Post by angilasman on Mar 12, 2012 18:18:51 GMT -5
...and now, my overly long 1st entry:
Hayao Miyazaki
It’s a simple matter of math with Miyazaki. Several directors have many thoroughly brilliant films to their name, but chances are they directed many films, several of which are only pretty good and of course with more than a few stinkers mixed in. Hayao Miyazaki has directed 10 features films in his career and while personal taste might cause one to pick favorites and least favorites it’s hard to argue that each of his films isn’t a damn big achievement on its own. Even his first film, Castle of Cagliostro, which is a part of a pre-existing franchise and not original to Miyazaki (sure, some of his other films are adaptations, but in those cases he significantly altered the source material to his own), is as cracking an adventure caper as can be hoped for, and its enjoyment in no way depends on familiarity with the many other Lupin III media properties. The reason Miyazaki was so assured, so confident in his abilities as an animator, storyteller, and designer from the get-go, was that he was already a middle-aged animation veteran when he began his career as feature film director. He’d moved up from animation grunt to overseeing entire TV shows over two decades of work. He’d done original comics. He knew the nuts and bolts of animation and storytelling. He was a pro.
Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli (which he helped found) are an enormous deal in the Asian world, where his films are touchstones. The enormous forest spirit Totoro, for example, is ubiquitous in Japanese toy shops. Totoro’s popularity should come as no surprise, for he is both tremendously cute (and the Japanese love cute), and the film My Neighbor Totoro captures a uniquely Japanese tradition of the supernatural in nature. It’s no wonder many believe Totoro to be an authentic, folkloric being. He isn’t, but that authentic spirit is there. Miyazaki also brings that authentic, folklore tradition to Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, which are far more epic in scope then the more intimate Totoro.
But Miyazaki just as easily taps into Western traditions, delivery storybook-style, quasi-European settings for films like Kiki’s Delivery Service, Castle in the Sky, and Howl’s Moving Castle – but Miyazaki gives them just as much credibility as his Japanese settings. The secret, it seems to me, is a very organic approach. Miyazaki’s worlds are so natural, no matter how outlandish they are. The cobbled stones are worn, everyone you see in a crowd scene is going on with their own business and has their own life, and no matter how fantastic the worlds he conjures up are to the inhabitants of said worlds this is all business as usual (perhaps a comment on how we’re often blind to the wonders in the real world).
This organic quality extends to storytelling. The way Miyazaki writes his films in extraordinary: he just draws the storyboards from the first scene onwards, letting the story flow naturally, sometimes not quite sure how the film will end even into production! Porco Rosso seemingly has a traditional story of a hero in exile who returns to victory, but it seems the tropes are inverted at every turn. Totoro and Kiki don’t exactly have a traditional narrative, merely ending on big moments that feel like breakthroughs even though much is left unresolved. Even in films like Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa that seem to have traditional climaxes one is left to wonder what, if anything, has really changed. Despite all of this you never feel like you’ve been cheated out of anything. It always feels appropriate, and (here’s this world again) authentic. Miyazaki’s work shows an understanding that victories aren’t clear-cut, that people aren’t good or evil, and yet there is in the end an acceptance of the world, a fondness for things along with a clear-eyed appraisal of its faults.
Lest I forget: the most common reaction to his films is to their extreme beauty. They’re all gorgeous to look at. From his first film onwards Miyazaki commands an incredible style (recently departed French artists Moebius was an influence), conjuring up characters and environments and machines and miniscule details and single moments that are impossible to forget.
Themes
-The environment. Miyazaki sees mankind as a part of the nature, not master of it, and mankind’s hubris is often punished when attempts are made to exert dominance over it. At his most utopic he feels man should strive to love in harmony with nature.
-Strong, young, (often) female characters. Miyazaki’s a feminist, and has prided himself on delivering better role models for a young girl then he believes are typically found elsewhere. Howl’s Moving Castle practically ends up feeling like the reverse-Disney princess film.
-Growth. Most of Miyazaki’s films are coming-of-age stories – not necessarily about kids becoming adults (though there’s a lot of that) but generally in his films characters start out selfish or naïve and gradually take responsibilities and do hard work and become better, fuller people. Pretty far removed from the “follow your dream and they’ll come true” hokum usually found in western family fare.
-Evil, or rather the lack of it. There are few actual villains in his films. Ignorance and self interest are the main causes of conflict in Miyazaki’s eyes. Good people, or at least people with good qualities, often are the cause of bad things, and often things that seem evil and dangerous at first turn out to not be so once we take a closer look.
-Flight. An aviation buff, Miyazaki often features flying machines or mystical characters with the capability of flying. He’s a master of capturing flight in animation: the way these characters and flying machines react to the winds, changes in direction, collisions, ect. are so magnificently done that flight in Miyazaki’s animation often feels more visceral an experience than actually flying!
On his occupation:
“I am an animator. I feel like I'm the manager of a animation cinema factory. I am not an executive. I'm rather like a foreman, like the boss of a team of craftsmen. That is the spirit of how I work.”
Hayao Miyazaki
It’s a simple matter of math with Miyazaki. Several directors have many thoroughly brilliant films to their name, but chances are they directed many films, several of which are only pretty good and of course with more than a few stinkers mixed in. Hayao Miyazaki has directed 10 features films in his career and while personal taste might cause one to pick favorites and least favorites it’s hard to argue that each of his films isn’t a damn big achievement on its own. Even his first film, Castle of Cagliostro, which is a part of a pre-existing franchise and not original to Miyazaki (sure, some of his other films are adaptations, but in those cases he significantly altered the source material to his own), is as cracking an adventure caper as can be hoped for, and its enjoyment in no way depends on familiarity with the many other Lupin III media properties. The reason Miyazaki was so assured, so confident in his abilities as an animator, storyteller, and designer from the get-go, was that he was already a middle-aged animation veteran when he began his career as feature film director. He’d moved up from animation grunt to overseeing entire TV shows over two decades of work. He’d done original comics. He knew the nuts and bolts of animation and storytelling. He was a pro.
Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli (which he helped found) are an enormous deal in the Asian world, where his films are touchstones. The enormous forest spirit Totoro, for example, is ubiquitous in Japanese toy shops. Totoro’s popularity should come as no surprise, for he is both tremendously cute (and the Japanese love cute), and the film My Neighbor Totoro captures a uniquely Japanese tradition of the supernatural in nature. It’s no wonder many believe Totoro to be an authentic, folkloric being. He isn’t, but that authentic spirit is there. Miyazaki also brings that authentic, folklore tradition to Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, which are far more epic in scope then the more intimate Totoro.
But Miyazaki just as easily taps into Western traditions, delivery storybook-style, quasi-European settings for films like Kiki’s Delivery Service, Castle in the Sky, and Howl’s Moving Castle – but Miyazaki gives them just as much credibility as his Japanese settings. The secret, it seems to me, is a very organic approach. Miyazaki’s worlds are so natural, no matter how outlandish they are. The cobbled stones are worn, everyone you see in a crowd scene is going on with their own business and has their own life, and no matter how fantastic the worlds he conjures up are to the inhabitants of said worlds this is all business as usual (perhaps a comment on how we’re often blind to the wonders in the real world).
This organic quality extends to storytelling. The way Miyazaki writes his films in extraordinary: he just draws the storyboards from the first scene onwards, letting the story flow naturally, sometimes not quite sure how the film will end even into production! Porco Rosso seemingly has a traditional story of a hero in exile who returns to victory, but it seems the tropes are inverted at every turn. Totoro and Kiki don’t exactly have a traditional narrative, merely ending on big moments that feel like breakthroughs even though much is left unresolved. Even in films like Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa that seem to have traditional climaxes one is left to wonder what, if anything, has really changed. Despite all of this you never feel like you’ve been cheated out of anything. It always feels appropriate, and (here’s this world again) authentic. Miyazaki’s work shows an understanding that victories aren’t clear-cut, that people aren’t good or evil, and yet there is in the end an acceptance of the world, a fondness for things along with a clear-eyed appraisal of its faults.
Lest I forget: the most common reaction to his films is to their extreme beauty. They’re all gorgeous to look at. From his first film onwards Miyazaki commands an incredible style (recently departed French artists Moebius was an influence), conjuring up characters and environments and machines and miniscule details and single moments that are impossible to forget.
Themes
-The environment. Miyazaki sees mankind as a part of the nature, not master of it, and mankind’s hubris is often punished when attempts are made to exert dominance over it. At his most utopic he feels man should strive to love in harmony with nature.
-Strong, young, (often) female characters. Miyazaki’s a feminist, and has prided himself on delivering better role models for a young girl then he believes are typically found elsewhere. Howl’s Moving Castle practically ends up feeling like the reverse-Disney princess film.
-Growth. Most of Miyazaki’s films are coming-of-age stories – not necessarily about kids becoming adults (though there’s a lot of that) but generally in his films characters start out selfish or naïve and gradually take responsibilities and do hard work and become better, fuller people. Pretty far removed from the “follow your dream and they’ll come true” hokum usually found in western family fare.
-Evil, or rather the lack of it. There are few actual villains in his films. Ignorance and self interest are the main causes of conflict in Miyazaki’s eyes. Good people, or at least people with good qualities, often are the cause of bad things, and often things that seem evil and dangerous at first turn out to not be so once we take a closer look.
-Flight. An aviation buff, Miyazaki often features flying machines or mystical characters with the capability of flying. He’s a master of capturing flight in animation: the way these characters and flying machines react to the winds, changes in direction, collisions, ect. are so magnificently done that flight in Miyazaki’s animation often feels more visceral an experience than actually flying!
On his occupation:
“I am an animator. I feel like I'm the manager of a animation cinema factory. I am not an executive. I'm rather like a foreman, like the boss of a team of craftsmen. That is the spirit of how I work.”
