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New Yorker on Miyazaki
An anonymous reader writes "The New Yorker issue of 17 January has an in-depth article on Hayao Miyazaki. It gives a nice look at the arc of his work, short interviews with him, and more extended interviews with his co-workers. Here is an interview with the article's author."
For those of you who do not instantly associate that name with anything, a link.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
Ah, as warm and cuddly goes it doesn't get much better. Not what I'd watch all the time, but sufficiently well executed that it's worth getting excited about something new. And I reckon a lot of his stuff is a nice balance of mature themes with stuff that's interesting for kids. More food for thought than, say, a Disney movie.
But then, I'm not an anime geek. I tend more towards David Lynch and Atom Egoyan than most anime, so maybe I'm grossly misinformed.
It still amazes me that the whole comic book / manga artform is so well respected in Japan. I love Manga as much as the next guy but to see EVERYONE relating to it astonds me. Unless you visit Japan (as I have done twice now) you can't really fathom the impact that this artform has on Japanese culture. The people I spoke to in Japan about it think that what we consider Manga and the Manga we have access to in the west is pretty light weight.
http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/films/#film_g_t
a good idea to include some info about who the heck this guy is?
I had to do a search. May I suggest that the editors/posters re-read their submission instructions?
In related news, Wilbert Rideau has been released.
BP http://www.card-central.com
If you like Miyazaki and are around Paris, you might want ot check out the exposition at the museum de la Monnaie (right in front of Pont Neuf). I went there yesterday and it is quite interesting: it is centered around a comparison of Miyazaki's work and Moebius' work (one of the best french cartoonist). The most interesting stuff to me was a cross-interview of Moebius and Miyazaki, good stuff. They also show other two documentaries on their respective work, but I don't know if it is worth it for 9 euros.
If the editor wrote Linus Torvalds, every computer geek would know it was the founder of Linux. If the editor wrote Hawking, every science geek would know who he was. If the editor wrote John Carmack, every developer would know who he was. Hayao Miyazaki is no different for animae. He is arguably the greatest animation director of all time. If you don't know his name, you definately aren't an animae geek. But considering that there have been many articles here on Slashdot, you would figure that his name would be in the collective knowlege bank. At what point do the Slashdot editors have to stop prefixing an article "Programmer Linus Torvalds ..." or "Cosmologist Stephen Hawking ..."?
A long time now I have been a fan of Hayao Miyazaki. I find his movies strangely unique, and moving. In fact, I would call them more of an experience. Especially with his latest masterpiece Sen To Chihiro(Spirited away.)
this man really knows how to take you into a world of awe and amazement. He can take you to world filled with ancient gods, and mysterious magic, or to the skies and ancient forgotten cities who's only surving inhabitans are it's gargantuan robot caretakers.
I would have to say I dislike this being classified as Anime though, as while it is Japanese, it is nothing like any other Japanese animation. These are truly works that will outlive Miyazaki to become classics, and his own name will outlive him to become legend.
I highly reccomend this mans works to everyone here, even if you dislike anime, you may be pleasently surprised by the experience.
Go ahead and call me unreliable; reliable is just a synonym for predictable.
I just saw Howl's Moving Castle, Miyazaki's latest work, and I just have this to say: It's excellent!
I've been told a few critics around here (in France) were disappointed or something -- I haven't have the chance to read them yet. Many others were enthousiastic, and I join their rank!
Like many other Miyazaki movies, there's plenty of everything, for everyone, to be seen, felt, understood, admired. There's entertainment for sure, suspense, chasing, quite a bit of war, beautiful machineries and landscape, music, great characters (including a most excellent demon of fire!), etc. There's also a classical but well-told love story, some insights about power and corruption, and interesting and thought provokind depictions of age, old age mostly (an unusual subject for an animé, but very tastefully done), and young age in contrast to the elderly. There's also plenty of English-tale feeling, since the story is adapted from a recent (1986) English children-book. Miyazaki manages to blend the English and Japanese cultures masterfully.
Overall, and almost as usual with Miyazaki, this is a movie you can go see with your children (or nephews, or whatever), they will immensely enjoy themselves, and you certainly won't be annoyed or bored either.
If you like the weird stuff, try hunting down Visitor Q or other movies down by Takashi Miike. Truly wonderful.
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
Is it just me, or is an interview with the guy that interviewed Miyazaki just a bit... much?
When Disney discovers what a patent is....
I'm sorry this topic got hijacked. As an animation buff, I consider Miyazaki's work to be some of the finest in the genre today, and I dearly wish his body of work were much larger. Much like HR Giger (Alien), Miyazaki melds a strong sense of the organic into the fantastic in a kid- and family-friendly way. Miyazaki's work extends far beyond just Japanese culture. His vision utilizes influences as diverse as Alice in Wonderland and Jonathan Swift to tell his stories.
Miyazaki's flying machines look like they were grown in some massive garden or hewn out of a redwood tree using an ax, but with the added bonus that they can really fly. His cities are exquisitely and almost painfully rich with detail, with kitschy lofts, alleys, shops, and access roads that meld the charm of Old World Europe with the practicality of a cleaned-up New York City. Miyazaki obviously cares about place and time every bit as much as character development, which is why it is so easy to get lost in his anime. (My DVD player's pause button gets a workout every time I watch a Miyazaki feature).
There is a refreshing lack of the judgmental in Miyazaki's body of work. Like Samuel Goldwyn, he apparently prefers to let Western Union or NTT relay his messages. While Miyazaki obviously recognizes that there is great evil in the world, he also knows that even the most evil often have valid reasons that they did what they did, and he leaves it up to the audience as the court of last resort when it comes to their "guilt" or "innocence".
And the best part of statements like Princess Mononoke? Miyazaki's creatures and environments are not passive victims or Bambi - they have teeth and claws and weapons of their own, and they are not shy about using them if driven to do so. You gotta respect it when the deer breaks out a Weatherby .454 and starts shooting back.
No mod points, no meta-moderating/Firehose/all the other free work Slashdot wants me to do.
In the article ./ linked with an interview of the author Margaret Talbot answers:
Are there countries other than Japan where animation is as popular across different age groups? I think that Japan is unusual, if not unique, in its animation and comic-book culture.
I think france is another country where animation and comic books are consumed at all ages. One can find grown men reading hard cover and paperback comics on the metro in paris and the average age of movie goers for animated films is definitely not 10. Japan is not unique in its passion for animation and comic books...
~f()bz
"The New Yorker issue of 17 January has an in-depth article on Hayao Miyazaki. It gives a nice look at the arc of his work, short interviews with him, and more extended interviews with his co-workers."
and clicked through. Pretty disappointing to find out that the actual article is an interview with somebody who interviewed Miyazaki, and includes no actual excerpts of interviews with him.
To sum it up, most of the article seems to be Margaret Talbot explaining her own opinions on and experiences with Miyazaki films to the New Yorkers Dan Cappello. She paraphrases something Miyazaki said in their actual interview maybe thrice throughout the story. Most of it is simply her personal opinion on his work or statistical/biographical info that is available to anyone-- which is fine if you've never heard of him, but rather boring if you have seen his works, already know that he is incredible, and would just like to hear what he has to say.
Disappointing to say the least! So where's the actual New Yorker article that the Slashdot story spent most of its time describing??
I always find anime geeks fascinatingly hilarious. "Oh, Akira, that sucks... you should watch mymoviexyzaboutlotsofrapesandexplodingshit"... "Miyazaki? For poseurs!".
I don't pretend to know about anime, but every time I've watched a movie recommended by an anime geek:
1) It's been psuedo-porn, often featuring women being raped by tentacles or other such frankly pointless escapades.
2) The animation has been hilariously crap. Good animation goes a long way, and a lot of anime doesn't really cut it.
3) The dialogue was either incomprehensibly translated or crap to begin with.
4) It's been something akin to a crappy sci-fi novel in terms of plot, and usually ends with half of the world getting blown up or trashed by something. Either that or it's been a "character study" with characters with even less dimensions than the animation.
Guys, there's a reason that some anime movies get a bigger audience - often it's because they succeed as movies on a wider level beyond anime. A lot of anime is, while appealing to geeks, not that strong for the rest of us. Movies like Akira or Spirited Away have production values, writing standards and resonant themes that manage to trancend the "Oh god, another anime movie..." feeling that much of the rest of the world has about the form.
If something works as a movie outside of a "Scene", it has a chance. It's the same with any national culture - I'm sure the Spanish will argue that they have cinema beyond Pedro Almodovar, and as a New Zealander I would like to point out that we do have more directors than just Peter Jackson. However there are certain things which tend to bust out of a mould and reach mass appeal - that's not a bad thing!