A former Nutrition Student and currently a Marketing Undergrad who still spend most of her time over at makeup counters, meddling with crafts and wreck some JFashion havoc (occasionally) in a retail line.
My previous English teacher once commented that my quiet determination to succeed will stand me in good stead in the future.
Very nice to meet you, I'm Cheryl and I hope you have fed your pet already.
I told Miyazaki I love the “gratuitous motion” in his films; instead of every movement being dictated by the story, sometimes people will just sit for a moment, or they will sigh, or look in a running stream, or do something extra, not to advance the story but only to give the sense of time and place and who they are.
“We have a word for that in Japanese,” he said. “It’s called ma. Emptiness. It’s there intentionally.”
Is that like the “pillow words” that separate phrases in Japanese poetry?
“I don’t think it’s like the pillow word.” He clapped his hands three or four times. “The time in between my clapping is ma. If you just have non-stop action with no breathing space at all, it’s just busyness, But if you take a moment, then the tension building in the film can grow into a wider dimension. If you just have constant tension at 80 degrees all the time you just get numb.”
Which helps explain why Miyazaki’s films are more absorbing and involving than the frantic cheerful action in a lot of American animation. I asked him to explain that a little more.
“The people who make the movies are scared of silence, so they want to paper and plaster it over,” he said. “They’re worried that the audience will get bored. They might go up and get some popcorn.
But just because it’s 80 percent intense all the time doesn’t mean the kids are going to bless you with their concentration. What really matters is the underlying emotions–that you never let go of those.
I remember a teacher telling me how Archaeologists would hack off the noses of statues they found in order to remove any indication that it was of a black person or any POC. It hurts me to think of all the art we’ve lost and damaged because of historical revisionism and flat out racism.
