by Paul Fischer
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Neil Gaiman talks
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Part 3: we talk of violence, sampled to the right, and of where Princess Mononoke fits in the overall scheme of world animation. Neil gets pissed off at critics, and Cranky steers the conversation over to how Princess Mononoke influenced the New Sandman project, called The Dream Hunters. And then the rest of his stuff... |
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CrankyCritic: Which
brings us to the American release of Princess Mononoke. You have three
children ...
Neil Gaiman: 16, 14 and 5
CrankyCritic: The elder kids, I would think, are perfect for Mononoke.
The younger daughter, who is five, is not.
Neil Gaiman: I wouldn't take the five year old. But having said that
I find that I'm starting to get pissed off with the stupid capsule reviews we're
getting that say: "Princess Mononoke. It's an animated film but not one
to
take the kiddies to. Too many decapitations!" I sort of look at it and go,
"I'm sorry. It's a two and a half hour movie. If you took every scene of
ultraviolence in this film and gave it four seconds on each side to happen,
you
wouldn't have a minute's worth of footage. You may be pushing thirty seconds."
CrankyCritic: A little shock value goes a long ways.
Neil Gaiman:
I think there are two films, and one filmmaker, with whom you can compare Mononoke.
The first, in some ways, is the original Snow White. Very dark. 
Very
violent. Very scary film. Disney could not possibly make it now. It's interesting
because when Disney made it, he was betting the farm on Snow White. Nobody
knew if anyone would come out and watch a full length animated movie. The consensus
in Hollywood, then, was that they wouldn't. If that movie had gone down, that
would have been it for Walt Disney. When people talk about Miyazaki as "a
Walt Disney figure," it's that Disney that I think of. The guy who
said "we're going to make a full length animated film. We're going to make
the best one we can. It's going to be scary. It's going to be beautiful. It's
going to be fun. And, you know what? If this goes down, I'm ruined."
CrankyCritic: You said "two films".
Neil Gaiman: The other film is the Disney's Fantasia. I think
Princess Mononoke has a lot more in common with Fantasia than anything
that's going down now. The most important thing about Fantasia is that
McDonald's would not want to do a tie-in. You're not going to get any cuddly "Night
on Bald Mountain" toys. Fantasia is big on complex stories, with
the dinosaur sequence, with the Bald Mountain sequence. I think it's very comparable
to Princess Mononoke. The filmmaker who I keep getting reminded of is
David
Lean. I'm trying to give people a comparison. The comparison is not Mulan
or Pochohantas or Beauty and the Beast. It's not Star Wars.
The comparison is Lawrence of Arabia.
CrankyCritic: Although
I think it's interesting that at the root of both Star Wars and Lawrence
of Arabia is something that's near and dear to me, which is everything that
Joseph Campbell has written. It's the quest.
Neil Gaiman: Interestingly enough that was the secret title under
which this film was tested, when they did test screenings in New York over the
last year.
CrankyCritic: There's
a real sense in Mononoke that the Natural Gods are being replaced by human
technology
Neil
Gaiman: Yes. These are Gods that are being killed off. Then again the
relationship between the Japanese and their Gods is not the same as the relationship
between the West and their gods. It's closer, in some ways, to the relationship
between the West and those parts of the West that believe in fairies. These are
not safe. You don't go out of your way to meet them. Yes, you may build temples
to them but the temple is as much to placate them and try to keep them contained
as it is to get them to do magic things for you or whatever.
CrankyCritic: How
is that reflected in The Dream Hunters, then?
Neil
Gaiman: Dream Hunters is actually from a different period of Japanese
history, 300 years earlier. I wanted to create a fairy tale so I started off with
a story about a fox and a badger. Tricky animals, rather than Gods, who are trying
to trick a monk out of his Temple. Then it turns into a rather ill-fated love
story because the monk is a monk and the fox is a fox and then it gets kind of
nasty. It's fun. I got to do all the Sandman things while doing them all in an
ancient Japanese context, illustrated by some amazing paintings by Yoshitaka
Amano.
CrankyCritic: Was
it nice to go back to Sandman after all these years?
Neil Gaiman: Yes. People keep asking was it hard to go back? No. It
was very lovely. Very reassuring and comforting hearing that voice in my head
again. Morpheus' dialog both writes itself and is as difficult to write as it
ever was. It's very hard work crafting Sandman dialog because he's very
exact with each word. Every word does what he wants it to do but it was a wonderful
feeling, getting that voice back in my head after all this time.
CrankyCritic: Since
we're just about out of time, let me briefly play fanboy and ask the status of
the Sandman movie.
Neil Gaiman: Ask Jon Peters.
CrankyCritic: Still in Hell?
Neil Gaiman: Still in Hell. And I, happily, have nothing to do with
it. It's looking much more promising for Death: The High Cost of Living
at Warners. Neverwhere is very, very close. We are talking to directors
right now. As far as I know we have two leading candidates, either of whom would
be perfect. [11/22/99 Richard III
director Richard Loncraine is signed to direct Neverwhere. Miramax's
Dimension films will release. 8/28/00 Terry Gilliam has signed to write
and direct Good Omens, based on the novel by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
9/2005 After doing other work, including Fear
and Loathing in Las Vegas and Brothers
Grimm, Gilliam
is
once
again
talking
on
the
record
about
picking up and finishing Good Omens]
CrankyCritic: We've
heard talk that your children's book I Swapped My Dad For 2 Goldfish (with
longtime collaborator, the artist, Dave McKean) is being turned into an
animated series?
Neil Gaiman: I think the negotiations are done. They've just taken
longer than anyone would have believed humanly possible. Sunbow, who did The
Tick, have bought the rights to do "Goldfish" as an animated series
with that family and those characters getting into ever stranger situations. I
suggested a few things I was planning on doing with them if I ever went back.
CrankyCritic: Is each episode a different trade?
Neil Gaiman: Oh, no, no. One episode will be the trade. Another might
be solving the hunger crisis. Part of the fun of it is that this is a kid who
will go out and have the kind of great ideas that change the world on a weekly
basis. Everyone else is going to have to learn to cope with it.
Copyright © 1999 Chuck Schwartz except All images and music © 1997 Studio Ghibli.