Hayao Miyazaki's How Do You Live Won't Have Any Trailers Or Images, Which Is A Real Boss Move
As long ago as 2013, director Hayao Miyazaki — the animator behind multiple masterworks including "My Neighbor Totoro," "Princess Mononoke," and "Spirited Away" — announced his retirement. His most recent film, "The Wind Rises," was his most grounded and adult to date, following the life of the aeronautics engineer Jiro Horikoshi and his gentle ambitions to make beautiful flying machines. The background irony of the film is that Horikoshi's crowning achievement was developing the type of planes that bombed Pearl Harbor. It seemed like a sophisticated and heady film to end a career with. "The Wind Rises" also came after several previous retirement attempts, although Miyazaki claimed that he was quite serious this time.
Unable to put down the pencil, however, Miyazaki will return for one more "one last round" with the upcoming film "How Do You Live?" (due for release in Japan on July 14, 2023).
Perhaps daringly, or perhaps merely knowing that the Miyazaki name is enough to attract audiences, "How Do You Live?" will be released without using any stills or footage from the film. It was announced on the Catsuka Twitter account that the film's teaser poster will be the only image made available to the public prior to the release of the film. The poster bears a sketch — not a still from the film — of a human wearing a bird-shaped hood or helmet of some kind. Audiences in Japan will have to get used to that single image, as it will be the only one they'll see for the next several weeks.
A North American release date for "How Do You Live?" has not yet been announced, nor has an international ad campaign. It's entirely likely that international marketing could very well include stills and footage for the movie.
The one image
The audacity of selling a movie without any footage is admirable. This author can only think of a scant few other movies whose trailers had no footage from the film itself. For "Psycho," Alfred Hitchcock famously toured the set of his movie, explaining that exciting things were to happen in the rooms he visited. The preview for John Waters' "Pink Flamingos" was similarly nothing more than testimonials from people who had just left his notoriously disgusting movie.
"How Do You Live?," meanwhile, hopes that Hayao Miyazaki is a large enough international celebrity (he is) that audiences will come to the movie sight unseen. Why fold a perfunctory anticipation game into a film's marketing when the film itself stands on its own? Some of those Marvel flicks certainly didn't need previews; audiences came pre-sold. Previews, in many cases, seem to be part of a dance of marketing and speculation between studios and bloggers, rather than a way to inform audiences of a film's content. Skip the dance and get to the meal.
As of this writing, little is known about "How Do You Live?" Miyazaki has merely described it as a "big fantastical" movie (one that runs 125 minutes). "How Do You Live?" is also an adaptation of a 1937 novel by Genzaburo Yoshino, which centers on a 15-year-old boy's relationship with his uncle. The novel unfolds through a series of conversations and diary entries that cover ethics and philosophy. The title is a central existential query directed toward the audience. The image of the bird man, or the fantastical nature of the film, has yet to be made clear.
Luckily, it will be made clear when the film finally unspools and not a second before. After all, why get excited about a movie if you haven't seen it yet?