When Hayao Miyazaki sent Harvey Weinstein a threatening samurai sword: “I defeated him”
There are few people on the planet, let alone in Hollywood, as disgraceful as the former movie producer Harvey Weinstein. After being convicted for several counts of rape and assault, the worst man in the film industry is currently serving a 23-year prison sentence, a length of time that’s arguably not quite enough.
Professionally, Weinstein was also known to make excessive demands of the directors whose films he produced, particularly when it came to making runtime cuts. Bong Joon-ho had to lie to Weinstein about his father in order to keep a scene from Snowpiercer, while Quentin Tarantino had to argue at great length to keep the famous Mr Blonde torture scene in Reservoir Dogs. Still, more often than not, Weinstein’s requests were met.
However, one of the very few times that Weinstein didn’t get his way – both professionally and personally – was when he asked Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki to cut down his 1997 animated movie Princess Mononoke from 135 minutes to 90 minutes. Miyazaki refused and sent Weinstein a ‘present’ to indicate his stance.
In 1996, Disney struck a deal with Ghibli to release English-dubbed versions of the iconic anime films and Weinstein’s Miramax was tasked with taking on Princess Mononoke. Miyazaki was already aware of Weinstein’s insistence on cutting films, even if it made them worse, so he anticipated Weinstein’s request and got ahead of him.
Miyazaki sent Weinstein a samurai sword with a note that read, “No cuts”. However, it’s fair to say that the producer did not take to the director’s suggestion kindly and set about attacking the Ghibli team. Steve Alpert, a former executive for Ghibli, once revealed what Weinstein said after learning that Miyazaki was against the proposed cut.
In his memoir Sharing a House with the Never-Ending Man: 15 Years at Studio Ghibli, Alpert claimed that Weinstein had told him, “If you don’t get [Miyazaki] to cut the fucking film, you will never work in this fucking industry again! Do you fucking understand me? Never!”
However, Miyazaki retained the rights to the film, so Weinstein couldn’t make the cuts without the animator’s permission. Weinstein reportedly “bombarded” Miyazaki with threats, but the Japanese cinema icon stood his ground. “I defeated him,” he told The Guardian in 2010.
Weinstein followed up by criticising several other figures at Studio Ghibli over Princess Mononoke’s generous runtime. But the film remained uncut, and the English-language version was released in its full glory. Thankfully, this was one of the times that the disgraceful producer didn’t get his way though it took the courage of Miyazaki and the belief in his own work.
