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There are several Mamoru Oshii book lists on the Internet, but they do not provide detailed descriptions of the contents. My collection of Mamoru Oshii books is not yet complete, but I would like to write a short summary for each of those books.
I apologize in advance for any grammatical errors or incorrect information.
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title: イノセンス創作ノート 人形･建築･身体の旅＋対談
(INNOCENCE Material Book: Thought on Dolls, Architecture, and Body + Interview)
release: 03/21/2004
publisher: Tokuma Shoten
[contents]
Thoughts on Dolls
location hunting in Japan: Why Human Beings Try to Make Something Resemble Themselves
location hunting in New York: For the First Time in 30 Years, I Met the Source of the Initial Motivation
location hunting in Germany and Italy: The Answer Is in The Film
Thoughts on Architecture
What We Wanted to Achieve in Animation: From The Castle of Cagliostro to Ghost in the Shell
What Does Direction Mean in Animation?: Three Elements of Film: Narrative, World, and Character
What I Want To Achieve in INNOCENCE: What Kind of Architecture Can Convey Batou's Emotion
Thoughts on Body
Two Types of Bodies in Live-Action Films
Armor Is a Body
The Borders of Body
Parts: Defective Body
Genitals as Body Parts
Culture of Body
Fragrant Body and Cold Body
Equipped Body
Interviews about Films
What Kind Of Reality Can Films Convey?: interview with Takeshi Yoro
Why Human Beings Make Dolls: interview with Shimon Yotsuya
What We Have Made So Far, What We Will Make from Now: interview with Toshio Suzuki
<review>
This is a collection of essays written by Oshii himself. As the title says, most of it is related to INNOCENCE, but some other parts are related to Oshii's entire filmography.
I have read many books on Oshii, but this is probably the best summary of his "film philosophy". I feel that it has connected all the information I have read so far.
In the first three chapters, Oshii talks about his thoughts on INNOCENCE and the location tour for the film. In that part, he mentions the core theme of the film.
"Why did I choose to use dolls? It's because I wasn't interested in humans. Don't get me wrong, I'm just not interested in the human psyche. I am interested in human beings themselves, or the environment that surrounds them. In other words, I'm interested in the human condition. I am not a hermit, and anyone can't make a film without such an interest. But to depict the human condition is not to depict the personal condition. Modern literature has gone overboard with such personal themes, but they still believe they represent the humanity theme. I don't think the film medium needs those old themes anymore, but some old people still believe in them. Worst of all, film directors themselves keep repeating the same thing. Anyway, how can I portray humanity without personal stories? After struggling with that question, I found the answer in <Dogs and Machines>."
"Since the time of Angel's Egg, I have repeatedly talked about the 'other', so when I found themes such as 'animals as the other' and 'technology as the objective other', I was moved. I finally understood why I like guns and weapons so much. I felt as refreshed as if I had taken a big poop. However, I didn't focus on the theme of dogs in GitS because no one would spend money on a movie about dogs. Besides, at the time, I still didn't know how to portray dogs as others."
In the second chapter, Oshii talks about architecture in anime. The chapter also serves as a summary of his filmography. In my review of The Lupin III Files, I mentioned that many of the ideas in Oshii's work came from the Lupin project. In this book, he talks about it differently.
First, he explains that he has consistently criticized the banality of anime backgrounds. That attitude probably comes from his experience at Tatsunoko Production. He was not fond of clichéd backgrounds like sunset by rivers or construction sites. Those are the cityscapes Oshii saw in the 50s when he was a child. Anime was repeating those outdated cliché even in the 70s. Due to the Tokyo Olympics, such environments no longer existed in reality. Oshii could not understand why anime creators repeated such nonsense. It was Yuji Nunokawa who advised Oshii to utilize sunset scenes. No matter how bad background painters are, they seldom draw sunsets badly. That episode is included in Roman Album PERSONA.
One day, he watched Hayao Miyazaki's masterpiece. It was "The Castle of Cagliostro. In that film, Miyazaki utilized every detail of the settings, including the casino, European landscapes. and the fortress. Oshii said, "I almost lost my mind when I remembered the ability difference between myself and Miyazaki." After such an experience, he met Miyazaki for the first time in an interview. At that time, Miyazaki criticized "Only You" so harshly. You can see how frustrated Oshii was. That experience led Oshii to Lupin III, Angel's Egg, and Patlabor series.
When Oshii checked Only You in the studio, he thought it was a bad film. It looked like just an extended episode of the TV series. At that time, he got drunk and fell asleep. At the preview, Hisayuki Toriumi, his mentor, said, "It's a cheerful movie, I like it!". He saved his own disciple by setting the mood.
Only You was presented in a double bill with "P.P. Rider", a film directed by Shinji Somai. Oshii was shocked at the difference between the two films. Only You was dominated by commercial demands and scheduling issues, while Somai did just what he wanted to do in P.P.Rider. One of the cast of P.P.Rider said, "No one will ever watch it. It's completely messed up. Kids will leave the theater as soon as finishing Only You.". But Oshii realized through the film that directors should stick to their visions.
In the next chapter, Oshii explains the principles of layout work. That part is very interesting and I would like to test my terrible translation skills again.
"Relying on intuition or inspiration will absolutely ruin a film. Production I.G's layout people and directors are so good that they can handle the mechanical chores like perspective (Oops.) Chief directors should focus on a more fundamental principle. (In fact, that's all we can do.)
What is that principle? It's simple. Divide the layout into three fields: foreground, middle ground, and background. You then place the three basic elements of films (characters, world, and story) in each field.
The foreground is a field for characters, where the superficial story is told. Animators' motivation and audience's interest lie in that field.
The middle ground is a field for visualizing the world. It is where directors' intentions are reflected. It is a field to be filled with production design, so it is the most information-dense space. True stories are told there. When the most important information is told, foreground and characters disappear and off-screen dialogues enter. The absence of characters is filled in by interior spaces of architecture.
In the foreground field, directors' hidden narratives unfold. It is a field of the subconscious. It is the most abstract and the most esoteric filed. You could call it "Idea". But in most scenes, that field is empty. In a word, it is a field of birds and airships.
As you have already noticed, the categories of these fields reflect the physical structure of animation. They may also reflect the structure of human consciousness."
"By layering completely different kinds of layers, we materialize worlds and narratives. <Anime> is a name of such a structure."
In Chapter 3, Oshii talks about G.R.M. and why he chose <armor> as a consistent theme. In The Red Spectacles, Oshii tried to control the actors' flesh-and-blood bodies with animation techniques, but it didn't work. In other words, he failed to express the body theme. Shigeru Chiba can act in both live-action and anime styles, so Chiba achieved Oshii's goal to some extent. Oshii has said that The Red Spectacles and Talking Head would not have been possible without Chiba. In The Red Spectacles, however, Oshii found another type of body. That is <armor>/protective gear.
Oshii says that, among Japanese entertainment media, only anime can compete with Hollywood movies. That is because only anime has achieved a sort of mindset of imaginary world and fictional environment. Audiences want to see "human-like characters with a lot of information", but those characters "must not be like real actors".
In other words, the audience wants to see "realistic characters with no real basis". That real basis is in actors' faces. For that reason, armor is the perfect item to create Oshii's ideal film with limited production resources in Japan. Armor cover actors' faces and turn them into anime characters.
Oshii put such an idea into the G.R.M. project, but it was cruelly canceled due to budget problems.
Armor, puppets, cyborgs, cities, and so on. Those Oshii's symbols are technically and philosophically connected by the same theme. He calls it <cold body>. Modern humans have lost their <fragrant bodies> due to the externalization of human functions. Today, cities and machines make up our identity. Humans have become more like dolls and armors. That is why Oshii juxtaposed humans with dogs. Modern people need animal bodies to remind them of <fragrant bodies>. Dogs are a substitute for the lost nature of human bodies. Oshii put those thoughts into INNOCENCE.
In that sense, INNOCENCE is the conclusion of Oshii's philosophy and experiments in filmmaking. He later called it "the end of Mamoru Oshii's first season.
