An Unmade Film Shaped Hayao Miyazaki

(animationobsessive.substack.com)

38 points | by vinhnx 2 hours ago

3 comments

  • AdmiralAsshat 6 minutes ago
    > He felt kind of washed up. Miyazaki’s debut feature The Castle of Cagliostro (1979) had flopped at the box office, and he viewed it as a rehash of his past projects. “I don’t think I added anything new,” he admitted. He saw his creations as stuck.

    He's awfully hard on himself. Castle of Cagliostro is, by all accounts, a fantastic movie that rises well above its source material. And it has an immortal legacy as an influence on several major Western animation studios.

  • ykl 1 hour ago
    The way Miyazaki’s changes to and own ideas for Rowlf eventually snowballed into something else entirely, Nausicaä, kind of reminds me of how Alejandro Jodorowsky’s ideas for making a Dune movie eventually took on their own life as The Incal.

    Also every time I see Miyazaki concept sketches, I’m blown away by how beautiful his watercolors are.

    • christophilus 50 minutes ago
      His movies are my favorites. I can almost always watch them no matter my mood. They are simply beautiful, and their pacing is relaxing. I wish more directors would take cues from him.
      • world2vec 14 minutes ago
        Same. I lived vicariously through my wife when I started showing all his movies (she had only seen Spirited Away) and can't wait to have a kid and watch everything (multiple times) all over again.
  • KolmogorovComp 34 minutes ago
    Great in-depth article, as always from `animationobsessive`.

    > he got into alt comics in the orbit of Métal Hurlant, a foreign magazine

    This is just a strange phrasing, why not just say it was French? Especially considering the next sentence being

    > Meanwhile, an American comic from (...)

    Seems to be a case of American-centered view "me vs the rest of the world". Or if it is depicted from Miyazaki point of view, it should be clarified.