2011-06-17
Young(er) Miyazaki Discusses Nausicaa
Video footage of the younger Hayao Miyazaki is somewhat rare, so I'm glad to see this lengthy interview on Japanese television. I'm guessing it took place in 1984, after the release of Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind. Miyazaki is in his early 40s in this video, and looks very young. It's during moments like this when I feel like pinching myself; this was a very long time ago.
I do wish English subtitles were included, but perhaps this is something the fansub community could tackle. I'd like to see a collection of Miyazaki videos with subtitles sometime. As the complete Miyazaki-Takahata canon is made available, there will still be a need for more discoveries, and Ghibli fans in the West are always eager to learn more about their hero.
It's interesting to read Miyazaki's career highlights on the text crawl. It's a fascinating look into how he was perceived at that time, and which works were considered the peaks, and which were more obscure. Horus, Prince of the Sun (1968), Puss in Boots (1969), Heidi, Girl of the Alps (1974) and Future Boy Conan (1978) are the cited works. Hmm, Castle of Cagliostro...at the time, that movie was remembered as a box office failure, not the swashbuckling adventure classic we recognize today.
To the Japanese public in 1984, Hayao Miyazaki was probably still seen as Isao Takahata's student. The great second half of his career had only just begun. The Topcraft offices, where this TV interview took place, became the first home of Studio Ghibli in 1985. In 1989, Ghibli finally had its first breakout hit with Kiki's Delivery Service, and in 1997 and 2001, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away would turn Miyazaki into an international legend. All of this lies in the future as the director sits and contemplates his work.
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4 comments:
"To the Japanese public in 1984, Hayao Miyazaki was probably still seen as Isao Takahata's student."
I know it's true but to us who were born 10 years later and discovered Miyazaki 20 years later from that date everything seems so unbelievable. The fact that Miyazaki was Takahata's student and managed to overpass him.
Such a fact is truly motivating and I really cherish it. :D
I wouldn't say Miyazaki has overpassed Takahata. For one, they make very different films, with different intentions and target audiences. Miyazaki, I suspect, still has immense respect for Takahata as much as he ever did.
Even in the Princess Mononoke documentary, whilst working on storyboards he ponders whether to omit a shot, remarking 'Takahata would never do such a thing.." ; in 1996 he was still looking to Takahata for guidance. Takahata's influence on Miyazaki is now inseparable from his work, but, in my opinion, very much remains.
I tend to attribute "Takahata Miyazaki's mentor? The former could learn a thing or several from the latter!" sentiments – not to say that the above is one; I read it as commercial success and personal fame which is certainly true – to only seeing the Ghibli films giving a very distorted view of Takahata far more even than of Miyazaki. Out of the World Masterpiece Theatre series I've seen but a few episodes of Heidi and Marco but for me they've a certain vitality not fully captured again in the Ghibli films till Ponyo (or at least out of those I've seen in a cinema, i.e. Sen to Chihiro to that).
Aww please, somone sub it :(. I would love to understand what he says.
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