Hayao Miyazaki's World Picture

by Dani Cavallaro

Hayao Miyazaki has gained worldwide recognition as a leading figure in the history of animation, alongside Walt Disney, Milt Kahl, Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Yuri Norstein and John Lasseter. In both his films and his writings, Miyazaki invites us to reflect on the unexamined beliefs that govern our lives. His eclectic body of work addresses compelling philosophical and political questions and demands critical attention. This study examines his views on contemporary culture and economics from a broad spectrum of perspectives, from Zen and classical philosophy and Romanticism, to existentialism, critical theory, poststructuralism and psychoanalytic theory.

204 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2015

About the author

Dani Cavallaro is a freelance writer specializing in literary studies, critical and cultural theory and the visual arts. Her publications include The Gothic Vision<?em>, Critical and Cultural Theory and Cyberpunk and Cyberculture.

Reviews

[Benjamin Espen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hayao Miyazaki's World Picture
by Dani Cavallaro
McFarland Books, 2015
$35.00; 204 pages
ISBN 978-0-7864-9647-1

I received this book for free as part of LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.

I tried to like this book. I love Miyazaki's works, and this book's cover blurb covers a lot of things I am interested in. However, it is probably the things in this blurb that I am not interested in that make the book unreadable for me.

Hayao Miyazaki has gained worldwide recognition as a leading figure in the history of animation, alongside Walt Disney, Milt Kahl, Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Yuri Norstein, and John Lasseter. In both his films and writings, Miyazaki invites us to reflect on the unexamined beliefs that govern our lives. His eclectic body of work addresses compelling philosophical and political questions and demands critical attention. This study examines his views on contemporary culture and economics from a broad spectrum of perspectives, from Zen and classical philosophy and Romanticism, to existentialism, critical theory, poststructuralism and psychoanalytic theory.

There are some really interesting things here. I appreciate the effort that went into researching this book, and the way the author tried to tie Miyazaki's work together into a coherent whole. What I don't appreciate is the prose style:

The key words in the chapter headings used in this study—time, space, vision, the courage to smile—are necessary demarcators of specific aspects of Miyazaki's thought. However, their relative arbitrariness cannot be denied. Indeed, the director's world picture is distinguished throughout by such fluidity, and such a passion of unrelenting metamorphosis, as to be by and large unsympathetic to demarcations. In Miyazaki's cosmos, time and space coalesce in a continuum of Einsteinian resonance.

I think there is something interesting here, I just don't have the patience to wade through this. I do find the book is much improved if you stop reading the text closely and just skim it. Then the ideas come through more clearly, without needing to try to analyze the text. Perhaps I come to this book with unfair expectations. Miyazaki is a very interesting filmmaker, and I was hoping for something more accessible. To a specialist audience, this book may be just the thing. For the general reader interested in Miyazaki, I cannot recommend this book at all.

[Ari · Rating 1 out of 5]

Apologies if the formatting is done wrong or if the pictures don't load properly...

This essay confuses the plot of Porco Rosso and what actually happens in the film in its attempt to analyze the effects of anthropomorphism and the "work ethos" present in Studio Ghibli films...

In section 3. Space, pages 79-80 Cavallaro writes:

"...the idea that Marco's (Porco's) hybrid configuration could ever inspire protective instincts in the viewer is just risible. If anything, Miyazaki seems to have deliberately aimed to make the character's appearance somewhat offputting.... Porco Rosso's (anti)hero is rendered disturbing by his sheer alterity. His perturbing difference - and attendant repellence - is that of the grotesque figures displayed upon the floats that are paraded through many towns at festival or carnival time."

While Cavallaro made good points about Marco's curse originating from his war-time survivor's guilt and feeling undeserving of happiness, the analysis of his repellency misses the mark both in the audience's perception of Porco's cursed form and its effects on other characters.

Several times throughout the film, Marco is illustrated as a lady's man, receiving numerous passes and giving just as many. In the beginning of the film Porco is greeted by several swooning women aboard a plane tour where he warns them "you'll get yourselves kidnapped in these skies, sweethearts." Later in Gina's hotel, he receives more invitations which he rejects with a flirtatious demeanor. Porco is also bombarded by reporters who are so excited to interview him about his heroics that they are willing to interrupt the well beloved Hotel Adriano owner, Gina's, performance. Later in the film it's revealed that Gina has been waiting for Porco to accept her affections for years.

The only human or worldly connections he is repelling is the healing of his own grief over the loss of his best friend and other comrades during the war. This is a huge part of his decision to turn his back on fascist Italy in favor of being a bounty hunter in the Adriatic. His pig-like visage is not seen as repulsive. In fact, it's largely the very human emotions and sorrow that he carries that makes him so attractive to those in his community. At the very least, it's his humanity that continues to win Gina's affection, Fio's adoration as a young plane engineer, and the Adriatic sea-plane pirates' respect. We see this in how the children he rescues in the introduction are completely comfortable around him, in the admiration of the public, in how Gina denies opportunities with Curtis in Hollywood in favor of waiting for Porco to return her affections, in Fio's unwavering trust as she bets her future in an undesirable marriage with Curtis (yes, he moved on quickly from Gina's rejection) on Porco defeating him in a rematch, and in the Mama Aiuto Gang's change of heart about their revenge against Porco, initially brought on by Fio's lecture about the sea-plane pilot code of honor. To these people, his face is neither defining of his character nor deserving a second glance, let alone repelling.

In section 3. Space, page 99 Cavallaro writes:

"Porco Rosso stages Miyazaki's work ethics at some length in the sequences devoted to the repair of the protagonist's plane. All of the workers are shown to savor their input regardless of how humble their tasks may seem. Even the women who do not participate in a direct way in the restoration project appear to take pleasure and pride from the preparation and dispensing of meals for the building team, in the knowledge that they are contributing their natural skills to the venture, and performing their time-honored art to the best of their ability."

There are several issues with this analysis...

A. They do not "repair" Porco's plane which is shown to be totaled after Curtis attempts to claim his victory over the pig by shooting at the faulty Savoia S.21, which is already falling out of the sky due to engine trouble. Porco crashes in the water and brings the remains of his old plane to his trusted mechanic in Milan, Piccolo, who tells him it would be faster to just build a new one. Piccolo even sells Porco the same engine another Italian sea-plane pilot was using when they lost the Schneider Cup to Curtis, noting that the loss was the fault of a bad mechanic and not the engine itself.

B. Porco's brand new plane is a re-designed version of his Savoia S.21 drawn up by a young woman named Fio, the granddaughter of Piccolo. Fio also plays a VERY direct role in the building of her design including last minute alterations and fixing the plane midflight as they escape Italy's fascist government agents on their way back to the Adriatic.

C. Piccolo's sons and other male relatives are away doing other work and it is his female relatives who come together to -yes, cook some delicious food- but also to build Porco's new plane from scratch using Fio's designs. Not to mention the risk the Piccolo family takes to help Porco knowing he has an arrest warrant from the Italian government. Fio specifically agrees to be Porco's "hostage" to protect the Piccolo family from persecution and ensure the collection of Porco's unpaid balance on the plane.

D. This essay inaccurately minimizes the contributions of the women in this film as if they were just cooking in the background and not in the middle of the action. These women designed and built Porco a plane from scratch.

[melydia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A highly academic examination of the famous Japanese filmmaker's personal philosophy. I did not finish it. I barely got through the first chapter. The writing is so dense and formal that, as with so many scientific papers, my mind kept wandering and I found myself needing to reread whole paragraphs over and over again. My interest in the subject is simply too casual for this book to be worth the effort required to read it.

[Mark · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought this book lacked clarity and that it did not provide apt explanations for why Miyazaki's films are so good or why he made them the way he did. It instead chose to talk about academic fads.

[fee · Rating 5 out of 5]

critique essay