Totoro inspires Toy Story director

John Lasseter, the writer-director behind hit animated features Toy Story (1995), A Bug's Life (1998) and Toy Story 2 (1999), paid tribute to Japanese animation legend Hayao Miyazaki, who he said had a "profound influence" on his own life and work.

In an hour-long talk held as part of the ongoing 27th Tokyo International Film Festival, which ends on Friday, the chief creative officer at Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar and DisneyToons Studios, spoke of how Miyazaki's features, including My Neighbour Totoro (1988) and The Castle Of Cagliostro (1979), continue to inspire him.

Miyazaki's belief that animation can be enjoyed by viewers of all ages is one that he shares with his colleagues, Lasseter said.

The American, who walked the red carpet last Thursday as executive producer for the new Disney animated movie Big Hero 6, said by the time he graduated from the California Institute for the Arts 1979 and went to work for Disney, he was disappointed to discover that cartoons had stopped being all-ages entertainment.

"The industry in Hollywood that was making animation thought that animation was just for kids. But that is not how those animated films were originally made. But once animation moved to television and they were shown only on Saturday mornings and after school - kids' hours - there was a fundamental change in whom it thought animation was for. I was disappointed," he said.

While at Disney in 1981, he was introduced to a group of visiting Japanese animators. Among them was Miyazaki, who showed Lasseter a clip of The Castle Of Cagliostro. He was "absolutely blown away".

Lasseter illustrated his talk with a car-chase clip from the film, Miyazaki's first as feature-length writer-director, and with a famed bus stop clip from Totoro, in which the Cat Bus appears. He praised both for their wildly imaginative renderings, economy of illustration and deep emotional impact.

From that first meeting would grow a deep bond, both personal and collaborative. He became Miyazaki's English-language creative consultant, starting with Porco Rosso (1992) because he wanted to make sure the English-language overdubs were as rich and nuanced as the Japanese version.

At Pixar, whenever his teams feel creatively stuck, they watch works from Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli for inspiration. A castle rescue scene in Laputa: Castle In The Sky (1986) inspired a rescue scene in A Bug's Life (1998).

Elsewhere at the festival, Singaporean film-maker Liao Jiekai paid tribute to another Japanese auteur, Yasujiro Ozu. His first encounter with Ozu was at his university, The School Of The Art Institute Of Chicago, where he came to admire Ozu's family- centred, humanistic films such as Tokyo Story (1953) and Late Spring (1949).

"Ozu can depict humanity in its entirety with a domestic drama," says Liao, 29, whose new feature As You Were screened on Monday in the festival's Asian Future section.

In 2012, Liao, who works closely with Singapore's 13 Little Pictures collective, made a pilgramage of sorts to Ozu's grave in the neighbourhood of Kita- Kamakura.

"What people do is offer him sake. You buy a bottle from a convenience store, open it and leave it there on his grave. There're always fresh bottles there. It has become a shrine," says Liao, who is now serving an art residency at the Aomori Contemporary Art Centre. In As You Were, an impressionistic sketch of a pair of lovers as they grow up, a trace of Ozu can be found in the way shots are framed.

Referring to Ozu's preference for "tatami-level" low-angle shots rather than shooting at the traditional eye level, he says: "In As You were, you will see low-angle shots during the childhood scenes. Not as low as Ozu's because we sit in chairs, not tatami mats, but quite low."

johnlui@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on Oct 29, 2014.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.