Hayao Miyazaki
“I want to create films through which children can see and experience something new. I want to make that one unforgettable film in everyone’s childhood, something they can enjoy for at least thirty years.” (Fujimoto)
TIME names Hayao Miyazaki “the world’s most revered director of animated features” (Corliss). The New York Times says “Miyazaki is regarded as one of the greatest creators of animated films, and his work certainly stands as some of the best the genre has to offer”, and names him “the world’s greatest living animated-filmmaker” (“Hayao Miyazaki – Biography”; Scott). Axiom Magazine describes Miyazaki as a “living legend” (Miller). With over fifty years of animation experience, Miyazaki has worked hard to achieve
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Chihiro undergoes a lot of character development in the movie, and by the end she is far more independent and confident than she was at the beginning (Spirited Away).
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind also introduced another one of Miyazaki’s recurring themes: harmony and disharmony with nature. In the film, a large portion of the environment has been destroyed, and the forest left over is toxic to humans. Throughout the movie, Nausicaä fights to find peace with the creatures in the forest and stop the people from destroying the environment even further (Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind). Another good example of this theme is Princess Mononoke, which is a film that helped Miyazaki gain international recognition. It also features a young girl, San, as one of the main characters. The plot of the movie focuses on a conflict between the humans and the animals of the forest, and San is fighting to keep workers from an industrial facility from destroying the forest and killing its animals to make iron (Fujimoto; Princess Mononoke).
Spirited Away, along with that strong female lead and good character development, involves this harmony with nature theme. As is probably evident in the title, Spirited Away takes place in the spirit world. It not only shows respect and harmony for traditional, spiritual beliefs, but it also displays a connection between reality and the spirit world.
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Get AccessMiyazaki’s childhood was short as he was born January 5, 1941 during World War II, thus without exception, his films main characters are children, deal with growing up and often consist of one young female lead and one young male lead. This is evident in My Neighbor Totoro (1988) as the two main characters are young girls who, unlike adults, can see and befriend the spirits of the spirit world. In Spirited Away (2001), the leading character Chihiro is a young girl who must deal with growing up, similarly to Kiki in Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989). Princess Mononoke (1997) also features these stock characters in the form of young San, adopted daughter of the wolf goddess Moro and Prince Ashitaka, a young girl and boy. Hayao Miyazaki has expressed strong feelings about childhood, saying that it's a paradisiacal time when, "you're protected by your parents and unaware of the problems around you". Miyazaki’s upbringing during World War II would explain another unique mark of his films, that being his interest in flight.
In “A Century of Cinema”, Susan Sontag explains how cinema was cherished by those who enjoyed what cinema offered. Cinema was unlike anything else, it was entertainment that had the audience feeling apart of the film. However, as the years went by, the special feeling regarding cinema went away as those who admired cinema wanted to help expand the experience.
In the animated film Princess Mononoke, Miyazaki conveys several themes and main ideas. The themes and main ideas he conveys in the movie are that hatred corrupts and causes people to make bad decisions, shown through the boars, that greed corrupts and ruins,shown through Lady Eboshi, and that nature can only exist with help from humans, shown through Ashitaka.
For most people, movies are made for entertainment. However, there are also movies that go beyond merely entertaining its audience. There are films that have been created making use of psychological principles, which enrich the movie-viewing experience of audiences. This paper will focus on the movie Shrek, which was released in 2001, directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson.
Mulvey, Laura. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975) - Laura Mulvey. Thesis. N.d. N.p.: Laura Mulvey, 1975. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975) - Laura Mulvey. NG Communications, 2006. Web. 20 Feb. 2014. .
Although the best reasons for “going to the movies” are to be entertained and eat popcorn, understanding a film is actually quite complex. Movies are not only a reflection of life, they also have the capability of shaping our norms, values, attitudes, and perception of life. Through the media of film, one can find stories of practically anything imaginable and some things unimaginable. Movie-makers use their art to entertain, to promote political agendas, to educate, and to present life as it is, was, or could be. They can present truth, truth as they interpret it, or simply ignore truth altogether. A movie can be a work of fiction, non-fiction, or anything in-between. A film is an artist’s interpretation. What one takes away from a film depends upon how one interprets what has been seen and heard. Understanding film is indeed difficult.
“The biggest mistake we have made is to consider that films are primarily a form of entertainment. The film is the greatest medium since the invention of movable type for exchanging ideas and information, and it is no more at its best in light entertainment than literature is at its best in the light novel.” - Orson Welles
I love movies. For as long as I can remember, I’ve harvested a passionate, slightly embarrassing obsession with film. The way in which cinema can paint such vivid and beautiful moving images, portray moving stories containing a wide range of emotion and narrative threads, leaving a long-term impact on the viewer, all within a runtime of two hours or so, captured my fascination at an early age. This fascination continues to this day. While I cannot state for certain the first film I ever watched (My parents seem to think it was either Disney’s animated princess flick Mulan or The Phantom Menace, the first film in the Star Wars prequel trilogy), I can most definitely remember the first film that left a lasting impression on my youthful mind, in addition to inspiring me until this day.
Tom Blaine is a student at Brookdale studying film and communication. His interest in film and literature all started when he was a kid with his father. Tom described his father as a “move buff”, having collected a wide variety of old films, like Star Wars. They would lie on the couch, watching the
Ever since I was a young kid I have always been interested in movies. My grandma, who was full of the wise the life experience left, always knew about my interest in movies. She feed my vain for the art. Even though her religion, she professed Adventist of seven-day religion, didn't let her go to the cinema, she always found the way to took me to the cinema. She and I enjoyed watch movies. We used to sit in the darkness room, with our faces illuminated from the reflection of the light which rebooted from the screen, both absorbs in the plot of the movie which made us laughed or cried. After the movie, while we went back to her home, she started to talk about the movie. She had a particular point of view where the main story
Many people may have a specific style in which they like to dress. A woman might have a signature lipstick she enjoys wearing, a man might have a distinct cologne that stands out from the rest. Movies are not too far apart in comparison. Sometimes people find films more enjoyable than others, and often do not realize they come from the same director. The Auteur theory is a that defines the director as the sole author of the entire film, adding his or her own personal style. When it comes to the world of animation, director Hayao Miyazaki is a pioneer in auteur. His specific directorial style is seen in many of his films in which he manages to make films enjoyable to adults of all ages. Kiki's Delivery Service was one of director Miyazaki's
‘There are…two kinds of film makers: one invents an imaginary reality; the other confronts an existing reality and attempts to understand it, criticise it…and finally, translate it into film’
As she goes through the tunnel at the beginning of the film, Chihiro is a whiny little girl who does not like change. When she comes out of the tunnel at the end of the film, she is standing tall, fearless, and confident. This post-Kamikakushi is one of many examples of character
Motion Pictures have always had a strong influence in today’s culture, but maybe none as prevalent as Star Wars. Originating with Episode 4 A New Hope, the series boomed from 1977 to 2005 with yet another addition coming in 2015. The strongest of the series was the original trilogy episodes 4, 5, and 6, all generally released in the 1980s. As one of the strongest film francaises still today, it’s impact within the 1980s was only the tip of the iceberg. Children and adults alike still anticipate the new edition of this seemingly endless journey. If any singular film series still holds prevalence in its future decades it is Star Wars: Original Trilogy.
Every so often a movie is released with such tense anticipation and glamorous visual art that the public is drawn to this dramatic rendition of life in the theatre. For even just two hours or so, you are put into a different lifestyle. Action, drama or comedy it may be. We are thrust into a different way of thinking. We are forced to learn the characters thoughts and feelings. The hard work and artistic skill that goes into these magnificent films is not an easy thing to mimic. Out of the thousands of movies released worldwide each year only a handful are truly worthy of the label film art. Most of the great movies are either produced by a multi million dollar