Howl's Moving Castle
Sep. 20th, 2005 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustTo the Tyneside Cinema at lunch time, for the press preview of Howl's Moving Castle. Always a strange experience, seeing the film of a book you know and love well. Doubly strange in this case, because this is not so much a free adaptation as a story inspired by Diana Wynne Jones's book: it was odd to emerge from the cinema feeling that I couldn't really talk about the film with the friends who had seen it with me, for fear of committing spoilers of the book.
Never mind, I can do that here. I know that films are films and books are books, and I don't take the attitude that "they got this wrong!". But what I think of the film is so tied up with how it relates to the book that I do want to talk about how they differ.
I don't have a very visual imagination, so I didn't set out with any specific images of people or places. The (tautological) town of Market Chipping, where Sophie grows up, is some sort of period English town: think Jane Austen, rather than High Fantasy Medieval: Miyazaki observes this, but adds a steam railway, and great sooty clouds of industrial smoke, to great effect. The book describes the castle as tall and thin and black, with battlements, not as this steampunk extravaganza on Baba Yaga feet (sorry about the hotlink, I can't find the image I want on an actual page). Every scene has something good to look at.
But the narrative itself left me unsatisfied. The central conceit, Sophie's transformation into an old woman is beautifully done: she looks and acts plausibly like an elderly version of herself, and her gradual emergence from the spell is subtly handled. Much that is not said about her assumption of this rôle (her consciousness of her destiny as eldest daughter, her reinforcement of the magic worked by the Witch of the Waste) is hinted at, delicately. Much more is omitted: Howl's habit of falling in love, Sophie's own magical abilities (which draw the Witch's attention to her: in this version the Witch, despite Lauren Bacall's best efforts, is essentially motiveless).
The female characters, then, are omitted (Martha) or weakened (Sophie) or rendered confused and confusing (the Witch of the Waste) or turned evil (Mrs Pentstemmon is given the name of the Wizard Suliman, and becomes the power behind the King's war). In their place is that ultimate boy's toy, a war. War is not treated as desirable, or even heroic: there is no sense of "our side" versus "their side"; if there are two sides, they are those who make war and those who suffer the consequences. Yet the war allows Howl to display both courage and compassion: it lies beyond the doorway on its black setting, and he flies out into battle as a bird (running the terrible risk of being stuck in a rather fetching feathered form).
I don't dispute Miyazaki's contention that War is a Bad Thing: but it takes up a great deal of his film, excluding much of value. I wasn't much surprised at the omission of John Donne's Song, so it was probably unjustified to feel that in allowing Sophie to glimpse Howl's "past years", when he caught his falling star, the film was having it both ways. Howl's bargain with Calcifer leaves him emotionally undeveloped, rather than a heartless flirt, driven by vanity: this cuts out much characterisation, several jokes and a large chunk of plot. I think this does create problems, which are evident in the weakness of the resolution, with the appearance of a random enchanted prince, and Madam Suliman's declaration that the game is up and the war is over - just like that. It also leaves out what lies outside the black-marked door, according to the book, so that the joke of Howl's name is never explained.
On second thoughts: I didn't mean to suggest that the pun in Howl's name and the use of Donne's Song should have survived the transition to film just because I love them - if it looks that way, blame the late hour and the not taking time to stand back from what I'd written. I accept that they are too culturally specific to make it into what is, after all, a Japanese film. But it wasn't until this morning that it occurred to me that maybe that is why this whole plot element was cut out, because it involved the land beyond the black door, and Miyazaki didn't want to go there. Have I got things back to front: was the War introduced to fill this gap, rather than the gap created to make space for the War? Does anyone know the answer to this one?
The only change I can see no reason for is in the name of Howl's apprentice: is there some good Japanese reason why the conventionally-named Michael should have become Markl?
Never mind, I can do that here. I know that films are films and books are books, and I don't take the attitude that "they got this wrong!". But what I think of the film is so tied up with how it relates to the book that I do want to talk about how they differ.
I don't have a very visual imagination, so I didn't set out with any specific images of people or places. The (tautological) town of Market Chipping, where Sophie grows up, is some sort of period English town: think Jane Austen, rather than High Fantasy Medieval: Miyazaki observes this, but adds a steam railway, and great sooty clouds of industrial smoke, to great effect. The book describes the castle as tall and thin and black, with battlements, not as this steampunk extravaganza on Baba Yaga feet (sorry about the hotlink, I can't find the image I want on an actual page). Every scene has something good to look at.
But the narrative itself left me unsatisfied. The central conceit, Sophie's transformation into an old woman is beautifully done: she looks and acts plausibly like an elderly version of herself, and her gradual emergence from the spell is subtly handled. Much that is not said about her assumption of this rôle (her consciousness of her destiny as eldest daughter, her reinforcement of the magic worked by the Witch of the Waste) is hinted at, delicately. Much more is omitted: Howl's habit of falling in love, Sophie's own magical abilities (which draw the Witch's attention to her: in this version the Witch, despite Lauren Bacall's best efforts, is essentially motiveless).
The female characters, then, are omitted (Martha) or weakened (Sophie) or rendered confused and confusing (the Witch of the Waste) or turned evil (Mrs Pentstemmon is given the name of the Wizard Suliman, and becomes the power behind the King's war). In their place is that ultimate boy's toy, a war. War is not treated as desirable, or even heroic: there is no sense of "our side" versus "their side"; if there are two sides, they are those who make war and those who suffer the consequences. Yet the war allows Howl to display both courage and compassion: it lies beyond the doorway on its black setting, and he flies out into battle as a bird (running the terrible risk of being stuck in a rather fetching feathered form).
I don't dispute Miyazaki's contention that War is a Bad Thing: but it takes up a great deal of his film, excluding much of value. I wasn't much surprised at the omission of John Donne's Song, so it was probably unjustified to feel that in allowing Sophie to glimpse Howl's "past years", when he caught his falling star, the film was having it both ways. Howl's bargain with Calcifer leaves him emotionally undeveloped, rather than a heartless flirt, driven by vanity: this cuts out much characterisation, several jokes and a large chunk of plot. I think this does create problems, which are evident in the weakness of the resolution, with the appearance of a random enchanted prince, and Madam Suliman's declaration that the game is up and the war is over - just like that. It also leaves out what lies outside the black-marked door, according to the book, so that the joke of Howl's name is never explained.
On second thoughts: I didn't mean to suggest that the pun in Howl's name and the use of Donne's Song should have survived the transition to film just because I love them - if it looks that way, blame the late hour and the not taking time to stand back from what I'd written. I accept that they are too culturally specific to make it into what is, after all, a Japanese film. But it wasn't until this morning that it occurred to me that maybe that is why this whole plot element was cut out, because it involved the land beyond the black door, and Miyazaki didn't want to go there. Have I got things back to front: was the War introduced to fill this gap, rather than the gap created to make space for the War? Does anyone know the answer to this one?
The only change I can see no reason for is in the name of Howl's apprentice: is there some good Japanese reason why the conventionally-named Michael should have become Markl?
