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Miyazaki Talks to the Guardian
BrainGeyser writes to tell us The Guardian is running an interesting summary of an interview with Hayao Miyazaki, proclaimed 'God' of anime. In the interview Miyazaki discusses a wide range of issues from his distribution deal with Disney to the future of anime. From the article: 'There is a rumor that when Harvey Weinstein was charged with handling the US release of Princess Mononoke, Miyazaki sent him a samurai sword in the post. Attached to the blade was a stark message: "No cuts."' While it was actually Miyazaki's producer, Miyazaki did 'go to New York to meet this man, this Harvey Weinstein, and [..] was bombarded with this aggressive attack, all these demands for cuts. He [Miyazaki] smiles. "I defeated him."'
I think Miyazaki has creativity in spades, but I'm curious why you're bashing on Lasseter. I've been impressed by his creativity ever since the early days of Pixar, and I've been even more impressed by his ability to bring interesting and nuanced stories to the big screen. Getting anything even remotely intelligent through the Hollywood system is extremely difficult.
So is your criticism of Lasseter based on the plot of his stories, or the animation of Pixar films, or something else? Maybe I'm missing something. Miyazaki is obviously fantastic, but I don't think that means there can't be any other creative people in mainstream animation.
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I neglected to mention Laputa (aka "Castle in the Sky"), that one is also up there with Spirited Away imo.
you know you can find these all via IMDB.
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All of them. I haven't seen one that I didn't like yet. Though I haven't seen "Kiki's delivery service" yet which I heard wasn't as good. I'm sure it is though.
One great about his movies is that there is almost never the stereotypical bad guy that is just evil for no reason. Everyone is doing what they think the right thing is. Much closer to real life.
They are mostly for children though. If you'd rather get something more adult, Princess Mononoke is probably the one to get.
Does anyone find it ironic that the producer (or executive producer) of Pulp Fiction, Bad Santa, Kill Bill, Sin City, Fahrenheit 9/11, and Clerks, wanted to CUT something from a film? I coudn't have been that hard of a sell.
Every time I see a Miyazaki movie I'm reminded of what Disney used to be.
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Everyone's tastes differ. IMO Kiki is Miyazaki's best work. One of my co-workers thinks that Laputa is. Another votes for Totoro (which I put as #2, then Spirited Away). I don't rate Nausicaa as highly as the others, but that may be because the Nausicaa manga is my favourite, and the movie only covers a short portion of the manga (with significant changes).
But it's so hard to choose between them. All of the Miyazaki movies have IMO been very good to superb. I can't say the same for all Studio Ghibli work (The Cat Returns left me pretty cold) but Miyazaki's work - watch them all.
And whilst most of them are written with children in mind (this from the mouth of Miyazaki himself - not my opinion), all of them are immensely enjoyable by people of any age. The only one I probably wouldn't show to a child under 10 is Mononoke.
Actually, I'd rent them both...
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Now of course if you dramatize the Greek Myths, there are details a modern audience isn't going to accept. Naturally, you can't show these details. But you have to be true to the spirit of the story you're trying to tell. If there are parts of the story you can't tell honestly, you shouldn't tell them at all.
The "plot" in a Tarentino movie is a lot of people trying to kill each other. The "dialogue" is these people making lame witicisms between fight scenes. Compare away!
Mononoke's story line does not resemble Spirited Away does not resemble Porco Rosso does not resemble Castle in the Sky does not resemble Totoro does not resemble Kiki's Delivery Service.
The one thing that many Miyazaki cartoons have in common, though, is that kids can watch them. This is especially true for Kiki's Delivery Service, Totoro, Spirited Away, and Castle in the Sky Laputa.
This is why I say Miyazaki reminds me of the old Disney in that he's creating stories that people will remember.
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Spirited Away requires some understanding of bath houses and kami to fully enjoy.
Yeah, I was kind of surprised that someone else described that as the most western-friendly. To me, it's the one film that requires the most understanding of Japanese culture in general (not just bath houses and kami) to enjoy. You can still enjoy it without that understanding, but you won't really fully "get" it.
All of Miyazaki's films have an underlying theme or moral. I have yet to find an American who really understood what Spirited Away was saying on the first viewing... and I must admit the only reason I probably did was that I watched it first in Japan surrounded by Japanese speakers. (So I both had it explained to me - I didn't understand all the dialogue - and I got to hear the impressions of a lot of other people in the theater afterwards.) Most people in the west seem to describe it as a run-of-the-mill "coming of age" fantasy, which it most certainly is not.
So I wouldn't start with that one. I think it's actually kind of an advanced Miyazaki film - there's a lot of subtext, a lot of cultural specificity, and while the underlying theme is relatively simple (it's a film about gluttony and greed), it seems like the way it's presented is not all that easy for westerners to grasp.
Same is actually true of Nausicaa, which has a lot of Cold War stuff mixed in and that kind of gets lost in translation, and maybe even forgotten now that the cold war is over...
I do agree that Mononoke is a good place to start. It's pretty simple, but it doesn't seem simple as you're watching it. It's beautifully animated, it's still relevant, and the plot itself is pretty imaginative, though easy to follow. It's also not really culturally-specific - I mean there are a few things (like the little guys running around the forest, I can't even remember what they're called), but nothing that gets in the way of following the story or understanding the theme. And you can imagine a similar sort of plot set in the west at that time.
Kiki and Porco Rosso are good too, although they're a bit lighter and may give newcomers a bit of a skewed idea of what Miyazaki's really all about. Laputa I just didn't think held up all that well the last time I saw it; the animation is not his best, and the story doesn't flow as well as some of his later films.
Totoro might be the one of his films (well, other than Howl's Moving Castle) that I haven't seen, so I can't comment on it.
They DO fuck with the movies, and I will NEVER forgive those cocksuckers for completely changing the meaning of the entire Castle in the Sky film.
The asshole main character is shooting essentially nuclear blasts at the ocean under Laputa, and in the dubbed and "hearing impaired" version of the subtitles, Shita says "No matter how many weapons you have... no matter how great your technology might be... the world cannot live without love." What a bunch of bullshit pablum, written by and for suburban born again christians in Beigeland.
The japanese and correctly translated subtitles version says "No matter how powerful your weapons or numerous your poor robots, you can't survive apart from the Earth."
BIG FUCKING DIFFERENCE. Miyazaki-san should sue Disney for breach of contract. And make them totally reissue every DVD sold. The extras even show the couple who write all the adaptations (except the one Neil Gaiman redid). They look like a couple of mormon evangelizers. Conformist blandofuckers. And we can see from recent events just how serious the consequences are for ignoring our environment. They should be dragged from their beige townhouse and driven over repeatedly with their own SUV.
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
Now, here's a brilliant example of what's wrong with US anime industry today. Probably one of the most respected directors in anime had to actually fly in and demand not to mess with his stuff. Forget keeping the material intact or respecting the creator's vision when our marketing research drones tell us we can "potentially" make 2 or 3 bucks more by screwing with it till marketing, rather than the creator, approves it.
I swear, if the industry was in charge of the mona lisa and marketing told them more people would buy prints if she was showing her pearly whites they'd paint right over the friggin thing!
Just import or pirate anime, at least that way you can avoid the marketroid version of whatever you're watching. Sadly, that is actually pretty much what is happening. And the companies wonder why they're hated and fansubs are loved.
Well, I started to watch anime because I find 'real' movies becoming increasingly disappointing. You also have to understand that not all anime is the same, there are many variations. I maybe only like 10% of all anime but it's still worth seeking out those 10%.
I always thought it was about racism. For the first half of the film, everybody mistreats Sen\Chihiro simply because she is different. As Chihiro's grows up and proves herself to these people, the characters begin to respect her for who she is and sees past what she is. Yubaba doesn't see this. She was so occupied with money and running her business that she failed to notice even when her son had been replaced.
The big clue is the scene on the train. As Chihiro rides, we see neon signs advertising businesses, services and corporations. We see the spiritual entities go about thier lives, and it dawns upon the audience that the only difference between these spirits and the humans is what they look like. Everything else is the same.
At least, that's what I got from it.
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Your comments are valid and interesting. But note, though, that Diana Wynne Jones, the author herself, was reportedly very pleased with the movie.
The following quote comes from http://ansible.co.uk/Ansible/a210.html and refers to a personal screening of Howl's Moving Castle that Miyazaki hosted for Mrs. Jones near her home in Bristol:
`Miyazaki came in person, carrying with him a tape of the film, an interpreter and sundry other shadowy figures (all this was supposed to be secret for fear of the Japanese media, who then descended on me afterwards, so I couldn't mention it beforehand) and we had a private showing at the Watershed cinema. The film is goluptuously splendid with breathtaking animation. I had grown used to young ladies regularly writing to me to say that they wanted to marry Howl. Now, Howl in the film is so plain stunning and sexy that I think I have joined them. And after the showing and the scamper through Bristol I had a long talk with Mr Miyazaki and it began to seem that we were soulmates.'
I personally think that Sofie wasn't merely just any anime chick - she's a Miyazaki anime chick! Like Nausicaa, Fio (Kurenai no Buta/Porco Rosso), Shizuku (Whispers of the Heart/Mimi wo Sumaseba), and the other great Ghibli female leads, Sofie has more spunk, curiosity, complexity, and compassion than the vast majority of heroines of just about any genre.
As for the air raid scenes - this is a war we're talking about. Unfortunately, air raids on civilians are an inevitability of any modern war. But seeing it from the perspective of the victim in such explicit horrible detail really emphasis to the viewer that this war really really sucks.
I personally think that Miyazaki has a pretty good record of book/story adaptations:
- Gauche the Cellist (Miyazawa Kenji) had a wonderful soundtrack, the right "feel", and is a very faithful adaptation.
- Whispers of the Heart (Hiraagi Aoi) unfortunately removed a lot of poetic elements, and made some significant changes to the plot, but retains the overall "feel", while the character development of Shizuku is just wonderful. And the magic of the very last scene with the bicycle is beyond words.
- Ironically, Miyazaki's most disappointing adaptation, in my opinion, is Nausicaa. For me, the manga was an extradordinarily complex landmark work. The movie, although wonderful, just couldn't compare. The entire environmental theme (can man ever live in harmony with nature?) was only scratched at in the movie.
Your claim that Spirited Away doesn't have a plot isn't even worth comenting on.
Your assumptions are as stupid as everything else you say. People who like Miyazai don't necessarily like everything Japanese. I, for one, hate most Anime. Even the most thoughtful stuff, like Cowboy Bebop, bores me to tears, to say nothing of the mindless crap that most Japanese cartoon studios turn out. But Miyazaki is a class unto himself. He tells complex stories, creates a sense of place that outdoes even most live-action movies, and has a wonderful artistic eye.
By contrast Tarentino knows how to frame a shot, and I guess he's good with actors. But his stories are childish and not terribly logical. I guess his fight scenes must be impressive, because even directors I respect say they're good. But some us what more to movies than fight scene.
Bottom line: QT knows his audience, and has a talent of sorts, but creatively he's not even on the same planet as Miyazaki.