The prolific Japanese animation producer Studio Ghibli is to undergo fundamental changes following the departure of co-founder Hayao Miyazaki. A staunch advocate of the traditional line drawn approach that grew increasingly old-fashioned with the advent of CGI, Miyazaki wrote and directed the company’s best-known output, with SPIRITED AWAY breaking through to win an Oscar in 2003. Reportedly his exit has created too big a gap to fill and long-standing colleague Toshio Suzuki has told Japanese television the development slate will be substantially reconsidered. The expression “housecleaning” has been used and interpreted to mean the close of feature production at Ghibli for good.
Where the studio will head from here is uncertain but with these scaled-back ambitions we could be seeing the death of techniques long-abandoned by Western cinema outside of Disney. Broadcasters such as Film4 in the UK regularly show films like HOWL’s MOVING CASTLE and PONYO but with nothing to replace them the legacy of some thirty years could be reaching its end. Sad news indeed – hopefully someone else will pick up the baton before we are totally swamped by glossy pictures about farting critters and chuntering aliens. Not to mention all those movies about talking vehicles we didn’t ask for!
Check out our review of PRINCESS MONONOKE on Blu-Ray here.
Source: BBC
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