Tag: My Neighbour Totoro

Experiencing the elsewhere in Hayao Miyazaki’s films

~ matteowatz ~ Leave a comment

This article, centered on Hayao Miyazaki’s narratives, intends to highlight that his films are strongly structured around the themes of the hero's uprooting and his opening to the world. Miyazaki's work can be approached as a systematic exploration of the different modes of relationship to the elsewhere. Animation gives full scope to this analytical dimension of his work: "the ontological unreality of animation" makes it easier to put the problem of "real" reference (of the concrete geographical inspirations of the universes presented) in the background, in favor of the exposition of archetypal situations with a universal scope. What specific content does Miyazaki give to this idea of “elsewhere” and what role does it play in his narratives?

Notes on Takahata & Miyazaki

~ matteowatz ~ Leave a comment

The previous article on this blog, dedicated to Anne of Green Gables, contains a detailed discussion of Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki’s respective artistic evolutions between 1976 and 1979. I originally planned to extend it with a digression on the wider differences between two men’s styles. But this would have gone slightly off-topic and made the article far too long (as if it weren’t already), so I decided to include it in a separate piece - this one. It contains some more remarks about Anne of Green Gables, but also about Takahata and Miyazaki’s work in Ghibli. It may be a bit messy, as I’ve taken the opportunity to write this in a more spontaneous way; I hope you don’t mind and still appreciate this piece.

Directing Kanada

~ matteowatz ~ Leave a comment

One of the most notable aspects of Kanada’s career is that, while he never directed anything by himself, he was closely associated with major directors: first Yoshiyuki Tomino, and then Rintarô and Hayao Miyazaki. His relationship with the latter two is what I’m going to research here. More precisely, I’d like to see how animator and directors worked together and reciprocally pushed each other in new directions. The goal will be to explore Kanada’s animation in detail, to investigate and try to uncover what was his, what were his innovations, and what must be credited to other people: directors, animation directors, and other animators.