Compared often to the great Akira Kurosawa, Hayao Miyazaki is the most successful and popular living Japanese director. With over 50 international awards, he has been named by Time magazine as one of the most influential animators in the world.
Born in 1941 in Tokyo, Miyazaki is an alert and impressionable kid and dreams of becoming a manga author. She reads curiously illustrated children's stories and admires the imagination of their creators. Gradually, his interest in animation grew. After graduating from 1963, he started working at several companies, where he gained experience from prominent local screenwriters and directors.
In 1979, he directed his first full-length animation, The Castle of Cagliostro, which he personally presented at Disney Studios in America. Strongly impressed by this debut is the director John Lester (future founder of "Pixar"), who became a big fan of Miyazaki and a major distributor of his work in the United States.
Miyazaki's second film, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), also caused a sensation. It covers the main topics characteristic of the director's future work - environmental protection, interest in flights ("blame" for this is Miyazaki's father, who is the director of "Miyazaki Airplane"), the relationship between man and nature, love, villains, morals and multi-layered characters.
In the spring of 1985, in collaboration with Takahata and Tokuma, Miyazaki founded the production company Studio Ghibli, and at the end of the year released his first film with Ghibli, Castle in the Sky. ”), In which orphans look for a magical castle hidden in the sky. This was followed by "My Neighbor Totoro" (1988) and "Kiki's Delivery Service" (1989).
After a long hiatus, it wasn't until the late 90 years that Hayao Miyazaki's most popular movie, Princess Mononoke, appeared, breaking Japanese charts with cinema attendance and breaking through on the international stage. In addition to the usual environmental themes, new production also addresses pressing political and economic issues. This is where the author's ideas evolve - from the utopian view of Nausica from the Valley of the Wind to the mature humanism of Princess Mononoke. Miyazaki's characters are also changing - from the traditional villain type, they are transformed into sophisticated, self-possessing, anti-heroes.
The film became the first animation to win the Japan Academy of Film Award of the Year.
After this breakthrough success, Hayao Miyazaki retires to a long vacation that he devotes to his family and friends. However, the awake and restless spirit of the author does not sleep, and in 2001, Spirited Away, dubbed by critics as one of the most valuable films of the decade, appears on screen. The animation once again won the Japanese Film Academy Award and has become the highest grossing movie in Japanese cinema history to date, surpassing even the Titanic blockbuster in attendance.
"Spirited Away" is an event across the ocean - it was awarded the "Golden Bear" by the Berlinale Festival, as well as the Oscar for full-length animation, overcoming the undisputed hit Ice Age. .
In an interview with the Financial Times, the Japanese director said: "It is very important for me to maintain the exact proportion between hand drawing and computer drawing. The good balance is that I use both techniques and be able to name my 2D films. "
The productions of the "Japanese factory for animated dreams" studio "Gibley" remain true to the tradition of classical hand-painted animation. One of the main conditions for the distribution of films across the ocean is that they should not be edited. There is a legend about this - Miramax sent Miyazaki the editions planned for his film, and in response received an unequivocal ban on any interference - a package containing a samurai sword with the warning inscription "No cuts!".
After a brief break, Miyazaki directs Howl's Moving Castle (2004's Moving Castle), inspired by Diana Jones' novel. Following are the shorts "The Day I Bought a Star", "House-hunting", "Monmon - the Water Spider", as well as the full-length Ponyo (2008 Rock Ponyo).
At 2013, at a special press conference at the Venice International Film Festival, Miyazaki introduced "The Wind Rises" - an animation for Giro Horikoshi who invented the Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter jets. The film earned him a third Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe Award.
A year later, the Japanese genius received the American Academy Award for Outstanding Contribution to Cinematic Arts and Sciences, becoming the second Japanese to be honored after Akira Kurosawa in 1990.
Despite another statement that he is ending his career, in 2016, the tireless, already 75-year-old Miyazaki announced that he is working on a new animation project. Namely a short film with the main character Boro the caterpillar. This will be the director's first computer animation, with 3D. The premiere of the new Gable movie is announced for 2018.
