Forum - View topicNEWS: Ursula K. Le Guin on Gedo Senki
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
mako
Posts: 20 |
|
|||
|
I feel bad about how things are turning out.
First, Goro shouldn't have posted her words without her permission. I'm sure he was excited because she said it was a good film, but from her statement to him, I got the impression that she was being polite. She didn't say she liked it. Second, it is possible that she got the wrong impression after reading the translation of the comments he made on his blog. I felt the translated comments here give a different impression than the original Japanese on a couple of important points.
I don’t agree with how それでも温かい笑顔とともに下さった言葉です is translated. (this is the first part) I would translate it as follows: "I think she probably wanted to say a lot more than what she said, but still, she gave me those words with a warm smile." (end of translation) The Japanese just says "warm smile"; it doesn't say it conveyed what she felt about the movie, although it is very possible that Goro thought it did. As for the second part, I would translate it as follows: “I appreciate her comment from the bottom of my heart and would like to gratefully accept it.” |
||||
|
||||
mskala
 Posts: 45 Location: Waterloo, Ontario |
|
|||
You're probably a lot younger than she is, and that has a lot to do with it. Skin colour was a very big deal in the USA a few decades ago in a way that's hard for anyone who wasn't there to understand or imagine. It's still a big deal in the USA in a way that's hard for anyone outside the USA to understand - here in Canada we have racism and that means the Natives hate the English who hate the French who hate the Jamaicans who hate the Chinese... but in the USA, racism means Black versus White, that's it, even though neither of those even is a race under any sensible definition - and things were even sillier in the 1960s and 70s. A Wizard of Earthsea came out in 1968, the same year my Dad got tear-gassed in the Democratic National Convention riots, and the book seems to have been intended as a political statement relevant to the time. I only know about what things were like in 1968 from reading history books and talking to my parents, but it sounds like a pretty crazy historical period. She was there. Were you? Ursula K. LeGuin has had a bug up her butt about skin colours of fantasy characters in general and Earthsea characters in particular, since before I was born and probably you, too. The skin colours of the characters in the Earthsea saga were, from her point of view, a really big part of the Important Literary Point she was making with the books, and absolutely essential and fundamental to the plot. She's been quite vitriolic about the way they were handled in a previous adaptation, and given that the movie didn't reproduce them exactly as she imagined them complete with a perfect translation of the 1960s-era American political implications, I'm actually quite surprised she was as nice about it this time around as she was. |
||||
|
||||
|
Peter Ahlstrom
Posts: 72 Location: Los Angeles |
|
|||
From the Earthsea wikipedia article:
She very specficially designed her characters' skin color, and describes it in the books, yet over the decades countless cover illustrations have been made showing the main characters as white. Same with the Sci Fi channel adaptation. It's no specific indictment of the anime version. |
||||
|
||||
|
Jariten
Company Representative
 Posts: 179 Location: Here and there |
|
|||
Thanks for the comment, Mako! Little intricacies like that can be the hardest part about translating these things. Thanks a lot for the help - これからもがんばります。 -Jariten, translation lackey^-^ |
||||
|
||||
halochief_90
 Posts: 466 Location: Canada |
|
|||
|
I would actually like to see Goro make his own anime movie... outside of Ghibli. I have a strange feeling that he was likely given a lot of pointers, and co-direction by the professionals. He should even write his own story; at least he would know how to present this story with only himself to disappoint on his creation.
By that time, I think that's when we'll only know for sure whether or not Goro is truly capable, and worthy, of making a movie with Ghibli. |
||||
|
||||
hikaru004
 Posts: 2306 |
|
|||
|
So, she's ticked because whatever statement she wanted to see made about racism wasn't done this time around either. Well, duh, this is a Ghibli film.
|
||||
|
||||
|
shirokiryuu
Posts: 714 Location: Northern California (SF Bay Area) |
|
|||
I think she's just differentiating them, rather than not knowing. I mean.. Hayao Miyazaki is really well known, as well Hayao Miyazaki. I guess she'd rather not say something like Miyazaki Jr. and Sr. 
|
||||
|
||||
bluepita
 Posts: 465 |
|
|||
I highly agree with this. In addition, often more action has to be put into a movie. Often scenes that come across as dramatic in a book are enhanced by thought, descriptions of sound, and other things generally handled by our imagination. While many of these elements are used in movies, they do not come across the same way. Two pages of description in a book can be conveyed in about three seconds of a movie. Action is often needed to make up for the imagination we use in books. Otherwise the movie would be extremely boring. I am sorry for Ursula Le Guin and her disappointment in both adaptations. However, as a fan, I still look forward to watching this anime very, very much. |
||||
|
||||
|
Merciful Evans
Posts: 18 |
|
|||
Considering the "statement" is as simple as the skin color of the major characters, I don't think it was too much to ask. I actually enjoyed the nontraditional ethnicities as a kid when I read the books. But, then, as LeGuin said herself on her journal, (and not really snarkily, so what's the big deal?) she's not familiar with the Japanese perspective on skintones in animation, and neither am I. |
||||
|
||||
|
hikaru004
Posts: 2306 |
|
|||
Well, it's not that simple. This is a family film, so any racial undercurrents ("issues") would have been smoothed over. It does have to appeal to the broadest population in Japan and the U.S. If she wasn't that familiar with Japanese culture, anime skin tones and marketing of that title, then she should have done some research before agreeing to it. This wasn't the first time she said something like that. (Look at Sydney2k's post on this page.) This skin color thing that she has just strikes me as different. |
||||
|
||||
|
Peter Ahlstrom
Posts: 72 Location: Los Angeles |
|
|||
|
It doesn't really have racial undercurrents. The characters just have a skin color that is in itself a race statement. Like if someone made a movie version now of the Cosby Show but used all white actors, that would be inherently unfaithful to the original. But if they used black actors that would just be normal, not something that needed to be smoothed over for a family film audience.
|
||||
|
||||
|
mako
Posts: 20 |
|
|||
You are very welcome, Jariten.  お互いに頑張りましょう！
|
||||
|
||||
|
hikaru004
Posts: 2306 |
|
|||
|
Okay, no racial undertones, "issues" or statements other that X ethnic group is suppose to look like this and you didn't do it that way. I understand now.
I think that the skin color thing just reflects everyone attempting to reach a target population which has different views from the author. Maybe she should just give up on an adaptation in that respect unless she finances it herself. |
||||
|
||||
|
Djinn_Wired
Posts: 4 Location: Nagoya |
|
|||
|
As others have said, it's important to enjoying films and books seperately
The storyline of Gedo Senki is very very simple, so I was a tad dissapointed but more because I expect some complexity from Ghibli films then because it didn't have the messages that are in the books (Gedo is based largely on the fourth novel with bits of the third). Personally, I thought the animation was beautiful and I was happy to appreciated it mostly as something visually pleasing. The sound track appealed to me a lot more then most Ghibli stuff as well.
|
||||
|
||||
|
Tako
Posts: 1 |
|
|||
|
I have to say I can see where she's coming from...her books would be almost impossible to make into a movie as she wrote them, and I think Hayao Miyazaki is one of very few directors who would even have had a chance of doing it. So I can see why she wanted him doing it, and was sad to have her hopes dashed. There's probably nothing wrong with the movie, and I'd even go so far as to say that it's probably excellent (given the reviews), but I doubt that it has the unique style that made Earthsea stand out from every other fantasy novel I've read. But it may be more enjoyable as a result, as I can't imagine how a movie based on Le Guin's themes could work.
One of the biggest problems is that the novels have a great sense of stillness, at least the way I interpret them. The focus is on learning to see and accept the unchanging nature of the world. Individual humans, even the main characters, seem small in comparison. The development happens as the characters learn about the nature of existance and come to terms with their role in it--not by them changing their world. Even when extraordinary things happened, I got the feeling that it was just a part of life, which they had learned to live to the utmost. The inherent nature of the world hadn't changed. Obviously, that's not the kind of thing that can easily be made into a movie, and the only movie that I've seen that has that same emphasis on seeing the world for what it is and then finding happiness within yourself is Miyazaki's Mimi o Sumaseba (not sure of the English title). I haven't seen Totoro, but if it's similar, I can see why Le Guin would have felt a connection. Still, while I would have been overjoyed to see a Sumaseba-esque Earthsea movie, I'm looking forward to the new version. I have enough confidence in everyone at Ghibli (the director doesn't make the movie by himself, after all) to feel sure that it will be delightful. |
||||
|
||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group