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[drainer at mpinet.net]

I think you bring up two good points here: I'd argue that the "natural" 
itself is based on conventions that span beyond merely Miyazaki''s work. One 
could make the case that the film is based on disparate conventions drawn up 
from anime (Cameron is a self confessed nerd, though press material suggests 
his influences would come from more "serious" technology based anime, 
something beyond the scope of Miyazaki), video games (as you mentioned, 
online RPGs--World of Warcraft came immediately to mind while I watched--not 
just the art, but also certain camera angles, especially during flying 
scenes. At times the influence was almost blatant, and drastically different 
from anime), and the broader genre of sci-fi, which Cameron has played an 
important role in, again, usually focusing on technology.

The film has a multitude of influences, which is why I feel it is 
problematic to say "...this is Miyazaki's world," or to peg the style to any 
specific auteur, really. If anything, we have to analyze it from a 
postmodern framework and recognize its decentered influences, conventions, 
queues.

The second point regarding the ideological celebration of nature is spot on, 
and I think the lack of depth there is fairly evident, not by accident, but 
perhaps even on purpose, given the target audience. "How can we provide a 
political message about the environment without making the audience think?" 
It's almost that the producers wanted general audiences to dismiss what you 
described as the incorporation of new technology in order to glorify the 
premodern "noble" society, world, etc...

I won't go into the arguments about colonialism/Orientalism and fantasy, 
though that's the discussion people should have about this film...

By the way did you watch it in 3-D?
I watched it at Toho cinemas and aside from the seating (I like empty 
cinemas) everything else was perfect.

Did you notice the audience reaction? This is something I am particularly 
interested in, as it seems that Japanese audiences are reacting differently 
than American audiences. As I mentioned earlier, the majority of theater 
patrons left immediately at the beginning of the credits. I also did not 
hear too much praise, and, again, unusual to Japan, I noticed quite a few 
people talking during the screening. I wonder if the movie about the dog 
(forgot the name) would have been better. Though of course, the 3D here was 
great, it was Captain EO on steroids.



-daniel





----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Aaron Gerow" <aaron.gerow at yale.edu>
To: <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 11:38 PM
Subject: Re: Avatar


> Just a quick response:
>
> When you look at it, the similarities with Miyazaki are there: the  image 
> of the forest, the non-human world, of flying, etc. But I do  wonder if 
> this film doesn't have a very different vision of nature.  Miyazaki's 
> paean to natural forces is not unrelated to his insistence  on sticking to 
> some analog animation techniques, but Cameron's film  falls into the 
> contradiction that many cinematic celebrations of  nature do: they praise 
> the premodern, pre-technological world using  the most advanced technology 
> there is. Avatar, I think, tries to avoid  this, but only by radically 
> re-defining nature in a way I doubt  Miyazaki would approve. Many can of 
> course see that the narrative  situation of Avatar is essentially that of 
> video games, especially  online RPG where you, immobile at your station, 
> get to roam the world,  kill people, and get the girl via your avatar. 
> Avatar plays off the  discontent with modern technological reality by 
> offering the fantasy  of really abandoning one's body for the game world. 
> But the trick here  is that the Avatar planet, with its database of souls 
> and memories, of  creatures with Firewire plugs, of trees that allow one 
> access to the  network, is essentially the Internet rendered into a 
> Gaia-like deity.  In other words, I think Avatar tries to have its 
> ideological cake and  eat it too by spouting a critique of industrial 
> technological  capitalism (mining and machines) and praising a natural, 
> premodern  society, while all the while defining that society as precisely 
> the  new media technological capitalism that we have today. I very much 
> doubt Miyazaki, regardless of all his own ideological ambiguities,  would 
> buy this.
>
> That was my initial reaction upon seeing the film (albeit at a theater  in 
> Japan with a bunch of technological glitches--quite appropriate, I  might 
> add!).
>
> Aaron Gerow
> Associate Professor
> Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
> Yale University
> 53 Wall Street, Room 316
> PO Box 208363
> New Haven, CT 06520-8363
> USA
> Phone: 1-203-432-7082
> Fax: 1-203-432-6764
> e-mail: aaron.gerow at yale.edu
> site: www.aarongerow.com
>
>
>