| 1. | (4 posts) | "Spirited Away" Heading to Australia |
| 2. | (5 posts) | Thoughts on "Goshu the Cellist" |
| 3. | (12 posts) | "Art" in America, Europe, and Japan |
We looked at 53 posts by 25 different contributors.
Issue away!
I really had to fight the urge to toss in some kind of "Down Under" joke.
Anyways, in the usual roundabout way anime news is disseminated, David Mankins posted, "From http://animenation.net/news/news.php3:
Spirited Away Licensed for Australian Release
Madman Entertainment in Australia, an Asian cinema distributor that releases both American anime sub-licenses and original licenses, has
announced that they have acquired the Australian distribution license to Hayao Miyazaki's Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi. Although the film
has screened at film festivals in France and Germany, this announcement is the first confirmed non-film festival license of the film outside of Asia.
Steve Underwood wondered, "Will that have an English dub, or just the subtitling used in a few HK theatres and Singapore?"
I replied, "The announcement is fairly bare, so it's hard to tell at the moment. A straight subtitled release is simple, and would Tokuma want different English dub versions (Australia, possibly US) floating around?"
Dale received direct confirmation, "I was corresponding to a representative from Madman, and he confirms that they have it. Madman is hoping to do a theatrical run hopefully in late 2002, with an Australian VHS/DVD release in early 2003. The above dates are very tentative at this stage, since this must be the biggest project Madman has ever done."
Comments on "Goshu the Cellist" from Chris Collette, "There was just one little thing that sorta stood out as odd for me, and maybe it's because I'm reading too much into it. Throughout the movie, as we see Goshu struggle to perfect his playing to the demands of the conductor, we frequently have the camera focus on a female violinist, who shows some clear distress for Goshu's well-being.
To me, I'm interpreting it that she's sort of carrying the torch for Goshu, who appears to be completely oblivious of her existance. It never develops beyond much more than a "distant concern" for our protagonist, and so I almost question why it was even there in the film. Reading the nausicaa.net site, it appears that the movie is a fairly literal transcription of Miyazawa's story. So I'm curious if maybe this vague interaction between her and Goshu is also brought up in his story. . . Anyone here who's seen it feel the same way?
Andy Davidson replied, "I agree, though, Chris - the female orchestra member clearly had something going on for Goshu and it seemed as if Goshu had noticed, but it wasn't explored in any way. I can only assume that this was a part of the original work Goshu was based on, but it does seem odd to me not to explore that relationship in any way during the film.
A minor quibble, though. Overall, I found it to be an extremely moving film, especially the tale of the baby mouse, but then my wife recently had a baby and I'm a sucker for things like that at the moment.
Lee Johnson added, "No, IIRC this doesn't appear in the original book (correct me if I'm wrong though, it's been a while since i read it). And IIRC (again, correct me...), the film is incredibly faithful to the book, with most of the screenplay being direct transcripts of the dialogue found in the book."
More details from Michael Kerpan, "The Japanese DVD also presents the film in 4:3 format. As nothing ever looks unbalanced in terms of composition, I've always assumed that this is, in fact the original format of the film. . . . I love the way that Takahata uses a combination of Japanese ukiyo-e (especially Hiroshige) and German romantic (read W.C. Friedrich) landscape visions. A reasonably priced English subtitled version is desperately needed. (The Japanese version being as exorbitantly priced as it is excellent)."
Andy closed the thread with, "the only point I noticed a visible pan was in the first orchestra practice where the conductor steps off his podium and walks round the room; the camera pans with him there and that looked like it could be evidence of pan & scan. Perhaps I'm wrong - I certainly hope so."
Most of this week's traffic took place in the "Europe vs. America" arena. Mike Arnold tossed a "what is art" bomb into the mix, "However good the film is, I do not think it is mostly being appreciated as "art." Instead of mentioning Shakespeare or Kurosawa or Disney or something like that, maybe Steven Spielberg would make an interesting comparison. . . I'd bet that the vast majority of customers who made this film a hit were raised on film "art" on the level of Hollywood blockbusters, TV soap operas and cartoons, and they weren't watching the film for its "artistic" value. I'd guess a lot of the audience had to be given clues to recognize the "Japanese culture" in the film too. I have read a few positive reviews from apparently well-educated Japanese film critics. I've also read a few negative ones. It seems like it's easier to explain what you dislike about a movie. . .
There's a lot that goes into a movie's success or failure. The feelings we get from a movie, even if they're accurate (?), might not be
what made the film a success to other people. People are watching the same thing, but once they start actively thinking about what (they think) they saw in it the results begin to differ.
Julio Gea-Banacloche replied, "I'm pretty sure that Miyazaki has reached the point where his movies are bound to be huge successes in Japan almost regardless of their actual artistic value, as long as he delivers a minimal dose of whatever it is that his (domestic) audiences expect from him. That being the case, it may be unfair of him and his fans to berate the ignorant westerners for "not getting it" when the same movies fail to make a big splash outside Japan.
Take Mononoke, for instance. It was a hit in Japan pretty much because it *had* to be: because Kiki had been (deservedly) a huge hit, and then Porco (also deservedly) an even bigger hit, and the audience was primed to see the latest production of the homegrown genius who had beaten Disney at the domestic box office already two or three times in a row. Besides which, the film's pre-publicity very clearly positioned it as a sequel of sorts to "Nausicaa"--all set to capitalize on the almost mythical status achieved by that earlier movie in Japan during the intervening decade. . .
I've long suspected that anime and manga fulfill in Japan a little the role of television here in the States: disposable mass entertainment, most of it totally forgettable; worth studying, if at all, not as "art", but as a sociological phenomenon; that is, "interesting" only for what it tells you about the society that produces and consumes it.
And yet, even granting all that, I remain convinced that Miyazaki *is* an artist of the highest caliber, and his works, whether manga
or anime, deserve to be discussed as thoroughly as any of the best films or novels ever created. In my view, the fact that it is "manga" or "anime" or even "Japanese" is totally secondary. But, unfortunately, this is just not the case for most people...
Havel Ormaci posted an absolute monster piece, which I've pruned down to, "I however do believe (a point I argued previously) that because of the historical traits that there are more similarities between Japanese and European cultures (particularly in the history of paintings) that this has allowed more Europeans to accept anime as an art form, than in American. On the reverse, in Japan for instance, Europe and its tradition is held in very high regard and is a much romanticed topic, as suppose to anything America, which is more of a symbol of power and oppulence (some irony there I guess...). This includes also, to an extend, literature, and tales, which no doubt influences the modern artist in producing works that may be more familiar to a european background."
Julio replied, "I simply do not see this in Europe. Italy, apparently, consumes more anime and manga than any other European country, but it is almost exclusively as cheap, mass-produced entertainment, certainly not "art". Things may only be marginally better in France. And there is the problem that I hinted at in my other post, that when your country is literally flooded with manga and anime imports, most of extremely low quality, all of them looking essentially identical to the untrained eye, it's very easy to just think of Miyazaki as "another one of those Japanese cartoonists," and dismiss him along with all the other Mazinger Z's, as some kind of peculiarly Japanese aberration which, after contributing to the recent rise of illiteracy in Japan, is now attempting to do the same to Europe. . .
This only leaves one question: if you talk to *individual* Europeans, or individual Americans, are you more likely to find the former or the latter to be more sympathetic to your claim that Miyazaki's films are a form of serious art? You have apparently done so, and provide the response:
I can only say that, while I can see this being true in your case, I do not have any such high hopes for any of my Spanish friends...
> I am willing to bet that many of my
>friends from Austria, Italy or France will have a higher chance in
>appreciating it [Sen] than my american colleagues
>[...]
>I find that discussion anime in general with my american friends doesn't get
>very far, because they mostly don't care.
Lee Johnson posted his impressions of the Studio Ghibli films that passed through the UK. I passed along the Taiwanses "Princess Mononoke" DVD details. I also posted the release date for the DVDs of "Whisper of the Heart" and the "Sherlock Holmes" movie. Brief report from Mike Arnold about his trip (with a few other MML members) to the Studio Ghibli museum. Not to be confined to "Grease", Olivia Newton-John can also be found in "Whisper of the Heart".
February, the perfect month with four exact weeks. See you next week!