Lopsided grin, "I've just got one shot at this."
Then, in a very emotional voice on the edge of breaking, he talks about how making The Pianist made him aware of the horrors of war, and how, whatever you believe in, God or Allah or anyone, he hopes for everyone to get home safe, and for a quick end to the conflict.
He got a deafening, standing ovation, and for the next 10 minutes or so, the Oscars were... different. The power of his words had tremendously affected everyone. It was evident that Dustin Hoffman, who was presenting a clip of The Pianist for Best Picture immediately after Brody, was having some trouble continuing his speech.
Bravo Brody. Guy deserved a second Oscar on the spot.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson