Otra entrevista
Entrevista: Satoshi Kon
by Justin Sevakis, Aug 21st 2008Traducción Subtiempo:
ANN: Vamos a empezar por el principio de su carrera. Usted fue al Colegio de Artes de Musashino y orginalmente quería ser pintor. En un principio ¿qué le interesó de la pintura?
SK: Además de pintar, también hubo un tiempo en el que estuve interesado en ser ilustrador. Como resultado de esto terminé siendo un artista del manga, y ahora estoy trabajando en la animación. No fue que sintiera que tenía que ser un ilustrador; mientras el arte y los dibujos estén involucrados en mi trabajo, sin importar el género, estoy satisfecho. Así que en términos generales porque quería trabajar en el arte de manera profesional fue porque lo que me inscribí en el Colegio de Artes de Musashino.
ANN: Así que obviamente hacer ilustraciones forma ahora parte de su vida cotidiana, pero más allá de eso, ¿todavía tiene tiempo de ilustrar cosas que no tienen nada que ver que sus proyectos de trabajo?
SK: Desde que inicié a dibujar arte como un profesional, no he tenido mucho tiempo de hace arte de manera privada. Muchísimas de las piezas que están aquí son parte de mi trabajo personal, pero son principalmente ilustraciones hechas con la intención con la intención de sincronizarlas con el desarrollo de una versión versión digital computarizada. Así que no es algo que haga todavía como un pasatiempo. Si dibujo algo, se hace relativo a mi trabajo, así que ¡ya no tengo pasatiempo!. NTT: ¡Que afortunado era el mestro Kon, tenía todo el apoyo para realizar las películas que quería realizar!
ANN: Después de la Universidad trabajo en World Apartment Horror (El horror del apartamento mundial) con Katsuhiro Otomo. ¿Cómo se conocieron en un principio?
SK: Nos conocimos en mis inicios como artista del manga en Young Magazine, pues al mismo tiempo el Akira manga de Otomo estaba siendo publicada en la mismarevista. También estaba haciendo trabajo de edción para la revista así que le ayudé con algo de su trabajo también.
ANN: Su primera influcia en el anime fue con el señor Otomo en Roujin Z, que fue escrita por Otomo y dirigida por Kitakubo Hiroyuki. ¿Que tanta influencia tuvo esta experiencia en usted y qué aprendió de ella?
SK: Ya que Roujin-Z fue la primera animación en la que tomé parte, las conexiones que hubo como resultado de la experiencia - el staff con el que trabajé durante todo ese tiempo y la relaciones que hice con el staff fueron muy influyentes en mi. Gracias a la ayuda del Señor Otomo, me fue posible trabajar en la industria de la animación. Aún al día de hoy las relaciones que formé con los distintos miembros del staff, han continuado siendo de gran ayuda e influyentes en mi.
ANN: Después de eso hizo su gran debut como guionista en Rosa Magnética (Magnetic Rose), una sección en la antología fílmica Recuerdos (Memories). El cual es un trabajo de ciencia ficción bastante sorprendente aún al día de hoy. ¿Escribir era algo que usted quería hacer en es punto?¿y cuales fueron los retos que enfrento en su primer trabajo como guionista?
SK: Claro, el escenario para Rosa Magnética fue la primera vez que escribí un guión para una película animada. Sin embargo, antes de eso, ya era un artista del manga, así que no fue como si hubiera sido la primera vez que tenía que crear una historia. Desde esa perspectiva, escribir el escenario de la historia no fue verdaderamente un reto. Sin embargo el proceso de crear una historia con solo palabras -sin dibujos que muevan la trama - eso fue un reto.
ANN: Your directorial debut, Perfect Blue (which is now over 10 years old) was recently re-released on Blu Ray in Japan, and you got to comment extensively on the film and relive the experience. Were there any suprises looking back on Perfect Blue after all these years?
SK: The new release appeared this year. That was my first experience as a director, and I have to admit that as I watched it, I noticed many things here and there that weren't done quite right - I felt a little embarrassed actually. Still, although Perfect Blue was my first film and many things didn't look right, there are many elements from the film that connect to my later works. When I watch it again, I feel inspired to keep improving my current work as if my life depended on the outcome.
ANN: Perfect Blue had a sort of strange production history, going from OAV to feature film in the middle of production. At some point in the process, someone must have realized, "Hey, this is very different from most anime and is probably something that should get more support than most anime usually get." Could you tell us about when this realization began to set in among the staff?
SK: With the production Perfect Blue, the biggest surprise was that many of the staff working on the film didn't know what kind of film it was until it was finished. For me, I really didn't feel like I was doing anything different; I would think, "It's this kind of scene, so it has to be like this" or "this is necessary for this kind of film." Still, when the film was finished and we had the first staff screening, one of the main staff said to me, "I didn't realize it was this kind of film!" He was truly shocked. It was tough to establish any sort of value judgment concerning the film with the staff.
ANN: Let's move on to Millennium Actress. There's some rumors that the Go Fish division of Dreamworks, which doesn't exist anymore, wanted to recut it for American audiences so the story would be in chronological order. Did you get a request like that, and what would your reaction to a request like that be?
SK: No, there was never a request like that. Still, I didn't know anything about what the release [in the US] would look like. I knew that Dreamworks would be releasing it here, but after that, I was never told how they would release it and promote it. The DVD jacket illustration was changed by the Dreamworks management, and honestly, I think that it doesn't really match the story of the film. It sabotages the culture of the film, I think. To put it bluntly... "what the hell?"
ANN: Millennium Actress went to several different film festivals and won many awards. By this point, you are one of the most influential anime directors, and you're only two films into your career. Did this affect you either as a person or as a creator, and did it make it easier to get new products made?
SK: First off, I'm always very thrilled to win awards. It's not like I am creating animation because I want to win awards. To be specific, winning awards represents acclaim for the project, and for the staff who worked so hard on the films, it represents praise for them as well. Even if I stand in front of the staff and say, "This really did well in the United States!," putting the experience of seeing that reaction into words is difficult - so if I get a plaque or a trophy and bring that home, everyone gets excited. I'm happy to win awards, and getting a kind of public recognition - that makes the staff really happy.
ANN: About that; have you ever received any kind of feedback from a fan or someone in particular that made a particularly strong impression on you? Any sort of reaction that really moved you?
SK: Rather than having an impression, it's quite uplifting. I've received a lot of responses, messages, and notes with regard to my films. Having seen those messages, it feels like the fans are saying, "Your work is great as it is, keep going!" So rather than serving as an influence, the support reinforces the position from which we've been making films. So we feel like we can continue in the same way we have been.
ANN: Tokyo Godfathers was a big departure for you, more of a linear traditional story and your only project to date that doesn't deal with subjective reality. Was it a challenge to work with more traditional, restrictive storytelling?
SK: Perfect Blue and Millenium Actress are set where both dreams and reality are blended. If you make things the same way as you always have, things can get redundant. So I decided to work with a different kind of story. The feeling like I wanted to face the challenge posed by that kind of work was strong. When films are made and the divide between dreams and reality is blurred, the story can become overtly theatrical. With Tokyo Godfathers, we intentionally made the story simple and focused on exposing the background of the characters more.
ANN: Much has been said about Tokyo Godfathers in the way it portrays the homeless in Japan, and that's a topic that Japan as a country typically doesn't like to talk much about. Did you intend it as a societal statement in that sense?
SK: I knew that if I made the main characters homeless people, the question of whether there was a message for society (or not) behind the work. I realized that. However, the important thing wasn't to just present the homeless problem in the script, but to focus on the mindset surrounding things we "discard." These are people who have been "discarded" from society; the homeless, the runaway girl. In Japanese society, civil rights that the people have are few in number. I wanted to examine how someone separated from mainstream society would once again rejuvenate society.
ANN: So you've gone against the types of women that have been very popular in anime recently - "moe" type of girls. All of your characters are very strong and self-reliant women, but at the same time many of them are put in kind of dangerous situations that are very alarming for western audiences. How do you see women in your life, and how do they affect the women you draw?
SK: For me, creating female characters really isn't my strong suit. The image of women that appears in Japanese animation, on the whole, is something that should be approached as a pre-existing stereotype. Women like the ones in anime don't really exist in reality. I don't appeal to realism as if my life depended on it, but with visuals, characters and the story, there's a reality amongst all that. The characters that appear in that reality - anime fans, stories, male characters - it's not like I present those in a purely realistic way either. Women are women, and women characters also have their own intentions and personalities, so I set the story in a way that it lets those personalities come out.
ANN: Your newest project - we haven't heard much yet, but we've heard that it's something that children will be able to enjoy. Can you share anything more with us yet? Does it have a title, release date or anything?
SK: The title will be Yume-Miru Kikai. In English, it will be The Dream Machine. On the surface, it's going to be a fantasy-adventure targeted at younger audiences. However, it will also be a film that people who have seen our films up to this point will be able to enjoy. So it will be an adventure that even older audiences can appreciate. There will be no human characters in the film; only robots. It'll be like a "road movie" for robots.
Unfortunately, we ran out of time at this point; thanks to Mr. Kon for sitting down with us, and thanks to the Film Society of Lincoln Center for arranging the interview. Special thanks to Evan Miller for his translation.
SK: Además de pintar, también hubo un tiempo en el que estuve interesado en ser ilustrador. Como resultado de esto terminé siendo un artista del manga, y ahora estoy trabajando en la animación. No fue que sintiera que tenía que ser un ilustrador; mientras el arte y los dibujos estén involucrados en mi trabajo, sin importar el género, estoy satisfecho. Así que en términos generales porque quería trabajar en el arte de manera profesional fue porque lo que me inscribí en el Colegio de Artes de Musashino.
ANN: Así que obviamente hacer ilustraciones forma ahora parte de su vida cotidiana, pero más allá de eso, ¿todavía tiene tiempo de ilustrar cosas que no tienen nada que ver que sus proyectos de trabajo?
SK: Desde que inicié a dibujar arte como un profesional, no he tenido mucho tiempo de hace arte de manera privada. Muchísimas de las piezas que están aquí son parte de mi trabajo personal, pero son principalmente ilustraciones hechas con la intención con la intención de sincronizarlas con el desarrollo de una versión versión digital computarizada. Así que no es algo que haga todavía como un pasatiempo. Si dibujo algo, se hace relativo a mi trabajo, así que ¡ya no tengo pasatiempo!. NTT: ¡Que afortunado era el mestro Kon, tenía todo el apoyo para realizar las películas que quería realizar!
ANN: Después de la Universidad trabajo en World Apartment Horror (El horror del apartamento mundial) con Katsuhiro Otomo. ¿Cómo se conocieron en un principio?
SK: Nos conocimos en mis inicios como artista del manga en Young Magazine, pues al mismo tiempo el Akira manga de Otomo estaba siendo publicada en la mismarevista. También estaba haciendo trabajo de edción para la revista así que le ayudé con algo de su trabajo también.
ANN: Su primera influcia en el anime fue con el señor Otomo en Roujin Z, que fue escrita por Otomo y dirigida por Kitakubo Hiroyuki. ¿Que tanta influencia tuvo esta experiencia en usted y qué aprendió de ella?
SK: Ya que Roujin-Z fue la primera animación en la que tomé parte, las conexiones que hubo como resultado de la experiencia - el staff con el que trabajé durante todo ese tiempo y la relaciones que hice con el staff fueron muy influyentes en mi. Gracias a la ayuda del Señor Otomo, me fue posible trabajar en la industria de la animación. Aún al día de hoy las relaciones que formé con los distintos miembros del staff, han continuado siendo de gran ayuda e influyentes en mi.
ANN: Después de eso hizo su gran debut como guionista en Rosa Magnética (Magnetic Rose), una sección en la antología fílmica Recuerdos (Memories). El cual es un trabajo de ciencia ficción bastante sorprendente aún al día de hoy. ¿Escribir era algo que usted quería hacer en es punto?¿y cuales fueron los retos que enfrento en su primer trabajo como guionista?
SK: Claro, el escenario para Rosa Magnética fue la primera vez que escribí un guión para una película animada. Sin embargo, antes de eso, ya era un artista del manga, así que no fue como si hubiera sido la primera vez que tenía que crear una historia. Desde esa perspectiva, escribir el escenario de la historia no fue verdaderamente un reto. Sin embargo el proceso de crear una historia con solo palabras -sin dibujos que muevan la trama - eso fue un reto.
ANN: Your directorial debut, Perfect Blue (which is now over 10 years old) was recently re-released on Blu Ray in Japan, and you got to comment extensively on the film and relive the experience. Were there any suprises looking back on Perfect Blue after all these years?
SK: The new release appeared this year. That was my first experience as a director, and I have to admit that as I watched it, I noticed many things here and there that weren't done quite right - I felt a little embarrassed actually. Still, although Perfect Blue was my first film and many things didn't look right, there are many elements from the film that connect to my later works. When I watch it again, I feel inspired to keep improving my current work as if my life depended on the outcome.
ANN: Perfect Blue had a sort of strange production history, going from OAV to feature film in the middle of production. At some point in the process, someone must have realized, "Hey, this is very different from most anime and is probably something that should get more support than most anime usually get." Could you tell us about when this realization began to set in among the staff?
SK: With the production Perfect Blue, the biggest surprise was that many of the staff working on the film didn't know what kind of film it was until it was finished. For me, I really didn't feel like I was doing anything different; I would think, "It's this kind of scene, so it has to be like this" or "this is necessary for this kind of film." Still, when the film was finished and we had the first staff screening, one of the main staff said to me, "I didn't realize it was this kind of film!" He was truly shocked. It was tough to establish any sort of value judgment concerning the film with the staff.
ANN: Let's move on to Millennium Actress. There's some rumors that the Go Fish division of Dreamworks, which doesn't exist anymore, wanted to recut it for American audiences so the story would be in chronological order. Did you get a request like that, and what would your reaction to a request like that be?
SK: No, there was never a request like that. Still, I didn't know anything about what the release [in the US] would look like. I knew that Dreamworks would be releasing it here, but after that, I was never told how they would release it and promote it. The DVD jacket illustration was changed by the Dreamworks management, and honestly, I think that it doesn't really match the story of the film. It sabotages the culture of the film, I think. To put it bluntly... "what the hell?"
ANN: Millennium Actress went to several different film festivals and won many awards. By this point, you are one of the most influential anime directors, and you're only two films into your career. Did this affect you either as a person or as a creator, and did it make it easier to get new products made?
SK: First off, I'm always very thrilled to win awards. It's not like I am creating animation because I want to win awards. To be specific, winning awards represents acclaim for the project, and for the staff who worked so hard on the films, it represents praise for them as well. Even if I stand in front of the staff and say, "This really did well in the United States!," putting the experience of seeing that reaction into words is difficult - so if I get a plaque or a trophy and bring that home, everyone gets excited. I'm happy to win awards, and getting a kind of public recognition - that makes the staff really happy.
ANN: About that; have you ever received any kind of feedback from a fan or someone in particular that made a particularly strong impression on you? Any sort of reaction that really moved you?
SK: Rather than having an impression, it's quite uplifting. I've received a lot of responses, messages, and notes with regard to my films. Having seen those messages, it feels like the fans are saying, "Your work is great as it is, keep going!" So rather than serving as an influence, the support reinforces the position from which we've been making films. So we feel like we can continue in the same way we have been.
ANN: Tokyo Godfathers was a big departure for you, more of a linear traditional story and your only project to date that doesn't deal with subjective reality. Was it a challenge to work with more traditional, restrictive storytelling?
SK: Perfect Blue and Millenium Actress are set where both dreams and reality are blended. If you make things the same way as you always have, things can get redundant. So I decided to work with a different kind of story. The feeling like I wanted to face the challenge posed by that kind of work was strong. When films are made and the divide between dreams and reality is blurred, the story can become overtly theatrical. With Tokyo Godfathers, we intentionally made the story simple and focused on exposing the background of the characters more.
ANN: Much has been said about Tokyo Godfathers in the way it portrays the homeless in Japan, and that's a topic that Japan as a country typically doesn't like to talk much about. Did you intend it as a societal statement in that sense?
SK: I knew that if I made the main characters homeless people, the question of whether there was a message for society (or not) behind the work. I realized that. However, the important thing wasn't to just present the homeless problem in the script, but to focus on the mindset surrounding things we "discard." These are people who have been "discarded" from society; the homeless, the runaway girl. In Japanese society, civil rights that the people have are few in number. I wanted to examine how someone separated from mainstream society would once again rejuvenate society.
ANN: So you've gone against the types of women that have been very popular in anime recently - "moe" type of girls. All of your characters are very strong and self-reliant women, but at the same time many of them are put in kind of dangerous situations that are very alarming for western audiences. How do you see women in your life, and how do they affect the women you draw?
SK: For me, creating female characters really isn't my strong suit. The image of women that appears in Japanese animation, on the whole, is something that should be approached as a pre-existing stereotype. Women like the ones in anime don't really exist in reality. I don't appeal to realism as if my life depended on it, but with visuals, characters and the story, there's a reality amongst all that. The characters that appear in that reality - anime fans, stories, male characters - it's not like I present those in a purely realistic way either. Women are women, and women characters also have their own intentions and personalities, so I set the story in a way that it lets those personalities come out.
ANN: Your newest project - we haven't heard much yet, but we've heard that it's something that children will be able to enjoy. Can you share anything more with us yet? Does it have a title, release date or anything?
SK: The title will be Yume-Miru Kikai. In English, it will be The Dream Machine. On the surface, it's going to be a fantasy-adventure targeted at younger audiences. However, it will also be a film that people who have seen our films up to this point will be able to enjoy. So it will be an adventure that even older audiences can appreciate. There will be no human characters in the film; only robots. It'll be like a "road movie" for robots.
Unfortunately, we ran out of time at this point; thanks to Mr. Kon for sitting down with us, and thanks to the Film Society of Lincoln Center for arranging the interview. Special thanks to Evan Miller for his translation.
Comentarios
Publicar un comentario