miriam_e | My Neighbor Totoro

My Neighbor Totoro

I mentioned to Lois (my niece) my interest in finding stories that concentrate on happiness without using conflict for plot. She suggested Tonari No Totoro (My Neighbor Totoro) [1988], one of the sweetest films I've ever seen. I don't know how I didn't think of it myself. It has been one of my favorite films since I first saw it ages ago. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed it, watching during dinner tonight. It does have conflict, but not much.

Oh, there are some brilliant people around! Imagine being able to point to that film and saying you'd played a part in the creation of it. What a thing to be proud of!

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It's hard to go wrong with Studio Ghibli...they're one of the (well-known/big) few places still serious about hand-drawn animation, and their storytelling so utterly brilliant.

Yeah, their artwork is so jawdroppingly beautiful, and their stories are often so sweet.

My other favorite of their movies is "Whispers of the Heart" -- beautiful, beautiful piece!

I have to admit that I am not a fan of some of their more recent movies. I find "Spirited Away" too unsettling, and even scary.

Yay for Lois! That's right, Totoro doesn't have conflict, and it's a lovely story too. My favourite part is when they are showing the wind over the rice fields when Totoro flies over them.

It is a lovely story. I grinned so much during it. It does have some conflict, but only slightly. It is overwhelmingly sweet.

There are so many beautiful parts... one of my favorite parts is where the little girl (Aime I think) is on Totoro's belly tickling his nose while he's asleep. Another favorite is where the sisters first got to their new house and ran around the house and yard screaming and playing, the little sister imitating and repeating everything her big sister does.

I have brought this example up to people before, and think it's a great exception to the rule. Why aren't there more movies where the main thrill of watching them comes from moments of beauty, and not from a contrived dramatic conflict? The other examples I can imagine are mostly wildlife documentaries, or the film on cinematography Visions of Light, which are completely different experiences from a fictional movie. Oh, Lost in Translation also has very little dramatic tension, and again, what is there is only tangientally related to the thrill I get from watching it.

Yay! Excellent! More examples to seek out. Thank you.
I am always eager for more happiness. I wonder why it looks like most people don't. Maybe most of us actually do want happy shows but we simply believe what we are told, that we (the majority) are the minority -- that some fabled majority want conflict.

Like how we are constantly told that we love sports, yet it seems to be a mostly manufactured thing. More people in Australia actually go to art galleries and museums each week than sporting events. I suspect the same is true of people everywhere. The large number of sporting programs reflects their low cost and network investment in easy, cost-effective advertising, instead of a genuine audience demand.

We are told that we don't want science in dramas, then when CSI comes along and is a smash hit, executives refuse to believe it is the science, and try to imitate its success with heaps of similar shows that lack the science, and never understand their failure.

Good science fiction is constantly denigrated and dismissed by executives and critics despite the vast audience that has ensured that so many hit movies have had SF themes.

We are also told that the public doesn't want documentaries, yet time and again this is shown to be just plain wrong.

Why does the entertainment industry get it so wrong so often? I don't have an answer to that. Why do so many religions believe pleasure is bad? Why do entertainment executives believe that their customers are their greatest enemy? Why is there a move among authors to crush libraries? Why is the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America trying to stop people reading SF?

All great questions, and I think that in simple terms most consumers desire novelty, while the segments of the entertainment industry that you mentioned are still stuck in an industrial mindset that creates mass quantities of identical products. Theatrical distribution, for example, currently focuses on selling millions of tickets for the same three movies, instead of highlighting lots of little niche pictures, and I know the video game industry is growing in much the same way because of growing budgets and a really uncertain market. Again, the games with the largest budgets end up tanking, while breakout hits end up signing lucrative deals, but studios will still bet on the blockbuster every time, because the lure of the blockbuster smash is too great.

The last two questions you asked interest me very greatly, because I don't think I'm familiar with the movements you're describing.

I'd also like to know the source for your factoid that more people in AU go to cultural events than sporting events--unfortunately, I would never believe such a statistic about Americans!

Yes. Innovation is difficult and by its very nature unpredictable, whereas formula is easy, even if it so often comes up with the wrong answer.

I have great hopes for the internet being a mass movement of creators, as opposed to most media up till now allowing only mass consumers. YouTube has made amazing things possible, even though they've adopted that revolting, proprietary .flv format produced by evil Adobe and are dangerously centralising access.

There is pressure in USA (only there as far as I know) to force libraries to pay publishers a certain amount of money each time they loan a book out. Some wealthier libraries have caved and do so already. The worry is that it could spell the end of libraries in not only poor areas, but more generally, because the internet is already taking a lot of readers away. I'll see if I can find the article I read.

Making libraries pay is incredibly counterproductive because word of mouth is the cheapest, most effective way to advertise. Most people learn about authors from libraries, or being lent books by friends, or buying second-hand books. In none of those cases does the author or publisher benefit immediately, but they are of central importance in the spread of books and the long-term profit for the industry.

The SFWA is running a campaign to stop people sharing books online, even to the extent of polluting the networks with corrupted books. It is odd that science fiction writers are so locked in the past that they can't see the potential that p2p file sharing represents. Here they have a free opportunity to boost readership, yet they do all they can to prevent it. Sad. See this Cory Doctorow interview for more:
http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail554.html

Australia's main scientific research organisation, the CSIRO, did a survey some years ago, to find out how many people really do prefer sports over culture and science. Its results were a great surprise to me because for years I'd been puzzled that I know almost nobody who is into sports, yet knew hundreds of people heavily into the arts and science. We are constantly told here in Australia that we are a sports-crazy nation, yet it simply is not true. Our movies and books portray us, incorrectly, as beer-swilling footie nuts. It is all bullshit. I suspect it is the same in USA and most places. Sports just isn't interesting enough to capture the attention of that many people. I mean, people hitting balls with sticks or taking a ball from one end of a field to another?? It's the epitome of futility. If it wasn't for the fact that it is really cheap to broadcast and lots of advertising revenue can be made from it, I reckon we'd never see sports on the media. Oh, by the way, the survey also turned up the result that people would like to see more science, particularly medical science on the media. Hmmm... I can't seem to find it online. I have a vague recollection of where I first heard about it. I'll try to chase it up.

Why would you never believe such a statistic about people in USA? Because you are constantly told everybody loves sports? Here in Australia we get the same propaganda from big media, but it isn't true. Do an unofficial count among the people you know. How many sports programs do they watch a week? How many documentaries? How many sports events a month do they visit? How many art galleries or museums? (I would include libraries too.) You'll probably be surprised.

You've given me a lot of food for thought. I'm really glad you brought up Cory Doctorow since I think online book-sharing could really help against the problem of diversity in the marketplace. I was excited many years ago by a story in Wired about a new model of publishing, based on downloading books that could be cheaply printed and bound by a special home printer, then recycled after use. It was a different era, the 90's. I can't imagine such a system being proposed today.

Regarding sports, I guess it's possible for me to imagine my circle of acquaintances broken up into sports-watching and non-sports-watching factions, but I still think the sports fans outnumber the rest of us. Most of my friends are non-sports fans, so it's hard for me to compare--we always feel the world is set against us. I'm sure you're right--we're not as alone as we think.

Baen Books also give away free out-of-publication books online.
http://www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm
They've found it boosts sales for current titles. This isn't directly why they did it though. It was a conscious moral decision.
http://www.baen.com/library/home.htm

It is nice to see good, honest people doing well by doing good things when so often we hear about the monsters eating their customers (like the RIAA and the MPAA).

Efforts like Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org and Wikipedia and One Laptop Per Child http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLPC are cause for optimism too.

I remember hearing a German talking about how they believed that they were alone in disagreeing with demonising the Jews/gays/blacks during Nazi rule. The propaganda successfully isolated what may well have been the majority, who were squeamish about hurting people, and prevented them opposing it.

In the spirit of light-heartedness I think I'm obligated to mention Godwin's Law at this point. I completely agree with your point, though.

heheheh :)
I've heard of it before, though not by its name. Thanks. It's nice to know what it's called.

:) Notice near the end:

Godwin's Law does not apply to discussions directly addressing genocide, propaganda, or other mainstays of the Nazi regime. Instead, it applies to inappropriate, inordinate, or hyperbolic comparisons of other situations (or one's opponent) with Hitler or Nazis.

My comparison of sports propaganda with Nazi propaganda might be seen as hyperbolic... though not if you've seen the brilliant SF movie "Rollerball" (the first one, not the remake).

Funny, I haven't actually seen Rollerball, either version of it. But you could also argue that you ranalogy is extremely pertinent precisely because of these "mainstays of the Nazi regime"--promotion of athletic activity among its populace, and presumably spectator sportsmanship as well. It's a trend I would argue you can see in many imperial, warlike states like the Greeks, the Romans, the Incans and Aztecs, etc. The overtones of 1984's mindlessly athletic proles are a really vivid example.

I hadn't thought of that. A rather sinister possibility.

Do try to see the original Rollerball. It is quite disturbing. Refreshingly, it is told from the point of view of a not terribly smart guy who just doesn't quite get it. For instance when he can't see why the librarian is so upset and clearly thinks he's a nut, we can see the chilling implications. Brrrr. Freaky stuff. What is most scary about it is that it portrays people having what seems to be a good life, but one which has been systematically cleansed of depth.

Huh! Here I am searching for happy stories and I'm suggesting you see a movie that still scares me to the core, decades after I saw it. :)

hey, I saw you in a discussion on

slave_driver, and I thought your comments were interesting, so I have added you to my lj friends' list.

Oooh! I just took a peek at your LJ. You seem an interesting person too. I've added you back.

I have to admit I don't check my flist much lately. It is too easy for me to lose entire days that way, but from time to time I splurge and am always impressed by the wonderful minds out there.

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My Neighbor Totoro

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