“Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” -Walt Disney
When do movies become films? For me, there has always been a difference, but like that of shapes; just as squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares, films are movies but not all movies are films. With films, there is something more than the moving picture at work. Take Hayao Miyazaki’s work for example. Based on the above quotation, I’m sure you thought that I was about to gush about Disney himself, but Miyazaki has that adventurous nature and then some. Show me a Snow White and I’ll see you a Sophie and raise you a Chihiro. Miyazaki can’t be beat, and he is still concocting creativity from his cauldron of art. His animated work steps out from under the cloaking western generalization of “cartoon”, which implies low class buffoonery aimed towards children, and walks gracefully into the realm of visual art. No, not just the visual--entirely art. Miyazaki not only writes and directs these pieces, he crafts them, guides them into being. It is not just the story told, the voice actors used, the soundtrack, or even the animation that makes his work singular among his contemporaries. It is the entire picture, the complete visual and aural symphony into which Miyazaki breathes life that sets him apart.
For Hayao Miyazaki, the co-founder of Studio Ghibli, the animated films are explorations into his magical imagination. On the Howl’s Moving Castle DVD in fact, he explains that “for the rules of sorcery [in the film] he remained true to his heart, so [he] apologize[s] if it is confusing and hope[s] that you will enjoy it anyway.” That’s the key—his heart is in each and every piece. His characters are living, breathing people whose stories are vividly engaging and moving. And let’s address the animation itself for a moment. In a world of 3D CGI created with a mouse click, Miyazaki relies on hand drawn animation. Yes, it must be said that a few of his films do include some CGI work, but it is minimal at best, and Miyazaki has since abandoned the practice, even dissolving the computer animation branch of Studio Ghibli. While it has been said that Miyazaki is wary of computers, I think that it’s more of an interpersonal choice to stick with the painstakingly crafted hand drawn animation. Each cell has such vitality that is impossible to ignore, let alone recreate, which suspends reality and allows the viewer to tumble headfirst into Miyazaki’s wonderland.
To find an American counterpart to this Japanese maestro of animated films, looking at the current market leaves something wanted. Granted, there is no shortage of Miyazaki fangirls among the animated community, as one should expect of his talent, but their admiration does not translate into their work. The American animators are good, but they’ve lost that fantastic curiosity that Walt himself had. Including a Totoro doll in Toy Story doesn’t mean that you understand Miyazaki’s work, nor is it something to be applauded: fanart has its time and place. There is joy, pain, calm, and wild energy running through all of Miyazaki’s pieces that has yet to be mirrored in CGI work, because Miyazaki has documented human nature in his films, instead of trying to force fit it within the realm of animation. Magic happens with Miyazaki, but the focus is not on the special effects, but instead on the curious nature of that magic.
--as written for a binghamton university spring 2010 writing course
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