Apr. 29, 1997

May 13, 1997

Art Watch Index - May 6, 1997

Art Watch Back Number Index

"Neon Genesis Evangelion the Movie: Death and Rebirth" Showing: Released from Mar. 15,1997 Information: Gainax Tel.0422-53-5568 Shinji, the main character Rei, the operator of Evangelion Photo: Gainax Evangelion http://www.gainax.co.jp/ eva/evaindex-e.html GAINAX NEWS Evangelion (in Japanese) http://www.gainax.co.jp/ news_eva/gnn_eva.html Evangelion (in Japanese) http://www.toei.co.jp/ movie/new_mov/eva/ index.htm Evangelion Links / Home http://www.sr2.takuma-ct. ac.jp/~i06130/eva/ LINK of Animation (in Japanese) http://www.imel1.kuis. kyoto-u.ac.jp/members/ horita/animlnk.html Pulp Fiction http://www.abc.se/ ~m8860/pulp/ Pulp Fiction (1994) http://us.imdb.com/M/ title-exact?Pulp%20Fiction %20%281994%29 John's Pulp Fiction Page http://www.inu.net/ jcrocker/links/pulp.html Short Cuts (1993) http://us.imdb.com/M/ title-exact?Short%20Cuts %20%281993%29 Short Cuts (in Japanese) http://www.comp.ae.keio. ac.jp/lab/nagata/labmate/ hisa/hobby/movie/ ShortCuts.html Pacific Data Images - Natural Born Killers http://www.pdi.com/ PDIPage/screening/ feature_films/nbk.html Natural Born Killers (1994) http://us.imdb.com/M/ title-exact?Natural%20 Born%20Killers%20 %281994%29 Natural Born Killers http://www.levideo.com/ levideo/newsevents/ nbk.html Natural Born Killers (in Japanese) http://www.comp.ae.keio. ac.jp/lab/nagata/labmate/ hisa/hobby/movie/ NaturalKillers.html Yamato/Star Blazers Information http://www.primenet.com/ ~kosh/YAMATO/yamato.htm Anime Web Guide: Space Cruiser Yamato http://www.tcp.com/ doi/alan/webguide/ entry/tYAM.html YAMATO Page (in Japanese) http://www.shonan-inet. or.jp/~kenji/yamato/ index.html Yamato/Space Blazers Page! http://www.rose-hulman. edu/~scroggkw/Yamato/ yamato.html The Gundam Project http://gundam.anime.net/ Gundam Space (in Japanese) hhttp://www.infobears.or.jp/ athome/iida/index.html GUNDAM (in Japanese) http://www.u-aizu.ac.jp/ ~s1012042/GUNDAM/ Gundam.html Gundam's Page (in Japanese) http://www2m.meshnet. or.jp/~ryouu/gandom/ gandom.html GAINAX http://www.gainax.co.jp/

The Making of the "Evangelion Style" -"Neon Genesis Evangelion the Movie: Death and Rebirth" Taro IGARASHI The broken story If motion pictures are supposed to confine the audience inside a dark room, and provide a complete comprehensible story in a given amount of time, this movie might be labeled a failure (Not to mention the television version, the problematic last two episodes are also certainly failures.). That is because to those who enter the theater without any background knowledge of the story, the film is 100% incomprehensible (although the film can at least be recognized as a near futuristic science ficiton). Soon, the viewer will feel alienated and overwhelmed by the flood of information. Why? The reason for that is because usually, animations undergo a process of being televised first and then becoming theatrical films, which aim for the first timers to understand the story and to offer the fans a digest of the story spanning the episodes, however, this theatrical film, "DEATH", is a remix version of the TV, in which even the time axis is dismantled. The theatrical version of "Eva" turned out to be a strange movie with the violence of editing standing out. Recently, attempts have been made to rearrange the passage of time, for example in films like "Pulp Fiction" (1994), or to use different points of view for the story, as in "Short Cuts" (1993), but even so, the pieces come neatly together in the end like a jigsaw puzzle. "Natural Born Killers", which remains fresh in our memory, was a movie with excessive information, but in contrast, the narrative itself was a very simple love story. The pleasure of images After all, the theatrical version of Evangelion is created on the premise that the viewer is prepared beforehand with videos or laser discs. If not, the "DEATH" version is only a grand preview that is 72 minutes long (the 27 minute-segment of the new production, "REBIRTH", could also be a preview of the conclusion story to be released in summer?). The reason the film was made possible despite the low TV rating, is the media environment that surrounds us. At least for "Yamato/Star Blazers" (1977) and the trilogy of "Gandam" (1981-1983), the first broadcast ran in 1974 and 1979 respectively, when not everyone had video or LD players, and rental video had not penetrated in society so much. Thus, all the more, the whole picture had to be shown in film theaters. On the contrary, for Evangelion, such a need is not as strong due to the evolving media environment, and rather, it shows an intentional denial of the summarization of the story (the story is difficult to summarize in the first place). In addition to that, thanks to software that enables us to repeat the same images over and over, TV animation which are incomprehensible at the first viewing can be distributed, and Evangelion takes advantage of this fact (intricate plots, images that can only be confirmed through frame-by-frame viewing, etc.). The media environment encompassing the works has changed the nature of animations, enhancing the preference for fragmented images. It is definitely not the opposite way. It is also noteworthy that what first incited the popularity of Evangelion and created an overheated rave, was the space offered for commentaries on the net. In any case, the movie version of Evangelion is a complicated work that cannot be appreciated in a single viewing (most theaters offered only single viewing for the audience) and may not have been cinematic in the first place. Especially those scenes that dazzle your eyes, or the audio that is overlapped, can only be enjoyed when it becomes a software. It is said that the director, Hideaki ONO, said he wanted something that is stimulating regardless of whether the story is understood or not (May, 1997 issue of "Animage" magazine). Thus, "chimera" of the "editorial age" generated something which can be called the "Evangelion style". This was achieved due to the enormous amount of credits (names of people and objects, titles, etc.), and the repeated surrogateactivities involved in the film (copy, dummy, clone, etc.). [Taro IGARASHI/Architectural History]

Art Watch Back Number Index

Apr. 29, 1997

May 13, 1997