Japanese Religion in Film

[mark schilling]

I don't know how you phrased your question, but Oshii gave me quite a
different response in the following interview for "The Japan Times":

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?ff20040317a2.htm

The theme of "soul" or "spirit" is central to "Innocence," is it not? What
happens, Oshii asks, when the border between  human and machine blurs? Do
our human-like creations thereby acquire a human-like soul? His take on
these and related questions has a basis, I would say, in Japanese animism -- 
the sense, for example, that dolls have a spirit we abuse at our peril.

Mark Schilling






----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Mays" <tetsuwan at comcast.net>
To: <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2005 2:15 PM
Subject: Re: Japanese Religion in Film


> Oshii keeps coming up. When I asked him about this topic he said it's only
> imagery basically, just for show.
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "mark schilling" <schill at gol.com>
> To: <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2005 10:45 PM
> Subject: Re: Japanese Religion in Film
>
>
> > For comic takes on religion, try "Fancy Dance" (Suo Masayuki, 1989) or
> > "Kyoso no Tanjo" (Temma Toshihiro, 1993). The later film, whose English
> > title is "Many Happy Returns," stars Beat Takeshi as the chief enforcer
> for
> > a phony cult.
> >
> > As for animation, both Anno Hideaki's "Evangelion" TV series and films
and
> > Oshii Mamoru's "Ghost In the Shell 2: Innocence" delve into religion and
> > philosophy, in highly individual, borderless ways.
> >
> > And remember, there's a "God" in "Godzilla."
> >
> > Mark Schilling
> >
> > E-mail: schill at gol.com
> > Web site: http://japanesemovies.homestead.com/index.html
> >
>