Forum - View topicProblems with Hayao Miyazaki's directing style
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TcDohl
 Posts: 82 |
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I was thinking about this just now, and I realized that there's a few problems with Hayao Miyazaki's directing style.
He doesn't seem to care much for plot, and seems to care way more about individual scenes, and putting them together seems to be an afterthought for him. Don't get me wrong, he's an amazing animation director, but people shouldn't trust him with an editing suite anymore. He always puts in scenes or actions that totally wreck the flow and pace of the movie. A good director should never get too attached to individual scenes like Miyazaki does. For example, in the beginning of Porco Rosso, Porco gets in his plane and experiences engine trouble during takeoff. This scene takes a full 20-30 seconds, which totally sabotages the previous scene with the Mamma Aiutto pirates. The same effect would have been achieved, but with added tension and excitement, if he experienced the engine trouble during the following dogfight with the pirates. Another example, in Kiki's Delivery Service, there was a scene where Kiki goes to the outhouse, and tries to avoid Osono's husband on her way back to her room. This scene is totally pointless, and should have been left on the cutting room floor. Miyazaki said himself that if he was a better director, then his movies would be shorter. I wish people wouldn't put Miyazaki on some unreachable pedestal just because he's able to make his dazzling imagery. As a director, he's got some flaws to iron out, and I think he's still got a bit of time to fix them. WAH! DON'T KILL MEEEE!!!!! |
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DKL
 Posts: 1962 Location: California, USA |
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I think it was to demonstrate that she was embarrassed at letting some dude know that she was going to the bathroom… Anyway, you could call these things like... subtle touches or something… But actually, you seem to make some points that I feel the need to check out… overall, this seems like a VERY productive topic to debate on. What says everyone else? |
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shirokiryuu
Posts: 714 Location: Northern California (SF Bay Area) |
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i have to agree with the "not focusing on plot" for howl's moving castle, we have all these images of war which are not in the orignal book, yet a lot of points aren't explained ...
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Necros Antiquor
 Posts: 571 Location: Funny in a car crash sort of way |
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My friend and I played "spot the war plot" when we saw it at our local independant theater. It was there the entire time, you just had to look for it carefully, otherwise spoiler[the ending with the prince seemed kind of random]. I think it serves to set a backdrop for the characters to act on, to allow a focus on Sophie and Howl during a period of turmoil. At the same time, yes, I definately would have liked to see more exposition for that, but I can't really fault Miyazaki since I enjoyed it nonetheless. |
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shirokiryuu
Posts: 714 Location: Northern California (SF Bay Area) |
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true true it didn't stop me from enjoying the movie and it did intensify sofie and howl's relationship., but at the end i had some questions about his past, etc. and some things weren't clear |
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kainzero
 Posts: 309 |
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His plots are often obscure if at all relevant, but that's his style. Full, rich animation filled with subtlety and heavy symbolism. Take, for example, My Neighbor Totoro. It has almost zero plot as well, or at least not an engaging one. But it has a certain charm about it, bringing out the importance and closeness of family. The character design is top notch and the attitude of the "monsters" really brings out the atmosphere in the movie. Combined with his great ability to direct those types of scenes, and you have Miyazaki films.
Miyazaki's style greatly differs from, say, the style of Pixar's films. Pixar's usually tells a very satirical, comedic view of a certain world (fish, toys, monster's world) and gives it a very moving plot. The environment in these films isn't as lifelike or atmospheric as Miyazaki, and the symbolism takes on a completely different form. And that's just how it is, I can't imagine giving Pixar movies a sort of Miyazaki symbolistic treatment. And of course, both studios put out very good films, regardless of their differing styles. |
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TcDohl
Posts: 82 |
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A good argument. However, I realized that my initial argument had little focus. I should have focused how Miyazaki is too attached to individual scenes or actions instead of being a more objective director. This causes breaks, slowdowns, or at times a total halt of pacing when he just loves a scene or action so much he has to include it in the final cut, and not on the cutting room floor. I do not dispute his ability to create fantastic imagery and symbols. Miyazaki himself acknowledges that his editing is his weak point. |
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angel_lover
 Posts: 645 Location: UK |
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For me, this is exactly what makes Miyazaki's films into the works of surpassing genius that they are. Life doesn't have 'pacing', it just happens, and as we look back on it we are attached to individual scenes and actions. If Miyazaki himself believes he has a problem with his style then maybe he should spend less time with the likes of Lasseter and co. |
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Keonyn
 Subscriber Posts: 5567 Location: Coon Rapids, MN |
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I appreciate his methods because most of these scenes lend themselves towards subtle character or story development. The scene in Kiki's was there to demonstrate her personality without someone or herself having to openly say what type of person she is in some form of open dialogue that is obviously put in place for the sake of character advancement.
He puts in subtle details and lifelike moments and that's what makes him a good director, not what makes him a bad one. Not every scene has to be there specifically to move the story, especially in the early half and especially in a show like Kiki's which is really as much a slice of life anime than anything. |
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TcDohl
Posts: 82 |
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99.9999% of real life wouldn't make a good movie. Pacing to a director is as important to a film as plot and character development. I can see the detail, care, and love that Miyazaki puts into his films, but when you begin cutting, you can't just wantonly cut some of your "babies", even for the sake of making a better film. Of course, that doesn't make Miyazaki a bad director, per se. It just means as with good directors, they do have their problems. Anyway, I've pulled out this really old topic because I thought of it recently. |
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Steve Berry
Posts: 522 Location: San Francisco Bay Area, CA |
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I remember this thread from last year-- lots of necro posting going on today, but eh-- I really thought this was a thread that had the potential to be a really interesting discussion, but just seemed to go nowhere at the time.
My thoughts on Miyazaki as a director-- TcDohl, I think there's some merit in what you're saying-- but I think his lack of traditional Western-style "plotting" is both what makes some of his films great and what is ultimatley the most glaring flaw in those pics that just didn't work for me. Spirited Away and Totoro work for me because I was carried away by the magic of the little details he included. Also, many of those little details he includes are totally extraneous to the development of the plot (and would probably have been cut in a western-style plot-driven narrative) but seem to be very important for the development of the characters, when taken as a whole. Still, if anyone was going to take a dig at movies like Spirited Away and Totoro, I would assume it'd be because of their plots, or lack there of. I don't know if you've seen many Japanese films, or read much in the way of Japanese literature, but to me, my experience has told me that the need for a narrative that builds to a western-style climax isn't really a necessity in that canon. You can see this in things as diverse as Kursawa's The Seven Samurai, Kawabata's novels like Snow Country or The Master of Go, Tanizaki's and Yukio Mishima's novels, Murakami's Kafka-esque The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles , or any of a vast array of manga titles that seem to endlessly go on, besides a host of anime titles that never really seem to build to a climax or have any real central plot, and yet.... still seem to go somewhere by the end. I just feel like you're partly eating a kiwi or a fig and wishing it were an apple, and then commenting on how it's not quite crunchy enough, or has little black seeds in it that you can't pick out. Beyond that though, yes, I do think some of Miyazaki's films sort of "devolve" into an odd pastiche of beautiful moments that don't really seem to build enough for me-- enough plot or enough character or enough symbolic imagery, whatever it might be in that particular film. I saw this most in HMC, a film that I was never really able to get in to, as I have some of his other films. I also thought this was part of what held back a wonderfully sweet film like Porco Rosso from being one of his all time best-- it just sort of seems to end, without that real wind of up tension and release I was expecting, or pushing the characters enough to make them grow as much as I was wanting. A sense of direction would have helped the film, IMO, partly because it was, for most of its length, a rather more traditional story for Miyazaki-- the dense fantasy imagery and symbology is largely gone, and instead you just have very interesting characters that you want to see grow more. However, I think some of his earlier films definitely seemed to build to a climax, and shouldn't be overlooked. Nausicaa, in particular, is really rather western in its story-telling style. It's quite plot driven, and most everything seems to build and point to the final few moments of the film-- all towards Nausicaa's decisions and growth. It's really pretty masterfully done, considering that it also has the ability to have a well integrated enviromental message, plus all those little incidental, supposedly-throw-away "Miyazaki" details that we all tend to like so much, that flesh out characters and make their worlds seem so real. Basically, I see where you're coming from. There's merit in what you're saying, but I also think it's one of his strengths, when it works. Much like, say Kubrick or David Lynch's or Speilberg's directing style is often defined by that one central thing that is, at times, both their greatest strength and their most glaring issue. Kubrick can be too cerebral and quiet, very distanced and unemotional, but that often lends to great understated moments where he lets things happen, instead of making them happen. Lynch is so surreal that his characters often seem unreal, and the inability to build a plot is totally aggrivating as a viewer, and yet, that same surreal nature leads to amazing moments that seem to draw their very strength from the fact that you can almost make sense out of them, in regards to a plot. Speilberg is obviously too maudlin at times, pulling at the heart strings and beating his viewers over the head with meanings we got long long ago, and yet, I think that sense of the deep emotional torrent underlying a lot of things, and how he wears his heart on his sleeve often lends to his ability to depict mass hysteria, the emotional tides of groups of people very very well (beach landing in Private Ryan, concentration camp shower scenes in Schindler's List, slave ships in Amistad, etc etc). Miyazaki, I think, works much in the same way, in regards to your complaint. To make him build plot driven movies that edited out scenes similar to the ones you're using as examples would draw the life blood from the films-- the very things that make his films really work when the do--, even if it would make certain aspects of his least successful films work better. |
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LydiaDianne
 Posts: 5634 Location: Southern California |
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I have to disagree with you there. When I first saw it, I waited for the engine to crap out while he was chasing after the pirates, and waited...and waited...And, damn, the plane flew perfectly the entire time. I think that Miyazaki did that precicely because we WOULD think that the engine would stall out and because it didn't it at that moment, we would expect it to do so later and at the most inconvient time.
And why would we do that? We don't eat our young here...often! 
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Steve Berry
Posts: 522 Location: San Francisco Bay Area, CA |
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Wonder where TcDohl went on this one. I was hoping to get a response to my assessment, since the subject seemed so interesting. TcDohl, any thoughts?
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