Hayao Miyazaki is the never-ending man.
A prolific director who started working in the 1960s and seems to still have plans for
the 2020s.
Today, he’s known for his original feature films that he creates at Studio Ghibli.
For him, a film begins with images, not words, and this is the key to the untouchable quality
of his works.
Here are five things you need to know about this director.
Miyazaki is someone who kind of lives in a world of his own.
Despite the changing times, he’s an antiquated person who doesn’t use modern technology.
So when Ghibli president Toshio Suzuki approached him about putting all of his films on Netflix,
he had no idea what he was going on about.
So instead, Suzuki told him that if he agreed to put his films on Netflix, the licensing
fee would go towards funding his next film.
Suddenly Miyazaki appeared to be on-board with the idea.
The films are releasing in batches on Netflix outside of the US, Canada and Japan, while
the US will be getting them when HBO Max launches.
Because of Miyazaki’s issues with technology, you’d think he’d have a problem with CG.
But that’s only half right.
In fact, many of Miyazaki’s films involve CG animation, most notably Princess Mononoke.
However, even after building a super team of CG animators, he closed the department
down because he believed the production was becoming too reliant on computers.
However, in 2018, Miyazaki launched Boro the Caterpillar, a CG short film for the Ghibli
Museum.
He was offered the chance to create it with Pixar, but instead chose to work with young
Japanese CG animators who were able to teach this old dog some new tricks.
Miyazaki came out of retirement to work on Boro, but it wasn’t the first time.
He’s mentioned that he’s about to retire plenty of times, ever since the 90s, but he
just keeps on going.
In 2013, he did a whole press conference about how he was now properly retiring, yet he introduced
a caveat not long after saying that he was still going to make short films for the museum.
And now he’s properly out of retirement, creating a feature film titled How Do You
Live?
Due to Miyazaki now being 79, he can’t make films nearly as quick as he used to, so it’s
going to take some time.
There’s been plenty of documentary about the life and work of Hayao Miyazaki, but one
of the most ambitious ones is the documentary series 10 Years with Hayao Miyazaki.
For 10 years, he was visited by a singular documentary film-maker with a camera who spent
all that time trying to get an idea of his creative process.
This involved going to meetings with him, visiting the studio with him, and even going
on trips with him.
It’s available to watch in many different languages on NHK World and I’d highly recommend
it.
The first part of this documentary follows the creation of the film Ponyo.
But it also coincides with the last stages of production for Miyazaki’s son’s film
The Tales of Earthsea.
We see Miyazaki being incredibly awkward around his own son, at one point going into the studio,
seeing that his son is there, and then going off to hide away in an office before going
home.
Miyazaki didn’t want his son to be a director, because he felt it was something you had to
earn and put your all into.
This led to him walking out of Earthsea.
He sent a positive message after the film’s release, but his comments in the documentary
show an unease towards the movie.