Miyazaki, Hayao
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Wikipedia-Article "Hayao Miyazaki"
Hayao Miyazaki (宮崎駿, Miyazaki Hayao, born in Tokyo January 5, 1941) is one of the most famous and respected creators of anime, or Japanese animated films.
Miyazaki is the creator of many popular anime feature films, as well as some manga (Japanese comics). Although largely unknown in the west outside of animation circles until his 2002 Oscar-Winning Animated Feature Spirited Away, his films have enjoyed huge box-office and critical success in Japan. Spirited Away is the top grossing film of all time in Japan; Princess Mononoke and Howl's Moving Castle have also been huge successes (the former having held the same title for a short period until the release of Titanic). Many of his films explore the theme of humanity's relationship to nature and technology; a sometimes faltering coexistence due to human nature's fine line between ambition and greed.
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Films
Miyazaki first gained recognition while working as an inbetween artist on the Toei Animation production of Garibā no Uchuu Ryokou (1965) (U.S. title: Gulliver's Travels Beyond the Moon). He felt that the original ending in the script was lacking and pitched his own idea—which became the ending that was actually used in the final film.
A few years later Miyazaki played an important role as chief animator and concept artist on Horus: Prince of the Sun, a landmark animated film directed by Isao Takahata, with whom he would continue to collaborate for the next three decades.
Miyazaki's first film as a director was The Castle of Cagliostro (1979), a light adventure film based on Lupin III, an extensive Japanese TV series and movie franchise.
The director's next film, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) (Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa), was an epic adventure featuring many distinctive themes which reappear in later films: a concern with ecological issues, a fascination with aircraft, and the absence of a traditional villain. He adapted it from the manga of the same name, which he had himself created two years prior. It was at this time that Miyazaki co-founded, with Isao Takahata, the animation film company Studio Ghibli, and has produced most (if not all) of his subsequent work through it.
His next three films at Ghibli were more traditional animated fare. Castle in the Sky (1986) (Laputa: Castle in the Sky) recounts the adventure of two orphans seeking a magical, floating island. My Neighbor Totoro (1988) (Tonari no Totoro) tells of the adventure of two girls and a magical creature called a "totoro". Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) is the story of a teenage witch who strikes out on her own in a big city.
With Porco Rosso (1992), Miyazaki explored more unusual settings and characters for an animated film. The film is a light-hearted adventure set in a fictional world based on 1920s Italy where bounty hunters, aviators, and air pirates battle in the skies. Its hero is an anti-fascist aviator whose head has turned into that of a pig. The movie explores the tensions between adventure and duty. Many also see the film as being an abstract self-portrait of the director himself, somewhat akin to a fictionalised autobiography.
Miyazaki's next film, Princess Mononoke (Mononoke Hime), released in 1997, returns to the ecological and political themes of Nausicaä. The main plot is an epic struggle between the animal gods who rule the forest and the humans who are trying to exploit it for industry. The film was a huge commercial success in Japan where it became the highest grossing film of all time, until the later success of Titanic, and it ultimately won Best Picture at the Japanese Academy Awards. Miyazaki retired after making Princess Mononoke, intending it to be his last film as a director.
He came out of retirement after spending a holiday with the daughters of a friend, one of whom became the inspiration for Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi), the story of a girl who is forced to survive in a strange alternate spirit world, enlisted to work in a bathhouse for spirits and gods after her parents are turned into pigs. The film, released in Japan in July 2001, broke the attendance and box office records previously set by Titanic with ¥30.4 billion in total gross earnings from over 23 million viewings. It has received numerous film awards, including Best Picture at the 2001 Japanese Academy Awards, Golden Bear (First Prize) at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival, and the 2002 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, the first Oscar awarded to an anime production. In 2005, Miyazaki was awarded for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival.
In July 2004, Miyazaki finished production on Howl's Moving Castle, an anime film adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones' fantasy novel of the same name for which he was required to come out of retirement again following the sudden departure of original director Mamoru Hosoda. The film premiered at the 2004 Venice International Film Festival and won the Golden Osella award for animation technology. On November 20, 2004, Howl's Moving Castle opened to general audiences in Japan and earned ¥1.4 billion in its first two days, continuing the record-setting trend of Miyazaki films at the box office. The English dubbed version was released in the U.S. through Disney on June 6, 2005.
Themes and devices
Distinctive themes
One of the most distinctive traits of Miyazaki's later films that sets them apart from classic Western animation (like that of Disney) is the lack of stereotypically "good" or "bad" characters. His characters have complex motivations, and while some can be better or worse than others they are often capable of growth and change. For example, Lady Eboshi from Princess Mononoke stands in opposition to the other main characters, and her iron works blatantly exploit the nearby forests for raw materials. However, her character doesn't fit into the standard role of villain: the viewer sees how she provides a productive home for lepers and former prostitutes in her city, and by the end of the film she appears to have a change of heart about stripping the forest and killing off its spirits. Some of Miyazaki's early films, however, featured undeniably evil villains (Count Cagliostro in Castle of Cagliostro or Muska in Castle in the Sky), while others are remarkable for having no villain at all (Kiki's Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro).
Visual devices
Specific visual elements recur in many of Miyazaki's films. Particularly in his later work, he occasionally dedicates a few seconds of film to explore a quiet moment in the animated environment. The image of wind moving in long waves across a field of grass or grain has been used in many of his films, as is a closeup shot of a stone or boulder darkening with raindrops. These brief sequences, usually no longer than five or six seconds, are often instrumental in establishing the larger "reality" of his animated world.
Another visual element common to Miyazaki's films is the use of character designs that, at the most basic level, are quite similar. This is often humorously considered an artistic perception that such characters are actors and actresses, reappearing in different films of his.
Flight by the characters is a very common occurrence in Miyazaki's films, lauded for their ability to often look very natural and not "forced". Examples include Nausicaä piloting Mehve, Kiki riding her broomstick, Totoro carrying Satsuki and Mei across the night sky, Howl and Sophie floating majestically above the town of Market Chipping, or Chihiro being borne by Haku in dragon-form back towards the bathhouse of the spirits to find her parents.
Influences
A number of English and French authors have influenced Miyazaki's artwork, such as Lewis Carroll, Möbius, Diana Wynne Jones, and J.R.R. Tolkien. As in Miyazaki's films, these authors have created self-contained worlds where allegory is avoided, characters have complex or ambigious motivations, and the audience is not explicitly lectured to. In a 1994 BBC interview, Miyazaki cited the British authors Eleanor Farjeon, Rosemary Sutcliff, and Philippa Pearce as influences. He has also created TV work based on Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. The filmmaker is also fond of Roald Dahl's stories about planes and pilots: for example, the image from Porco Rosso of a cloud of dead pilots was inspired by Dahl's "They Shall Not Grow Old". Other Miyazaki works—such as My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away—specifically incorporate elements of Japanese history and mythology.
Miyazaki was also influenced by his political background in the ANPO Hantai (opponents of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty) and labor movements of the 1960s. These political roots had an impact on the themes of his films.
TV series
Miyazaki's work in TV series is less well known than his films. In the 1970s he worked as an animator on the World Masterpiece Theater TV animation series under Isao Takahata. His first directorial credit is for the TV version of Lupin III in 1971; he was a co-director (with Takahata) of the second half of the first TV series, and director of two episodes of the second. Later he was to make his first feature film, Castle of Cagliostro, based on the same character. He also animated Sherlock Hound, an anthropomorphic retelling of Sherlock Holmes' tales.
Perhaps his most famous TV work was directing Future Boy Conan, an adaptation of the children's novel The Incredible Tide by Alexander Key. The main antagonist is the leader of the city-state of Industria who is attempting to revive some banned technology. The series also elaborates on the characters and events in the book but nonetheless is an early example of certain character types which would recur throughout Miyazaki's later work: for example a girl who is in touch with nature, a warrior woman who is not her antagonist, and a boy who seems destined for the girl. The series also featured lots of unusual aircraft.
Manga
Miyazaki has drawn several manga starting in 1969 with a manga titled Nagakutsu wo Haita Neko (Puss in Boots). His major work in this printed format is the manga version of the epic tale Nausicaä, on which he worked from 1982 to 1994 and has sold more than 10 million copies in Japan. He originally didn't want to do Nausicaä as a manga but was forced to after Toshio Suzuki couldn't get funding for the film without a manga for a basis. Other works include Sabaku no Tami (People of the Desert), Shuna no Tabi (The Journey of Shuna), and Hikoutei Jidai (The Age of the Flying Boat, the basis of his animated film Porco Rosso).
Filmography
Director
- Future Boy Conan - (未来少年コナン Mirai Shounen Konan), 1978 (TV series)
- The Castle of Cagliostro (Lupin III) - (ルパン三世カリオストロの城 Rupan Sansei: Kariosutoro no Shiro), 1979
- Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind - (風の谷のナウシカ Kaze no Tani no Naushika), 1984
- Castle in the Sky - Laputa: The Castle in the Sky (天空の城ラピュタ Tenkuu no Shiro Rapyuta), 1986
- My Neighbor Totoro - (となりのトトロ Tonari no Totoro), 1988
- Kiki's Delivery Service - (魔女の宅急便 Majo no Takkyuubin), 1989
- Porco Rosso - (紅の豚 Kurenai no Buta), 1992
- On Your Mark, 1995 (Music video short)
- Princess Mononoke - (もののけ姫 Mononoke Hime), 1997
- Spirited Away - (千と千尋の神隠し Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi), 2001
- Howl's Moving Castle - (ハウルの動く城 Hauru no Ugoku Shiro), 2004
Screenwriter
- Whisper of the Heart - (耳をすませば; Mimi o Sumaseba), 1995
Further reading
- Helen McCarthy, Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation, Stone Bridge Press, 1999, ISBN 1-880656-41-8