Following his Oscar win for his latest – and supposedly last – film ‘The Boy and The Heron’, Hayao Miyazaki may not be retiring just yet...
ADVERTISEMENTGhibli, the Japanese studio that just won its second Oscar for Best Feature Animation for The Boy and The Heron, hasn't announced what it plans next.
However, founder Hayao Miyazaki, who at 83 was the oldest director ever nominated in that category, won’t rule out making another film, even if his next project is a short instead of a full-length feature.
According to a longtime confidante, Miyazaki, one of animation's most admired and successful directors, is a bit embarrassed about having pronounced a decade ago that he would no longer make movies, citing his age.
“He regrets having announced to the world he won’t make another film,” producer Toshio Suzuki, the co-founder of Studio Ghibli, said after the latest win.
The legendary filmmaker behind classics like Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro began work on The Boy and the Heron not long after announcing in 2013 that he intended to retire from film.
In journal excerpts from around that time released in the film’s press notes, Miyazaki writes: “There’s nothing more pathetic than telling the world you’ll retire because of your age, then making yet another comeback.”
“Doesn’t an elderly person deluding themself that they’re still capable, despite their geriatric forgetfulness, prove that they’re past their best?” he adds. “You bet it does.”
Miyazaki worked through those concerns, and celebrated his Oscar win in private at his atelier and did not attend the studio event, Suzuki said.
Suzuki said he spent time analyzing why Ghibli’s latest film was chosen, wondering if it was because of the Old Testament references in the storyline, which centers on a young boy dealing with his mother’s illness and death, and the relationship he develops with a talking bird.
In the age of CGI and artificial intelligence, Miyazaki has stuck to the lengthy process of hand-drawing his animations. Suzuki said Ghibli's hand-drawn illustrations were more effective than computer graphics in portraying the bird’s metamorphosis.
Ghibli didn’t do much publicity for the film, choosing instead a low-key approach for a work that was 10 years in the making and released after Miyazaki was supposedly retired.
When asked why Miyazaki had shaved off his trademark beard, Suzuki said: “He doesn’t want to look important.”
“A new page in the history of Japanese filmmaking”
The 96th edition of the Oscars was a momentus one for Japan, with Godzilla Minus One winning the award for Best Visual Effects, marking Japan’s first win in that category.
Japanese media heaped praise on both the Ghibli and Godzilla films, noting that a double win at the Oscars hadn’t happened for the country since 2009.
An editorial Tuesday in the Yomiuri newspaper heralded “a new page in the history of Japanese filmmaking.”
Japan is also very much in the backdrop of Oppenheimer, which won seven Oscars, including Best Picture. The biopic centers on an American scientist working on the atomic bomb. The film has yet to be released in Japan.
There was also Perfect Days, Wim Wenders’ superb film about a sanitation worker, which was nominated in the Best International Feature Film category but did not win. Japanese actor Koji Yakusho, who portrays a gentle and lonely man who takes photos and cares for plants, won Best Actor for his performance at Cannes in May last year.
Read our interview with director Wim Wenders, who spoke to us about his latest film and his love for Japan.
