Sometimes, a sword never has to leave its scabbard in order to serve its purpose.
For a case in point, allow me to take you to the end of the 20th century, and a meeting between two men who's names are now known across the United States, though for drastically different reasons.
The traveler, or visitor, is the soon to be internationally famous Japanese animator and director Hayao Miyazaki. He is several days into a trip across the Pacific ocean, on his way to a face to face meeting with the head of Miramax Pictures. The conversation would be tence, and combative, but the japanese artists was going into this conversation with an iron clad resolve.
In 1985, a much younger Miyazaki has sold the US distribution rights to his environmentally minded "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" with the hopes of widening his audience.
The results were, to be polite about it, disastrous. Having sold part of the creative control with the early contract, US producers edited over twenty minutes from the film, rearranged several key scenes to the point where the plot was bordering on nonsensical, and released a marketing poster that had 5 figures on it, none of whom were in the film or had anything to do with the story being told. The US edit was named "Warriors of the wind", which was salt in the would for the pacifist director who had written a movie he intended to tell a message of peace.
Now a decade later, and just as much wiser, Miyazaki was taking another bite at the US market apple.
And again, the 'suits' in the american movie industry had a very clear idea of how this was going to happen.
Only this time, they were not ready for Miyazaki.
The stakes this time were even higher, though. The film was another heartfelt work for the career animator and director. Again tapping into the themes of environmentalism, it also drew heavily on human psychology, and themes of Japanese spirituality. The tale was a gripping, gory, violent, and disturbingly emotional tale of the will to live, the fight to do so, and the losses encountered along the way. With a budget that dwarfed his earlier works, this one, he knew, was of the quality that would make it engaging for a mainstream, mature US audience.
The Movie was "Princess Mononoke".
No sooner had the first copy for Princess Mononoke made it to the US than Miramax studios went to work with edit orders. Scene of female cleavage, flirting, gore, violence, and anything that could be called intense needed to be cut out, or have the sound design changed in order to not scare off 'the kids'. The art department was already working on posters with a target audience of 8 to 16, though half of them reportedly had not seen any version of the film when they begin their drawings. And at the head of the effort was the head of the studio, supremely confident that he was going to get his way, no matter what.
Then, the unthinkable happened.
Miyazaki said 'no'.
The studio head was, per several reports, flabbergasted that his requests were being "slowed down". He sent another letter, and this one was much more direct.
Again, the reply came back that Miyazaki would accept none of the the suggested edits.
Not one.
The Studio (and specifically its head) was now thoroughly bothered by this, a meeting was requested so that Miyazaki could be convinced in person to the suggestions.
He agreed and flew to the US.
But as this trip was shaping up, another player stepped into the picture. One of Miyazaki's producers went to he trouble of purchasing a authentic Japanese Katana, the world-famous sword type best known for its use in the hands of the Samurai warriors of the Japanese feudal era. He had the item boxed, and expressed mailed to the head of Miramax Studios, with a note place on the blade.
The note had only two words.
"No Cuts"
By all accounts, the timing of the message was what it needed to be. The Sword arrived ahead of Miyazaki, and no doubt conveyed the message with the type of clarity that the American had not seen before.
But the studio head would not budge, and pressed on with the meeting, confident he would bend Miyazaki to his will and go on to market Princess Mononoke to the traditional US animated film market of children 8 to 16 years old.
Miyazaki Would describe the meeting in simple terms, but his words were telling.
I did go to New York to meet this man, [...] , and I was bombarded with this aggressive attack, all these demands for cuts. I defeated him."
-Hayao Miyazaki
Princess Mononoke would go on to begin the process of Catapulting Hayao Miyazaki to world wide recognition, and then on to international stardom in both the animated film industry, and then among film directors across the board. It would be released in the US with an all-star voice cast, additional screen play work done with the help of Neil Gaiman, and a MPAA rating of PG-13, appropriately reflective of the powerful subject matter and story telling methods chosen by the Miyazaki.
And the Studio head?
Sadly, his stubbornness with Miyazaki proved to be but a small symptom of a horrific man's destructive need to control almost anything. or anyone he encountered.
On February 24, 2020, the former Head of Miramax Studios was convicted of 5 counts of sexual assault. Harvey Weinstein, who's headstrong and bullish personality had been tolerated for years because of the cash flow he could generate, had ultimately become the focal point for one of the most intense call-outs of the #metoo movement. Coworkers and colleagues have also verified that he was notorious for accepting little if any compromise in business dealings, and openly bragged about ruining people who argued with him. Hundreds of accounts have surfaced that his 'you will not say no to me' attitude was visited ten-fold on women he was sexually drawn to.
Few have ever claimed to have be able to best the once powerful business man on ground of his choosing.
So, in this strange and convoluted story, it is, in fact, accurate to say that Hayao Miyazaki, the master of modern animation, did do battle with the villainous Harvey Weinstein, and with the help of a sword, defeated him.
His Lordship Ivo Blackhawk
Kingdom of Ansteorra
"Long Live the King!"
No comments:
Post a Comment