Take "My Neighbor Totoro" as an example to briefly analyze Hayao Miyazaki's narrative style, so it involves a lot of spoilers, please watch the film before reading.
"My Neighbor Totoro" is eighty-six minutes long, with a very simple storyline and weak conflict, mainly caused by May and May's mother being sick and hospitalized. And works like "Princess Mononoke" and "Spirited Away" that represent Hayao Miyazaki's peak state have a clear division of beginning, development, climax, and ending, and the entire story also has clear conflicts. In the former, there are not only the black-hatted adults and the monks, and the mountain dog gods in the forest of the beasts, but also the life-and-death confrontation with the second owner, and the conflict between the two parties and the conflict between the two sides and the inner self of Asidaka as a middle role in finding a new way for the relationship between man and nature; The latter Chihiro enters the world of gods to rescue her parents and faces strong resistance. The plots of bathing the river god and saving the faceless man also make the film climax. In fact, like the narrative design of these two films, Hayao Miyazaki takes commercial box office into consideration as an important factor, which includes both palace-style animation elements and a fixed mode of causal linear narrative of commercial theater animations. According to "Joy at Work", since "My Neighbor Totoro" and "Grave of the Fireflies" were released together, Hayao Miyazaki had no intention of pleasing the audience when he made this work even if he didn't make money. It can be said that "My Neighbor Totoro" is a pure Miyazaki animation film, which contains Miyazaki's consistent narrative elements.
In the first four minutes of the film, Mr. Caobi moves to the countryside with his two daughters, May and May. In this section, the director introduced a large environment of the film to the audience through the scene scheduling of the moving car. The lush woods and the beautiful pastoral scenery established the background of the film. It is worth noting that the towering trees like chinchillas, The bus stop where May and May are waiting for their father has also been foreshadowed where the main storyline takes place. This section also shows the main characters one by one, two lovely girls May and May, Mr. Kusakabe who studies knowledge, and their future neighbors Kantai and Kantai's grandmother.
The fourth to seventeenth and a half minutes become the second paragraph of the film, which is an extension of the first paragraph. The director limited the audience to the perspective of May and May, allowing the audience and the two sisters to run together to complete an all-round observation of the new home. When Mr. Kusakabe opened the door to his new home, the acorns falling from the ceiling became the suspense of the story. Why did the acorns fall? Be the driving force for your audience to keep watching. When sister May opened the back door, the house full of little coal ghosts made the whole movie out of the 1958 setting, and the audience has followed May and May into the fantasy world of Hayao Miyazaki. When Grandma Kantai knew that May and May had discovered the little coal ghost, she told them, "I can see it when I was a child," and she gave the child the right to observe this fantasy world. The following stories are all from the child's perspective. It happens naturally. And through this episode of cleaning up the room, May's industrious conduct, and May's lively and lovely character were all shown, and also established the image of a kind grandmother for Grandma Kantai.
From 17 minutes to 20 minutes, it mainly tells the plot of the Caobi family heating hot water to take a bath. This part is a transitional plot. The sudden strong wind blowing at night and the little coal ghosts moving to the huge camphor tree are hints to the appearance of Chinchillas later. From twenty minutes to twenty-seven minutes, May and May's mother finally appeared. They accompanied their father to Qiguoshan Hospital to visit their sick mother. May and May had a very interesting conversation with their mother. May told Mom and Dad that they took the wrong way when they brought them, making it reasonable for May to visit Mom and get lost later. My mother said that May looks a lot like me. On the surface, this line is about looks. In fact, the director used this sentence to suggest May's role as a mother to the audience. You can see the maturity of May beyond the same age. This passage also deepened the audience's impression of the rural environment again, and the industrious and sensible May and May's lively and lovely image were established in the audience's hearts, and the audience also projected their own emotions on May and May. The time for Chinchilla's debut is still ripe.
From the twenty-seventh minute to the forty-first minute, another protagonist of the film, My Neighbor Totoro, appeared in front of the audience. The discovery of chinchillas started when May picked up a broken iron bucket and looked around, and the audience also discovered the prop acorn that appeared earlier with May's perspective. The combination of his own vision and that of May entered into a fantasy world. Under the guidance of Acorn, the audience and Mey discovered the smallest Chinchilla, and the relationship between Acorn and Chinchilla was also successfully bound. It turned out that the acorn that fell from the ceiling in front was pulled by Chinchilla. While the audience followed Mey waiting for the chinchillas at the entrance of the house, a second slightly larger chinchilla appeared in the background, and later the audience and Mey chased the two chinchillas and fell into a tree hole , Totoro also appeared in front of the audience. In this scene, Mey's perspective and Chinchilla's perspective are freely switched, which enables the audience to communicate with Chinchilla, and together with Mey, they are captured by Chinchilla's honesty and cuteness. Since May fell asleep on the Chinchilla, when he came home from school in May and found that May was missing, he searched everywhere, and finally found May in the bushes through the hat that May had dropped. May told her sister and father that she had seen Chinchilla, and Dad took them to visit the house of Chinchilla, a huge camphor tree. This part after Mei saw the chinchilla is the buffer part after the excitement. At the same time, since Mr. Caobi and May came under the big camphor tree and did not see the chinchilla, it led to the question "Does chinchilla exist?" This question lays the groundwork for the subject that follows.
Forty-first to fifty-five minutes enter the in-depth development section. Mr. Caobi went to the university to teach, May entrusted May to Grandma Kantai when she went to school, and then the narrative unfolded to May's school life, and in the process explained the fact that Kantai had a good impression of May. On the other hand, May's willful side was also shown to the audience. Grandma Kantai sent the crying May to the school to attend classes with May. Through this plot, it not only prevented May from becoming a single role, but also helped the later May. Get lost as a foreshadowing. It rained heavily after school in May, and the two sisters could not hide from the rain in the Tibetan Temple. After seeing it, Kantai gave her umbrella to May, and ran home in the rain. Later, the two sisters returned the umbrella. Through this plot, Kantai's image also became fuller, and a taciturn and stubborn but kind-hearted image appeared on the screen. In the last episode of May and May taking an umbrella to pick up Dad at the bus stop, the director controlled the scope of the audience’s observation to be within May’s perspective, and May discovered Chinchilla’s claws from the unobstructed view of the umbrella, and the audience followed the five Yue's eyes saw a chinchilla with a lotus leaf. Totoro holds the umbrella given to him in May and is attracted by the sound of water droplets falling on the umbrella, showing the innocent side of Totoro. The appearance of the cat bus not only explained why Totoro came to the bus stop (though it was a bit far-fetched), but also gave the audience a deeper understanding of the world of Totoro, and became a powerful excitement point. In fact, the director did not explain why Chinchilla went to the bus stop, because it can be seen from the back that Chinchilla can directly call the cat bus to its side, and Chinchilla itself has a top to fly, but the audience has now completely substituted into the film, The appearance of My Neighbor Totoro will only cause the audience's excitement without doubting it, and the director uses May's perspective to narrate in this plot. This limited subjective perspective covers up the narrative flaws to a certain extent.
The fifty-fifth to sixty-two minutes are a small climax of the film. May and May planted the acorns donated by chinchillas at the bus stop in the yard, but they never sprouted. One night, May saw three chinchillas performing some kind of ritual around the oak tree, so he woke up May to participate in it. A miraculous scene happened, acorns sprout and quickly grow into towering trees, but Mr. Kusakabe has been writing in the house without seeing it. Totoro took out a flying top and took May and May to soar in the sky, which became a small climax in the film. This paragraph, together with the previous paragraph, establishes the existence of chinchillas and gives an explanation that only a child with an innocence can see. This passage gives people the feeling that it is a dream but not a dream. The two sisters woke up the next morning and found that the towering tree had disappeared, but the acorn had sprouted, confusing the boundary between the fantasy world and the real world, making the audience Immerse yourself completely in the fantasy world of Hayao Miyazaki.
From 62 minutes to 84 minutes is the most complete part of the whole film. May and May, who were in Grandma Kantai's vegetable garden, received a telegram from the hospital asking May to stay with Grandma Kantai, and they and Kantai ran to their home phone to notify Dad. But May did not listen to her sister's words and lost her while chasing her, which paved the way for May to get lost again. Maye found her sister on the way back, and learned that her mother could not be discharged home on time this Saturday. Therefore, Maye willfully asked her mother to leave the hospital on time. She was reprimanded by her sister. home. These episodes become the beginning of this segment. Grandma Kantai came to their house to comfort May. After expressing her worries, May burst into tears. This scene was seen by May, who decided to take the corn from Grandma Kantai's garden to visit her mother alone, because she heard Grandma Kantai said that her mother's body would recover immediately if she ate the crops from her garden. May put on sandals and ran out of the village, only to get lost on the way. When May found that her sister was missing, she guessed that May had gone to Qiguoshan Hospital. May ran along the road to Qiguoshan to find it, but she couldn't find it. Kantai caught up with May by bicycle and asked May to go to Shenchi. Because he found a red sandal in the pond, May ran all the way to Shenchi. Attentive viewers will notice that the sandals that May wears are the same color as the sandals found in the pond, but not the same style. Obviously, the director has told the audience the answer, but because the audience brought their own emotions into it, the anxiety of May became the anxiety of the audience, and the audience has lost their judgment at this time. When she went to Shenchi in May, she found that it was not her sister's sandals, which also made Grandma Kantai, who was waiting here, relieved. These episodes become a developing part of the episode. In her desperation, May passed through the bushes that May had passed through, and came to the cave of Chinchilla, asking for Chinchilla's help. Totoro and May climb to the top of the tree and summon the cat bus to take May to where May is now. The cat bus takes May to find May before dark. This narrative arrangement similar to "last minute rescue" makes it the climax of this segment and the whole film. After finding May, the cat bus took May and May to Qiguoshan Hospital to visit their mother. After finding that their mother was safe, May and May returned home and reported that they were safe. This section is also complete.
Eighty-four minutes to the end of the film is the time for the end credits, but Miyazaki adds a narrative element anyway. In a form similar to a comic strip, he told the audience that May and May's mother recovered and was discharged from the hospital. The two sisters grew up happily with their mother. Kantai also became good friends with them. May and May also piled up dragons. Cat-like snowman, etc. So that the contradictions of the whole film can be resolved, and has a happy ending.
From "Lupin III - City of Cagliostro" to "My Neighbor Totoro", Hayao Miyazaki has formed a mature narrative method. From "Lupin the Third: The City of Cagliostro", Hayao Miyazaki has tried to guide the audience to observe the world and the things he experiences from the perspective of the protagonist; From the beginning of Luocheng, there is always an image of an old man in the film, either acting as the image of a prophet, or providing help to the protagonist; from the beginning of "Nausicaa", female characters have always played an important role, and male characters generally act as female characters. Assistant; starting from "Nausicaa", the protagonist's mother is not present, or it is difficult to guide the protagonist's growth. These are all used skillfully in "My Neighbor Totoro". The audience observes Hayao Miyazaki's fantasy world from the perspective of May and May; Grandma Kantai loves May and May in the image of a kind old man; A supporting actor gave May an umbrella when it rained and helped May to find it when he was lost; May and May shared the heroine and became Chinchilla's good partners; May and May's mother In the film, she has been hospitalized, unable to care for her two daughters, and May is a substitute for her mother's absence, with an almost perfect character. In addition, "My Neighbor Totoro" marks the further maturity of Hayao Miyazaki's narrative style. This technique of fragmenting the film and connecting it with details has been widely used in Hayao Miyazaki's subsequent films. "The Witch's Delivery Service" , "Porcupine", "Spirited Away", "Howl's Moving Castle", "Princess Goldfish on the Cliff", "The Wind Rises", the narrative techniques of the six films are all the same.
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