Profile: Hayao Miyazaki (Part 1)
From our friend Trevor Hogg at FlickeringMyth.com, a profile on the legendary writer-director-animator Hayao Miyazaki. Today an excerpt from Part 1:
“I was an overly self-conscious boy and I had a hard time holding my own in fights with others,” recalled renowned Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, “but my classmates eventually accepted me because I was good at drawing.” Remembering a profound moment he experienced as a teenager, Miyazaki stated, “I first fell in love with animation when I saw Hakujaden [The Tale of the White Serpent], the animated feature produced by Toei Animation in 1958. I can still remember the pangs of emotion I felt at the sight of the incredibly beautiful young, female character, Bai-Niang, and how I went to see the film over and over as a result. It was like being in love, and Bai-Niang became a surrogate girlfriend for me at a time when I had none.” His repeat viewings of “Japan’s first true full-length colour animated feature” served as a career motivator for the anime artist who felt he could do better. “Eventually, I came to believe the film was a sham. There is too great a focus on the tragic connection between the young male protagonist, Shûsen, and the beautiful white girl, Bai Niang. As a result the other characters aren’t depicted in a very attractive light all.” The flaws in the movie allowed the Tokyo-native to discover his guiding principle. “I have had one constant theme in my work: ‘To watch good animation, and then to make something that surpasses it.’”
After graduating in political science and economics from Gakushuin University, Hayao Miyazaki turned his love for drawing into a career opportunity. “I started working as a new animator for Toei Animation in 1963,” remarked the moviemaker, “but I frankly didn’t enjoy the job at all. I felt ill at ease every day — I couldn’t understand the works we were producing, or even the proposals we were working on.” The growing frustration led Miyazaki to question his chosen profession. “Had I not one day seen Snedronnigen (The Snow Queen, 1970) during a film screening hosted by the company’s labour union, I honestly doubt that I would have continued working as an animator.”
In explaining what made the Danish animated TV adaptation of the Han Christian Anderson fairy tale so special to him, Hayao Miyazaki said, “Snedronnigen is proof of how much love can be invested in the act of making drawings move, and how much the movement of the drawings can be sublimated into the process of acting. It proves that when it comes to depicting simply yet strong, powerful, piercing emotions in an earnest and pure fashion, animation can fully hold its own with the best of what other media genres can offer, moving us powerfully.” Even though Miyazaki acknowledges that Hakujaden and Snedronnigen “are hardly highbrow works”, he believes that both pictures serve a useful purpose. “What’s important here is not whether the film has some sort of permanent artistic value. The viewers — I include myself here — usually only possess a limited ability to comprehend a film and tend to overlook many important clues in it. But they feel liberated from their daily frustrations and their feelings of being overwhelmed.”
Looking back on his apprenticeship under veteran animator Yasuji Mori, Hayao Miyazaki admitted to being a “confrontational, impudent, and insolent” student. One of the significant projects Miyazaki worked on as member of the production staff was the feature directorial debut of his future long-time collaborator Isao Takahata called Taiyo no oji: Horusu no duiboken [Little Norse Prince Valiant, 1968]. Hols, a young Scandinavian boy, recovers the Sword of the Sun which he uses to defend a village from the ice demon Grundewald and the evil spirit’s beautiful sister Hilda.
“Paku-san [Takahata] really proved that animation has the power to depict the inner mind of humans in depth,” recalled Miyazaki who experienced a second creative revelation when he watched the picture. “Amid the turmoil of finalizing the film, I had no idea what kind of work Mori-san had been doing. Tears streamed from my eyes. It was not because the three-year project was over. It was because I couldn’t stop crying over the figure of Hilda that Mori-san had drawn. I had thought I had put all my efforts into the film project, but I realized then that my work had simply been to create a container. It was Mori-san who had put a soul into it.” Hayao Miyazaki believes in the ability of animated pictures to be cathartic. “Take an evil character such as Hilda in Little Norse Prince Valiant. She has a change of heart of heart and at the end she’s done in by the Snow Wolves. If that change of heart hadn’t happen, I can’t imagine anyone ever forgiving her. A purifying effect comes into play when an evil character transforms into a truly happy person, or when some really awful person turns good.” The internationally renowned animator philosophically observed, “I think our life force is the only thing we have that keeps us going. Hols was able to escape from the labyrinth of the forest because he himself had the energy to do so; he had an intense desire to live.”
Later today: Part 2.
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