Romanticism In Hayao Miyazaki’s Film Princess Mononoke
Hayao Miyazaki is a famous anime director, who has directed various award-winning films. I shall be looking into the ways in which his animations share similar traits and values as other artworks that have been created by those from the Romanticism movement. Romanticism was a movement from the 18th to the 19th century. The artists from this period are called romantics, and they didn’t care for the natural order of society and instead cared deeply about expressing their emotions and thoughts through whatever creative means fit them. They had a deep appreciation for nature and expressed themselves through their emotions instead of allowing intellect to lead them.
I will be examining Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke, which was the country’s highest grossing film ever in Japan for a while. This was until Titanic was released later that year. I have decided to use this film over any other of his other pieces of works, as the message behind it is so strong and meaningful.
I feel that romanticism was a very important movement for all the creative fields. It showed us that art shouldn’t be a means to please those in power, as it previously was thought to be useful for, but instead a way to express one's emotions and views. Miyazaki addresses the issues in current Japan with the release of this film. He understands that today’s society has lost its respect for nature and that we should change the ways we live as if we don’t our war against nature will never end and both sides will meet their demise.
Global warming and other natural issues are something that I am greatly concerned about. I worry that there won’t be a future for the generations to come if we don’t drastically change the ways in which we live. Industrialisation caused us to consume more natural resources than ever, and our planet is suffering because of it. A lot of romantics have a love for the natural world, and you can also see this affection in Miyazaki’s, hence I have decided this as the topic for this essay.
I will be addressing the ways in which romanticism influenced Miyazaki’s work by looking into the themes portrayed in Princess Mononoke, as well as the art style. I will be exploring why they had created their artworks and what message each of them is portraying. I will then be comparing it to a historic artist from the romanticism movement and looking at the similarities and differences between them. This artist will be Thomas Cole, with his astonishing paintings of nature.
Thomas Cole was an American painter who painted romantic landscape paintings. He was born on February 1, 1801. Cole started off as a standalone artist and sold his works in shops. One of these works gathered the attention of Colonel John Trumbull and Asher B. Durand. They decided to purchase some of his works and ensured that Cole would find success as an artist. Cole would draw sketches of the landscapes around him, compiling them together to create his paintings.
One of Cole’s paintings, The Hunter’s Return, 1845. This piece depicts a group of hunters returning to a cottage home, one where their happy family are waiting for them. This cottage is lit with warm lighting which makes it appear welcoming. However, the family is surrounded by the wilderness, which makes the people the subordinate figure within the painting. This is a common theme in Cole’s paintings. The natural world is depicted on a huge scale when you compare it to the human aspect of the works.
The scale is an important feature in Cole’s paintings. Not only does he paint nature on a huge scale, but he also ensures that all his paintings are created on a large canvas. The Hunter’s Return was composed on a w153.7 x h101.9 cm canvas.
Cole’s paintings capture scenes that the typical American person wouldn’t usually be able to see from there urban homes. He includes everything you could ever want in a landscape painting, with clear blue skies with a mountain ranges that are changing colour as the sun sets behind it. A waterfall that spills out onto an open lake, and autumn trees that envelope a cottage that basks in the sunlight. The lighting in Cole’s paintings is extremely bold and includes chiaroscuro within his works.
His depiction of the landscape in The Hunter’s Return is a nostalgic one, as he painted the piece in 1845 after railroads and building have populated the area. The lumber merchants had deforested the area and so the landscape had been drastically changed by the time he painted this piece. America had to transform its natural surroundings and make it into something useful. Cole didn’t want this to be the case, and so he painted these landscapes of what the area may have looked like if mankind hadn’t come and disturbed it.
The Hunter’s Return foreshadows what is yet to come, with trees in the foreground that have been chopped down. This is done to raise awareness to the viewer, that the natural world around is being destroyed and so we need to do our best to preserve it. If not, we will lose these scenes forever.
Cole was a true environmentalist, and we know this due to the essay he wrote in The American monthly magazine addressing his concerns about the environment. Within it, he states “I cannot but express my sorrow that the beauty of such landscapes are quickly passing away — the ravages of the axe are daily increasing— the most noble scenes are made desolate, and oftentimes with a wantonness and barbarism scarcely credible in a civilized nation.” In this statement, he clearly states that he is worried that we will eventually deforest most of our landscapes and goes on to state that “there are those who regret that with the improvements of cultivation the sublimity of the wilderness should pass away.” Here he is saying that as technology advances and we begin to populate the nearby lands, the astonishment felt when in the wilderness will peril.
A similar message is portrayed in Miyazaki’s, Princess Mononoke. Within this film, we witness a battle between the inhabitants of the forest and the iron works. The iron works, led by Lady Eboshi, seek to expand their territory and mine the lands for its natural resources. In order to do so, they must kill the forest God’s that protect it, in doing so starting a war between them and the forest.
We experience the film from many different angles, but mainly follow a young boy named Ashitaka. He had been cursed after encountering an enraged forest God, who was shot by Eboshi, which out of anger turns into a demon and attacks his town. Miyazaki stated in an interview that the mark is killing the boy and is a direct comparison to what some children in the twenty-first century have to deal with.
Miyazaki could be considered a romantic as he shares similar views to other artists from the romanticism movement.” We can see the twenty-first century clearly, and I wonder how we ourselves and our audience and our children can live in this chaos. We’re in a period when we can’t avoid asking ourselves questions. We’re making films in this situation. We can’t make films in the same way as in the past.” Within this statement, he is stating that our future looks troublesome, and like Cole, we must radicalise the way that we create art in order to preserve our natural world.
The film is set in the Muromachi period, which lasted for the years 1336 to 1573. This is the specific period where people stopped worshipping nature and instead felt that they could control it and so decided to deforest the surrounding lands in order to utilise them for our selfish needs. Within this period, we were producing more iron than ever before. Miyazaki believes that this is an important issue which needs to be made aware to the general public, and hence why he chose to set the film in this specific time in history. He finished the film in 1997 and said in an interview, “I’ve come to the point where I just can’t make a movie without addressing the problem of humanity as part of an ecosystem.” Just like Cole and other romantics, Miyazaki could not help but express his views and beliefs, he felt it was his duty to do so.
Tatabara is the name of the ironworker's village, and its name is very similar to Tatarigami which is the name of a Japanese demon that brings death and destruction. This is done on purpose to show the connection between “the two curses of industrialization and outraged nature.” We can see in the twenty-first century that we are destroying our planet, and how nature is fighting back with devastating natural disasters.
Cole addresses this exact issue within his works, we are damaging our planet and are threatening the natural world. Both Miyazaki and Cole wish to radicalise the way we think.
Miyazaki utilises a range of blues and greens throughout the film in order to create a world that extensively filled with nature. Cole also uses a similar colour pallet in many of his works, to represent a lively and lush ecosystem. Every scene is filled with nature, trees, plants and animals fill the stage and lead the story. Lighting is used to a dramatic effect to create wonder in both of their works. This can be seen in The Hunters Return where the hut is being lit. Similar lighting is used in Princess Mononoke when Ashitaka first sees the dear god. The film's story isn’t straight forward like other nature vs human films. The humans aren’t depicted as purely villainous, as you see the workers laughing and joking around with one another. They are only trying to survive and wish to expand their territory and develop their technologies without restraint. The issue with this is that by doing so they are having to kill the animals and gods that inhabit the forest and are affecting a complex ecosystem of choices and emotions.
This can be examined in the ways that Moro the wolf goddess and Okoto the boar god decide to tackle the issue of humans destroying their lands. Okoto seeks revenge and wants to kill all the humans in one last battle. Moro, on the other hand, understands that not all humans are bad, as seen for her love for San here human daughter. The complex issues of the film are traits that can be seen within artworks from artists of the Romanticism movement.
Princess Mononoke sold millions of copies and had been broadcasted on Japanese TV for the general public to watch. You would think that Miyazaki would be happy that so many people were watching his film, however, the opposite was true “I want my films to be seen in a theatre. I don’t care if you watch the video fifty times; it’s nothing more than background music”. He addressed the importance of watching the film on the big screen as the viewer would be completely immersed in the story and could then completely absorb the message it is portraying. Cole was similar in this way; all his paintings were huge to create wonder. The scale is important when it comes to art, large pieces are more impactful and express themselves in an enhanced way.
After researching romanticism and looking at artists from that specific movement, and comparing their work to Miyazaki, I have concluded that Miyazaki has been influenced by them. Romantics have a need to express their beliefs and social ideals onto others and feel it is their responsibility to do so. As shown within this essay both Miyazaki and Cole are passionate about what we as a species are doing to our natural environment. They feel they must enlighten the general public to what we are doing to it and that in order to protect it we must change our ways of living.
They may have both been artists from a different time period, however, that didn’t prevent them from sharing similar ideals. Cole would produce paintings on canvas which was the epitome of art at that time. Due to recent technological advances, Miyazaki’s work is on the other hand animated. This is a contemporary art form yet they both share many similarities in their art style. With similar colour pallets and lighting styles.
I wanted to explore the ways in which romanticism had influenced Miyazaki’s work through his depiction of the natural world, which I have done by exploring the ways he creates a wonderfully complex natural world. The same can be seen in Cole’s work, with nature being painted alongside humans that are deforesting the area in order to build homes. The humans aren’t depicted as purely villainous as they seem happy and joyful, which is the same as those who work in the iron works in Princess Mononoke. Both artists understand that we are only trying to thrive as a species and are only doing what is within our nature.
There are so many similarities between Miyazaki’s work and Cole’s that I would go as far as to say that Miyazaki is a Romantic of the twenty-first century. I have come to this conclusion due to his passion for expressing his believes. Regardless of how much nature seems to be miraculous in terms of its regenerative powers, it is not guaranteed and cannot promise to stay the way that it is forever.
