Absolute master of Japanese animated cinema, Hayao Miyazaki was recently awarded honor – with Studio Ghibli – at the Cannes Film Festival, a special Palme d'Or. The opportunity for Miyazaki to make tweeters laugh with a hilarious video, and for us to pay tribute to this living legend, by focusing on the works and artists who inspired him, as we did for Alexandre Astier (Kaamelott) and Neil Druckmann (The Last of Us).
#1 The cinema of Akira Kurosawa
The pope of Japanese cinema obviously had a major influence on the career of Hayao Miyazaki. Not only did the master cite the director ofSeven Samurai(1954) among his favorite Japanese directors – alongside Yasujirô Ozu and Mikio Naruse -, but he also paid him a vibrant tribute with Princess Mononoke, which many fans consider to be the greatest film by Hayao Miyazaki.
Indeed, according to the co-founder of Studio Ghibli, Princess Mononoké was mainly inspired by by The Spider's Castle(1957) and The Hidden Fortress (1958) by Akira Kurosawa. Furthermore,The Seven Samuraiis among Miyazaki’s ten favorite films, whose ranking is at the top of the list. find here.
#2 The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1953)
French literature has obviously inspired many artists. the work of Hayao Miyazaki. While Gina performs in French the Communard song Le Temps des Cerises by Jean- Baptiste Clément in Porco Rosso, Jiro Horikoshi and Nahoko dialogue by quoting two hemistics from a verse from the poet Cimetiere Marin Paul Valéry in The Wind rises: “The Wind rises!… We must try to live!“
Furthermore, Hayao Miyazaki never hid his ideas. his admiration for the work of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, which he considers partly responsible for the passion he has for the 1930s. It must be said that in addition to having written one of the most beautiful novels for young people, along withThe Little Prince– which Hayao Miyazaki considers his favorite book. ! -, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was also a profoundly humanist aviator, as evidenced by his autobiographical novelTerre des Hommes. When we know Hayao Miyazaki's love for airplanes and his own humanist commitment, his interest in this gigantic French writer is all the more obvious.
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#3 Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies (1929-1939)
Hayao Miyazaki does not particularly appreciate the productions of the Disney studio, and his cinematographic work often appears as a perfect counterpoint to the films produced by the big-eared studio. However,the filmmaker did not miss out on his work. to qualify his criticisms by confessing his admiration for theSilly Symphonies, this series of short films produced between 1929 and 1939, mostly adapting European tales and fables, and having served as a laboratory for the Disney studio for their work onSnow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Note that if the influence of theSilly Symphonies is not immediately perceptible in Hayao Miyazaki's feature films,we can however feel it a little more with the short ones. – films he made for the Ghibli Museum, and four of which were recently unveiled in France. Indeed, some of them seem to evoke in their very structure these old musical and poetic short films from the first Golden Age of the Disney studio. >
#4 Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865)
One of the most important books in English literature, Alice in Wonderland is one of Hayao Miyazaki's favorite novels. Beyond due to the fact that Miyazaki may have been affected by by the fact that this wonderful novel is centered on around a female character, the overflowing and limitless imagination of Lewis Carroll naturally impacted the genre. the Japanese filmmaker.
We also findAlice in Wonderland in several of his feature films, start withSpirited Away, which looks like in many ways aAlice Shinto version. We also think of theBoy and the Heron, the White Rabbit replacing the by this enigmatic heron.
#5 The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep, by Paul Grimault and Jacques Prévert (1953)
We can never say enough how much The Shepherdess and The Chimney Sweepby Paul Grimault and Jacques Prévert had a major influence on Miyazaki's work. Adapted to from a tale by Hans Christian Andersen, this is the first version by Paul Grimault and Jacques Prévert of the cult animated filmThe King and the Bird. Praising the science of movement and the change of rhythm of film, which he discovered in the 1950s, Hayao Miyazaki often cited explicitly the feature film.
To the point that his first animated film,The Castle of Cagliostrodraws its influence as much from the work of Maurice Leblanc (normal for a Lupine III film) as from the film of Grimault: of thwarted marriage between a tyrant and a beautiful young girl this castle evoking In many ways that of the King of Takicardie, Grimault and Prévert are everywhere! His third feature film,The Castle in the Sky is also inspired byThe Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep, particularly for its robots.
#6 The White Serpent, by Taiji Yabushita (1958)
Released in 1958 and inspired by of a famous Chinese legend,The White Serpent is reputed to be to be the first animated film in the history of Japanese cinema. The feature film had a major influence on Hayao Miyazaki, who discovered it later. at the age of 17. Not only he fell in love with his feminine character, but in addition he will confide that theWhite Serpent“convinced him, that in Japan too, it was possible to express a lot of things through animation“. In other words, we certainly owe Hayao Miyazaki's career to theWhite Serpent.