Hayao Miyazaki

Description	animator and director
Dates	born in the 5 Jan 1941 - present
Lived/Worked	Hayao Miyazaki was born in Tokyo, Japan, mainly he study and work in Tokyo . his career started in 1963 as an animator at the studio Toei Douga studio and was subsequently involed in many early classics of Japanese animation. in 1971, he moved to A-pro with Isao Takahata, then to Nippon Anmation in 1973, where he was heavily involved in the world masterpiece Theater TV in future, then moved to Toyko Movie Shinsha in 1979 to direct his first movie. the classic Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro.

Hayao Miyazaki Best known for

Hayao Miyazaki's hand-crafted fables have made him Japan's most successful animator and director. Hayao Miyazaki remained a cult figure to American devotees of "manga" (Japanes comic books ) and "anime" (Japanese comic books) and "anime" (Japanese animated features) untill the 1999 US release of his undisputed masterwork "Princess Mononke" (1997). he is most successful film-maker, with his 2001 fable Spirited Away breaking the domestic box-office record set by Titanic.

Miyazaki began as a low-level animator for children's cartoons such as Gulliver's Space Travels. eventually becoming director and key animator on many films and series, including Fulture Boy Conan and The Castle of Cagliostro. He frequently collaborated with Isao Takahata, director of Grave of the Fireflies. Miyazaki and Takahata co-founded Ghibli Films, a name that would become synonymous with quality. Miyazaki's works with Ghibli contained more of his own personal vision. Beginning with Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, his films took on a softer touch and often included the adventures of young girls.Nausicaa, and others including Kiki's Delivery Service, The Crimson Pig, and My Neighbor Totoro, contain elements of fantasy and often reveal humanist, ecological themes. Because of the high quality of his animation and his positive messages, Miyazaki's films were among eight from the Ghibli studio that were acquired for U.S. distribution by Disney; this includes Nausicaa, as well as Kiki's Delivery Service, Princess Monomoke, and others. Disney's agreement includes theatrical and video distribution, as well as voice dubbing using major American actors. Miyazakionce again stunned audiences worldwide with the release of Sprited Away in 2001. Acquired by Disney and released in the U.S. the following year, stateside audiences who had been enraptured by the adventures o fPrincess Mononke once again found Miyazaki in top form with this tale of a young girl looking for a way back to reality after entering a mysterious parallel universe while visiting an abandoned amusement park. Winning the Oscar for Best Animated Feature at the 75th annual Academy Awards, despite recieving only a half-hearted stateside release by Disney, Spirited Away was quickly rushed back into theaters in the week following the Oscars

Why is he important?

americam fans seem endlessly impressed that he continues to do ererything by hand, while computers are increasingly invading most american films. howeret, i noticed a single computer-generated shot in spirited away, during which the heroine, chihiro, watches a round, gnome-like statue fo by from a cat window. we see the statue from her point of view as it comes ito view, rotates, and exits.in the opinion of Pixar's John Lasseter, Miyazaki is "the world's greatest living animator ".

It is his fate to find himself hailed as the greatest practitioner of hand-drawn cell animation (perhaps the greatest there has ever been) at a time when the art form appears to be headed the way of the dodo. He seems curiously Zen about this. "If it is a dying craft we can't do anything about it. Civilisation moves on. Where are all the fresco painters now? Where are the landscape artists? What are they doing now? The world is changing. I have been very fortunate to be able to do the same job for 40 years. That's rare in any era."

This shifting world is something Miyazaki has long been fascinated by. His films feature cute creatures fighting tooth and nail to preserve their communities, and bucolic landscapes under threat of destruction. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds, his 1984 film, depicts a post-apocalyptic enclave menaced by toxic spores and giant insects. Princess Mononoke (1997) concerns the battle between the animals of the forest and the human developers holed up in an industrial stockade.

All drama depends on this kind of conflict. And yet Miyazaki's stance can be bizarrely even-handed. Invariably his hero or heroine is cast in the role of peacemaker, or piggy in the middle, while his supporting players are an unruly bunch. No-Face, the timid, helpful spirit in Spirited Away, blooms into an all-consuming carnivore. The wicked witch in Howl's Moving Castle winds up as a cherished family member, slumbering in her armchair like some dotty old aunt. Most children's storytellers install their characters as fixed symbols of good and evil. Miyazaki makes them bounce around like pinballs.

In 1997 the director signed a distribution deal with Disney. It was to prove a springboard to global renown, paving the way for a dedicated exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art and helping him secure the 2003 Oscar for Spirited Away. Even so, the nature of Miyazaki's films has been tweaked in transit. In Japan his films are blockbusters the whole family can enjoy. In Britain and the US he remains a predominantly adult, art-house phenomenon.

Disney releases Miyazaki films in two formats: a subtitled version for the purists and a dubbed extravaganza for the popcorn crowd. Howl's Moving Castle is no exception. It features the voice of Billy Crystal as the obstreperous fire demon and Lauren Bacall as the Witch of the Wastes. This is fine, says Miyazaki, because Bacall is "a fabulous woman" who brought something to the role that home-grown actors couldn't. "All the Japanese female voice actors have voices that are very coquettish and wanting male attention, which was not what we wanted at all."

In any case, he adds, who is to say that a subtitled print is any more authentic? "When you watch the subtitled version you are probably missing just as many things. There is a layer and a nuance you're not going to get. Film crosses so many borders these days. Of course it is going to be distorted."

In the meantime Miyazaki continues to hone his traditional art-works at Ghibli, his Tokyo animation studio. In the past he has been vocal in his criticism of computer-generated imagery, describing it as "thin, shallow, fake". These days he seems to have made his peace with the beast. He admits that he likes Toy Story because it opened the doors to a new breed of animation and even admits to using CGI in his own movies (but never more than 10% of the finished print). "Actually I think CGI has the potential to equal or even surpass what the human hand can do," he says. "But it is far too late for me to try it."

"Personally I am very pessimistic," Miyazaki says. "But when, for instance, one of my staff has a baby you can't help but bless them for a good future. Because I can't tell that child, 'Oh, you shouldn't have come into this life.' And yet I know the world is heading in a bad direction. So with those conflicting thoughts in mind, I think about what kind of films I should be making."

Perhaps this is why he tells children's stories. "Well, yes. I believe that children's souls are the inheritors of historical memory from previous generations. It's just that as they grow older and experience the everyday world that memory sinks lower and lower. I feel I need to make a film that reaches down to that level. If I could do that I would die happy."

Historical context

Hayao Miyazaki was born in the second world war his work reflect great deal on the disaster people have cause to the nature.Since the 1970s, media art has become a category in itself, with a growing number of artists experimenting with technological means such as video art. to follow the influence on Hayao Miyazaki.
it has to go back to Surrealism. the Movement launched in Paris in 1924 by French poet Andre Breton with publication of his Manifesto of Surrealism. Breton was strongly influenced by the theories of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. Freud identified a deep layer of the human mind where memories and our most basic instincts are stored. He called this the unconscious, since most of the time we are not aware of it. The aim of Surrealism was to reveal the unconscious and reconcile it with rational life. The Surrealists did this in literarature as well as art. Surrealism also aimed at social and political revolution and for a time was affiliated to the Communist party. There was no single style of Surrealist art but two broad types can be seen. These are the oneiric (dream-like) work of Dali, early Ernst, and Magritte, and the automatism of later Ernst and Miro. Freud believed that dreams revealed the workings of the unconscious, and his famous book The Interpretation of Dreams was central to Surrealism. Automatism was the Surrealist term for Freud's technique of free association, which he also used to reveal the unconscious mind of his patients. Surrealism had a huge influence on art, literature and the cinema as well as on social attitudes and behaviour.

How to see his work

most Hayao miyazaki' work are introduced on the hayao miyazaki web (www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/nausicaa/). all his work can be seen on DVDs.

Hayao Miyazaki on the web

www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/nausicaa/ - is the hayao miyazaki web it iinclude miyazaki's work, news, hayao miyazaki's biography and porfesional experience.