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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."'
was it a Hattori Hanzo sword?
Of course, the "no cut" was because of that "marvelous" Warrior of the Wind. Or how to turn Nausicaa into an hollywoodian action-packed movie.
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
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
John Lasseter could learn a few things about creativity from this man.
What makes you think he doesn't? Check this article:
Lasseter noted: "Miyazaki is one of the greatest filmmakers of our time and he has been a tremendous inspiration to generations of animators. At Pixar, when we have a problem and we can't seem to solve it, we often look at one of his films in our screening room. Toy Story owes a huge debt of gratitude to the films of Mr. Miyazaki.
The "no cuts" story is interesting. Had no idea Miyazaki was such a tough S.O.B. But I guess that goes with being a great filmmaker.
It stems from a 1980's North American release of Nausicaa that had been licensed by some fly-by-night American company. Re-titled "Warriors of the Wind", it was severely cut (running less than 66% of the original's time), utterly incomprehensible, and a total disaster. Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli were so pissed off that they asked fans to forget the existence of the film and adopted a strict "no edits" clause for any future foreign licensing deals.
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.
They did mention he was missing and that this was the trigger for the war.
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.
There are four volumes, so it develops the world and story to a much greater depth than in the movie. It's Tolkienesque in scope, as much an exercise in world-building as storytelling. Miyazaki creates maps, kingdoms, technology, religions, and ecology for the world.
At the same time, his character development is excellent. As always his villains are the most interesting ones, and he's got a ton of them. They're also much more developed than in the movie. Princess Kushana switches sides halfway through, there's an immortal king suffering from ennui who is just fantastic, and then there's the God Warrior. The God Warrior is a mindless killing machine in the movie; but in the comics it is sentient... which makes it much more creepy, and Nausicaa's relationship with it is weirdly touching, but mostly disturbing.
There are some parts that come off as overly sentimental in the third volume- probably my least favorite- but it picks up again, strong, in the fourth. The fourth volume is as dark as Miyazaki gets. The ending... not happy, not unhappy. Complex. Again, that makes it one of his stronger works.
I'm not a huge fan of Japanese entertainment, but this is hands-down my favorite comic.
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.
Good heavens... someone with "Goth" in their nickname, accusing anime fans of belonging to an subculture with unattractive members and strange sexual practices?
I totally agree with you.
There are heaps of differences between the correctly translated subtitles and the dubbed version in Princess Mononoke as well. For example when Moro is speaking of the attack of the boars, in the dubbed version Moro says something like:
"It's a trap. And a stupid one. But Okkoto won't listen. None of them will."
Whereas the correct translation is:
"It's a foolish trap. But Okkoto is no fool. He knows its a trap. But he will attack anyway."
Furthermore, the Japanese version has many silent scenes which are blabbered over in the dubbed version.
These and many other seemingly subtle differences give quite a different feel to the movie.
I acknowledge that dubbing is not an easy task. A direct translation would give very unnatural sounding dialogue. But my suspicion is that Disney's dumbing down on Miyazaki's movies is driven by the arrogant assumption that the audience is stupid and the story needs to be Americanised to make it accessible (and profitable.) They don't imagine that people may enjoy the story in its unaltered form, or that we may be interested in the perspectives on another culture. Yet its Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli, which puts creative integrity first (before profit) that is successful, while Disney is in a downward spiral.