| 1. | (6 posts) | French Media Reaction to Miyazaki |
| 2. | (13 posts) | Nausicaa as a Vegetarian |
We looked at 94 posts by 53 different contributors.
Lots of off-the-wall threads not worth archiving this week, but a few good ones made it through the mess.
Julio Gea-Banacloche ran through several Miyazaki-related articles in the French newspaper Libération, "The main article plays up (excessively, in my opinion) the workaholic/control freak aspects of Miyazaki's personality. . . Has our own Ilan Nguyen (whose name they misspell, btw) described Miyazaki as "physically ravaged" by overwork? Does Miyazaki really "have to have next to him" an acupuncturist to treat his hands, which cause him a terrible pain because of all his drawing? Does he only sleep four hours a night on
a regular basis?. . .
this portrayal of Miyazaki as "auteur" "in the classical sense of that term, as it was said in the 60's of Hitchcock or Lang, a man who was not satisfied until he bent to his desire and his vision the system, the economic constraints, and the expectations of the public," has an epic ring to it, and should play well with the French readers. . .
The last paragraph is very pretty. I'm not even going to try and translate it, since I wouldn't know what English word to use for épure or what color is "bleu parme," but I can tell you that it really makes me want to see the movie, like, *right now*
Ilan Nguyen replied (in great detail), "OK, so let me just explain some of those misunderstandings. That "Liberation" journalist contacted me to get some info on Miyazaki. I had already answered some of his questions three years ago, at the time of the first Japanese animation festival at the Forum des images, in Paris, so I tried to explain him various points, like that "acupuncturist" stuff : it's true Miyazaki uses to go to see such specialists, especially during the hardest times of his productions (as one can read, for instance, in the daily notes on Ghibli's HP). Then he decided to interprete it the way it's written in his text. I discovered it only afterwards, just like you. BTW, if you have ever had a chance to see (video or anything) relatively closely Miyazaki's hands, you'd know what I was trying to explain. Just take the comparison between Miyazaki and Takahata, for instance : I think you'll agree that Takahata clearly looks younger than Miyazaki. But he isn't. And I think that can be linked to the fact he does not execute any part of the animation drawing, and especially not the "Miyazaki way"... I also think we can assume that Miyazaki's works would never present so much quality and personal identity at the same time, would he not take on so much of the physical burden his unique way of work makes necessary. It's his choice of throwing in the balance his own physical condition that enabled him to reach such a level of presence in his works ; it's also one of the reasons nobody else in Japan (in the world?) can bear comparison on that point. . .
the "four hours a night" point was an explanation regarding his way and pace of work, and actually that rate has been told by Miyazaki
himself, speaking for instance of the time when he was working on "Laputa", and drawing the "Nausicaa" manga at the same time, each night,
after coming back to his place... Of course, I doubt he could bare such rythms anymore today, but that was also part of the explanation. . .
It's a classic attitude for French writers, and a problem I agree, to systematicly put the point on those "auteur" conditions as soon as any filmmaker is considered to fulfill such criteria... It's not very useful to understand Miyazaki's filmmaking, either, but it seems that doesn't mater very much to them. . .
French media, and especially the supposed "critical" ones in the cinema field, all share the same praising attitude, some of them pushing it to a degree closer to mysticism than to anything else. It's also the only attitude they could afford to reconsider their preconceived positions for long years toward Japanese animated film, considered as a [negative] whole. Unfortunately, one has to notice that their new attitude is often based on the same degree of ignorance indeed, and are almost not "critical" at all. Don't get me wrong here : sure it's a good thing to have "les Cahiers du Cinema" or "Positif" praising Miyazaki as much as they do. But seeing so many basic mistakes reveals how much that change of attitude actually means their last chance to catch a quite late train [and maybe the last one ?] for "remaining in" and thus avoid the shame their previous [and ridiculous] positions would deserve. IMO, at least... Anyway, in most cases, the interviews with Miyazaki are often the most interesting parts in those papers.
Julio wrote back, "It's really more or less as I expected: exaggerations to make the story sound as dramatic as possible. I guess journalists are the same everywhere. . . I can imagine a second-rate journalist making up his own story from nothing but a reading of this and other articles. In that version, Miyazaki would only be able to sleep four hours a night *because* of the pain in his hands, and the acupuncturist would have to be permanently stationed by his bedside. Meanwhile, other stories played up in the various articles I've seen would be equally distorted. Miyazaki and Takahata would have actual ties to the real Kremlin and the KGB, and Miyazaki would have marched himself into Michael Eisner's office, wielding a samurai sword, threatening to chop his head off if he made the slightest cut to "Princess Mononoke.". . .
I understand what you mean by Miyazaki having--to some extent, anyway--sacrificed his health to his work, and I agree that the article's tone, in general, was of admiration, if not outright awe. I have to admire him for it, too, and personally feel very grateful for it, even though I worry a little about his mental stability (not to mention simply his physical health) when I read things like that. . .
I agree that doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is, technically, *not* the right thing to do, but, for the time being, at least, I'm just too happy seeing someone whom I regard as one of the greatest artists ever receive the highest possible praise to nitpick too much about the reasons for such praise.
A final reply from Ilan, we also have to remember that to them (and especially for daily newspapers writers), it's nothing more than "this week's topic", amongst all the ones they will have to cover in their work. . . Figures for the first week have reached around 310.000 viewers. "Mononoke-hime" figures for the whole run of the film had been around 500.000 viewers, which means this film is clearly going to do much better. But it's also distributed on a much broader scale (number of prints, promotion, thanks to Miyazaki's coming to France last year, etc.). . . as a general perspective, Miyazaki's line appears really clearly through his answers to those interviews. It's something quite different from the standard "promotion style" various people most probably expected here in France. It surely became one more reason for them to treat him as an "auteur". As written earlier, he fulfills the traditional conditions to obtain that "certified mark"...
Interesting topic brought up by Justin Derringer, "Nausicaa shared a natural link and compassion for all the creatures in her world. Does this mean that she would not look kindly on eating them?. . . is there any evidence from the manga itself (in which if I remember correctly she only ate chiko nuts)either way?"
Kevin Wagner pointed out, "In the Manga, if I recall correctly, she is given and eats the egg of one of the forest insects."
Justin replied, "those eggs were given to the Forest People by the insects with permission, which is different, than say, keeping the insects in captivity and using their eggs. There really is no term for someone who only eats animal products with the animal's permission, because, obviously, in the real world we can't get that permission. So the question remains would Nausicaa eat meat or animal products that were produced by slavery."
Clifton Hestla wrote, "I would say that the term slavery for the use of domesticated animals is a bit harsh. I watched the Nausicaa anime and didn't see anything that would qualify one way or the other, indeed there was very little food portrayed at all.
But, the people of the valley are farmers, and farmers have no problems utilizing animals (like chickens or pigs) that can live off resources that people cannot use as a food source themselves. This does not mean that she cannot have compassion for all animals in her world. . . If we are to avoid projecting our own beliefs onto anime characters, then Nausicaa is a kind, compassionate, loving person who puts the welfare of others above her own...with uncertain dietary habits.
Michael Rieper went through the manga and wrote, "I couldn't find any instances of Nausicaa eating meat and can't remember any of the top of my head. There are a couple scenes of her eating the chiko nuts and various breads.
Personally I think she would be a vegeterian, or at the very least oppose "ranching" of animals simply for food. I tried to find a couple of passages that popped in my head but could only find one. When Nausicaa is in the garden of the crypt (PC Vol 4 p. 181) saying, "Every lifeform no matter how small contains the outside universe. Even the mutant mold."
I also remember a quote along the lines of "Being born only to die". I thought it dealt with the mutant molds of PC volumes 2-3 but I couldn't find it.
To me these quotes (particularly the latter that I can't find- oh well) show that Nausicaa would be opposed to ranching, but it is a tough and interesting question.
Julio Gea-Banacloche chipped in, "I too find it hard to believe that Nausicaa would, say, slaughter a pig; or that she wouldn't oppose the practice of raising animals to slaughter them, if such was the practice of her society. But there is no reason to believe it was. Many agricultural societies have basically done without meat at all; in medieval Japan, for instance, meat-eating was (if I'm not much mistaken) exceedingly rare among the general population. The Valley of Wind may very well have been one of those societies. . . Generally speaking, too, vegetarianism as a religious or ethical choice has been relatively widespread in the East, certainly much more than in the West. Both Hinduism and Buddhism advocate it. Nausicaa's native religion seems closer to a form of animism, but, as you have pointed out, some kind of vegetarianism would seem quite in line with her other beliefs as we know them."
Cool idea, which turned in to a mistake. Deborah Goldsmith posted a report on the SFIFF showing of "Spirited Away", as did Christy Williams. A new number to call BVHE and request films be released on VHS/DVD. Ryoko Toyama posted links to the singer of the theme song for "The Cat Returns". Michael Rasmussen noted a website petitioning for R2 (European) DVD releases. Havel Ormaci quotes and replies to no less than four separate messages.
Eating a boatload of chocolate frosting is not a good idea.