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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.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
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!
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.
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.