Steven Spielberg names the greatest animated movie of all time: “Better than any Disney film”
To become heralded as one of the greats in cinema, there are more than a few roads, but the two principal journeys to the top are marked “commercial” and “critical”. Steven Spielberg is one of the most commercially successful filmmakers in the history of cinema, having worked on incredibly popular franchises such as Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park, but he has also managed to create a sense of critical acclaim that would make a lot of directors blush.
It would be remiss not to think of Spielberg primarily as a blockbuster director. His work has often gathered box office sales simply from being attached to his name. Add to that the family-friendly nature of a lot of his movies, and it is easy to pigeonhole the filmmaker. However, looking back through his catalogue, even to the first ever “blockbuster”, Jaws, it is easy to see how Spielberg can also claim to be a critical darling.
In the 1980s, Spielberg co-founded the production company Amblin Entertainment which produced multiple animated shows such as Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs, among others. Even though Spielberg’s oeuvre does not contain many examples of animation, the filmmaker is a huge fan of the art form.
The most notable anomaly in Spielberg’s filmography is his 2011 animated work, The Adventures of Tintin, which was based on the eponymous comic book character. Although it was planned as a trilogy and the film went on to achieve financial success, the trilogy never happened because many felt that the animation style dipped into the uncanny valley.
Throughout his life, Spielberg has been influenced by multiple animated films from around the world, including the seminal 1988 Japanese masterpiece Akira, which he cited as one of his favourites. However, there is one specific animated gem that Spielberg considers to be among the greatest achievements in the history of animation.
In an interview, Spielberg praised the vision of Hayao Miyazaki and claimed: “I especially, you know, admire the whole world of Miyazaki, and his taste and his storytelling abilities. His Spirited Away is one of the greatest animated films ever made, might be better than any Disney film I’ve ever seen. He was a real influence.”
Spielberg actually took his daughter with him to Tokyo to meet the Japanese auteur and they engaged in a deep conversation about the craft of storytelling. Despite Spielberg’s admiration for Miyazaki, the pioneering animator does not feel the same way about Spielberg’s work and he publicly criticised global audiences for ignoring the sociopolitical allegories embedded in the American director’s works.
“Even in the Indiana Jones movies, there is a white guy who, ‘bang,’ shoots people, right? Japanese people who go along and enjoy with that are unbelievably embarrassing,” Miyazaki explained. “You are the ones that, ‘bang,’ get shot. Watching [those movies] without any self-awareness is unbelievable. There’s no pride, no historical perspective. You don’t know how you are viewed by a country like America.”
While Spielberg’s appreciation for Miyazaki wasn’t exactly reciprocated, Spielberg understands one thing more than any other: story. It is something that Miyazaki harnessed perfectly within his pictures, turning animated films into seismic cultural events, something Western society is, only now, truly starting to comprehend.
