Haven In Hell - NightHeaven's Blog » innocence

The Ghost Rises Again

Nightheaven — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:05:13 +0000

The Ghost Rises Again
Anime expert Fred Patten takes a look at the highly anticipated anime feature Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, talking over the film with Production I.G producer Mitsuhisa Ishikawa.

September 17, 2004
By Fred Patten

Cyber-top cop Batou (top) investigates beautiful killer sex robot models (bottom) known as gynoids in Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. All photos from Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence courtesy of Go Fish Pictures.

The 1995 Ghost in the Shell is one of the most prestigious Japanese animated features ever made. It received almost unanimous critical praise for its intellectual cyberpunk sci-fi plot. (Some critics dismissed it as an imitation Blade Runner, which it is only superficially.) It was acknowledged as one of the creative influences on the Wachowski Brothers that led to The Matrix. It won the 1997 World Animation Celebration’s Awards for both Best Theatrical Feature Film and, for director Mamoru Oshii, Best Director of Animation for a Theatrical Feature Film. When it was released on video in America, it became the first anime video to reach the #1 position on Billboard magazine’s sales chart (August 1996).

With all this acclaim, it is hard to realize that its American theatrical release (March 29, 1996) was an art-house limited tour in only one theater per city. Its theatrical gross was just $515,905 (according to Box Office Mojo).

Let’s try again! Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence was released in Japan on March 6, and will be released in America on September 17. This time the distributor is DreamWorks’ Go Fish Pictures division, and it is scheduled to play in 70 theaters. This may not match the 3,043 screens of Pok閙on: The First Movie‘s release or even the 2,411 screens of Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Movie, but according to the press release, this is “the widest theatrical opening release ever in the United States for an adult-themed anime film.” We will take what we can get!

The first movie was based upon Masamune Shirow’s award-winning 1989-1990 Ghost in the Shell sci-fi manga novel. Set about 40 years in the future, it depicts a global society so tightly integrated by the computer network and international corporations that separate nations were little more than an archaic legal fiction. Biomedical advances are so common that people routinely have skull-jacks implanted to allow them to plug their brains directly into the Internet. This future world is presented from the viewpoint of the Japanese nationalized police’s Section 9, in charge of computer crimes, in several stories blending action with intellectual, high-tech white-collar crime. The central character of Section 9 is its top agent, Major Motoko Kusanagi, who appears to be an attractive young woman but is actually little more than a brain with a cynical personality installed in an artificial super-body constantly being upgraded by government techno-geeks.

Production I.G, a new studio specializing in computer graphics imagery, picked Ghost in the Shell for a theatrical feature to showcase its talents. Director Mamoru Oshii was given carte blanche by Shirow to build the movie around the subplot in which Section 9 discovers computer tampering with the minds of people plugged into the Internet. After a lot of action involving the question of whether a sufficiently sophisticated, self-aware Artificial Intelligence is morally any different from a biologically “natural” person, Kusanagi abandons her body and transfers her mind, her “ghost,” permanently into the Internet.

When Shirow began new Ghost in the Shell manga stories, the fans immediately asked when these would be animated. Production I.G planned a two-part sequel for both TV and the theaters. The TV series, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, debuted on Japan’s SkyPerfecTV pay-per-view satellite channel on Oct. 1, 2002, at the rate of two episodes per month for 13 months. Ratings were high enough that by the time episodes #25 and #26 aired on Oct. 1, 2003, a 52-episode sequel was in production. Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex ?2nd Gig debuted on Jan. 1, 2004; episodes #17 and #18 were aired this month. In America, GitS:SAC began a bi-monthly DVD release in July 2004. It will start airing on The Cartoon Network’s late-night Adult Swim block on November 6 at 11:00 pm.

The original Ghost in the Shell (1995) broke new creative ground and home video sales records, but didn抰 make a dent at the box office. ?Manga Entertainment.

The TV series, directed by Kenji Kamiyama, is a more straightforward police procedural series about the detectives of Section 9 and their cases. It is intended to be seen as a “parallel world” version of movie stories, neither a prelude nor a sequel. Kusanagi is still one of Section 9′s top cops, but several others are elevated to major roles as well. More background is given on how she came to be “a brain in a tin can,” and her feelings about it are not so morose.

The true sequel to the 1995 movie is Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. It is a direct sequel, not counting a three-year gap from 2029 to 2032. Kusanagi has been missing for three years, but her ex-partner Batou is confident that she is alive and well within the Internet. Batou, a brawny muscleman, is as cynically intelligent as Kusanagi was. He is only about 50% human; the rest is cyber-enhanced prosthetics with weaponry hidden inside him. He is now the top cop of Section 9, and his new partner is the rookie, Togusa, who is the star of the TV version.

Batou and Togusa are assigned to a case in which an experimental model of female robot servants manufactured by the Locus Solis mega corporation have been going berserk and killing their new human owners. The owners include politicians and important industrialists, so Section 9 must determine whether the murderous glitch is an accidental programming error or deliberate sabotage. The latter seems likely when Locus Solis’s inspector who approved the deadly “gynoids” (a.k.a. sexaroids) is murdered by a Yakuza gang before he can be questioned. The Yakuza’s crime boss was one of the recipients of a killer sexaroid, and his successor was never told what the top-secret link between the gang and Locus Solis is. Batou’s and Togusa’s investigation leads to the same type of computer/mind manipulation that Batou and Kusanagi had experienced three years earlier, involving the criminal implantation of false memories into innocent people to dupe or kill them. As the case grows more violently deadly, it appears as though some “guardian angel” is protecting Batou. It is not giving away much to reveal that Kusanagi has been watching over her old friend, and that she makes a dramatic reappearance at the climax.

Writer/director Mamoru Oshii creates a future where technology and nature collide.

Production I.G again uses Ghost in the Shell as a showcase for its latest spectacular advances in computer animation. The opening sequence could almost be a “live action” shot from Blade Runner, except that the buildings are higher and the futuristic sleazy urban ghettos even more detailed. Batou, without Kusanagi to hold him back, seems to be a trigger-happy nutcase running wild through an extremely cerebral, emotionally frozen scenario. The movie is intellectually admirable but there is little emotional comfort in it. My impression is that Conan Doyle’s Professor Moriarty would have loved it.

A special preview of Innocence was held at the DreamWorks studio with Producer Mitsuhisa Ishikawa (the I in Production I.G) and director Mamoru Oshii present. Oshii answered a few questions for AWM.

AWM: The presskit describes how you developed the plot around human dolls because of your interest in the ball-jointed dolls of Polish-born surrealist artist Hans Bellmer (1902-1975). Masamune Shirow is not mentioned. How closely did you work with him, as the creator of Ghost in the Shell, on Innocence?”

MO: I only met with Shirow-san about 10 minutes before the production of the movie began. We just had a brief discussion, and that was it. There was no collaboration between us. Shirow-san is a most ideal creator of manga compared to any others I have worked with, because he will let me do whatever I want to do.

AWM: How closely did you and the TV production team for Stand Alone Complex work together? Did Production I.G decide from the beginning that the Ghost in the Shell sequel should be both a TV series and a second feature, or did it start out as one or the other and later turn into both?

MO: They were both planned at the same time. I was not involved with the TV creation at all, although in the second season of Stand Alone Complex, the 2nd Gig, I was involved in writing some plots.

Ghost in the Shell 2 sets a new standard at Midnight Madness

Nightheaven — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:00:03 +0000

BY JASON ANDERSON

Midnight Madness is a great place to meet unusual characters — martial-arts freaks, gore hounds, punk pinheads and Milton-quoting cyborg detectives. Though this last category can only be encountered on the screen, surely it won’t be long before we catch up to the future presented in Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, one of the most anticipated entries in the Toronto International Film Festival’s two-fisted survey of genre cinema.

On Sept. 9, the series launches with the Canadian premiere of Japanese maverick Mamoru Oshii’s sequel to his anime milestone. (The new film goes into wide release on Sept. 17.) Four years in production,Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is a new benchmark for Japanese animation both for its technical achievement and its provocative content. It was created by Production I.G., the company responsible for the original Ghost in the Shell,Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade and the visceral anime sequence in Kill Bill Vol. 1. Using techniques Oshii mastered in his 2001 live-action feature Avalon, the style combines expressive 2D characters with 3D computer-generated environments and photorealistic backgrounds. The film’s dragon-filled festival sequence alone took a year to create.

During an interview at the Cannes film festival in May — where Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence played in competition — Oshii explains through a translator why he returned to making anime after a six-year break. “I thought I should do one pretty soon or else I’d never be able to do it again,” he says. “Directing animation is a very sensitive thing. You can’t really be away from the animation studio for a long time because you completely lose your sense of what’s happening in anime. It was about time to go back.”

Drawn from such diverse sources as Blade Runner, Japanese myth and Gothic architecture, the look of Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is unusually opulent and the action sequences are bold and wildly kinetic. Yet despite the occasional frenzy of explosions, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is ruminative by nature. In the movie’s vision of 2032, human, animal and machine have intermingled to such an extent, distinctions among forms of life are largely arbitrary. Most citizens keep humanoid dolls or cloned pets to satisfy their emotional needs. Introduced in the original film, the cyborg detective, Batou, investigates the murder of a human by a “gynoid,” a hyper-realistic sexbot. Evidence points to a nefarious conspiracy.

Though the details of the plot are difficult to decipher even by the standards of anime, the story serves chiefly as a springboard for Oshii’s inquiry into humanity’s future. The dialogue is dominated by philosophical and literary quotations — besides Paradise Lost, Batou borrows his lines from Shakespeare, Confucius, Shelley and the Bible. (Oshii was a seminary student before making his name with TV’s Urusei Yatsura.)

“I’m a big collector of quotes from various books,” says Oshii. “I like to read and every time I come across a good quote, I write it down. So I have a good collection of all these quotes. Before I started writing the script, I thought of all the dialogue in terms of the quotes I wanted to use.”

As a result, the film resembles a philosophy lecture interrupted by the occasional blast of cartoon ultraviolence. Even Oshii admits that the strategy has alienated viewers. “Not a lot of people like it,” he says with a laugh. “Even in Japan, the fact that I used all these quotes was not well received. My producers are asking me to put subtitles for the Japanese DVD release because it’s hard to understand what they’re saying — the voice actors speak in old Japanese.”

Oshii would’ve used even more quotations had his own animators not told him to stop. But all the weighty pronouncements help give Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence the thematic richness of great science fiction literature (the director cites Theodore Sturgeon and J.G. Ballard as particular favourites). Oshii is happy to elaborate on the question at the heart of his film: why are humans so obsessed with recreating themselves?

“Humans can only confirm that they are humans by reconstructing themselves into something else,” he says. “That doesn’t have to be a clone or another human — it could be anything. A typical example would be women wearing makeup and putting on accessories or jewellery. It’s not about attracting other people so much as confirming themselves. Similarly, a man can identify himself in a car. In the olden days, a samurai would identify himself as a sword.”

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence explores the ways in which our emotions give life to the objects we keep or create. The movie makes much of the possibly apocryphal story of how philosopher René Descartes created a doll to replace his dead daughter, caring for it much as he had his flesh-and-blood offspring. Likewise, the stoic Batou has some surprisingly tender scenes with his dog. “The majority of Batou’s body is cyborg, so he doesn’t have a body any more,” says Oshii. “But he finds his body in the dog.”

Oshii can relate — he’s so devoted to his bassett hound, Gabriel, he has incorporated images of the dog into much of his work. “We call her Gabbo,” says Oshii. “I often talk to my wife about making a clone of Gabriel. My wife doesn’t want one but I definitely do.”

MORE MADNESS

Besides Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell 2, anime aficionados can look forward to the North American premiere of Akira creator Katsuhiro Otomo’sSteamboy, a Special Presentation at TIFF. Meanwhile, Midnight Madness presents a variety of extremely lively live-action features. Here are four of this year’s maddest.

ZEBRAMAN

Dir Takashi Miike w/ Sho Aikawa, Kumiko Aso. 115 min. Sep 16, midnight; Sep 18, 9:30pm. Varsity.

Unlike most of the Japanese director’s taboo-busting, stomach-turning oeuvre, this year’s requisite Takashi Miike title nearly qualifies as endearing. Dead or Alive‘s Sho Aikawa plays a dorky schoolteacher obsessed with Zebraman, the star of a long-cancelled superhero TV show. Miike subverts this amiable, nearly family-friendly parody of Ultraman with heaps of extraterrestrial goo and a neutron bomb. Consider it the nuttiest episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers ever made.

DEAD BIRDS

Dir Alex Turner w/ Henry Thomas, Patrick Fugit. TK min. Sep 13, midnight; Sep 16, noon. Varsity.

The savviest American horror flick since Cabin Fever,Dead Birds features former E.T. star Henry Thomas as the leader of a gang of thieves hungry for Confederate gold during the American civil war. First-time director Alex Turner gooses up haunted-house clichés with great flair — his slow-burning terror tactics and creepy FX owe more to post-Ring Japanese horror than any Yankee antecedents.

KONTROLL

Dir Nimrod Antal w/ Sandor Csanyi, Csaba Pindroch. 106 min. Sep 15, midnight, Ryerson. Sep 17, 3:45pm, Cumberland.

There’s more than a few mouldy CHUDs under the streets of Budapest. In this energetic comedy thriller — a massive hit in its native Hungary — subway-ticket inspectors shake down disgruntled commuters when not battling each other. Things are so crazy underground, you can understand why our hero, Bulcsu (Csanyi), hasn’t seen daylight in weeks. But he’s gonna have to take better care of himself if he expects to outwit the killer stalking the tunnels or woo the girl in the bunny costume.

RAHTREE: FLOWER OF THE NIGHT

Dir Yuthlert Sippapak w/ Chermarn Poonyasak, Kris Srepoomseth. 96 min. Sep 17, midnight, Ryerson; Sep 18, 6:30pm, Varsity.

In the opening scenes of this Thai hit, a callous young playboy seduces a troubled student, leaving her pregnant and miserable. Her suicide is the beginning rather than the end to this tale, and what starts as a limp romantic melodrama abruptly turns into a gonzo horror comedy. Rahtree’s blend of gory shocks and lowbrow yuks ain’t for all palates, but it’s one of this year’s wildest imports.

Interpretation Of “innocence“

Nightheaven — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:47:02 +0000

http://forums.productionig.com/ ： jerryku

I think “Innocence” is about what you see in the poster for the film: dogs and dolls. Also, in the trailer, it says “Innocence. That’s what life is.” Dogs and Dolls are innocent because they are not cognizant, they are not conciously self-aware, they have no ego. I’m not sure how to put it. But I heard someone saying that Motoko’s quote at the end of the movie, where she talks about how people see evil in the mirror of oneself, is about how people lose their innocence by becoming obsessed with themselves, their own importance, own purpose. And do you remember Kim’s spinning globe that Togusa spins in the mansion? I think that globe represents “life”, and thus, “innocence.” As it spins, the globe shows images of all sorts of animals. Lions, monkeys, and at the end, a dog. Innocent creatures that don’t think about their own importance very much.

In an IGN interview of Oshii, Oshii says that in the first GITS movie, he thought that what makes a human a human is their mind, and their memories of life. The body is not important. But then he says he has a different conclusion for GITS2, and he says our body as a whole is what makes us human, and our relationship with others is even more important. And I think when he says “our body as a whole entity”, he’s talking about how it fits in with life in general. Our human bodies are a part of mother nature, that kinda thing.

In GITS2, Kim, who is nothing more than a cyberbrain… with no body.. is insane. He has no relationships with others. He is not innocent. This is what happens to people when they disconnect themselves from their bodies and relationships with people. They go mad.

In fact, almost everyone is sad, moody, and somber in this movie. Every human being that is. Oshii said somewhere about how GITS is not really a ‘vision of the future’. It’s about the present, because he thinks the world is so full of sadness right now, and that’s why so many characters seem sad. But Batou’s dog is not sad, and the cheeriest character in the film, Togusa, is repeatedly shown to be strongly connected to his family, especially his daughter.
Togusa is definately the most innocent human character of the film, sometimes he comes off as naive or kinda spaced out. He doesn’t mope around like Batou does, he playfully spins the globe as he walks around Kim’s mansion. He eats a bun while Batou interrogates. He curiously gazes into the model replica of the mansion.. and in the end, he says he can’t be Batou’s partner anymore. It’s not just because he has a family, it’s also because his family represents his innocence. Working with Batou seems like it will lead to his loss of innocence, it will corrupt him. Remember that Togusa only says he wants to stop working with Batou after Kim has hacked into his cyberbrain, which scared the bejeezus out of Togusa. Afterwards, Batou questioned Togusa’s confidence that he even had a family! In the end, Batou says “you got a daughter, and that’s real.”

Batou’s dog and Togusa’s daughter bring the two men a lot of happiness because it links them to an innocent kind of thinking. Is there anything to be questioned behind those kinds of relationship? Nope. What are some things that make human beings non-innocent? The way i would answer such a question…… Greed, war, materialism, etc. If we sit around talking about how our country, culture, people, race, are superior to others… and how we need to run around converting people to our way of life, it just shows how self-obsessed we are, and how innocent we are NOT. We’re obsessed with ourselves so much that we think others should become like us, that they’ll be better if they become us.

But a dog doesn’t do that. Neither do dolls. Dogs are innocent, and happily give affection to their owners regardless of any of these things we human beings consider important.

At the end of the film, it’s said that the dolls, if they could’ve, probably would’ve screamed to say they did not want to become human (or to have souls anyway). It’s a loss of innocence, to become human.

Another thing that I just thought of… the huge city that Batou and Togusa fly through. They say something about how the cities can be representations of the societies that produce them, I believe. That city is supposed to come off as humanity’s obsession with their own importance. Their technological mastery. Their total abandonment of nature, and total control/domination of nature itself. That city’s buildings were so mechanised looking, so lifeless looking. They were monstrosities. Abominations! The white birds fly around, a juxtaposition of innocence and loss of innocence. Of true soul, and then lost of soul. Batou says the city is full of corrupt criminals and corporations: human greed. So the city fly through sequence is supposed to paint humanity’s evolution as dark, corrupt, and sad. Not innocent. And not really in tune with what life is truly about.

So in the end, I think the reviews that say GITS2 is just added on top of GITS1 did not really sit to think about the message of the film. They need to take into account what Oshii said about the differences of the two film. And then see that the first GITS was really low on anything sentimental, on any social relations. It was about Motoko as a solitary figure. But Innocence is full of sentimental things. Batou’s dog, batou’s connection with motoko (his “guardian angel”), Togusa’s family.

What do you think?

Also, I just thought about the parade sequence, and so I’m reinterpreting it. Some have said they thought the parade sequence was out of place and just a CGI show off, but i think the symbolism is easier to pick up when I think of this “humans are not innocent” approach.

First off, in one scene, everyone is wearing a mask except for one lone Buddhist monk. Most of the masks people are wearing are human-looking. So the idea behind the scene is to show that people are not innocent, they are disconnected with life, and they are celebrating their human-ness.

The Buddhist monk, however, has no mask, because he represents a religion that, I think, believes all life has a sense of equality. You can reincarnate as a cricket, you may have been a dog in a previous life. Humanity is not the supreme dominator of all life in Buddhism, like it is in religions such as Christianity. (And remember when Batou’s plane flies past all those big statues at the top of the city? These statues are monuments to mankind… they tower in the sky like gods over nature.) The Buddhist monk, I think, represents innocence, a person at peace with life. (Although he doesn’t look particularly happy in this scene!)

At the conclusion of the parade, we see a scene where all the masked people are throwing dolls into a big bonfire. I think the dolls represent innocence itself, and so humans are just throwing it away, into a fire, destroying their own innocence.

And during the final battle scenes, we see the gynoids’ faces break apart as Motoko destroys them, revealing their true selves underneath. This happens because as the gynoids are dying, they are losing their soul, their humanity. And thus, they are returning to a state of innocence. The Buddhist monk has no mask; as the gynoids die, their “masks” come off.

Finally, I think there’s a message behind the scene in Kim’s house of illusions. In one room Batou goes into, the ceiling of the room is full of blue clouds and white birds. That’s innocence and life. But the room, as we look below, has a group of people dressed up in fancy clothes, sitting around a table that is on fire. I think the people are supposed to come off as concieted, look-how-important-I-am types. Their innocence has been burned away too, like the dolls at the parade.

Kurotowa

Very interesting discussion here. I do have to admit that I saw a few somewhat different things in this film that don’t seem to have been brought up in this thread, so for fun, here’s my bit:

Starting from the beginning, the film asks the question of why would these young female looking gynoids, an apparently lifeless robot sold to rich people as a sex toy, rise up against it’s master in violent rebellion in direct conflict of it’s apparent “programming” (which states that it cannot hurt humans to maintain it’s survival, apparently a reference to Asimov’s three rules of robotics)? If you assume that the robot behaves strictly in response to it’s programming, then this raises the questions of whether it’s behavior was either a deliberate part of the programming by a disgruntled software designer, a random computer virus, or some glitch? Or was it something else? Batou is assigned to answer that question, and in doing so the film once again seems to ask the same question of the first film, which is “What determines the difference between a living human and a robot/doll who looks human on the surface?” If GITS was about directly answering that question, then GITS 2 is more concerned with the *motivations* behind that which makes us human and how it does or does not seperate us from being simply a mechanical object.

Getting back to the gynoids, one of the chief themes early on at least seems to be the treatment of “pets”. If you assume that the gynoids are just machines or dolls and aren’t “living”, than the idea of one rebelling against it’s intended “function” seems baffling. In theory, the way a lifeless object is treated should make no difference to how it reacts if it was never programmed to react a certain way, BUT if it WAS a living human and not a machine, the idea of a little girl being treated like a sex toy and then dumped on the side of the road could believably destroy her feelings to the point that she would commit murder. Having humanity adds motivation to the crime that wouldn’t be there otherwise. I suppose Oshii wanted to make the point that how you treat something, even if you perceive it to be “non human” is important. It might actually be more human than you think. The way the humans are tossing the dolls carelessly in the fire in the parade scene or even the rich elite watching their world burn on the table in front of their eyes…these scenes show humans who are apparently oblivious to the way that their treatment of supposedly “lesser” things around them can have an impact on both the world and even their own lives.

Batou’s dog is also a “pet” and, like the gynoid, it apparently is a clone that only carries the soul of a living thing placed inside a mechanical body. But to Batou there is no difference, he treats his pet with love regardless of whether or not it is “good enough” to be considered a living thing or not. The rich people buying the sexaroids apparently don’t see it the same way. They are a product and they can treat them how they want. In reality there are such humans. In many countries for example, little girls are sold as sex toys to rich clients who treat them like objects purchased at the store, screwing them and dumping them on the side of the road as if they were a lifeless doll or a disposable pet. Do you think these humans doing bad things to these pets really realize how little there is seperating themselves from what they are wronging?

I’ve seen Oshii discuss this topic of how humans treat animals before, specifically in the Oshii miyazaki debate that took place at the time of Patlabor 2 (you can read the whole thing here:http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/interviews/m_oshii_patlabor2.html). In that interview Oshii said, “I think there is such a reflection. We’ve been focusing too much on humans, and animation isn’t the exception. Even when two persons are talking, probably a bird is flying over their heads, a fish is in a pond, and a dog is watching you when you look down. In my case, the eyes of animals are always on my mind.” and a little while later added, “As I said before, the gap between the reality of our life and politicians’ thinking is widening. I think it’s the same thing as the question of how we can close that gap. To say you care about animals and to say you have to reexamine postwar history properly once more– they are actually the same thing…It’s the actual era in which we’ve been living, and I really want to make (a film about it) properly.” It looks like he finally got around to making it…the film seems very intent on trying to get us to ask ourselves what is living and what is not. Sure, a Biology class could bring you up to speed in a week or two, but I suppose it’s more fun to ask the question in the Oshii world.

While the film is complex and sort of confusing (did anybody else notice the lack of Itoh as the screenwriter in this film? If it can be said that Oshii meanders around within the confines of Itoh’s structured scripts then when Oshii decided to do both himself it seems more like he is meandering within the meander which makes following it twice as hard…) at the very least the gynoid question does get resolved. Since the rich customers wanted an “authentic” sex toy that acted like a human, the programmers decided to hook up a real human soul to it. In doing so, the doll became capable of rebelling because it now possesed that which makes a human truly different from a doll.

In terms of visual symbols there is way too much to talk about from just a few viewings. From the “parade of giant dolls” marching mechanically through the city to the way the characters are manipulated like marionettes when someone is able to overcome their defenses (not just the ebrain hacking that goes on, at one point Batou is even using actual puppet strings to manipulate a member of the yakuza to illustrate that point) a great effort is made to describe the slim distinction between a living and non living thing (or the distinction between a human and a doll that looks human). But I leave such analysis to the experts, I speant far too much time staring at insignificant background details both times to really claim much comprehension of the overall story

jerryku

QUOTE

“As humans have become more ‘mind-oriented?and the environment has become more urban, some have forgotten the idea of the human body,?says Oshii. “As far as they’re concerned, the human body does not exist anymore. The reason that people of today choose to have dogs is that they’re looking for a substitute to the human body.?When I asked Oshii during the round table to clarify this quote, he explained that some people have family or children that take them away from technology and out of their heads to their bodies, but for him it is his dogs that do this.

Batou and Togusa, right there!

QUOTE

“This movie does not hold the view that the world revolves around the human race. Instead, it concludes that all forms of life—humans, animals, and robots—are equal. In this day and age when everything is uncertain, we should all think about what to value in life and how to coexist with others. We all need friends, family, and lovers. We can’t live alone. In the year 2032, when this movie takes place, robots and electronic beings have become necessary companions to people. Actually, that time has come already. What we need today is not some kind of anthropocentric humanism. Humanity has reached its limits. I believe that we must now broaden our horizons and philosophize about life from a larger perspective. With this film, I hope to reflect upon the uneasiness that pervades the world today. Under such conditions, what is the meaning of human existence??- Mamoru Oshii

Other portions of the interview says that:
- Oshii didn’t feel Japanese until after he did this movie.
- “We live in a cruel and frightening world.” ” It is this culture of fear and anxiety that I want to depict cinematically. ”

You know, I’ve been reading reactions to Innocence all over the web…… and the vast majority of reviews and viewer impressions ignore all of these things that Oshii was trying to get across, regardless of whether or not the review/impression is positive or negative!

It took me forever to get the jist of the movie, I left the theater having no idea what the message was, what the quotes were for, or anything. I had to come to this forum and hear all the quotes over again, and then really sit and think about the movie before I began asking myself some questions. I’ve had a lot of fun trying to figure things out with everyone. But damn, I guess the movie is way too subtle about putting forth any philosophical dilemma for most people (like me!!). I for one did not see this “culture of fear and anxiety” depicted strongly. Nor did I feel there was a strong message of people “forgetting the idea of the human body”, until Kim showed up, and that was already late in the movie. But I did miss much of the Hathaway conversation, so I will have to rewatch that.

At best, I can interpret Kim’s illusions were a way to say that what your mind believes can be an illusion, it’s not true life. Definately Kim’s mansion was “fear and anxiety” for Togusa! And as we see at the end, Togusa freaks out and wants to quit. So Batou tells him what Oshii says above, you gotta focus on your body, through your kids, for example. Because what your mind believes can lead you to fear, anxiety, and doubt. But your body and relationships with others are real. Another important thing, I think, is the scene where Togusa’s body “explodes”, revealing his “cyborg” body. At first I just thought this scene was just to freak you out, but now I’m thinking that since Oshii intended Togusa to represent the viewer….. Oshii is directly telling the viewer not to forget their body. It’s important, and you really don’t want your body to be meaningless, and yes, if it exploded and you were a cyborg inside, you’d be freaked out about it. lol (For those who don’t remember, Togusa has a cyberbrain, but his body is all human.)

So I think the movie gives a lot of answers, in the form of quotes, and imagery… to questions that most viewers never realised were being asked. The viewer SEES the answers/conclusions clear enough, but often doesn’t bother to think about them, because they didn’t see the questions to begin with. And so, you have all these reviews saying that the parade was irrelevant, and that all these philosophical quotes are thrown around for no reason. I think people could’ve put the dots together a lot easier if the questions had been asked earlier and more obviously earlier in the film. (again, maybe the Hathaway scene is what i’m ignoring)

ocelot

“Walk alone, with few wishes, committing no sin, like an elephant in the forest.”

I’m not sure if I got the words exactly right, but I’m intrigued as to how this idea fits into the whole scheme of things.

My take on it is the pursuit of happiness – Kim mentioned something about how only animals, lacking the developed awareness that we humans do, are able to experience true paradise – they have ‘few wishes’ to feed their egos. I suppose this could have something to do with Motoko citing the mirror’s view of oneself (the ego) as a seed of evil – a loss of innocence, and ultimately, a loss of happiness. Paraphrasing Batou: “..what of all the dolls that didn’t want to become human?” These dolls suffered the pain of being concious, of being emotional, of being aware of themselves. Also, notice how the parade was basically devoid of humanity – save for a few people wearing masks here and there, and, if my memory serves me correctly, all these masks portrayed unhappy faces.

“Walk alone” however, I don’t quite get. There seem to be a lot of hints at affirming oneself through the physical – Batou through his dog, Togusa through his daughter – their humanity was confirmed through their physical relationships. This was a source of peace for them, where Togusa even said he was happy. However, Aramaki quoted the ‘elephant’ line to Togusa, I’ve forgotten exactly in what context, and Motoko said it as well before she left the doll’s body. She seemed to be walking alone, having transcended her body into the net. I wonder – was she at peace there? She seemed to be, having not exhibited the need or desire to stay in physical form, to actively physically be with Batou. However, Kim ‘walked alone’, and look what it did to him…

On a slightly different note, Kim had a lot of interesting stuff to say. Something about his bid to know life only after knowing death – but what he was experiencing was really only the death of his body. And then his suggestion for man’s apprehension of the doll – that our fear was based in the notion that we ourselves may be nothing but dolls, having nothing to truly distinguish us from the machines we create. And he showed Togusa, then Batou, that fear by masquerading himself as doll-like versions of them. Contrasting, then, Batou’s encouragement to Togusa to find himself by being with his daughter.

It’s almost like Oshii is saying: ” We can’t prove or disprove that we have ghosts. All we have are our shells, and they are our only tools for affirming that we are here.” Maybe this is somewhat an element of Oshii’s statement that he was trying to convey the idea of all forms of life being equal – the fact that all of life has to affirm itself in this way. However, obviously, in the movie the phenomena known as ‘ghost’ is not only recognized, but is also manipulated in some way.

Oh, well – me confused. I know what I just said may not be particularly well thought-out, but if anybody has any additions or comments, that would be appreciated. Also, does anybody remember Haraway’s take on the whole theme?

Kurotowa

If I was to describe Ghost in the Shell as a movie about “discovering what it is that makes us human” then the Matrix would be something more like “waking up to reality”. I have difficulty finding anything more than a few superficial connections between the two. At least to me, the themes do seem completely different.

Whomever brought up Terminator tho, I think made an excellent analogy/correlation to the sort of thing I think Oshii was aiming for in GITS2. I really do think that the idea that even this “lifeless killing machine” can become something that we cry for the moment we attach human emotions to it says a lot about how we evaluate things.

Part of understanding a film about the world we live in starts with looking at the world we live in in reality itself. I have seen firsthand that horrible things happen when people don’t treat other living things as if they are really living beings with feelings. For example, I had a neighbor who would take his family on trips and would just chain his dog outside in the front yard (where it is completely unprotected from attack, with just a small bowl of food and a small bowl of water) for a week in the middle of “winter” all alone with no humans looking after it. I remember hearing the dog crying during the day and at night and barking feriociously when practically anything came near it on the sidewalk. When the neighbors were back things weren’t much better. The dog was chained in the back yard and the boys next door would kick it and mess with it for pleasure. The people were completely oblivious to the concept that a living thing should not be treated this way, and then one day the dog finally bit one of the boys. I don’t even think there was a debate in that family that they had done anything wrong to warrant such an “assault”. The dad concluded that the dog was violent, and took it to the pound where it was probably put to sleep.

As a dog lover, I’m SURE Oshii has seen other people treat dogs this way (it happens all over the place…since dogs, like poor people, aren’t protected by the law they are victimized all over the place). I am also sure he has understood the connection between this (treating an animal like a lifeless thing) and what happens to humans in similiar situations when they are treated like lifeless things. I remember a job I had in the past which promoted a low level manager to manage my department. He had no real education, no real observable desirable traits (i.e. nothing to indicate that he was a decent human who cared about others), and certainly not much of anything I would consider intelligence (based on how he worked I sometimes wondered if it was part of his job description to download music from the internet). Nevertheless he brought his boss security in his incompetence and that is apparently worth something. First thing he did as the “man in charge” was intimidate the female workers in our department (all poor and barely holding onto their jobs). To keep their jobs, they all had to have sex with him. He would call them out to give him blow jobs on their lunch breaks whenever he felt like it. If they complained or threated him, he simply called a meeting announcing “cut backs” and that was that. I knew these girls, one of them grew negative and in desperation tried to find a decent boyfriend to get out of such a vulnerable situation. She slept with countless men in our office…all eager to exploit her vulnerability in the same way the boss did (for easy fun) with no intention of helping her survive. Eventually she had violent outbursts and turned to drugs. The manager? Completely oblivious to the chaos he was creating, he continued to screw (literally) things up for an entire year before he was finally demoted back to where he was before where he couldn’t do any damage.

When people treat an animal poorly it really does seem like they have no clue how much damage they are doing to the thing. Looking at the faces of the neighbor and my old manager convinced me at least, there was no indication that they even felt sorry (or even felt period) after they did what they did. They are innocent in a way…there is no evidence that they even feel the slightest shred of guilt. They think it’s just another extension of entertainment, that a living thing is there to amuse them, and then to discard when it is inconvienent to deal with their needs. The idea of giving the “pet” the constant love, protection, and maintenence it needs is something a lot of people…lost in television or the internet and detached from life…seem not to be getting these days. Hell, even reading one of the reviews for GITS2 horrified me…the reviewer was complaining about how he felt cheated because he didn’t get to actually see the gynoids getting raped. I don’t know if you guys don’t find the world freightening with this sort of thing going on…but I sure do. It’s refreshing to finally see someone have the guts to actually make a movie about this to begin with…it’s not exactly a crowd pleasing subject.

Anyways, I do not think most of us will have a fair chance to fully interpret Oshii’s messages until it comes out on DVD where we can pause things and really take a look at everything. I do want to comment on one more thing tho:

“Walk alone, with few wishes, committing no sin, like an elephant in the forest.”

I’m not sure if I got the words exactly right, but I’m intrigued as to how this idea fits into the whole scheme of things.

It seems very Buddist. To horrible paraphrase the principles behind Buddhism what is being suggested here I think is that the way to enlightenment is to systematically remove your desires (have few wishes), isolate yourself from society (walk alone), treat other humans well (committing no sin), and seek nothingness…the purest form of existence (Motoko…anyone?). In following the path you are to become more in tune with nature, as throwing away all your stuff and isolating yourself from society WOULD leave you with nothing better to do than to think about life and your place in the world. All distractions would be gone and you would know what your emotions mean at a much clearer level. Maybe if my manager or the neighbor attached their emotions to other living things they wouldn’t have done what they did? Certainly I don’t think they would be so “numb” if people were doing these things to them. I don’t know how being an elephant in the forest fits into this directly, but I am pretty sure it’s some way of saying “you can become a better person if you do this”. This is the first Oshii film with heavy Buddhist philosophy in it (maybe that’s why he thinks this is the first film he has made that makes him feel japanese…certainly there is no shortage of buddist ideology in other anime ^^).

max314

QUOTE
If I was to describe Ghost in the Shell as a movie about ‘discovering what it is that makes us human’ then the Matrix would be something more like ‘waking up to reality’. I have difficulty finding anything more than a few superficial connections between the two. At least to me, the themes do seem completely different.

The ‘waking up to reality’ part of the Matrix discussion is but the first baby steps of somethingmuch larger. The first movie is very concerned with questions like ‘what is real?’, thus delegating the role of machines to nothing more than stereotypical villains. He second movie complicates matters. The fact that the Oracle is actually a program and the introduction to the Merovingian and his emotionally-charged possey lets us in to a knew concept – the fact that ‘human = good’ and ‘machine = bad’ analogy can no longer work. It’s much more in shades of grey. By Revolutions, we have one of the most profound dialogues of the trilogy – the evolution, if you will, the the question of ‘what is real?’ in the first Matrix:

Rama-Kandra: You do not understand.
Neo: I just have never…
Rama-Kandra: …heard of programs speak of love.
Neo: It is a…human emotion.
Rama-Kandra: No – it is a word. What matters is the connection the word implies.

As far as Neo is concerned, he know the concept of love only in its state of simulacrum – the concept, the ‘connection the word implies’ has been lost, and only the superficial use of the word remains. Also, the fact that we are now talking of sentient programs able to feel emotions such as love, means that we’re brought more into the realms of, say, the Puppet Master of Ghost In The Shell. The Section 6 guys crack a joke in the limo about how maybe he had a crush on someone at Section 9 – a little snippet you might miss if you’re not looking out for it.

This is butone example in the trilogy (specifically the sequels) where there are strong thematic ties with the Ghost In The Shell franchise that had such a huge influence on The Matrix.

QUOTE
Whomever brought up Terminator tho, I think made an excellent analogy/correlation to the sort of thing I think Oshii was aiming for in GITS2. I really do think that the idea that even this ‘lifeless killing machine’ can become something that we cry for the moment we attach human emotions to it says a lot about how we evaluate things.

That would be me

Yes, very much so. The ‘humanising’ of the machine sort of indicates to me an innate human reaction – empathy. But it is the context of the empathy that is so interesting to think about, the fact that we empathise with an object within which we see ourselves reflected. The terminator, the doll, is what we and the characters are forming a relationship with. I hunk of metal and a computer processor we actually feel for! In many ways, perhaps this was Oshii’s idea in Innocence that the body, the physcial form that we posess is the only confirmation of what’s ‘real’. but, again, if you tale the idea from The Matrix that reality depends on your perception, well, I guess you could start writing a nice, long essay about that

Perhaps the terminator can be at peace. Apparently, Oshii talks of how these dolls never wanted to become ‘human’ (as we learned from The Matrix and Ghost In The Shell, what precisely that means is debatable), so perhaps the terminator’s last line in Judgement Day almost emboddies all of that:

‘I know now why you cry – but it’s something I can never do.’

QUOTE
Part of understanding a film about the world we live in starts with looking at the world we live in in reality itself. I have seen firsthand that horrible things happen when people don’t treat other living things as if they are really living beings with feelings. For example, I had a neighbor who would take his family on trips and would just chain his dog outside in the front yard (where it is completely unprotected from attack, with just a small bowl of food and a small bowl of water) for a week in the middle of ‘winter’ all alone with no humans looking after it. I remember hearing the dog crying during the day and at night and barking feriociously when practically anything came near it on the sidewalk. When the neighbors were back things weren’t much better. The dog was chained in the back yard and the boys next door would kick it and mess with it for pleasure. The people were completely oblivious to the concept that a living thing should not be treated this way, and then one day the dog finally bit one of the boys. I don’t even think there was a debate in that family that they had done anything wrong to warrant such an ‘assault’. The dad concluded that the dog was violent, and took it to the pound where it was probably put to sleep.

As I said in a previous post, personality is dependent upon past experience and personality. The same applies for dogs.

Those f. uckers (the family, not the dog…)

QUOTE
‘Walk alone, with few wishes, committing no sin, like an elephant in the forest.’

I’m not sure if I got the words exactly right, but I’m intrigued as to how this idea fits into the whole scheme of things.

Lookin at it, it would seem like a mantra referring to the absolute satisfaction with the world, and a state of oneness with it. An egoless existence that coincides with Oshii’s own viewson what the ideal existence is. Personally, I don’t believe in it. It renounces the responsibilities that human beings face as social creatures. but in the context of purely theoretical discussion, it’s cool to talk about.

I’ve had the ending spoiled with Kusinagi’s new plane of existence on the net and rejecting her physical body, so I’ll just stick with it for now. It’s on a par with Neo’s merging with Smith at the end of Revolutions and permeating the machine world and the Matrix as a result (notice how all the machine eyes are now green instead of red, ?la Matriculated, and the full-colour, sun-shining version of the Matrix). It could also be likened to the terminator’s willingness to self-terminate. Arguably, it could be because it was John’s orders that they were trying to prevent the war, but ultimately, the terminator defies John’s commands (‘I order you not to go!’) and comes up with its own response: ‘it has to end here’.

The score piece playing over the Superbrawl was entitled Neod鋗merung (Neo Rising), and its lyrics were taken from the Bhagavad Gita or the ‘Hindu Bible’. One of the passages that is perhaps most important here is:

“And when he is seen in his immanence and transcendence,
then the ties that have bound the heart are unloosened,
the doubts of the mind vanish,
and the law of Karma works no more.”

These lyrics play right at the end as Neo is slammed into the asphalt from hundreds of meters in the air – he actually crashes just feet away from the phone booth he originally flew off from in the first film (check the aeiral shots) as the karmic cycle comes full circle. In his rage, Smith asks why he is doing what he is doing, why he continues to persist – and the only ‘why’ is the choice itself: “because I choose to”. Karma, purpose, reason for being – all has vanished, and all that is left is the will to go on. Neo soon realises that the cycle must complete, and that his own death is necessary to bring everything back into balance. The Deus Ex Machina marks the comlpetion, declaring that “it is done”. Neo now pervades the machine consciousness – the first anomaly to actually reach the machine city and cause a ‘revolutionary’ change in the perputuation of life and rebirth pertaining to the Zionites. The man-machine relationship has entered a new stage, and all because of Neo’s sacrifice and the fact that he himself has ‘transcended’ into the machine network in much the same way the Kusinagi seems to have ‘transcended’ into the net with no physical body. I suppose this could be dubbed the stage of ‘true enlightenment’, but note how this is a state to be acheived not a state to be granted. It is the “bitter-sweet” experiences of life (as Keats would say) that allow our soul to be developed and eventually accept death.

I dunno, I think it’s kinda interesting.

eclip5e

Happiness & Humanity:

Innocence is a film that just asks to be analyzed from as many perspectives as possible, and it asks many more questions than it answers, but if looked at simply, it can reveal a very easy to understand message. Some of the obvious questions and concepts it puts forth are the tried-and-true of the sci-fi genre, “What makes us human”, “what defines life”. Where Innocence diverges is its depiction of humanity at-odds with nature and humanity itself.

In the near-future world in which Innocence takes place, humanity has abstracted itself above its attachments to the body and nature by creating cyborg body replacements, building skyscrapers, and controlling the environment. Humanity marvels at its conquering of nature and our physiques. Simultaneously, however, we ignore the real important issues of what it is to be alive.

Innocence presents some major concepts that this near-future world seems to be ignoring, a world that the current state of the world will soon devolve into if we are left unchecked. Humans are looking at themselves as a seperate force above nature, as a special group of beings that are able to isolate and abstract ourselves from nature to remove any uncontrollable outcomes. They are looking at the world from a one-sided battle of “us” vs “them”. In the near-future world in Innocence, humans have totally removed themselves from the world-system, and are now beginning to pay the price.

With this platform as the basis of the story, Oshii begins to tell his message. His message is a return to our origins, a “Oneness” with our surroundings and the world. This has a heavy leaning to many ancient religions and philosophies included Zen and Buddhism among others. There are many references to this idea, such as the Monk in the parade scene, the recurring animal presence, the white (pure) seagulls, and many many more. Animals have always been seen as “One” with the natural world, it is only obvious that it is a reference to such an idea. Oshiis’ message is that of a return to the basic principles of happiness and satisfaction, and that technology and “the current path of society” will never be able to achieve because it is not its primary goal. He presents the idea that “Oneness”, and living in parallel with nature as a “cohesive whole” instead of isolating the self from nature is the true path to Happiness.

The idea of happiness is referenced many times in the film, simply put, as questions to the main characters.
- Togusa asks Batou is he is happy.
- Aramaki asks Togusa if he is happy.
- Batou asks Motoko if she is happy.

Each character replies in her own way. Interestingly, Aramaki tells Togusa “We are never as happy or sad as we say”, suggesting that it is impossible to be happy with the current state of society.

The main message of the film is that current society is hurtling towards a state of constant war against the natural path of the world. Oshii portrays this as an unwinnable, and disutopian war, however, when Batou asks Motoko if she is happy, she replies along the lines of “I don’t have such qualms”. This implies that her state of “Oneness” with the world satisfies her, and this brings an uplifting end to an otherwise dark conclusion to the film.

So perhaps we are taking the wrong path towards the future, but all is not lost.

Just my 2 cents.

max314

QUOTE
Happiness & Humanity:

The idea that humanity has separated from and is fighting the natural order of things. Kewl.

QUOTE
In the near-future world in which Innocence takes place, humanity has abstracted itself above its attachments to the body and nature by creating cyborg body replacements, building skyscrapers, and controlling the environment. Humanity marvels at its conquering of nature and our physiques. Simultaneously, however, we ignore the real important issues of what it is to be alive.

The egotistical, egocentric nature of the human mind, our ‘superiority complex’ our belief in our ‘divine right’ over all else could be seen as a form of inter-specific form of fascism.

QUOTE
Innocence presents some major concepts that this near-future world seems to be ignoring, a world that the current state of the world will soon devolve into if we are left unchecked. Humans are looking at themselves as a seperate force above nature, as a special group of beings that are able to isolate and abstract ourselves from nature to remove any uncontrollable outcomes. They are looking at the world from a one-sided battle of “us” vs “them”. In the near-future world in Innocence, humans have totally removed themselves from the world-system, and are now beginning to pay the price.

It’s interesting – we talk of paying a price. Whatever you want to acheive in the world, a price must always be paid. Always. The fundemental law of physics, the conservation of energy – the idea that energy can be neither created nor destroyed, it merely changes its form – can be applied here to this universal truth. Interestingly, humanity going backwards (real devolution, as far as I’m concerned) will also have its price. The problem is, however, do we, as a species, have the capacity, the willingness to ‘pay the price’ of going backwards and returning to ‘innocence’. Oshii says that this is the natural state of the world, the way it was ‘meant to be’. Personally, I believe that what is ‘meant to be’ is precisely what is happening. Again, we look at ourselves as being far too important, even in a superficially humble discussion like this.

Now, imagine we’re shit. We’re absolutely nothing. We cannot control the inevitabilities of the universe and of nature. Our way of life, our way of thinking, our very existence is not really within our control! In fact, the very concept of us destroying nature is due to nature creating us! We’re the ones who are not in control! We’re the ones with our strings being pulled! We’re the ones who are victim to the direction of the the world and trapped in the construct of time! That’s why the Matrix still exists at the end of Revolutions – control “is inevitable”. The laws of the universe cannot be escaped – not even the Zionites with their political and military infrastructure.

It’s just not possible to revert back to this Oshii-Wordsworthian concept of absolute ‘innocence’ and ‘purity’, because even those concepts are entirely from an egocentric perspective.

QUOTE
With this platform as the basis of the story, Oshii begins to tell his message. His message is a return to our origins, a “Oneness” with our surroundings and the world. This has a heavy leaning to many ancient religions and philosophies included Zen and Buddhism among others. There are many references to this idea, such as the Monk in the parade scene, the recurring animal presence, the white (pure) seagulls, and many many more. Animals have always been seen as “One” with the natural world, it is only obvious that it is a reference to such an idea. Oshiis’ message is that of a return to the basic principles of happiness and satisfaction, and that technology and “the current path of society” will never be able to achieve because it is not its primary goal. He presents the idea that “Oneness”, and living in parallel with nature as a “cohesive whole” instead of isolating the self from nature is the true path to Happiness.

Yup, see above for my views.

QUOTE
Each character replies in her own way. Interestingly, Aramaki tells Togusa “We are never as happy or sad as we say”, suggesting that it is impossible to be happy with the current state of society.

Personally, I think it’s about the idea that we all wear masks in society – if someone asks you how you are, you say “I’m fine”. Your house could be burning up, your life down the crapper, but you’d still pull out an “I’m fine”. Again, as a society, we’re trapped within our self-made construct! but remember – we say it’s self-made, but what about the nature that made us the way we are

QUOTE
The main message of the film is that current society is hurtling towards a state of constant war against the natural path of the world. Oshii portrays this as an unwinnable, and disutopian war, however, when Batou asks Motoko if she is happy, she replies along the lines of “I don’t have such qualms”. This implies that her state of “Oneness” with the world satisfies her, and this brings an uplifting end to an otherwise dark conclusion to the film.

So perhaps we are taking the wrong path towards the future, but all is not lost.

Just my 2 cents.

Let’s first get past the notion that death is bad. “It is inevitable”, but it’s not bad. Personally, I feel that society’s seemingly inevitable self-destruction is precisely what needs to happen. We need to destroy ourselves for the karmic cycle to start over. From oblivion comes the light. From the Big Bang came the universe. “Everything that has a beginning has an end”, and everything that has an end has a new beginning.

Fantastic discussion, E-Man!

Kurotowa

As far as I have been able to understand from my studies, in Buddhism, the push to achieve “nothingness” and “oneness” are actually two heads of the same coin. In achieving nothingness, the purest form of existence, you achieve “oneness” with the world around you. This dual nature is definitely symbolized in Motoko, when she was finally able to shed everything inlcuding her own body she both has literally become “nothing” in the physical sense, and at the same time became “everything” by merging with the world around her. You can say in a way that this is all a metaphor for death, but that is not exactly what Buddhism was about. It is trying to put you in a position to where you understand what death is while you are alive for it is only then that you can understand life (I think this was somewhere in the movie too!).

When buddhism became “politically comodified” the isolationist & nothingness aspects became less emphasized in certain practices because people that isolatated themselves from everyone didn’t become very productive workers (i.e. the people who are devoted to hardcore buddhism such as the tibetan monks are more along the lines of the original thought whereas the people in the cities follow a slightly “modified” buddhism and can reach enlightenment by worshipping gold buddha statues as an example…I think the two types were called Hinayana and Mahayana Buddhism but so much time has passed that I cannot be sure). By the way, this ideology is not just east…if you look at the bible (well again, depending on the version and political goals of the people behind it), Jesus was saying the same basic things (throw away your material possesions, follow the path on god, etc.). In a political sense this sort of ideology (reaching a pure existence, becoming one with the earth, etc.) has simply formed the backbone of leftist/socialist ideology as we know it today (I blame it on the darn Studio Ghibli co production, their ideology has assimilated Oshii ^^). But that topic is way too big to get into now…

Well, I think my initial idea that we would be clueless as to what Oshii intented while making Gits (yes, you are free to interpet it as anything you wish, but when it comes down to it the question to always ask is “what did the creator intend by doing things this way?”) is sort of eroding after reading the last few posts on here. I think Eclipse summed it up clearer than I could. To be innocent does not mean that you didn’t commit a crime. What it means is that your simply “aren’t fully aware” of the crime you are committing. A child who pulls the wings off a fly cannot know pain and death so we say what he is “innocent” even when objectively he is still ravaging the fly. An adult who does the same thing knowing that the fly is going to suffer horribly as it dies would be considered guilty by that same turn of logic. In a way, Oshii’s film seems like a war against innocence. A desire to rip a human being open and reveal to the world what a life really is.

Of course I don’t know how effective that actually can be…I mean if people can’t figure out that unhappiness and violence are simply byproducts of the way an unhappy animal is treated, then how in the hell are they supposed to figure out Oshii’s cryptic riddles?

iamNataku

Interesting, well-thought out dialogues, but I can’t help but point out that, ironically, the intellectualization of this thread (mind) has become completely seperated from the its subject, that being Oshii and his film Innocence (body).

Of course, there is nothing wrong with this, as I’d imagine such a film would prompt such discussions, but I’ll leave the Buddhist dogma to other forum members to talk about.

Personally, my only goal in discussing Innocence is at possibly understanding why Innocence, as a film, resonated both with myself and with others, especially since I have been mostly ambivalent towards the majority of Oshii’s films. Honestly, this the first film of his that I’ve watched where I actually felt anything.

I think back to Oshii’s statement about how he didn’t feel Japanese until after he made the film. That says to me that Oshii didn’t try to make any film in particular, especially a Japanese one, and instead just made the film that came most natural to him.

On that line of thought, that would also mean that everything that appears in the film may have a logic, but the logic is an emotional one, not an intellectual one. I would imagine that trying to understand the film intellectually would yield few results, as it seems that Innocence wasn’t created intellectually. (Hence the frustrations of those who try to intellectualize the film.)

As Oshii also said, one doesn’t have to understand the film in order to appreciate it. I’ll go one step further and add that perhaps the only way to understand the film is to reflect upon ones emotional reaction towards it. That’s pretty much the only way to approach all great works of creativity.

Again, I find it highly ironic that we have allowed ourselves to do the exact thing that Oshii himself admonishes by becoming lost within the complexes of the mind without having any directive connection to a definitive source.

That definitive source, in this case, would be Innocence, its creator Mamoru Oshii, and the viewer himself.

iamNataku

QUOTE
Let one walk alone, committing no sin, with few wishes, like an elephant in the forest.

Thinking of Wordsworth, I’m tempted to see Innocence now as an expression of solitude. Observing that almost every character is shown in a “solitary” light, that is, disconnected from any human relationships (we never see Togusa with his familly until the very end), it could be possible that Oshii feels that solitude isn’t a choice but instead a result when one chooses to be fully human or “innocent.”

Of course, for Oshii, “innocence” is defined more as a state of being completely true to oneself, outside the care of society. Where I see Oshii and Wordsworth as similar authors is in how they seem to feature individuals who have chosen their “innocence.” Like Wordsworth, who tends to focus on one solitary character for each of his poems, each scene in Innocence tends to focus on a solitary character, whether it be Dr. Haraway, Batou, Kim, and even Togusa.

I think back to the scene in the beginning where Togusa and Batou go back to one of the detective offices. (My memory’s shakey on this one) The officer that they talk to is quite rude to both Togusa and Batou, and afterwards Togusa reflects upon how he is no longer just “a part of the force.” He is now, temporarily, outside of society. (Again, real shakey on this scene, so if anybody can remeber it more clearly it’d be appreciated.)

For Oshii, to be innocent is to be outside of society, mentally, not physically. Oshii isn’t necessarily saying that society is unnatural, like Wordsworth does, but instead states that one’s most “innocent” self is something that will bring that person into conflict with existing society. Solitude is the result of this conflict. “To walk alone” is to live according to oneself.

I will say though that that the film does become very Wordswordian in execution, in that it ceases to be a meditation on “Innocence” and moreso a meditation on how various people “cope” with their innocence.

Characters like Haraway seem to be very comfortable with their innocence, being at peace with their solitary life outside of society. I’ll go out on a limb an say that even Kim was at peace with his innocence, thinking back to several of Wordsworth’s poem, including The Idiot Boy, The Mad Mother, and We Are Seven.

The characters in both The Idiot Boy and The Mad Mother are, by society’s standard, “mad” or “crazy” because they live in their own worlds. But they are completely happy within these worlds, “committing no sin” and “wishing for very little” as the axiom goes.

It is only those who are still of society who are repulsed by such individuals. Even further, such individuals who are “innocent” greatly stand out to others, “like an elephant in a forest.” This is why I said one’s reaction towards various scenes in Innocence was so important.

For exmaple, the parade scene (complete w/ elephants) was the only scene that greatly stood out and repulsed me, not because Oshii was stating that human beings have become “less natural,” but because we are being shown the perspective of Oshii through Batou (The only shot in the sequence that doesn’t focus on the parade is a close-up of Batou). The world of man, society, appears to be extremely offensive to somebody who is not of that world. It is a cinematic conceit that allows you to see the world through the eyes of an “innocent.”

This is the reason why we are shown Kim’s Mansion shortly afterward, so that we, as an audience, can see what an “innocent” looks like through the eyes of society, which in this case, is Togusa. Oshii is judging neither Kim or society. He is just objectively giving us both sides of human experience through a pair of opposites, Batou and Togusa. In fact, almost every scene in the film operates either through “innocent” eyes or through “social” eyes.

The scene in Kim’s Mansion in particular is especially similar to Wordsworth’s We Are Seven. In “We are Seven” we have a girl who is playing alone near the graves of her two siblings. The rest of her family, save for her mother, has moved away, leaving her in solitude. Yet, the little girl plays, gleefully and emphatically stating that “We are seven!” (Coincidentally, Matoko, as a little girl, appears in Kim’s Mansion, playing in solitude.)

At first, the narrator admires the beauty of the girl’s world, much in the same way both Togusa and us, as an audience, admire the beauty of Kim’s Mansion (and of that funny little waiter doll). But soon the admiration turns towards disgust at how such a girl can ignore the “reality” that her siblings are dead (and how Kim can exist within such a mechnical world). The narrator in We are Seven screams at the girl because he cannot handle another human being living in a world that contradicts his own. But it is to no avail, because she still believes that “We are seven!”

Oshii, like Wordsworth, brings up the simple question stating: “What is wrong with this?” If the person is happy living in their world of innocence, what is wrong with that? According to both Oshii and Wordsworth, to be innocent is to be crazy, by worldly standards. A character like Kim only seems “crazy” if you are still apart of society, hence the typical reaction of both the audience and of Togusa.

At the end, perhaps Togusa feels that he is not ready for the “innocent” life, and at the end of film chooses to return to society. I also noticed how almost everybody in the film has a problem with how Batou handles the case. The supermarket scene allows us, as an audience, to see how Batou appears to the social world. (If you’ve seen the film, you know how he appears.) He is now living innocently, and so therefore, he is in conflict with everybody else in the film.

Another way that Oshii perhaps differs from Wordsworth is that Wordsworth stresses that peace in innocence can only come from being close to nature. Oshii proves otherwise as both Dr. Haraway and Kim are shown to be quite distant from “nature” yet still at peace. (Most computer programmers I’ve known generally seem more at peace than most other people.) So it’s possible that Oshii really isn’t commenting against technology in Innocence. He’s merely an artist realizing that computers are now a vital part of the human experience.

Also, the isolation of several other Wordsworth characters are shown to be due to their own ego (Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree) or because of the viciousness of society (The Vagrant Female). Oshii only seems interested in expressing the spiritual pain that comes from living individually and naturally. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be much in terms of social commentary or judgments, as far as I can tell, in Innocence at all.

For note, the character design for Dr. Haraway is based off the woman who showed Oshii and his team around when they were location scouting in Italy. Many of Wordsworth’s characters are people that he actually came across in his life as well. Perhaps the woman who was Oshii’s escort was also an “innocent” solitary figure, comfortable in her own world.

Through Innocence as a film, Oshii could be represented by Batou, obvserving how various people deal with their innocence. “Are you happy living in such a way?” he asks of everybody around him. As Oshii said, he didn’t feel Japanese until after he complete the film. Perhaps through the production of Innocence, Oshii, always the “crazy” outsider, was able to finally come to peace with his innocence.

Comments are always welcome as my memory of the film is quite shakey. I’ll admit that some of these points are a bit stretched, but at least it gave me a different perspective on the film.

Wordsworth’s Complete Poetical Works

max314

QUOTE (iamNataku @ Sep 28 2004, 04:22 AM)
QUOTE
Let one walk alone, committing no sin, with few wishes, like an elephant in the forest.

Yeah, I mean, if you look back at Wordsworth’s first poems in ‘The Prelude’ (the 1805 text, not the other one, because this is actually Wordsworth’s original, unreleased work that was discovered later and he didn’t publish it because he had some slightly non-Catholic views that he altered and published when he was older), he focusses on his childhood when he was brought up in a Cumbrian village (Cumbria kicks arse, by the way – I went there on holiday a few years ago, a beautiful place) and recalls those childhood experiences that he yearns for after having recently come out of the thick of London city (Keats, by contrast, lived his whole life in London). Curiously, his ‘spots of time’ where he had an experience regarding himself and nature only ever occur when he is alone and separated from the group. From what you say of Innocence, it seems that characters are closer to a state of ‘oneness’ when they are alone and, subsequently, are able to ponder their own selves now that they are disconnected from the collective. Personally, I’m the kind of person who finds a sense of peace when I’m disconnected from the mass – I actually feel free. Whatever that may be.

iamNataku

You’re still not fully grasping what I said Max. As I tried to explain in my last post, Oshii doesn’t define being “alone” from society as something noble, as Wordsworth does. According to Oshii, no matter how you are living, you are still apart of the “collective mass.” To despise society is to despise onself. There is no “oneness” for Oshii in Innocence, because simply existing by one’s own rules, regardless of one’s nature, is more than enough. The thought of being “alone” or “disconnected” is an illusion. This is why I used Wordsworth’s poem We are Seven.

Being alone for Oshii means being alone in mind, not in physicality. This is why I said that I don’t feel that there is much social commentary or judgement in Innocence. It is also the reason why in the film, although Togusa has physically become distant from society, his still thinks socially, which is why his viewpoint in the film is one of society, even though he may appear to be walking alone.

Oshii doesn’t view society as corrupt or something to avoid, as Wordsworth does. Not to beat this quote into the ground, but Oshii didn’t feel Japanese until after making Innocence. Meaning, he now is able to accept his “innocence” while also still seeing himself as part of the Japanese society. This, to me, was a huge revelation.

Innocence stresses being at peace both with the social world and with one’s difference in relation to the social world. But, when one chooses to live soley according to one’s own intuition, you will be brought into conflict with the social world. Sometimes following onself leads to having a partner, sometimes it leads us to being in the thick of society. Regardless, following oneself means being alone in mind. This is the pain that Innocence expresses. (In both the original GITS and in Innocence, none of the characters really comprehend each other. They respect each other’s logic, but there is always an emotional distance.)

QUOTE (Death and the Labyrinth: The World of Raymond Roussel)
In Roussel’s fictional world, a litter of kittens performs on parallel bars, people disguise themselves as tiny objects, a man wears a bracelet that is a giant earthworm. His novels, naive plays and poems, which mesmerized the French Surrealists, are populated by human machines, lovers taken by surprise, magical substances, prisons and tortuous signs. Roussel’s word inventions inspired Giacometti, and Gide revered him as a genius, yet this recluse who apparently committed suicide in 1933 is today considered a minor writer.

I would say that Oshii has a much more mature outlook on the world than Wordsworth, as Wordsworth still saw himself as being “outside” of society. Being an outsider was a noble choice for him because the “world of man” was looked down upon. As I also stated, Wordsworth believes that man can only be at peace outside of society in nature. Oshii shows differently in that the world of nature and the world of man are more or less the same thing by portraying both Dr. Haraway and Kim as being content, even though they are living in highly unnatural states. (The same could be said of Matoko.)

Oshii doesn’t divide the world like Wordsworth does, but instead strives to show human existence in it’s totality. When Oshii was younger, he was influenced much more by western theology, which is why he, like Wordsworth, saw the highly technological Japanese society as something that was meant to be denied. Innocence is his first truly Japanese work, in that Oshii allows himself to see the value of both the individual and of society.

This is why I said it’s dangerous to prematurely relate an artist’s work to another, because each artist has a unique viewpoint that is specific to them. Ignoring these differences in favor of reducing their work down to simplistic categorizations shows both a disrespect towards the work as a work of art, and a disrespect towards the artist as a human being. Don’t deny Oshii the value of his life experiences just so that you can feel better in tackling a supposedly difficult and complex work of art.

iamNataku

Oh no! This thread has been great. I’m a film student, so dissecting films is nothing new to me, but let’s not lose the actual film (and filmmaker) in discussing messages, philosophy, religion etc. Not too many have discussed the actual film “structure” or how certain scenes operate within the film as a whole. In other words, how can you discuss what a film communicates if you don’t discuss how it communicates?

IG Member Brian Ruh’s interview w/ Oshii
QUOTE
“I watched many European films when I was a student,” said Oshii, “Such films by Luis Bu駏el, Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni.?I began to think about Jean-Luc Godard when I became a director myself.”

What’s even funnier is that although many here have talked about Oshii’s literary/religious/philosophical influences in search of understanding the film, I have yet to hear anybody talk about the most obvious (and important?): his cinematic influences. The main reason why Oshii’s uses quotes in Innocence is not for intellectual extrapolation, but because it is a cinematic conceit that Jean-Luc Godard has used many a time.

Wikipedia on Mamoru Oshii
QUOTE
“This desire to include quotes by other authors came from Godard. The text is very important for a film, that I learned from him. It gives a certain richness to cinema because the visual is not all there is. Thanks to Godard, the spectator can concoct his own interpretation. [...] The image associated to the text corresponds to a unifying act that aims at renewing cinema, that lets it take on new dimensions.?

Godard is a huge influence for Oshii as well as filmmakers such as Michaelangelo Antonini, Andrei Tarkovsky, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Luis Bu駏el (Togusa’s cyberhack sequence definitely), Chris Marker, Andrzej Wajda, Jeray Kawalerowicz, Andrzej Munk, and Ingmar Bergman. Many things done in Innocence are done for aesthetic reasons, not intellectual ones. Watch the films by above said filmmakers and you will see how obvious this is, due to Oshii’s inspiration by said directors.

Amazon.com Reviewer on Luis Bunuel’s Un Chien Andalou
QUOTE
“Un Chien Andalou” embodies the words that display Bunuel’s work: Beautiful, dark, graphic, shocking and brilliant. The opening shot, one of the greatest and most memorable is a stroke of shocking genius. Some have attacked “Un Chien Andalou” because it literally makes no sense, even Bunuel gave credit to that. But it’s not supposed to. “Un Chien Andalou” is instead meant to be some sort of dream experience, a nightmare or collection of dream sequences put on film.

Case in point: Raymond Roussel’s book Locus Solus, which is a source material for Innocence, was created purely as an aesthetic experience. It has very little in terms of messages or religious/philosophical ideology. Of course, only those who have a love for language and syntax care for the work, as it is literally obtuse beyond belief. If you were to research much of Oshii’s artistic inspirations, you would see that many are composed in a similar fashion. (For note Max, Jean Baudrillard is one of the few literary people who extol the work of Roussel. )

Amazon.com Reviewer on Locus Solus QUOTE
Roussel’s novels are giant puzzles, in which he describes images and stories that have a unique carnival logic. Punning relationships generate textual rebuses (rebi?), in a way that makes the reader aware of the book as a mechanism, but Roussel gives too few clues to really understand it. In Locus Solus, Roussel gives a tour of the museum garden of an eccentric millionaire, who, like Roussel himself, collects with a frenetic and psychedelic rationalism

AICN’s interview w/ Oshii
QUOTE
Cbabbitt: The use of color and tone to emphasize confusion between alternate realities is quite striking, for example the shift to a realistic tone at the conclusion of Avalon or the infusion of yellow in some of the more surreal scenes in Innocence, what is it about these contrasts that appeal to you?

Oshii: Well, as for color, each color doesn抰 have a specific meaning, so whether it抯 red or yellow, in my mind I want to call the attention of the audience that is a symbol of some kind and it doesn抰 have to be red or yellow specifically. And basically, I use red and yellow because they work better in animation, and opposed to that purple and green are very difficult to work with and they can only be created with additional work. It抯 more of a stylistic approach, not so much of a deeper meaning. I usually like to use gray or grayish colors and my treatment of colors can only be achieved because of the digital technology.

Again, as I said earlier, the key thing is to synthesize. Combine the intellectual experience with the aesthetic one. The reason why I enjoyed Innocence so much was because it was communicating so many things in different ways. But the next time I see this film, I would like it to have an even more powerful affect upon me.

If you’re going to argue interpretations about the film, relate those interpretation back to various shots/scenes/sounds/lines of dialogue within the film to support your statement. Explain how Oshii uses cinematic conceits to convey his meanings. Then, we can all gain a greater appreciation for the film itself, and not of our own intellectual capabilities at extrapolating text.

The only reason I choose to discuss this film is so that I can see it in a new light upon the next viewing, not so that I can run off and write a 30 page term paper about the metaphors and references in Innocence, leaving the actual film in the wake once I’m done picking it apart for my leisure.

If you guys feel that a film’s “politcal or ideological” messages are more important than the actual film itself, then that’s fine. I apologize for disrupting this thread, but I will say that it is this exact mentality as to why Innocence was snubbed at the Cannes Film Festival, whereas Fahrenheit 9/11 was given the Palme D’or. Why? Because F9/11 was jam packed with messages and politcal ideology, and that’s all people today seem to care about.

A work of art isn’t an op-ed piece. It’s truth only relates to the person who created it. Leave the social commentary and whatnot to the news reporters. Oshii’s viewpoints aren’t Buddhist, Hindu, or Christian. They’re Oshii’s, which probably contradict all methods of thought in some fashion. Arguing whether or not Innocence is a “Buddhist” film is pointless, because it’s neither. It’s an Oshii film.

Let’s not scientifically rip apart the art (body) so that we can strengthen our own ideologies (mind). At the end of the day, all we have is the body, so let’s treat it with the respect it deserves. This seems to be, to myself anway, what Oshii was trying to communicate through Innocence.

QUOTE
“My theme is always dead simple. I never regard my works as ‘difficult to understand.’ If they look ‘difficult to understand,’ that is probably because I do not hold very much interest in story or drama.”

IG Member Brian Ruh’s interview w/ Oshii

Kurotowa

If you don’t want to talk about Buddhism that’s fine, but I’m sure you’re more than capable of presenting your views without slamming or dismissing the views of others in the process. You keep on saying you’re waiting for us to discuss the overall themes of the film? That was page 1 and 2 where we did that, we were starting to get past that into discussing the ideology of the film (which always influences the theme because the belief system influences the overall messages in a film). Then, fascism suddenly enveloped the thread and that was pretty much the end of the conversation. How can you expect to get people to talk freely when there are value judgements now being placed on thoughts?

You’re still not fully grasping what I said Max

the Buddhism aspect brought up by Max is pretty much entirely irrelevant to the film’s theme.

Ignoring these differences in favor of reducing their work down to simplistic categorizations shows both a disrespect towards the work as a work of art, and a disrespect towards the artist as a human being. Don’t deny Oshii the value of his life experiences just so that you can feel better in tackling a supposedly difficult and complex work of art.

Why talk about a film if it doesn’t enrich one’s experience while watching it? It only becomes empty intellectualization.

Arguing whether or not Innocence is a “Buddhist” film is pointless, because it’s neither.

Not exactly the kinds of things that encourage people to take a chance with their thoughts. When this thread started being about what we “should and should not talk about” and what “is and is not right” it simply died. The discussion about the rest of the film and all that “pointless intellectualizing” will just have to take place elsewhere.

Kurotowa

All good politicians know how to pretend that they didn’t say something politically when they know that they really did. It’s called damage control. On the interview in the GITS DVD Oshii says he DOES intentionally put messages in his film but he doesn’t care whether or not the audience understands them or not. The important thing for him is that the audience is taken to a new place and can enjoy themselves. And it’s good that he feels this way. I feel that way too, I am not so much concerned with discussing Oshii’s film further when the people involved here (at least) seem perfectly happy accepting the idea that there is no message in the film at all. That way life goes on, those that want to see it can and those that don’t want to don’t have to (and more importantly, it allows Oshii to escape without coming under fire for his choice of “difficult subject matter”). It’s the way it should be, and it is always the sign of a clever film maker or writer when they know how to protect themselves in the press. The interviews after all, are not seperate from the film in the audiences eyes.

Oh, and since his quote was taken completely out of context a few posts up let me return the deleted part to the quote that was mentioned previously:

You employ a lot of quotes from philosophers in your work. Can you tell me how different philospophies and influences have shaped you as a filmmaker?

Whether I抦 interested in philosophy or not, the answer will be yes. As to why I use quotes from many famous philosophers the answer to that is that I want to prove how unimportant the dialogs are to a movie. In GIS 2 you don抰 really have to listen to any of the dialog, it抯 just part of the many details in the movie and you don抰 have to pay any attention to a lot of the dialog in order to understand and appreciate the movie.

Notice the difference between “don’t have to” and “can’t”. It’s the same thing he was saying after GITS1, the message is there but whether you see it or not is unimportant

Kurotowa

Being alone for Oshii means being alone in mind, not in physicality.

Er…actually, for Oshii it DOES mean being isolated from humans in both states. Oshii has made it clear that he is a loner on many occasions, he has said on the Avalon DVD interview for instance that he doesn’t care much for being around humans at all but he has an affinity instead for animals (especially dogs because he sees them as “outcasts”). The most recent affirmation of this attitude can be found here:

Interview tidbit:

O: Why is that?

MO: You won’t make money, it’s hard, and you’ll lose all your friends.

O: And yet you’re still an animator.

MO: Well, I don’t care whether I have any friends.

As stated earlier, an audience can make up any explanation for the film they wish. People can ignore that Buddhism is the religion of Japan and the simple statement Oshii said where he stated this was the first film that made him feel “Japanese”. People can ignore the link between the elephant as a prominent buddhist symbol (like the hawk is to westerners) symbolizing the oneness of all animals and the “stunning coincidence” to the animal messages that appear in the film (as pointed out on the buddhist site earlier in this thread, they can also ignore that the parade is a direct reinactment of a hindu buddhist ritual). They can ignore the link between the elephant and the words in that quote which, coincidentally or not, ARE a direct reference to the 4 noble truths attached to buddhism. Or they can choose to ignore that Oshii IS an isolationist living with a basset hound who creates films primarily about characters (such as Ash in Avalon or Batau in GITS2) who are also isolationists who also live primarily with basset hounds and have relatively little interaction with other humans (outside of shooting them). But people can also be *wrong* in interpreting the intent of the creator of a film…especially if they confuse what the creator thinks with what they *personally* think (I don’t think very many of us talking about this are buddhist…but that doesn’t mean we can’t decode literature properly).

To put it simply, as I noticed that Nataku elaborated on this in the last couple of posts, ‘To walk alone’ does not mean ‘to be alone’.

They are not one and the same. Therefore, the Buddhism aspect brought up by Max is pretty much entirely irrelevant to the film’s theme.

Agreement never makes an argument right. If it did, the world would still be flat and we wouldn’t be seeing any craters on the moon. To challenge the assertions made you are going to have to discredit a great many interviews with Oshii where he explains his isolationist behavior, and find a way to disregard both the symbolic link of the elephant and the text accompanied that happen to push the 4 noble truths of Hinaya Buddhism, a form of buddhism primarly concerned with the values of isolationism. Simply saying “Oshii’s not a loner” and “Buddhism is irrelevant” doesn’t cut it. You have to prove it to be right.

Ryosei

QUOTE (iamNataku @ Oct 1 2004, 03:30 PM)
I can’t see how what I’m saying differs that greatly from what you’re saying Kurotawa. Plus, neither I, nor Ryosei, stated that Oshii “wasn’t a loner,” nor did Ryosei say that Buddhism is irrelvant to Innocence. I believe he said that the aspect of Buddhism that Max brought up was irrelevant.

This is exactly correct Nataku, thanks for stating such more than clearly than I. I apologize, for my words were far more vague and indescript than they should of have been.

I meant exactly as Nataku presumed; that merely the singular aspect of Buddhism that Max brought up (again instigated by the now infamous ‘elephant’ quote) was irrelevant to the film, not Buddhism as a whole.

The theology of Buddhism has a very significant role in Innocence, however the aspect of said religion stated by Max, in my humble opinion, does not, whatsoever.

Secondly, in the post immediately preceeding that of Nataku’s I’m quoting from, Kurotowa provided a number of quotes in a response to his mini-discussion with Nataku. However, one of said quotes was mine, yet no distinction was made, and as such, in however small way, Nataku was asked to respond to something that he did not say, or may not have agreed with (even though I know he did).

This is a big no-no, and something I do not want to see happen again. I extremely dislike those who are far too careless with their quoting, and this is an example. If you wish to use my quotes ever again as a aid to your discussion, please, do not do so in this way again.

Thirdly, saying that one does not care if he/she has any friends, in no way presumes they prefer an isolationist lifestyle. Kurotowa, I urge you to calm your often flamboyant assumptions, as they seem to be rather misguided at times.

Finally, in my opinion, the reason Oshii (and anyone else for that matter) used such a large amount of quotations in Innocence boils down simply to this quote:

“A quotation in a speech, article or book is like a rifle in the hands of an infantryman. It speaks with authority.” : Brendan Francis

Small excerpts from that Avalon interview (bolded part especially seems to play into a main theme of GITS2):

Oshii:

When a female dog I had taken in died, I was really affected by it at the time. I had taken in other abandoned dogs and they had remained untamed. But this female dog definitely had an owner at one time. She wasn’t scared of people. She was very pretty-a real princess! One day she fell pregnant, but she dies before she could give birth. Even today, I can still remember that scene and the look on her face. It affected me deeply. It remains firmly fixed in my memory. I think it was like an awakening for me. I had in me protective feelings for weaker creatures, and that experience made me fully aware of them. On the other hand, I don’t care much about people’s fates. I try not to think too much about what can happen to them. In truth, I don’t really feel much compassion for people. But I’m completely the opposite when it comes to dogs. I wonder why. I don’t know.

…

Oshii:

I ended up quite seriously thinking that I must have been a dog in a previous life. I don’t think the Western world has this way of thinking.

….

Oshii:

I always feel as if I am living on a borderline. Although I actually live in Japan, I always feel slightly removed from myself.

There are also many many other things to observe from this interview that can be used to aide in interpreting GITS2 (especially on the bits for his specific attraction to “stray dogs”), but since any red blooded Oshii fan already has the DVD you can just put it in and watch it ^^

iamNataku

Even though I can’t speak for Ryosei, I never claimed that my “arguments” were the correct ones. In fact, there’s no way that my words could have been arguments since there’s no objective interpretation of the film.

As per the request of eclip5e, I took Max’s subject of Wordsworth and related it to the actual film. It would be nice if others would be willing to synthesize the various amounts of information that have been posted in this thread by showing how it relates to the overall film, but perhaps that’s asking for too much.

The title of the thread is “Interpretation of Innocence.” I gave my personal interpretation of the film. As already stated, anybody can make up their own interpretation, so what exactly is the point in arguing? If you don’t like my interpretation, then simply write and post your own. I come to this thread so that I can read other people’s actual interpretation of Innocence, not various religious and literary commentary that I am already more than familiar with.

For the record, this was the beginning of my post:
QUOTE
Thinking of Wordsworth, I’m tempted to see Innocence now as an expression of solitude. Observing that almost every character is shown in a “solitary” light, that is, disconnected from any human relationships (we never see Togusa with his familly until the very end), it could be possible that Oshii feels that solitude isn’t a choice but instead a result when one chooses to be fully human or “innocent.”

I can’t see how what I’m saying differs that greatly from what you’re saying Kurotawa. Plus, neither I, nor Ryosei, stated that Oshii “wasn’t a loner,” nor did Ryosei say that Buddhism is irrelvant to Innocence. I believe he said that the aspect of Buddhism that Max brought up was irrelevant.

iamNataku

Here’s a page where that quote can be found:

http://www.eye.net/eye/issue/issue_09.02.0…ntheshell2.html

QUOTE
“I’m a big collector of quotes from various books,” says Oshii. “I like to read and every time I come across a good quote, I write it down. So I have a good collection of all these quotes. Before I started writing the script, I thought of all the dialogue in terms of the quotes I wanted to use.”

Another quote from Avalon interview:

http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/display.cgi?id=11825

QUOTE
I’m maybe interpretating that, but the name of you main character, Ash is the same as one of the Pokemon’s coach. Does the world need spirituals guides ?

It’s not on purpose. That said, as a dog always need a master, who happened to be a human, I wonder why if in case of humanity, there was a master who could be God. Even if I don’t have any particular religious belief, I’m looking for an answer to this question, understanding what guides our life. But it’s maybe more simple than that : for kids it’s parents, maybe for me, theses days, it’s my wife who’s guiding me.

As for how this whole “isolationist” debate, I believe it was sparked by one of my posts. Having said that, I believe I was trying to explain the difference between the solitary characters in Innocence and the solitary characters in the poems of Wordworth. (Although overall there are some great similarities between Innocence and Wordsworth’s work. Read some of the poems I referrenced and you’ll see what I mean.)

Wordsworth generally had a negative view of society, so being seperate from society was a noble thing. Nature = good / The world of man = evil. This is the typical view of a “isolationist,” as somebody who defines themselves as being “outside” or “different” from society.

From what I could discern, there is no judgment of society in Innocence. The characters are solitary, but they aren’t anti-social. They don’t mind working together when they have to. Batou has no qualms against having Togusa as a new partner even though he very much cared for Matoko. In general, every character is shown in a sympathetic light. (A stark difference from say a Stanley Kubrick film.)

It doesn’t seem that any of the characters would ever mind being in the “thick” of society, and in fact, Oshii could be just showing how people have become more isolated (and sad?) in this new technological world of ours. (Matoko alone in the Net/The girl alone in the gynoid body/Batou alone in his high-tech detective posistion/Dr. Haraway alone in her high-tech occupation/Kim alone in his high-tech mechanical obsessions.)

Although, I think the coolest thing in Innocence, just like how all of us from around the world can communicate to each other through IG’s boards, is that Matoko was able to communicate to Batou (several times) because of technology. Technology can isolate people, but it can also bring together people who otherwise would not have been able to communicate.

The funny thing is that I didn’t even know that Oshii was married, but that just shows that by just looking at the actual film itself, one could see that Oshii isn’t totally anti-social. Quotes from interviews are good, but it’s the movie that has the final word. Let’s try to stay on topic.

Kurotowa

I was wondering if anyone could provide the translation for “Ishikawa” and “Wakabayashi”. In the Stand Alone Complex TV series, there is a cyber parlour called “Parlour Ishikawa” that Ishikawa the character seems to have some affiliation to, I was wondering if there was some significance in the meaning of the name.

Can’t say for sure, but the name “Ishikawa” is a long standing repeat in Production IG films dating all the way back to the Patlabor series. You’ll see familiar names from the IG staff pop up all over the place. For example, see a few familiar names that pop up on this small production IG press release blurb:

QUOTE
Mitsuhisa Ishikawa, President of Production I.G, was awarded this year’s Entrepreneur of the Year award for the country of Japan. Ishikawa’s award in the Growth and Start Up category places him with past recipients like Sun Microsystems Co-Founder Scott McNealy (1987), Michael Dell of Dell Computers (1989), and Howard Schultz of Starbucks Coffee (1992). In May 2004, Ishikawa will join entrepreneurs in 35 other countries at the World Entrepreneur of the Year competition in Monte Carlo, Monaco.

Ishikawa, with Takayuki Goto, founded Production I.G in 1987. The company has since produced some of the most successful anime ever made, including Patlabor, Evangelion (co-production with Gainax) and Ghost in the Shell; recently I.G also provided several minutes of animation for Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill.

As for Wakakabayashi, it is also a last name, as far as I can remember it is used as the family name of the leader of the Yakuza gang in the film. I do not know what significance it might have.

As for the other stuff:

QUOTE

All good politicians know how to pretend that they didn’t say something politically when they know that they really did. It’s called damage control.

Luckily, Oshii’s a filmmaker and not a politician.

You’re just twisting the nice man’s words so they fit your description of good film.

Actually, I am not twisting anything. I never said Oshii was a politician nor did I imply that he wasn’t a film maker. At the same time, you do not have to be a politician to know how to answer questions “politically”.

QUOTE
Kurotowa provided a number of quotes in a response to his mini-discussion with Nataku. However, one of said quotes was mine, yet no distinction was made, and as such, in however small way, Nataku was asked to respond to something that he did not say, or may not have agreed with (even though I know he did).

Thank you for your guidelines as to proper quoting, I was not aware that any such guidelines existed. I still contend that I was not “careless” as the quotes were addressing “value judgements” placed on thoughts, not specifically the people making such judgements. I did not really care who said what, only to provide a sampling to show you why this thread started out interesting and now “sucks”. But no matter…now I know…and knowing is half the battle.

As for Oshii being an isolationist, if the two interviews provided where he says he doesn’t care if he has friends and doesn’t have much compassion for humans to begin with aren’t enough there are always many others you can read where he talks about how he now lives in the mountains alone with his dog (and forget the isolationist aspects of his Kerberos films, or the loner main characters in his other films, those could be just an accident). You don’t expect me to do ALL the work for you, do you?

Innocence观感…对押井的一点怨念

Nightheaven — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:30:38 +0000

漫游

来写点观后感吧。
　　这次看Innocence，本来是在我的计划之外。预定中是周六中午去池袋看古代文化展，下午去护国寺。结果早上起来后居然鬼使神差地跑去洗衣服，一边搬把椅子坐在阳台旁边看《暗黑破坏神》。等到收拾停当出门的时候，已经是11点多。
　　看完展览当然来不及再去护国寺，在池袋的街上晃悠来晃悠去，看店铺，看旧书店，看街上的人们。来的路上记得看到一间电影院，也记得有Innocence的海报。顺路晃过去一看，果然是有，下一场是二十分钟后。于是买票，买好饮料，进场。
　　因为买票的时候已经很临近开场了，所以相对地，没有好位置的票。池袋的影院全都是指定席位，售票的小姐问我：要旁边的还是前排中间的？想都不想就是：中间的。
　　剧场在六楼，很小，可是座位设置得很舒服。我的座位好是B10，几乎就在大屏幕的下方，音响交汇的地方。觉得抬两个小时的头太辛苦，于是跟着旁边的两个高中生摸样的人，干脆把身体躺下来看（确实是很舒服）。后来发现这样看片也有很奇特的效果，这个后面再说。
　　总之，电影开始。

　　日本电影的惯例，是开片之前一般都有几个介绍，这次也不例外。第一个广告就是《Ghost in the Shell》的游戏，3D，PS2。个人不喜欢3D的游戏，总觉得人物一3D化就和2D的感觉完全不象了，看游戏的介绍画面，也有这种感觉。好在配音是 SAC的原班人员，介绍的片段以素子倒地，巴特的一声大呼：“素子～～～”结束，感觉魄力还是有的，笑。
　　接下来的两个预告片让我完全没有想到，大友克洋的新片和GHIBLI的新片，什么魔女的森林。大友克洋的风格还是老样子，十九世纪的机器繁盛被他画得一点浪漫气息都没有，看起来明明就有英雄救美的场景啊。魔女的森林倒是不象GHIBLI的风格，画面平面装饰的风格很重，以前在CD店看到海报的时候还差点以为是欧洲的动画片来着。介绍片至少是不够精彩的，因为一点印象都没留下（因为看Innocence太专心了？）。
　　接下来的就是柯南的新剧场版和蜡笔小新西部生活的剧场版预告。这种画风不精致的东西果然不能拿到大屏幕上看啊……感觉是完全粗糙，线条太粗、颜色太平板了……不过介绍和本片气氛的反差实在是太大了，以至于小新的片头出现的那一瞬间，剧场里所有的人都笑了。
　　话说回来，连Innocence在那么大的幕布上看起来都不是特别精致。可是有音响和大画面的魄力……我还是喜欢在电影院看 ^^

　　在播放预告片的时候，剧场里还有微弱的黄色灯光照射着。这个时候灯光完全熄灭。黑色的屏幕上打出一行字：
　　“本片即将开始”
　　那一刻真是寂静，完全可以听得到屏住的不自然的呼吸声。这个时候来看这部片子的所有人——我想，没有赶首场的时髦，没有人心不在焉地吃东西，没有人不在开场前到达并坐好——是真的期待着这个故事。
　　屏幕全黑，然后城市的夜景出现在眼前。

　　以前看的时候一直不觉得，这次是坐在影院里了，才真正发现押井拍摄的时候，很喜欢用俯视的角度。在上空盘旋的直升机，高层建筑的楼顶，从水面的正上方看见的倒影。如果是直视屏幕，会觉得视线是倾斜的。可是坐在屏幕的正下方躺着看，会觉得画面那么大，好象整个城市压下来了一样。正如在介绍片中看到的，巴特和托古萨进入巨大的建筑群，被废弃的远东工厂，和街上的中国风祭典，大头娃娃还有倒影在建筑物前水面上的云影，都毫无疑问是在炫耀CG，但是在我的角度来看，那种巨大的城市就在自己头顶上的重量感和压迫感，感觉色彩随时会倾泻下来的真切错觉，强烈到了害怕的地步。
　　但是最惊艳的不是这里，而是抬头望去，完全仰视的角度，那个流光异彩的蓝色水晶鸟骨，巨大地、晶莹地悬挂在头顶上方。透过鸟骨的光亮，是冰冷的透明蓝色，从高高的天井泻下来的阳光，是颓废的、阴郁的昏黄金色。
　　抛开其他所有场景不说，设计出这个场面的人，我要说他是天才。
　　押井的视角运用的确是很能让人琢磨。第一次假想现实，天井里的鸟骨，是仰视的；第二次假想现实，天井里的无头天使，也是仰视；第三次的假想现实，天井里一只普通的海鸥，却是从天井的角度俯视，好象是活着的海鸥，在用自己的眼睛往下看。
突然想起来游戏中素子在楼顶上往下看的那个场景，动画里素子俯瞰城市的那个场景，想象在这样的角度看是什么样的感觉。
　　“……网络无限广阔，我要去向何方呢？”
　　同样的场景，在夜间飞机离开地面的时候，我看见蛛网般在黑暗的地面上蔓延出去的灯光，渐渐远去，好象安德洛墨达表面的形状，好象是无限的网络空间。
　　当时自己抱有的，好象就是这样的心情。

　　在看这部片子前，就已经做好了郁闷的准备。因为看GIS的时候，素子用力到臂膀肌肉脱落的场景，一溜子弹打上世界树的场景，在脑子里回旋回旋再回旋，好象中了魔咒一样。而押井说：“我决不允许有牧歌式的主人公，现在的主人公是以抱持着更为痛切的主题为绝对条件的……”
　　苦笑，真是恶劣的监督。
　　片子的一开始，就是阴云惨雨的气氛。先不论押井喜欢什么样的颜色，黄昏场景般昏黄的海面具有何等华丽的视觉效果。整部影片就没有给出一个让人觉得鲜亮的场景。夜晚的城市，巴特扫描视野中的绿色，雨，光线昏暗的海面，灯光不明亮的密闭工厂。押井是打算彻底地打压观众的心情，从开始，到最后。
　　前几天在云中看文，看到这样的对话：
　　“巴特的眼神……”
　　“瓶盖能看出眼神么。”
　　笑倒。Innocence的主人公是巴特，从头到尾，就没有过大的表情变化，大多数时间都是那样的扑克脸。生气的时候脸上的线条只是微微地集中，笑的时候嘴角扬得人几乎看不到。这样的巴特，却是活生生的，绝望的，濒于疯狂的。我说不出来是影片里的哪个动作哪句话会给我这样的印象，但是我所看到的巴特，勉强地维持着和狗的生活，在同事面前精神紧绷，虚无、绝望又无可奈何，好象是在……疯狂般地要寻找一个出口。一开场开着大型车到来，缓慢、沉默、顽固、惜字如金的巴特，在Ms.哈拉威的事务所里对着似曾相识的人偶久久凝视的巴特，在石川开车送他回家的时候因为一句关于素子的话就变成岩石刺猬的巴特，在黑社会的事务所乱扫一气，对下巴快要掉下来的托古萨说有点得意洋洋地笑着说“我已经尽量避免”了的巴特，总觉得有一种刻意张起防幕，在寻求某种支柱，或者寻求毁灭的表情。
　　谁能说巴特明知故犯地违反命令，跑到红尘会大打出手，不是抱着“万一死掉了也不错的想法”呢？
　　回家的路上买狗食，下班了回去做狗食，喂狗的时候还要小心地拎住狗耳朵免得弄脏。巴特是很温柔的人，在Ghost in the Shell的时候如是，在Innocence里仍然如是。1995年，素子在海底面对水面倒映出来的自己，浮上海面后光看表情他就知道要询问什么，这种细腻至今不变。但可能也正是这种细心和温柔，在失去素子之后，失去的空间无法填补，于是温柔变成了折磨。

　　如果……如果巴特一直这样阴沉着脸，游走在崩溃的边缘，寻求着林中的画像，我想，我最终会喜欢这部片子，而不是被它打动。看到最后，终场，屏幕转黑，伊藤君子的声音响起来的时候，我突然听懂了歌词的那一刻，感情突然动了一下，悲伤涌了进来。

　　Follow me（わたしと一緒にきてくれ）

　　看片子前笑着说：没有素子姐姐的东西我为什么要去看啊。于是一听说有素子就真的跑去看。素子素子，Ghost in the Shell的Ghost，无论那个世界怎样变迁，也还是她。就好象怪物笑说的，讲巴特的故事没有素子，要怎么讲呢。Innocence的故事因为素子的出现而完整，也因此彻底成为悲剧。
　　水面，西式建筑，有异彩的天井，大片海鸥飞起，在昏暗的海面上。身体惨白的人偶如雨点般降临，在天桥上，顶光的照耀下，两个人划出一个完美的圆形战斗空间，然后，转身，枪口同时指向对方的脑袋。
　　场面凝固。
　　那时候整个影院里，大概只有我在叹气。但是得说，这种“久别重逢”的方式，倒是很适合巴特和素子。不是情人，不是兄弟，是曾经可以把自己的背后交给对方的人，是存在比语言和肢体动作更深切的默契的存在。然后离去，没有任何联系。我一个人在那里苦笑，果然就是吴的套数。
　　影片的基调，从观众明白“素子”出现的那一刻，就开始改变了。战斗的步调，行进的方式，命令的直截了当，情报的陈述，马上切换成素子的干脆利落。大家一直跟着巴特在泥沼里爬啊爬的心情，突然就跳到了干爽硬实的地面上。
　　最大的改变，是巴特的表情。还是扑克脸，还是瓶盖眼，但是从语气到肢体语言，全变了。给素子赤裸的木偶身体披上背心的巴特，身上那种弩张剑拔的戒备心和下了三年梅雨的发霉气质，突然都跑去了九霄云外。曾经在Ghost in the Shell里认识，而最象Stand Alone Complex第25话里巴特的那个人，出现在这个躯壳里。当时看得开心后来觉得最悲伤的一场，是巴特守护进入系统的素子。没有对白，场景不切换。枪林弹雨之中，素子默然而立，巴特跪在地上，从容不迫地射击、换弹夹、射击，全无紧张之感。
　　脑子浮现出来的只有一个词：骑士。
　　把自己的荣誉和生命都献给某个人，因为能为对方不惜一切地战斗而感到喜悦和荣耀的，传统骑士。在这一刻，巴特是这张牌面的最好写照。
　　早先就看过押井的采访，却是到最后才能理解押井对于素子 “残酷”的认知。
　　“巴特，记住。无论何时，只要你连上网络，我就在你身边。
　　“那么，我走了。”
　　我们喜欢的，就是这样的素子。
　　对于巴特来说，这也是最致命残酷。
　　永远不可能跟上的脚步，永远不可能抓住的身影。甚至连要去抓住的念头都没有。
　　在《铁錆废园》里，天玉座兀自沉思：古王国已经消失，叫我们这些为了守护而被创造出来的种族如何生存呢？
　　他所追求的，恰如林中圣像。

　　回来说音乐。

　　OST那边在茶馆已经有素做了详尽的介绍。流行音乐一向不是我的长项，所以就不说了。我对Innocence的编剧是梢有微词，但是对音乐完全无可挑剔。笑，也是另一种恋声癖的发烧方式。
　　第一个主要音乐，是在人偶自杀，故事进入正编，开始打出字幕，穿插着人偶成型的片段开始的。曾经想到Innocence可能会沿袭GIS的格式，倒是真没想到沿袭到这种地步。开场果然就是一大片似曾相识的女声扑面而来。让人目瞪口呆——偷懒好象也不是这么偷的啊——
　　同一个主题的延续，就是在择捉的中国祭，斜斜的视角，大头娃娃和神像，街道两边挤得满满的人，带着鬼怪的面具，没有人气。巴特和托古萨绕到小巷里去抓人来拷问情报的时候，背景音乐完全消失。然后没有任何预兆地，镜头切回祭典，大片的音乐如同峭壁般陡然扬起，直直地压迫过来。
　　目瞪口呆，音乐果然是有压力的。

　　除了《傀儡谣》的三首曲子之外，其他的BGM就不是很明显了。影片的重点还是在剧情和陈述上。但是说白了傀儡谣也只是麻药，刺激，迷人，动听，叫人无法自拔。真正能在心里盘旋的则是那首《follow me》。素子和巴特分离后不到两分钟影片就结束，看着黑黑的幕布上一行一行的工作人员名单，孤独和悲伤开始慢慢渗出来。这首歌，存了心要勾人眼泪。
　　看完电影出来，没有直达电梯，只能一层一层坐电动扶梯下楼。五楼是音像店，本着找JCS的心就进去了，结果进门是一大张海报，破坏的人偶，同时Follow me的第一句歌词划空而来。
　　眼泪一下子涌了上来，然后觉得心里的悲伤好象反刍一样，一波一波地拍了过来。
　　该死的音像店。
　　站在试听的角落将近一个小时，把OST里几乎所有感兴趣的曲子听完，才终于回到了现实世界。

　　最后，因为来看之前是好好温习过Stand Alone Complex的，所以有几个地方觉得很有趣。一个是巴特出场的场景，车身划过屏幕，光色效果做得和tachikoma在SAC的片头一溜烟划过屏幕的效果无比相象，另一个就是素子姐姐说：“这里已经是完全的Stand-alone状态“的时候。笑，在这里也对神山致敬一下。

我看东西向来以台词优先。一则是因为我的电脑屏幕小，二则是因为我常常是开着碟子一边听一边做事，所以台词好的片子自然喜欢。
　　Innocence，我觉得是比不上Ghost in the Shell的，一方面确实是台词比较多，剧情的张力比较差，而且有些片段有纯粹买弄CG的嫌疑。但是另一方面，和士郎的原本不同，Innocence完全是押井自己的剧本，借用了“攻壳”的这个外壳来述说自己的观点，也就难免带上说教的口味。95年的GIS是押井的GIS，但是蓝本仍然是士郎的，那是个颠峰之作。而Innocence完全是押井的东西，要比的话，和Avalon会比较象。押井在改编剧本上是天才，可是不客气地说，他自己写的剧本，就总是有生硬的痕迹。

　　就我在看完影片后听日本人的反应，普遍觉得难，但是好看。因为当时的观众主要是学生、上班不久的年轻人，超过30的很少。这一点考虑在内，会和业界给出的评价非常不同。我自己因为也写过分析人与机器人的文章，而且在相当的观点上和押井吻合，所以那些纯叙述的部分对于我来说很亲切。可是如果对这个问题想得不深或者了解不深的话，哈拉威的那段说教，Kim的长篇大论，是一定会让人打瞌睡的。

　　从98年一直跟踪动漫画的情况，一直收集信息的资料狂，象wsxl，象其他的一些人，我一直都觉得是小圈子。而更广大的动漫圈，只是觉得“好看”而已。在日本，我觉得也是这样。动漫杂志的盛行，以及大量质量并非上乘的动漫画的涌现，是为了填补时间，是为了娱乐。Innocence受到注目，是因为GIS的影响，尤其是在欧美的影响，以及业界的无限关注。但是实际上这部片子，只有60%做的是现象，至少有40%是做给OTAKU的。如果我也只是“看”的人，我想，在从剧场出来后，会记得那些华丽的场景片段，会记得素子的出场，但是一定会记不得整个片子的流动，记不住这么多的细节。

　　士郎是士郎的攻壳机动队，这个FANS的圈子非常牢固，就好象说，看过《刀锋》的人，要么不喜欢，要么就非常坚决地拥护毛姆，笑。押井的圈子是押井的圈子，看过GIS的人不一定就非常喜欢攻壳机动队，甚至可能了解不多。在这一点上，神山的SAC就做得比押井好的多，至少好懂得多。
　　融合了押井和士郎优点的，始终就只有那一部GIS，Innocence是比它沉闷得多的片子。无论是故事的流畅性，可看性，分析的力度和易接受性，包括音乐，包括人物塑造。虽然考虑到 95年那样的技术环境下GIS给我们带来的巨大冲击与现今的动画技术下Innocence没有再与其他片子拉开那么大的距离，可能会对观感产生影响。可是象《2001年漫游太空》，象《阿拉伯的劳伦斯》，不管技术如何，震撼人心的东西总在那里。

　　我们PTL的观点，我想很能代表日本人的想法。
　　他说：“我很想去看Innocence，因为听说很出色。但是没有看过GIS，我担心会看不懂。”
　　以及：“知道你要去看Innocence还好；知道你要去GHIBLI美术馆，才知道你是真的喜欢动漫画；结果你连大友克洋的短篇都收集全了，我说，你是OTAKU么？”
　　我的回答是：“即使看过GIS，如果不是当真对科幻设定有一定了解，对机器人和人的论述有一定认识的话，这仍然会是华丽、沉闷、看不懂的东西。”

Innocence全剧情

Nightheaven — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 14:08:09 +0000

漫游：danver

……虽然知道会被拍……
可是写那么辛苦就是为了看人家的好奇心挣扎来着，不贴出来怎么可以……
所以……意志力不够坚强人请往下看。
写得很详细很详细哦。

＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊

Innocence
——素子离去三年后，巴特的故事
　　警用的直升飞机在城市的上空盘旋，高耸的摩天楼顶上两个巨大的汉字：
　　“禄（？）狗”
　　无线电里操着粤语的人在联络各处的警员，向事故地点集中。

　　在第一杀人现场杀死主人之后，逃窜进小巷（第二杀人现场）又杀死两名警员的人偶，洛克斯·索斯公司的2052型GYNOID。

　　本地的警员在杀人现场前忙忙碌碌，封锁道路，拉起黄色警戒线。巴特驾驶着大型车缓缓分开人流，出现在中年警官面前。下车，听取报告，子弹上膛，向破旧门后的巷子深处走去。
　　年轻的警员不服气，为什么有人可以这样擅自行动？
　　中年警官拦下血气旺盛的部下：“公安的人。跟着他你有几条命都不够。”

　　门后，一片寂静，投射在视网膜上的是一片扫描后的绿色。一个倒下的人影，血迹，带着血迹延伸的脚印，又是一个人影。巴特眼罩下的表情兀自不动，枪已经举起。
　　转过一个弯，台阶的边缘坐着一个穿艺妓装的少女型人偶，衣服散落，脸色青白，关节咔咔作响，向巴特看过来。
　　短暂的交锋，身体接触，人偶被撞飞到对面的墙上，缓缓抬起头。
　　巴特架好姿势，准备射击。
　　在绿色扫描画面上颜色异常鲜艳明亮的少女，微微地在叫喊：
　　“救救我……
　　“救救我……
　　“救救我……”
　　双手举起，弯曲，撕裂皮肤，内部支架迸出。
　　砰，砰砰——

　　——片头曲——
　　（片头曲采取的是和95年Ghost in the Shell同样的方式，一个球形关节GYNOID的制作过程。从单个神经细胞的连结到神经形成，到机械关节的添加、连接，在成型槽中无数金线的作用下形成外壳、头发，外装脱落，着色。
　　制作过程和人员名单交错出现。同样是在黑色背景上伴随着打字音出现的英文职务和名字。
　　音乐继承95年的节奏、鼓点和高潮部主旋律，乐曲名称：傀儡戏。）

　　荒卷召集九课的成员讨论案情，分配工作（在这里荒卷被称为“部长”。）
　　巴特责问：明明是警察负责的案件，为什么要公安插手？
　　荒卷回答：原因有二。一、已经发生了八起同类人偶杀人的案件，家属确没有异论。二、被杀害的人中有公安相关人员。
　　然后分派人员，石川和搭档去调查被杀者家属方面，巴特和托古萨追查人偶调查方面的线索。托古萨有异议，刚要开口，荒卷抢先开口阻止，转过椅背去看着墙上的大副画面，一片阴郁的树林。
　　在赶往目标的车上，托古萨对巴特抱怨，自己根本不适合和他搭档。能够和他配合的，只有素子。
　　“那个人消失了。连是生是死都不知道。”巴特说，只有一点脑仍残留，连外部记忆装置都几乎不存在的自己。

　　巴特和托古萨前往的地方是一个人偶修理分析的地方，负责人是一个白色短发的女性，优雅冷漠地抽着烟。巴特和托古萨踏进冷气弥漫的房间，视线转向不同的地方。机械臂在作动，从水槽内取出眼球，安装，巴特的机械眼看住人偶青白的脸和碧色的眼睛，一言不发。
　　托古萨径直问向手中工作不停的女性：“我们是公安。”
　　“请叫我Ms.哈拉威。”
　　白服的女法医并没有径直谈案情，而是谈起了人和机器人，数落人类的不是。托古萨反驳，这样给机器人带来了什么？杀了主人后凄惨地自杀？
　　那，机器人究竟面临的是什么？用过几年便被抛弃，如是而已。最近机器人发狂的案例越来越多，果真是电子脑出了问题吗？不是被主人忽略抛弃，连维修和更新都不给予，导致脑子被各种杂质侵蚀才产生故障的吗？人造的机器人和自己如此想象，人究竟是为了什么要做出自己的分身，甚至是理想中的自己来？
　　换支烟，女法医问托古萨：“你有孩子吗？”
　　“有，一个女儿。”
　　法医淡淡地说，女孩子。人类的孩童，就好象机器人一样。人为什么为人？因为有独立行动的意志和能力，从这一点上来看，孩童和机器人没有什么两样。女孩子更是，从小摆弄人偶，就好象为自己未来摆弄自己的孩子做准备一样。
　　“孩子并不是人偶！”托古萨大声地反驳。然后自觉失态，说：“我们来谈工作吧。”
　　工作？好，女法医说，自杀的人形有一段音声可以恢复，你们要听么？
　　调出档案，在音频和音声上，是重复着的，微弱的：
　　“救救我……
　　“救救我……
　　“救救我……”
　　巴特伸手关掉录音。
　　托古萨跟着巴特准备走向门口：“谢谢，Ms.……”
　　“Ms.哈拉威。”
　　“Ms.哈拉威。”
　　“我不是Ms.哈拉威，也不是Mrs.哈拉威。我也没有过孩子。”
　　说完，眼睛的机关打开，连接显微镜，回到工作中。

　　回到车上，Check Mail，新人古贺有通讯进来。船屋发现有与案人员死亡，石川已经到达现场。巴特和托古萨到达现场，警方尚未到达。他们在屋内四处探询，死相凄惨，连枪都来不及拿的人。
　　巴特在书架上发现一个一样的小夹子，打开，是一个少女的立体照片。警方正好赶到，三人自觉退走把现场推给警察。托古萨说：“今天是女儿的生日，要去买礼物。”于是石川送巴特回去。
　　一路上，石川带着埋怨地告诉巴特，托古萨不适合他的侦察方式。“过去三年了，你还在找寻她？”车到百货店门口，巴特拉开车门：“你变罗嗦了，石川。”顺带着被石川关心了一句。进百货店买的，是两盒狗食，然后进入阴暗的车库，2501，和素子约好的数字。然后开车，回家。家里的老狗嗅到主人回来的声音，窜上窜下，最后把下巴搁在沙发上，看着主人。
　　巴特去做狗食，倒进狗食盘，狗急急地扑回来，埋头就吃。巴特捉住狗耳朵免得掉进食盆，轻轻放下。然后给自己倒了杯酒，坐去椅子上静静地喝。顺便从口袋里掏出从现场拿来的立体照片，仔细地看。
　　腿上一重。狗扑到了自己身上，安心地睡去。
　　九课成员的情报碰头。分析2052型人偶的结果，是人偶带有性玩偶的功能，虽然不至于违法，但也并非可以拿得上台面的事情，这就解释了家属没有异论的原因。另一发面，船屋被杀的人是洛克斯·索斯公司的检查出货部长杰克·沃克森，54岁，度假中。被人偶所杀的人之间虽然没有共通点，但是其中有日本暴力集团红尘会的老大井上，推定沃克森的死因为红尘会代理组长若林为报复而杀害。若林也拥有改造人的保镖。
　　论定结果，其他人继续跟踪，巴特和托古萨去询问红尘会。
　　刚要退出，托古萨被荒卷叫住：“巴特最近有没有什么异常？”
　　“为什么要派我去同他搭档？我是有家室的人……”
　　“要理解恺撒，并不要成为恺撒。正因为这样才让你跟着他。他现在的样子，和失踪前的素子很象……”
　　荒卷说：“他所追寻的东西虚无缥缈，正如林中画像——”
　　转过椅背去，墙上画面中阴郁的树林，正中一棵大树，树干上一个古东欧风的圣母画像，似乎是冷漠，似乎是微笑。

　　走到车库，巴特正在准备，看托古萨走来便问他：“和你说了什么？”
　　“要理解恺撒，并不要成为恺撒。”
　　巴特从车后拿出大型枪，上子弹，看得托古萨大惊：“你要去发动战争么？”
　　“要进入黑社会的房子，并不要成为黑社会，但是要有枪。”
　　“可是……”
　　“我知道，尽量避免冲突，这样可以了吧。”
　　“可以，搭档。”
　　关上车后盖，两人出发。

　　在红尘会的事务所，一伙流氓乜斜着眼睛看着门口的巴特和托古萨。巴特问：“有个叫若林的家伙在哪里？”对方一拥而上。巴特一顿扫射，屋内狼籍。托古萨目瞪口呆：“你不是说要避免冲突的么？”
　　“啊，我已经尽量避免了。”巴特笑道。
　　两人冲向后楼梯，巴特刚要上，托古萨拦住他：“我来，你掩护。”刚跨上楼梯，楼上两个手榴弹飞下，巴特飞身拦在托古萨前面，瞄准，开枪，两个手榴弹应声而爆。巴特趁着烟雾冲上楼梯，一溜子弹，吓得若林尿湿了裤子。
　　保镖的改造人破墙而出，短兵相接。巴特把对方打穿楼梯踢下去，制动，继续回来盘问。
　　“我我我我我我什么都不知道……”
　　面前的人抖得好象筛糠。
　　走出来，巴特问坐在楼梯上定神的托古萨：“怎么样了，搭档？”
　　“妻子和女儿的画面在我脑子里无限放大……”
　　回到九课，两人被荒卷一顿批：“只是要你们去问情况，谁要你们去胡闹的？”
　　巴特仍然一脸生硬。
　　托古萨送他回去，仍然在那家百货店下了车，进门买东西。

　　百货店里似乎一切如常，惯常的场景。母女，年轻人，上了年纪的店主。一个披着斗篷的矮个子女子从巴特背后走过收银台，低低地说：“潜进来了哦。”
　　是素子的声音。巴特回头，只看见店门轻轻摇动，门外风雨飘摇。再扫描店内的人，枪已经拔了出来。
　　一个货架，又一个货架，走到冰柜前的货架时，巴特不动声色地抽了两盒狗食，抱在手上。身后响动，拔枪，手臂已然中弹。乱扫射之下，冰柜的玻璃如冰晶般碎裂，店里的人惊惶不知所措。扫描到持枪的店主，巴特欺身上前，枪口已经顶在了对方的脑袋上……
　　石川将制动器插进巴特的后脑插口，场面凝固了下来。

　　医疗所，矮个子的白胡子医生对着巴特说：“醒了吗？手臂已经给你换好了。”
　　“我身上到底还有多少东西是肉身的？”
　　门打开，石川和艰难地抱着狗的托古萨走了进来。狗被放下地之后，跳到巴特身上对着他的脸一顿猛舔。
　　“你的狗寄养在我家，我女儿是高兴得不得了，老婆在那里大发脾气啊。”张口就是抱怨的托古萨。
　　石川的话则是：“你被人侵入（黑客）了。”
　　“你们是从什么时候开始监视我的？”
　　对面的两人一齐慌忙解释，“喂，不要说这种话啊。”
　　“部长的传话，你和托古萨的搜查继续，但是没有掌握到证据之前，不会再有官方的支援。”

　　远东最大的情报集约型都市“择捉经济特区”。承载着巴特和托古萨的飞机飞越半个都市，降落在金色平台上。
　　曾经是急速成长的大型工业都市，现在却形同废墟。巴特对托古萨说。
　　城中正在举行中国风的祭奠。巨大的人神像的游行，居民们戴上妖怪脸的面具，四处穿行。两个蒙着脸的陌生人在人群边缘游走，沉默地看着这一切。
　　安静的小巷，转弯处突然有一群戴着妖怪面具的小孩子涌出，随后一个天狗面具的成年男子跳到孩子们中间，看着这两个访客。
　　大个子的蒙面人摘下蒙面的帽子，天狗面具一声惊叫：“巴特！”，转身就跑。
　　巨大的石壁，上面四行中文：
　　生死去来
　　棚头木偶
　　一线断时
　　落落磊磊
　　托古萨出神地看着上面的文字，巴特在一边把那个叫“林”的男人揍得半死，逼问着“Kim”的所在地。
　　Kim，巴特非友好意义的旧识，超级的黑客，洛克斯·索斯公司的知情者。
　　Kim所在的位置，是一个巨大水池后面的古老建筑物。一个池中岛，中间是一个标有中文铭牌的后现代主义风格的雕塑。一条双人通道从池中岛直通望建筑物的正门。
　　“走吧。”托古萨说。
　　“好。”
　　两人不紧不慢地沿着通道走去。池旁的水面平静如镜，映射着仿佛夕照般古旧金色的云影，海鸥盘旋。
　　打开大门，在两侧环形楼梯拥抱下的空间，凝固着跪在地上的少女和狗的身影。扫描，少女面前的文字，“aem…th”。一具碧蓝澄澈的巨大水晶（？）鸟骨悬挂在上空，金色的的光亮从天井流泻下来。
　　“有了！”托古萨的声音从楼上穿来。巴特跑到到楼上，看见托古萨正站在一个躺椅前，躺椅上是全身木偶化的Kim，穿着红色睡袍，后脑连接部烧得起泡。
　　“死了？”
　　两个人的身后突然出现荧光字，上写，某时死亡，谢绝鲜花赠送云云，巴特回头伸手把躺椅掀翻。
　　“这家伙的把戏而已。”
过不久，躺在地上的Kim突然开始格格地笑了起来，连接部的伤也不知何时消失了。木偶支撑着站起来，面向巴特和托古萨，开始讲述人偶、机器人和人。
　　洛克斯·索斯公司，18世纪人偶的再次兴盛，身体的转移。一个日本人偶的小女孩端了茶来，巴特紧追着Kim询问洛克斯·索斯公司的情况，托古萨看着奶在红茶里渐渐溶开，开始在房间里转悠。
　　转悠到书架处，有一本书没有插好。托古萨把书插回去，一个暗架弹了出来。
　　暗架上是他们所处的这幢建筑物的模型，托古萨低下头去看……

　　托古萨和巴特站在池中岛上的雕像前。
　　“走吧。”托古萨说。
　　“好。”
　　两人不紧不慢地沿着通道走去。池旁的水面平静如镜，映射着仿佛夕照般古旧金色的云影，海鸥盘旋。
　　打开大门，在两侧环形楼梯拥抱下的空间，凝固着跪在地上的少女和狗的身影。扫描，少女面前的文字，“ae”斜在一边，只扫描出“m…th”的字样发光。一具无头的天使像悬挂在上空，断头处咔咔作动。
　　“有了！”托古萨的声音从楼上穿来。巴特跑到到楼上，看见托古萨正站在一个躺椅前，躺椅上是全身木偶化的Kim，穿着红色睡袍。
　　两个人的身后突然出现荧光字，几时几分确定死亡云云。巴特回头伸手把躺椅掀翻。
　　全身关节做响的木偶站立起来，向两人逼近，托古萨举着枪不知该如何对应。转头看巴特，巴特的头转向托古萨，突然皮肤从中间裂开，露出人偶的内骨架。

　　托古萨和巴特站在池中岛上的雕像前。一声枪响。
　　两人对视一眼，沿着通道跑向大门。
　　打开大门，在两侧环形楼梯拥抱下的空间，地面上空无一物。扫描，原来少女面前的文字所在的地方，一片雪花，正中一行清晰的数字，2501。从天井俯视，一只海鸥悬挂在半空。
　　巴特跑到到楼上，看见托古萨正站在一个躺椅前，躺椅上是全身木偶化的托古萨，西装革履。
　　惊惶，争斗，送茶的日本小女孩人偶挣脱衣服跑开，被击中……

　　巴特将制动器插进托古萨的后脑插口，场面凝固。
　　托古萨渐渐清醒过来，看见自己的眼前，奶在红茶里渐渐溶开。
　　“你被侵入了。”
　　木偶化的Kim望着远处海面上的洛克斯·索斯本部，开始讲述地球的主宰，人和，动物。旁边转动着的巨大地球仪上投射出动物的影响，狗，猴子，猩猩，狗，……最后定格在巴特养的老狗的头像上。
　　两个人离开Kim的屋子，在池中岛的雕像前谈话。托古萨惊魂未定。
　　“我……回到了物理现实么？
　　“我还想回到活着的妻子和女儿身边。”
　　他责问巴特：“你是什么时候发现他侵入的？”
　　“一开始就有所准备了。”
　　“为什么不告诉我？”
　　“我想确认他的意图……结果只是捉弄我们而已吗。”
　　……这样层层套层层的机关，那样约好的密码，谁能做到？
　　巴特没有看托古萨，视线在远方，说：“那家伙。”
　　“这次我明白了一件事。”托古萨说，“我没法做你的搭档，跟你在一起，有几条命都不够。”
　　大群的海鸥在暗金色的海面上飞翔。

　　潜入作战。巴特由潜水艇带领抵达洛克斯·索斯的工厂正下方，正面突破。托古萨通过Kim的大脑连接工厂的系统，配合巴特的步伐和视觉系统打开通路。工厂防卫系统作动，开始连接各处通道，通知警卫人员，并发觉有断片化的病毒侵入。
　　防卫系统启动，托古萨所在的远程中端突然被拒绝，端口作用的Kim被冲得弹起，后脑烧得起泡。在细小的操作室内部空间，以托古萨为中心满满地布上了那金色词句：
　　生死去来
　　棚头木偶
　　一线断时
　　落落磊磊
　　门开始关闭。
　　生产线发生异常，制造好的2052型GYNOID人偶突然失控，不断地出现在主通路上，开始杀害警卫人员（动作很象BLACK MAGIC的那个机器人），并向巴特所在的空间集结。巴特站在悬空的桥上，两端都有2052型GYNOID如雨点般落下，摇摇晃晃地两面夹击。在不断掉落的人偶中，突然有一个举起了枪，开始攻击周围的人偶。两人背对背地开枪，踢飞靠近的人偶，完美的圆形防御空间。
　　暂时收拾掉眼前的敌人后，人偶和巴特一起转身，举枪，枪口指向对方的脑袋。
　　“没变呢。”人偶笑道，“抱歉，这样的身体，只能是这样的表情了。”
　　素子的声音。
　　“你是怎么进来的？”
　　“只是下载了自己的一部分而已。”素子转身，朝向桥的另一头，“50米以外有控制装置。”
　　巴特脱下身上的战斗用背心，给赤身的人偶披上。
　　素子没有回头：“你还是老样子。”
　　新的人偶开始慢慢逼过来。
　　“走！”
　　两个人冲到控制室，找到控制终端，巴特开始用火力压制门口的敌人，素子去拔控制终端的把手。
　　用力……用力……手臂要从身体上拉下来般地用力……
　　轰的一声，黑色上有金色符号的终端被拔了出来。
　　“巴特，我要进入系统，切断外界的联络，将这里封闭起来。在这段时间内这个义体不能使用，就麻烦你了。”
　　不等回应，进入系统，身体僵立。巴特背对素子，跪在地上，从容不迫地狙击，换弹夹，再狙击……
　　周围的轰鸣声开始渐渐地低了下来。损伤的人偶好象面具一样散落在周围，斜着脸，碧蓝的眼睛无表情地望着前方。人偶的脸重叠出素子义体的脸。她从后脑拔下插口，对巴特说：
　　“这里已经被我从外界隔离了。完全的Stand Alone状态。”（看到这里的时候，心下大喜。）
　　巴特放下枪，读取地图。

　　两个人走在中枢的制作仓里，一片寂静，两边是盛放2052型GYNOID人偶的容器。人偶的脸透过玻璃映出来，好象活着，好象又是死的。
　　巴特仔细听着回响在寂静空间里的细小声音。从一个全封闭的球型容器里，传了微弱的呼救声。
　　“救救我……
　　“救救我……
　　“救救我……”
　　巴特敲碎容器的外壳，从纠缠的管子中抱出一个少女，是全息照片上的那个女孩子。
　　“灵魂复制（Ghost Dubbing），因为在医学上证实了会对原体（Original）产生极大的损害，因而禁止，违法的行为。”
　　素子看着巴特抱着的女孩子，冷静地诉说。
　　“杰克·沃克森为了救出她，费了不少工夫。”
　　少女抬起头来看向巴特，是晴朗的笑容。
　　“是来救我的吧？
　　“我就知道，把呼救灌输进人偶里面，就一定会有人来救我的。”
　　“可是被你灌输进Ghost的人偶要怎么办！”巴特怒吼。
　　女孩子皱了皱眉头，大哭了起来。
　　“可是……可是，我不想变成人偶啊……”

　　“那些人偶大概会说，我才不想变成人呢。”素子说。
　　“巴特，记住。无论何时，只要你连上网络，我就在你身边。
　　“那么，我走了。”
　　Ghost离去的躯壳，像断线的木偶一样倒在地上。小女孩停止了哭声，害怕地抓住巴特。

　　案件结束后，巴特驱车送托古萨回家。刚到门口，寄养在托古萨家的狗就扑了出来，跳到巴特怀里。
　　“你要不要进来一起吃饭？“
　　“不了，那种团圆，我还是不要加入为好。”
　　托古萨的妻子和女儿迎了出来。小女孩缠着父亲问：“有没有礼物？”
　　“有啊。”托古萨笑着弯下身，从盒子里拿出人偶给女儿，把女儿抱了起来。
　　托古萨抱着怀抱人偶的女儿，被巴特和他抱着的狗看在眼里。

　　（剧终）

——片尾曲《Follow me》

补充：写掉了的几点
一、和法医Ms.哈拉威的对谈
　　谈到人偶为什么自杀的时候，哈拉威说：
　　人偶的杀人冲动是外来的。但是杀人却和它们本来设定的程序不符，和‘不伤害人类’的基本定义不符，因此产生了精神冲突，因此自杀。
　　简而言之，就是阿西莫夫的机器人三定律。

二、九课在关于杰克·沃克森被杀的情报碰头会上，关于杰克·沃克森被杀的情报。
　　“洛克斯·索斯公司的出货检查部长。”
　　“因为红尘会组长井上被杀，有可能因为这个而成为被报复的对象。”
　　“资料显示他是来渡假的。”
　　“这个时候独身来到危险的地方，而且住在船屋，也太奇怪了吧。”
　　（后来才知道是那个女孩子的事）

三、关于“林中的画像”，除了荒卷之外，后面也有提到。
　　是在到达择捉上空的时候，巴特和托古萨在空中的对话。
　　巴特告诉托古萨城市的兴衰，托古萨随口背了一段诗，大意好象是光辉的堕落。
　　“那是弥尔顿”
　　又背一段，也是荣光的堕落
　　“圣经的诗篇（还是所多玛？）”
　　再背，是一段诗，结尾是：
　　“……就如林中的画像”

谁能书生死，白首太玄经：《攻壳机动队：无罪》的畅想

Nightheaven — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 14:11:23 +0000

作者：hitchcock　来源：网易周黎明留言版

“生死去来，棚头傀儡，一线断时，落落磊磊。”

《黑客帝国》的成功，让世界认识了老爸级的《攻壳机动队》，这个在1995年就已经在动画电影界取得了极大成功的电影终于走出了动漫狂和东亚文化的圈子，当人们看到脖子上的插头和魂魄分离的生命模型已经早四年就出现在动漫的天地，这部改写生命定义的电影才真正被世界大众关注。事隔九年，《无罪》出现在戛纳的官方甄选名单，但真正到了我们能看见，已经半年过去。在这部并不算续集的姊妹篇里，生命的概念再次得到了挑战。

在第一部的结尾，少佐成了一个人类和机器灵魂的混合体，从公安九课消失，投身于无限的网络中，在第二部中，她索性成了一个没有具体形态的纯灵魂，时而化身为好友体内电脑终端的警示，时而附身在机器人身上，已经达到了“吾心自洁，独步天下，如林中象”的境界，没有我相、人相、众生相、寿者相，才得以获得最大的自由。

记得看过一个小中篇，名为《爱因斯坦的梦》，设想了相对论引发的二十多种可能的时间流逝状态，以及在这些状态下人们的行为模式。《攻壳机动队》的系列电影和电视版也是这样的情况，设想一种生命的存在模式，即“魂在壳内”，这个定义在第一部里并没有得到太多的探讨，而是主要在讨论机器和人类的伦理问题，但在《无罪》中，至少设想了十二种人工生命的状态：没有历史的克隆狗，无法鸣冤的偶人，混沌中的儿童，仅用义体的物理功能的公安、纯机器壳中不死的人脑、作为群体记忆的城市、没有我执的云雀、肢体力量和信息获得能力堪与神媲美的偶人、没有记忆却保持自我的孩子、没有记忆也没有知觉的人魂，以及少佐的纯灵魂。这些都是生命的存在方式，彼此之间的区别顶多是黑和白的区别，在电影一句孔子，一句旧约，一句法句经，一句俳句，再来点柏拉图和迪卡尔的思想碰撞以后，故事那个机器妓女杀人而后自杀的引子已经并不重要，被证明“无罪”的已经说不上是机器人妓女的自我意识，而是为了实现自我，各个生命状态彼此争斗的苦境。等到真相大白，也只能以一句“鸟血使人怜，鱼伤无人问”的叹息结束了所有的形而上的争论，或许所有的生命都是注定要线断落珠的傀儡，而那个操纵着吊线的则是我们的自我意识。连能力接近神的金都这样说：“人和神都是太执着自我，所以不得自由”。

大约这个制作组被“《黑客帝国》之父”的美誉鼓舞下，决定要把这个血缘关系延续下去，而且要用更富有思辩力量的方式来讲一个生命的寓言，掉书袋就成了必然。而这个掉书袋的方式，又不是《黑客帝国》那种在西方文化的核心里的学贯中西，而基本是东方文化的自言自语，在引用起西方名言起来干涩，充满了嘲讽和怀疑，而在引用起老祖宗的文字来，总是禅机四伏，或许他们从心底里就认为天下最高明的思维并非来自于神，而是来自于消灭了执着的人。于是，这样的掉书袋注定该片不是给大众打造的，而是特供一批思想开明，并愿意做形而上思考的人，尤其是那些看完了电影，还会把时间条拉回去，咀嚼那些引文，并为那场梦幻般的“庙会”苦苦思索其象征意义的人。该片在美国的分级是 PG-13，但从思维的难度上来看，至少该评到NC-17去，加上广大不习惯字幕的美国观众非要去看流转的相当快的字幕，看到云里雾里简直是再正常不过，难怪一帮美国影评人用当年死踩《黑客帝国3》的态度，死踩该片。好在电影的画风极为流畅唯美，三维制作的细节和二维的绘画也毫无不协调之感，却也没有特别要卖弄技术的艰涩，即使看不懂“未知生，焉知死”，至少还能满足视觉享受。但在音响上，该片保留了第一部的宁静，不用交响乐给观众提神，喜静的人会看的爱不释手，比如已经被大片搞到审美疲劳的笔者，喜多技术配合的人却嫌不够强烈，比如一年看不了几部电影的拙夫，还会嫌故事节奏有点慢。

如果要我给这个电影下一个最终的定义，大概宁可它不是电影，而是一个赛伯预言，一个当生命可以被物化，甚至永生都可以实现的时代，不再有软弱的肢体，而自由依然难得。

《GITS2：INNOCENCE》押井守最新访谈

Nightheaven — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 09:52:33 +0000

by红袖添饭

早就放了消息树了，现在才补上，太忙了，抱歉。

本文登在最近一期的《AnimePlay》上，我是在书店现场做的笔记，没有全部COPY，也没买（No MONEY screen.width/2)this.width=screen.width/2″ vspace=2 border=0>）。不过有料的内容自认为都摘下来了。因为还没时间看中文字幕的版本，所以这里基本上是摘抄，自己的话都放在括号里。

押谈到他在INNOCENCE中强调BODY的重要性时说：
A human cannot think of himself without a body, nor can he live. The problem, however, lies solely in the fact that a human does not have a body of its own. The story of the search for one’s lost body might be what this movie is about.（这里谈到INNOCENCE这部电影的主题了，是BODY。押井守似乎认为在第二集的设定里，BODY才是定义HUMAN的根源。这与第一集的思想是不同的，但是考虑到第二集的整体情节，应当是可以说得过去的。当MIND都被电子化后，你怎么能说你的MIND是区别你自己和他人的终极东西了呢？何况MIND被电子化后就有被manipulate的可能，你的ghost可以被复制到别的shell里，但你不会感觉那是你自己，所以电影中那些 sex dolls才会想自杀，以此表示对新的shell或者所谓新的自我的不认同，ghost还是需要原来的body。在电影的设定中，这种问题其实不仅发生在sex dolls身上，她们的例子只不过更极端些；对于每一个义体化的HUMAN来说，当义体已经成为一种普遍的共性的HUMAN“特征”，他们是不是也会思念原始的BODY呢？后面押静守谈到了本片的主题实际上是MIND与BODY之间的LOVE……个人感觉第二强调BODY是对第一集强调MEMORY的一个螺旋式上升的命题，二者并不矛盾，因为是在不同的设定层次上讨论问题。）

记者问：What do you think makes a human a human?
A body. Not having the body—the fact that you lost it—is the problem. The lost body must be recovered, but how? Do you acquire it as a machine? Or would you live with an animal in order to do so? For People living in the modern world, this is a question that they can’t ignore.（还是BODY认同的问题，当没有属于自己的BODY的时候，你靠什么去认同自己？把自己变成一部机器，或者将自己的生活和狗绑在一块？听起来有点歇斯底里的意思，HUMAN为了证明自己的独特存在而想做出各种“有意义”却古怪的事情……）

押井守继续谈recover body的问题：
There are various methods one can use to regain a body. From abandoning the body itself to changing the meaning a body has, the options are numerous and human will try evrything they can think of. The perfect cyborg form and cyber brain that Kim（这是指BATOU和托古萨到那个欧式城堡中去见的那个家伙，是BATOU以前的战友） haschosen are exteme example of that; where humans mimic dolls and thereby place more value on beauty than functionality. It’s a body “colder” than a cyborg. That’s what being a doll is about: to pretend you are a doll.（假装自己是个DOLL也是证明自身独特存在的方式么？押井认为，在影片的设定环境中，要重新认同自己的BODY，方法多样，可以完全抛弃 BODY——象素子一样？或者自己重新定义BODY的意义。个人对这里的理解有些模糊，这里押井守看似在说HUMAN要追寻BODY的意义，实际上是在说以各种方法突出自我、定义自己的存在，这岂不是还是MIND在起作用？还是MIND在决定自己要有个与众不同的BODY……）

记者：INNOCENCE中的素子为什么要选择那样（成为一个和NET融为一体的guarding angel）？
Why does she? Apart from the fact that it ws necessary for drammatic reasons, maybe I just wanted to believe in that.（素子的出现，有制造剧情高潮的需要，也是押井守自己的某种信仰，他“相信”素子融入网络后还是要继续做BATOU的守护天使，而不会迷失自己。呵呵，押井守还是挺浪漫的，愿意相信还是有某个终极的东东可以维系在虚拟与真实的空间都永恒不变。）

记者：第二集看起来有点emotional，这样有其必要性吗？
I guess I’m getting old. After the ages of 50, I think I started to feel I wanted to live not along teh Logics I cam up with but throught conversations with my body. I had been feeling that way since I started living with dogs. I am grateful to (my dogs) Gabriel aka “Gabu” (片中狗食的名字？那个小狗音乐铃声玩具就叫Gabriel) and Daniel aka “Dani-yan.”
（恩，押井守谈到自己感性的一面了……）

记者：Is INNOCENCE a love story like they said in the movie’s advertisement?
Yes, but it’s not necessarily between a man and a woman. It’s between mind and body, between human and machinery, and between human and animal. It’s the only possible love story I can create.（延伸了第一段的回答，不管是什么LOVE，似乎还是HUMAN想成为一个“完整”————不追求“完整”就不必追求MIND与BODY之间的一致了————但同时有是“独特”的个体，MIND与BODY之间必须一一对应，而且这种对应方式本身应当是彼此不同的。）

记者：What kind of a movie is INNOCENCE ultimately?
In short, it’s a piece of entertainment. Leave your daily life and release yourself into a differenct value system. Movies should always be like that.（至于这个不同的价值系统是什么，下面谈到了，有点《黑客3》的感觉）

记者：Why choose INNOCENCE as a title?
The title “INNOCENCE” came from producer Toshio Suzuki of Studio Ghibli. I simply gave a approval. I fact, I almost never came up with titles for my movies. Now, the title “INNOCENCE” does not mean “not guilty” but rather “untouched.” In this movie, which tries to understand humans, machines, and animals as equals, the title is very suggestive. I really like it.（这里终于说到片名的问题了，其实在日本国内的放映版本中，就是出现中文字“无垢”的，不过，考虑到日文用中文的习惯和咱不同，个人认为 “UNTOUCHED”这个意思中文还是翻译成“无邪”比较好，后面押井也说到了，这部电影的价值观是个全新的，要将人、机器、动物都平等看待，这岂不是一种“无邪”的世界观？“无垢”的话，按照中文的习惯理解，多偏重于实际的干净不干净些，似乎不如“无邪”这么有概括性，个人意见。）

记者：Why do you think a human would keep making dolls?
I believe it is because he continued to stay “a human.” Was there a NECESSITY to the process? Well that would suggest that a human had to prove he was a human. I kind of doubt that.（这里押井既证明了HUMAN造DOLLS是为了持续保持自己的HUMAN状态，但他又否定了HUMAN并不是非得证明自己是HUMAN不可……有点模糊，到底押井守是在电影中对“人类是否有必要证明自己的存在”的论点故意留下一点思考的留白不发表意见呢，还是他就相信“人类没必要证明自己是人类”？俺有点搞不清楚了。）

记者：Is the dog placed in opposition of humans?
As long as humans try to remain human, animals have no choice but to occupy the other end. Well, then what if a human is someting other than human? It used to be possible for a human to be a non-human, such as an animal or a spirit. Given that idea, an animal can be something more than just a neighbor, maybe even our body. For me, dogs are neighbors, family members, and also my body. Also, this is important: A human can never continue to be human.（这段话同样费思量，按押井的意思，ghost或灵魂是存在的，所以HUMAN也可以在BODY上变得NON-HUMAN，如动物或者纯粹是游荡的鬼魂或精灵什么的。可能是接见佛家轮回的概念吧，从这个意义上说，我们身边的动物有可能过去是HUMAN，或者说在动物的SHELL里说不定是 HUMAN的GHOST，所以呢我们不仅要把动物当作好朋友，还可以把它们当作自我认同的一部分。恩，难道押井在这里走的是马克思关于“人只有在社会关系中才能定义自己”的老调？要不然，为什么要把与拥有HUMAN灵魂的狗的交往看成自己BODY的一部分呢？押井说“人类已经无法继续成其为“人”了”到底是什么意思？可以理解为即使MEMORY还在，但义体化后BODY就不是独特而完整的了，所以不是完整而独特的HUMAN了。）

押井守还谈到了“背景”画面在它电影中的作用：
A background is not something to fill the empty space behind the characters. It is something that must be directed in the same way you would characters. As a director it is something more important than the characters. I believe a movie is a format for opening up the world to the audience, to display an alien world that you can neither see nor feel in everyday life. If you want to show drama or show people, you should choose TV, theatre or a novel.（押井似乎想拍“最纯粹”的电影，除了电影，没有其他艺术形式可以表现的东东，故事或表演对电影来说不一定非常重要等等……作为电影追求的“一种”形式，我同意他的观点。）

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