The Asian reporter., April 16, 2018, Page Page 13, Image 13

A.C.E.
April 16, 2018
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 13
Studio Ghibli co-founder, director Isao Takahata dies at 82
By Yuri Kageyama
The Associated Press
OKYO — Isao Takahata, co-founder of the
prestigious Japanese animator Studio Ghibli that
stuck to a hand-drawn manga look in the face of
digital filmmaking, has died. He was 82 years old.
Takahata started Ghibli with Oscar-winning animator
Hayao Miyazaki in 1985, hoping to create Japan’s Disney,
and helped shape the style and voice of what became one of
the world’s most respected animation studios as well as
this nation’s prized cultural export.
He directed Grave of the Fireflies, a tragic tale about
wartime childhood, and produced some of the studio’s
films, including Miyazaki’s 1984 Nausicaa of the Valley of
the Wind, which tells the horror of environmental disaster
through a story about a princess.
Takahata died of lung cancer at a Tokyo hospital,
according to a studio statement.
He was fully aware how the floating sumi-e brush
sketches of faint pastel in his works stood as a stylistic
challenge to Hollywood’s computer-graphics cartoons.
In a 2015 interview with The Associated Press,
Takahata talked about how Edo-era woodblock-print
artists like Hokusai had the understanding of
western-style perspective and the use of light, but they
purposely chose to depict reality with lines, and in a flat
way, with minimal shading.
That, he said, was at the heart of Japanese manga, or
comics.
“It is about the essence that’s behind the drawing,” he
said at Ghibli’s picturesque office in suburban Tokyo. “We
want to express reality without an overly realistic
depiction, and that’s about appealing to the human
imagination.”
His 1982 rendition of “Gauche the Cellist,” a classic by
early 20th-century poet-writer Kenji Miyazawa, was
inspired by oil paintings. When he spoke of computer
graphics or other digital techniques like 3-D, he
practically said the terms with a scoff.
He said Ghibli strove to fuse Japanese and western
filmmaking styles.
In the interview, Takahata confessed to an almost
love-hate relationship with Miyazaki because their works
were so different. He said he tried not to talk about
Miyazaki’s works because he would have to be honest, and
then he would end up getting critical, and he didn’t want
conflict with an artist he so respected.
His last film, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, based on
a Japanese folktale, was nominated for a 2015 Oscar for
best animation feature, although it did not win.
He is also known for the 1970s Japanese television
series “Heidi, Girl of the Alps,” based on the book by Swiss
author Johanna Spyri.
A native of Mie prefecture, Takahata was a graduate of
the University of Tokyo and initially worked at Toei, one
of Japan’s major film and animation studios.
Although he did not win an Oscar, Takahata won many
other awards, including honors from the Los Angeles Film
Critics Association and the Lorcano International Film
Festival.
There was an outpouring of international
mourning.
Pixar’s Lee Unkrich, director of Toy Story 3, said
Takahata influenced Michael Arndt’s script for Little Miss
Sunshine, a road trip comedy about a family of losers
trying to survive.
“Grave of the Fireflies is an amazing, emotional film.
And My Neighbors the Yamadas is incredibly charming,”
Unkrich said in a tweet from his verified account.
My Neighbors the Yamadas chronicled the daily
vignettes of the Yamada family, in a humorous way,
evoking a comic-strip style.
Strong female characters were a Takahata
Fans dance as India court grants bail to Bollywood superstar
By Ashok Sharma
The Associated Press
EW DELHI — A court has granted bail to
Bollywood superstar Salman Khan while he
appeals his conviction on charges of poaching
rare deer in a wildlife preserve two decades ago, a welcome
development for thousands of fans who greeted their hero
with songs and firecrackers.
Khan was convicted and sentenced to five years in
prison and was immediately sent to jail. Within days,
judge Ravindra Kumar Joshi ordered him to sign a surety
bond of 50,000 rupees ($770) before he was set free from
the jail in Jodhpur, a town in western India.
Hundreds of Khan’s overjoyed fans danced outside the
courtroom and chanted “We love you, Salman.” His
sisters, Alvira and Arpita, were present during the
hearing.
Carrying big garlanded posters of Khan, the fans set off
firecrackers and sang songs from his Bollywood movies as
some of them chased his car heading to the airport.
The scenes were more intense outside his Mumbai
residence in India’s entertainment capital. Thousands of
fans waited for hours and lit up the sky with fireworks as
Khan reached his home.
Flanked by his father and other relatives, he came to
the balcony of his apartment with folded hands and
waved, thanking them for their support. He retreated
after signalling his fans to go home.
Four other Bollywood stars accused in the case — Saif
Ali Khan, Sonali Bendre, Tabu, and Neelam — were
acquitted. They were in the vehicle that Salman Khan was
believed to be driving during the hunt in 1998. Tabu and
Neelam both use just one name.
Khan says he did not shoot the two blackbuck deer. The
heavily muscled actor was acquitted in two related cases.
N
His attorney, Mahesh Bora, has challenged the
conviction and sentence, and Khan will remain free
pending the outcome of the appeal.
Soli Sorabjee, a legal expert, said it was normal for bail
to be granted in such a case, and didn’t see Khan getting
any special treatment from the court. “This has nothing to
do with Khan’s personality as an actor,” he said.
The 52-year-old Khan has starred in more than 90
Hindi-language films. But he has also had a reputation as
a Bollywood bad boy, known for his run-ins with the law —
including a fatal car accident — and his troubled
relationships with women.
His biggest Hindi films include Hum Dil De Chuke
Sanam (I Have Fallen In Love), Sultan (Ruler), Ek Tha
Tiger (There Was a Tiger), and Tiger Zinda Hai (Tiger is
Alive).
Khan spent a total of 18 days in prison in 1998, 2006,
and 2007 in the poaching cases, but was freed on bail. He
had been sentenced to prison terms of between one and
five years in related cases before being acquitted by
appeals courts for lack of evidence.
The blackbuck is an endangered species protected
under the Indian Wildlife Act.
The Bishnoi, a religious sect whose beliefs include
worshipping nature and wildlife, and who have long
protected the blackbuck deer, expressed disappointment
at the acquittal of the four other actors.
Khan has faced other charges in the past. In 2014, the
Mumbai High Court acquitted him in a drunken-driving,
hit-and-run case, after he was accused of running over five
men sleeping on a sidewalk in 2002, killing one of them.
The judges found that prosecutors had failed to prove
charges of culpable homicide.
The government of Maharashtra state has challenged
that acquittal in the Supreme Court.
Wondering what’s going on this week?
Check out The AR’s Community and A.C.E. Calendar sections, on pages 12 and 14.
AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi
Photo by Desvignes/ANDBZ/Abaca/Sipa USA (Sipa via AP Images)
T
ACCOMPLISHED ANIMATOR. Japanese animation film director
Isao Takahata, right photo, speaks about his film, The Tale of the Princess
Kaguya, beside a poster of the film during an interview at his office at
Studio Ghibli in suburban Tokyo, in this February 12, 2015 file photo.
Takahata, pictured in the left photo on July 3, 2007, died of lung cancer
at a Tokyo hospital, according to a studio statement.
trademark.
Princess Kaguya, in his adaptation, is a lively
free-spirited young woman who spurns the advances of
boorish samurai men, choosing to hold her own.
The ending, which is part of the original fairytale, has
her taking off in an extraterrestrial canopy to the moon,
still single, as the elderly couple, her doting earthling
adoptive parents, watch in sorrow and horror.
Takahata was planning to do a film about exploited
girls, forced to work as nannies with infants strapped on
their backs. Most lullabies in Japan were not for parents
singing babies to sleep, but for such young women, crying
out about their suffering, Takahata had said.
Although his films were often fantasies, he was a
realist, insisting, for instance, on genuine musical
instruments being played that matched what was
depicted on the screen. He was gentle but also a
perfectionist, grilling his voice actors until the tone and
character interpretations were just right.
All his stories, he said, held the message of urging
everyone to live life to their fullest, to be all they can be,
not bogged down by petty concerns like money and
prestige.
“This earth is a good place, not because there is
eternity,” he said.
“All must come to an end in death. But in a cycle,
repeated over and over, there will always be those who
come after us.”
Toshio Suzuki, a producer at Studio Ghibli, said
Miyazaki and he were discussing a big farewell ceremony
for Takahata for May 15, organized by the studio. Details
were still undecided.
“There was so much more he wanted to do, it must be
heartbreaking,” Suzuki said.
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MEDIUM
Difficulty
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# 32
#93287
Instructions: Fill in the grid so that the digits 1
through 9 appear one time each in every row, col-
umn, and 3x3 box.
Solution to
last issue’s
puzzle
Puzzle #76421 (Easy)
All solutions available at
<www.sudoku.com>.
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