Cyborgs; Puppets; Ghosts, dogs, technology and ancient philosophy. These are but a few of the things that inhabit the weird, wonderful mind of Mamoru Oshii, the Japanese anime master who changed the medium forever with his groundbreaking 1995 film Ghost in the Shell. Now, after a nine-year self-imposed exile from animation, Oshii has returned to write and direct Innocence, a sequel that some fans had begun to fear would never materialize.
FilmStew recently met with the enigmatic master on the Dreamworks SKG campus to discuss his film’s American release. Pale and more than a bit exhausted, Oshii couldn’t look more out of place in sunny southern California. He is a peaceful, contented man who loves his work and quite proudly pours every ounce of himself into it. Speaking through a translator, Oshii is much like his movies: contemplative, somber, but willing to crack the occasional smile.
“I actually think it’s good that it has been a while since the first film was made,” he begins, running his hand through his receding hairline, when asked about the near-decade wait between GITS films. “I don’t think it could have been done if it was right after the first movie. That time between the two movies has made it a completely different movie, and that’s what made it possible [to make].”
One would think all those years of innovation would allow Oshii and his staff to save a vast amount of time and effort, but all it did was give them more to scrutinize. “There wasn’t a single thing that has been easier as a result of technological advancements,” he insists. “All of the animation techniques that have arisen [since GITS] have added to the amount of work.”
“Animators have this tendency of always doing the best they can, and with digital technology, they could keep repeating [the level of quality],” Oshii continues. “Actually, what happened was, they had done a scene ten times more [carefully] than they did with the last movie, but it actually translated into me having to check ten times more carefully with the material than I did on the last one.”
“When I made the first movie, it took overnight to render one scene, but now they have a lot more materials to render, but each person actually has two or three computers working at the same time, so that also added to the amount of the work. Digitalization didn’t actually lessen the amount of work.”
What digitalization did allow, however, was an unprecedented level of quality in the 3D animation. In the sequel, there are dozens of beautiful shots of rooms from a character’s point of view that make you feel as though you’re walking around in this futuristic world.
While the majority of the film is hand-drawn, this digital work was something that Oshii found himself embracing. “Whether it’s background material or the characters, the source material has been hand drawn,” he reveals. “Whatever is the process of putting one picture over another, any combination is possible now, so the source material itself has increased tenfold.”
“Most of the [textures] were done at the source, hand drawn, so if we had used all of the textures that came with the software, then the film would have looked the same as other films,” he adds. “That’s my credo - that textures should be done at the source by hand. That also applies to my live action filmmaking as well.”
With the Ghost in the Shell films, it isn’t just the animation that makes audiences stand up and take notice. Oshii has created a pair of films that are unusually challenging for movie audiences. A full explanation of the film’s complicated messages and themes could take days, but Oshii offers a brief synopsis of his intention.
“The message of this movie is your body,” he says. “As I get older, nowadays I make films that are good for my body, but before that I used to make a film only using my brain. When I made the first Ghost in the Shell, I thought about what really makes your body your body.”
“If you lose your arm, and you keep losing body parts,” he continues, “what is the last part that still makes you unique? The conclusion I came to at the time was your brain, and more specifically, your memory of life. When I made Ghost in the Shell 2, my conclusion changed.”
“This time I thought it’s your body, and it’s not anything specific, like your arm or your leg, it’s the body as an entire [entity], and more than that, it’s really the relationships you have with other people.”
Oshii adds that the perspective on this approach may be somewhat different in his homeland of Japan. “Traditionally in Japan, the brain isn’t that important; if you are accused of something and you are executed for it, that’s when you lose your head. But when you go and take the responsibility voluntarily, more honorably, that’s when you do hara-kiri and cut your body.”
“I think it’s representative of the fact that you cannot actually ‘sever’ your body.”
With the look of the films and the philosophy behind them, Oshii had witnessed the film community coming full circle back to him. After Ghost in the Shell’s initial success, it influenced not only other anime films, but also a groundbreaking American film which you may have heard of: The Matrix. After the Wachowski brothers openly credited Ghost with inspiring their eventual trilogy, a new audience discovered Oshii.
The Matrix movement then carried over to everything from the Charlie’s Angels films to I, Robot. Now, Oshii has had to reinvent a style that was his in the first place.
“A lot of people have brought up the same question, but I consider The Matrix to be a completely different movie from Ghost in the Shell,” he insists. “There are some similarities in the visuals, and also the filmmaking to some extent is similar, but to me they are two completely different movies.”
While Oshii doesn’t like to play up similarities between his films and those of others, he says he is flattered by the similarities. “It doesn’t bother me; I don’t really think it’s about who stole what from whom, but there was a time when Japanese animation borrowed a lot from American filmmaking, so it’s a mutual relationship.”
“There was a time in Japan when every anime movie borrowed from 2001: A Space Odyssey or Blade Runner or The Terminator, and there has to be a certain time when people copy somebody. When [that inspiration] becomes the norm, then the whole world is ready for the next step of making something of their own. That’s what I think any kind of creation is like.”
So now Oshii can release Ghost in the Shell 2, and once again wait for the world to catch up with him. He says he’ll need the time to recoup: “To be honest, right after finishing one animated film, which is really exhausting both spiritually and physically, I don’t feel like making more anime at all,” he admits with a laugh.
“That’s why I’ve alternated between animation and live action in the past, but I didn’t film two live action films back to back either. So if the next anime film happens realistically, I think it will be five or six years later.”
Those looking for the next wave of anime may not be completely happy with Oshii’s decision, but they’ll still stand by for as long as it takes until the director is ready to come out of his ‘shell’ once again.
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