The animé art of Hayao Miyazaki

213 Pages·2006·1.27 MB·English

by  Miyazaki

The Animé Art
of Hayao Miyazaki
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The Animé Art
of Hayao Miyazaki
D C
ANI AVALLARO
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA
Cavallaro, Dani.
The animé art of Hayao Miyazaki / Dani Cavallaro.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-¡3: 978-0-7864-2369-9
(softcover : 50# alkaline paper)
¡. Miyazaki, Hayao, 1941– —Criticism and interpretation. I. Title
PN¡998.3.M577C38 2006 79¡.4302'33092—dc22 2005035065
British Library cataloguing data are available
©2006 Dani Cavallaro. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Cover image: Howl’s Moving Castle(2004 Japan)
© Studio Ghibli/Walt Disney Pictures (Photofest)
Manufactured in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 6¡¡, Je›erson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
To Paddy, with love and gratitude
“To be a witch, to be an artist, to be a baker....
It’s an energy bestowed by the gods or someone, right?
Though thanks to it, we do have to su›er at times.”
—Ursula, Kiki’s Delivery Service
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Table of Contents
Preface 1
Introduction 5
1. The Frame of Reference 15
2. The Early Years 29
3. The Ghibli Era: A Brief History of Studio Ghibli 40
4. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind 47
5. Laputa: Castle in the Sky 58
6. My Neighbor Totoro 68
7. Grave of the Fireflies 77
8. Kiki’s Delivery Service 81
9. Studio Ghibli, ¡990–¡99¡ 91
10. Porco Rosso 96
11. Studio Ghibli, ¡992–¡994 104
12. On Your Mark 112
13. Whisper of the Heart 114
14. Princess Mononoke 120
15. Studio Ghibli, ¡999–200¡ 131
16. Spirited Away 134
17. Studio Ghibli, 2002–2003 148
18. Howl’s Moving Castle 157
Postscript: French Connections—The Miyazaki/Moebius Exhibition 172
Epilogue 175
Filmography 181
Appendix ¡: Ancillary Products and Media Synergy 187
vii
viii Table of Contents
Appendix 2: Fans and Their Worlds 190
Chapter Notes 193
Bibliography 199
Index 203
Preface
The escalating appeal of Hayao Miyazaki’s films across the continents, matched by
the record-breaking box-o‡ce performance of his most recent productions, calls for an
up-to-date evaluation of his accomplishments in a directing capacity and of his con-
tributions to works involving other animation practitioners attached to his company,
Studio Ghibli. This book will function as an introduction for audiences as yet only
marginally familiar with Miyazaki’s oeuvre, while deepening the understanding of the
director’s life, thought and creative process for those who are acquainted with his movies
and are eager to move beyond the propaedeutic stage.
A firm believer in the wisdom of children, Miyazaki has consistently tackled grave
issues without ever sanitizing or sentimentalizing their import, let alone dishing out
definitive resolutions. These issues range from environmental depletion, the horrors of
war, the iniquities of totalitarian regimes and people’s enslavement to commodity
fetishism, to the setbacks entailed by personal development, the loss of innocence and
the cultivation of the values of loyalty, gratitude, courage, self-sacrifice and love. Con-
comitantly, the director is able to immerse his perceptions of human strife in a won-
drous atmosphere of visual and moral grace that invariably verges upon, and frequently
achieves aesthetic sublimity. At times, this sense of the sublime is conveyed by cine-
matic sequences of genuinely heroical grandeur, while at others, and no less memo-
rably, Miyazaki’s vision thrives on the unparalleled merit of simplicity: the most
elementary plot twist, the least a›ected facial expression or gesture, and the subtlest
chromatic shift may accomplish almost imperceptibly what overtly theatrical set pieces
favored by Hollywood animation could barely aspire to.
Drawing on a range of sources of distinctively Japanese and Western derivation,
Miyazaki situates his narratives in natural and architectural contexts characterized by
stunning graphic richness, textural intricacy and scrupulous attention to the minutest
and most unusual details. At all times, it is impossible not to sense the director’s ardent
commitment to hands-on craftsmanship even in productions that resort to digital tools
and techniques. The outcome is a luxuriant swirl of cinematic poetry wherein the
homely and the surreal harmoniously coalesce. The movies’ amalgamation of disparate
sources is also borne out by the presence, within their tapestries, of elements typical of
diverse genres, including science fiction, action adventure, romance, comedy, horror,
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