From ???@??? Fri Jan 15 21:34:05 1999
To: anime
From: Kiki
Subject: Nausicaa tuesday, Jan 19, Mononoke Hime, wednesday Jan 20

Next week on wednesday is Mononoke Hime.  This was the highest grossing *film* ever in Japan when it was released the summer of 1997.  The movie which previously held this record was ET, and it held that record for 12 years!

Mononoke Hime is often compared to Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind.  Because of this, I've decided to show Nausicaa on tuesday, the day before showing MH.  If you've not seen Nausicaa, I can't recommend this movie higher!  It's Miyazaki's great epic.

Descr: Nausicaa is set in the far future, after the "seven days of fire" -- a Great War which devistated most of earth, and left it's human inhabitants struggling for survival on the fringes of a huge toxic forest, which gets bigger every year.  In the forest live giant insects.  Everyone fears these insects, which can kill people, but Nausicaa knows the secret of the forest...

Descr: Mononoke Hime is set in an alternate Japanese past.  Humans have just discovered how to smelt iron...and make guns.  An iron-working village cuts down forest trees to stoke its furnaces.  The Wolf Gods and Boar Gods of the forest do battle with this village over the forest which is being destroyed.  Mononoke Hime [or God/Spirit princess] was raised by the Wolf Gods, but is human, and she fights alongside them for the forest.  Enter Ashitaka.  He's searching for the source of the death-curse he is stricken with.  He comes between these warring groups.

Nausicaa is G-rated, but I'd almost give MH an R, due to violence, which is quite graphic.  MH is packed full of action, though!  A spectacular movie with a strong environmental message...

Summary:

Nausicaa -- tuesday, Jan 19, 6:30 eat, 7:30 movie
Mononoke Hime -- wednesday, Jan 20, 6:30 eat, 7:30 movie
Both in Bugville

Email pizza orders, and tell me which movie you plan to see!

See you there!

Kiki

PS Disney has the rights to MH and is planning on releasing it this summer.  Neil Gaiman [who wrote the Sandman graphic novel] is cleaning up the script, which is very cool.  The voice-talent is impressive too!  Claire Danes as San [Romeo & Juliet], Billy Crudup as Ashitaka, Gillian Andersn as Moro [X-Files], Minnie Driver as Eboshi [Wild At Heart], Angeline Jolie, and Billy Bob Thornton.
----------
It's always a joy to prepare these little mailings each week.  I try to dig up some tid-bits about the films, and I always come across some interesting information.

Here's some articles which I feel are relevent to Nausicaa and MH:

Why does Miyazaki always use female characters?

http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/file-archive/interviews/heroines.interview

You may find his answer insulting, but I think it's wonderful! :)  To paraphrase: if a guy struts around, it's no big deal; when a woman does it, you take notice.

Also, more importantly, men gaining independence is often through defeating an opponent, but women feel, accept and cradle...  Women don't want to "win", but to understand.  I like that a lot.

The difference between Nausicaa and Ashitaka [male lead in MH] -- even though they play similar roles as inbetween for two opposing groups -- are very different characters, *because* of their gender.  Each would change in essence if they were the other gender.
 

Miyazaki has an interesting view on the world.  I find him to be quite an inspiration.  I wish I could be as positive -- and yet, he's also very cynical.  Here's a fascinating article about the end of the Nausicaa manga.  [Which he started in, I think, 1984, and finally finished 10 years later...]  [Warning: sorta spoilers...]

http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/file-archive/interviews/nau-end.interview

"The idea that Nature is gentle, and it creates the Fukai [toxic forest in Nausicaa] to recover the environment humans contaminated, or does something (for humans), -- that's not true.  [For instance, the Earth itself may have killed the dinosaurs...]"  So, Nature is not kind, nor is its purpose or guiding force to help the life-forms which live on it, namely humans and other creatures.

"I don't know what would happen if I planted grass and cleaned up the river.  Will it lead to future?  No, it wouldn't.  But if we don't do anything, nothing will happen...but the minute we say that we don't know what would happen, then we have no choice but to let it happen, we get other problems."  In other words, we fool ourselves thinking what we do is for the "good" or "bad" of the planet.  But we also cannot just do nothing.

Personally, I translate this as: do the best as you can for what you believe in, but believing it will turn out how you expect is the path to disappointment.  I try to live my life this way.  Actions change the path of the future, but *do not determine* it!  [That, right there, is Chaos Theory in a nutshell. :) ]
 

http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/101.html  Look for "What are his political beliefs?"

Miyazaki was a Marxist when he started Nausicaa [and when he finished the movie.]  He'd forsaken it by the time he finished the manga, and made MH.  The not-quite-so-happy-endings of the manga and MH are signs of this.
 

One last thing, I found very impressive.  I checked out the virtual tour of Studio Ghibli.  [http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/tour]  Three things struck me strongly.  First, There's plants everywhere, and Miyazaki's son designed a garden on top of the studio where workers could go and relax.  The paving bricks allow weeds to grow and for rainwater to be absorbed.  Second, Miyazaki has an office, but actually spends his time in a cubical in the room with the animators.  This way, he can work alongside them -- he animated or had his hand in 70% of Mononoke Hime.  This is unbelieveable!

The third thing esp. impressed me.  The covered bicycle parking [more parking for bikes than cars at Ghibli] can have a curtain hung and become bathrooms in the event of an earthquake or disaster.  Wow!  What amazing forethought!  [http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/tour/1.html]

Ah...I only wish there were more folks out there with Miyazaki's heart.  All I'm left with is clinging desperately to his films...

Kiki

As per Erika's request, we'll be re-showing Mononoke Hime next week, on thursday!

Since we showed this recently [Erika was sick, poor girl!] I won't repeat my long schpeel about the movie itself.  There's info here http://nausicaa.net/miyazaki and here http://www.helsinki.fi/~stvirtan/mh  Note, you can download 4 of the complete trailers at nausicaa.net to see what the movie is like, though they'll take a while to download.

In leu of a description, here's some other interesting info about this movie.

Original story: "Mononoke Hime" was a series of story boards Miyazaki did after Nausicaa.  You may have seen a picture of a Totoro-looking cat, being pulled by a herd of mice, with a young girl on his back.  Bearing *nothing* of the present story, it was basically a retelling of Beauty and the Beast -- father angers some forest-spirit [a Mononoke], and promises one of his daughters as a ransom.  Of course, his most lovely and sweetest daughter agrees to go.  Her father then becomes posessed by a demon, and she coerces the Mononoke to go rescue her father.  En-route, she discovers he was a hansome prince, cursed to look like his present form.  Nice, about the ending is, he remains a Beast as they ride off to new adventures together -- which I prefer far more over the original! :)  Miyazaki proposed this story after Nausicaa, but Laputa was chosen instead and he ended up never making this version.  I'll try to dig up this book and bring it to the showing.  [Man oh MAN are Miyazaki's watercolor storyboards *lovely*!!]

Soundtrack: Joe Hisaishi -- music for all of Miyazaki's films -- comes back for this *lovely* soundtrack!  One of my very favorites!  But the story of the singer is interesting: Miyazaki was driving home one day and heard the voice of Yoshikaza Mera on the radio.  Hauntingly sweet and very feminine-sounding, Miyazaki resolved to find him and have him sing a song for this movie.  Miyazaki wrote the words.  The words are lovely, even translated, but just read the words in Japanese!  I've noticed Japanese poetry rhymes a lot by similar-sounding syllables together, and less [if at all] by the European style of *ending* syllables rhyming, so you see such lovely-sounding lines as, "Kanashimi to/Ikari ni/Hisomu/Makoto no Kokoro wo..." [Why yes, I can sing this song! :) I just *love* the sound of it.]  I heard an interview with Mr. Mera serendipitously on NPR, and at then end, he mentioned that he would like to do the American version of the song too!  Oh, that would be *wonderful*!!  I hope he does!  When singing the song for the movie, he asked Miyazaki how to sing.  Miyazaki said, "this is the song Ashitaka is whispering to San in his mind."  So it is in the movie when Ashitaka wakes up and sees San's sleeping face in the cave.

Japanese voice actors:  Ashitaka is played by the same voice as Asbel [the boy pilot from Pejite] in Nausicaa, and Toki [the Tataraba woman who scolds her husband] is played by the voice actress who played Nausicaa.

And, of course, this film *smashed* Japan's record of highest grossing film of all time since ET, 12 years before!  It was *quite* popular there!  [Yet, Titanic came there a few months later and beat it... :) Ah well. :) ]

Remember, this will be released to theatres in July by Disney.  Probably your last chance to see it with script read aloud by me before it's release!
 

What: Mononoke Hime -- aka Princess Mononoke, aka The Phantom Princess
Where: Bugville, old building
When: thursday, March 11, 6:30 pizza, 7:30 movie!
How: usual english script over Japanese dialog

Note: a-typical of Ghibli films, there's some pretty violent scenes -- it'll be rated PG-13 here -- so real sensitive folk/children might be warned of this.

Kiki

Thought I'd forward this interesting blurb about the movie we watched last
night.

Quick summery: Neil Gaiman [writer of the book, "The Sandman" -- one of my
all-time favorite pieces of fiction!] has been working on the translation
to "clean it up."  Apparently, Ghibli reworked *his* script, preferring a
more literal translation in places -- no glaring errors, more just subtle
differences.

Thus, it sounds like a) Gaiman is doing a great job [never doubted it!] and
b) Ghibli is insisting on a more literal translation and c) Miramax is
honoring Ghibli's desires.

This sounds really promising!  Now I'm *really* excited about the American
release [to theatres, BTW!!] sometime this year!

Kiki

Here's the full text:

>>  -----Original Message-----
>> From:        Michael S. Johnson (NetDocs)
>> Sent:        Thursday, January 21, 1999 11:19 AM
>> Conversation:        Neil Gaiman to visit UW Bookstore on January 20th
>> Subject:     REPORT
>>
>> Ok, here's my report.  Feel free to send in corrections if you were there
>> and notice mistakes or gaps.  My memory is not perfect, and I didn't have
>> a tape recorder to capture exactly what he'd said.
>>
>>
>>
>> There were about 200-300 people seated, and for a comic fan crowd,
>> surprisingly not foul-smelling. ^^;  Neil was stuck in traffic, so we
>> started about 15min late (7:15pm).
>>
>> ...
>>
>> Mr. Gaiman began with a 30 minute reading from the middle of his new
>> book _Stardust_, proceeded to take about 15-20 minutes worth of questions,
>> then stopped to begin signing things people had brought for him.
>>
>> He was wearing a black leather jacket, which appears to be his preferred
>> style of dress.
>>
>> There were a couple of questions before he chose me to ask the next
>> question, which was Rodney's [Rodney Smith, a Miyazaki ML subscriber]
>> (he didn't let people ask more than one question, and my question
>> about his reaction to the Internet hype wasn't really appropriate for
>> the mood of the crowd):
>>
>> Q. [Paraphrased:] Was it you, or the artists, who decided to include the
>>    visual Miyazaki references in your works?
>>
>> The simple answer to this was that it was the artists' (Charles Vess, and
>> one other) decision, because they were the Miyazaki fans.
>>
>> But he didn't leave it at that.  He knew there were a lot of people in the
>> audience who did not understand the reference, so he launched into a
>> passionate explanation about _Mononoke Hime_, his work on the script, and
>> how Miramax was only using about 40% of what he had written.  However, he
>> also explained that when the script was brought to the Studio Ghibli
>> representative (Mr. Steven Alpert), he did say that for some sequences in
>> which Mr. Gaiman tried to make the dialog more contemporary and easier to
>> recite, Studio Ghibli preferred a closer translation.
>>
>> For example (which may or may not be part of the final script):
>>
>>   "Don't touch [my wounded arm] - there's something evil about it!"
>>
>> he was told that the translation was closer to
>>
>>   "Do not touch that; it is no ordinary wound."
>>
>> Granted, this may sound awkward to us (I haven't seen the film, nor read a
>> translation), but Studio Ghibli insisted that the translation be worded
>> more closely to the original.
>>
>> [To stop the rumor mill, let me say right now that I am not implying that
>> Neil Gaiman's translation was poor or overly colloquial, relative to the
>> original.  I couldn't verify that anyway, because I have not read Mr.
>> Gaiman's script, nor do I understand enough Japanese to compare the two at
>> that level of detail.  I am only saying that the script drafts Mr. Gaiman
>> wrote went through an approval process involving Studio Ghibli, and
>> changes were made to the script such that 40% of his original wording was
>> left intact.]
>>
>> Mr. Gaiman continued to talk about the film, calling it very beautiful,
>> among other nice things, and the famous actors lending their voices.  He
>> then took two more questions from others in the audience.
>>
>> Afterwards, before he began signing, I introduced myself to him as the
>> owner of the Miyazaki ML, some members of whom helped him with some
>> background information.
>>
>> He reacted very favorably, talking about the test screenings of the film,
>> which used something called a "pure vanilla" script, which he described as
>> the most literal translation.  That did not go over as well as it could
>> have, because the audience would have been lost during the last half hour
>> of the film, in with a lot of people are running around doing things
>> without enough apparent motivation, and a number of whom weren't
>> named/identified very well earlier in the film.  So the script has been
>> undergoing more revisions, more approvals from Ghibli, and a number of
>> scenes are being rerecorded to take into account the new dialog.
>>
>> I think that's a great sign - that Miramax is keeping Ghibli's wishes in
>> mind, while also using Mr. Gaiman's script - and a great challenge for Mr.
>> Gaiman, in that he is trying to reconcile Ghibli's wishes with Miramax's
>> need to make the script approachable by the audience.
>>
>> He said that the more recent versions of the script solve some of those
>> problems -- not with voice-overs, but with dialog.  He also wasn't sure
>> when the film would be released, but predicted it would be this year
>> (within about six months, he guessed).
>>
>> ...
>>
>>
>> There's some things here and there which I left out (like crowd reaction,
>> some minor humorous accidents), and probably one or two things I got
>> wrong, but my memory is too poor to recall them.  I think I got the major
>> points across:
>>
>> * Gaiman isn't the decision maker behind the appearance of Miyazaki
>>   characters in the art for his stories
>> * Gaiman is happy with the film and the voice actors
>> * Gaiman is excited about the film
>> * Gaiman cannot say enough good things about the film
>> * The changes or objections to the script that Ghibli suggested were not
>>   about large, glaring errors in the translation; they were about
>>   subtleties in the wording; the kind of changes which do not alter the
>>   overall meaning of the dialog, but simply convey a slightly different
>>   tone to the dialog
>> * The original scripts he drafted underwent many revisions under the
>>   supervision of Studio Ghibli
>> * The script closest to the literal translation failed in the test
>>   screenings, and therefore had to be carefully rewritten in places to
>>   more closely meet everyone's demands
>>
>> If I ever doubted the quality of the English script for MH, I have no
>> doubts now.  I have every confidence in Mr. Gaiman's control of the
>> English language as a storyteller, and definitely look forward to seeing
>> the final version, *whenever* Studio Ghibli, Mr. Gaiman, and Miramax
>> decide it is ready.
>>
>> --
>> Michael S. Johnson   Miyazaki Web and Mailing List Owner
>> michj nausicaa.net   www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/mailing-list
>>
>