THANK YOU AGAIN GUYS for being so flexible on Monday. I know it was kind of confusing but at least we mostly got to watch the movie and discuss a little (from what I hear).
ALERT! If you are reading this, I hope you have thought about what you're doing for your final project. I hope there is some topic that you're interested in pursuing more deeply that you will have ready by Monday or at least by next Friday. Mandatory final project you know! I sent out an email about it, so email miyazaki.decal@gmail.com if you didn't get the email.
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So! Discussion questions for Princess Mononoke. It's a movie that's pretty well-known among most people, and I suspect that a lot of you that had scene it came into the class with presuppositions about it. Or at least, being a fairly didactic film, you guys probably can sense a lot of themes that Miyazaki is trying to portray, and have some opinions on it. so....
Miyazaki's interview on
http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/interviews/m_on_mh.html
A lot of you guys mentioned in your first application sheets, and in class, is that Miyazaki deals with a lot of ambiguities. Moral, social, what-have-you. We talked about the ending, (is it happy or not? Can it even be defined or categorized?), the nature of progress, etc. Here's a quote from Miyazaki that acknowledges his own understanding of the complexity - I don't think he's just condemning or judging.
When you talk about plants, or an ecological system or forest, things are very easy if you decide that bad people ruined it. But that's not what humans have been doing. It's not bad people who are destroying forests.
1) Can you identify one of these ambiguities, and lay out the arguments within it? Defend/advocate for both sides, or the many sides? Where is it difficult to judge or have a definitive answer, and why?
2) What kind of future do you think Miyazaki wants to see humanity living? (if not the indistrialized Lady Eboshi or the civilized samurai overlord life) What is he advocating for us to do here? How do you personally feel about what he seems to be saying?
3) What do you think that Miyazaki is trying to say about loss, destruction, time, and consequence? Jenny said, "What happens when we destroy the spiritual sanctuary of our imagination, when we desecrate the innermost place of purity."
4) How does Mononoke compare to Miyazaki's other films? It was the first of his films to actually use CGI :P
5) Any personal responses or other comments you wanted to say about the film?
Somebody cosplayed as San.
But then again they also dressed up as Totoro.