Nijiro Murakami and Kunichi Nomura talk about the movie "Inugashima" and Wes Anderson.
Winner of the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 68th Berlin International Film Festival, "Inugashima" is an ambitious film that took four years to complete by the brilliant director Wes Anderson, whose previous film "The Grand Budapest Hotel," nominated for nine Academy Awards®, greatly expanded his fan base. While maintaining the intelligent and humorous spice of his style, the behind-the-scenes of this film, which was produced using stop-motion animation following "Fantastic Mr. FOX," was quite spectacular. What is the philosophy and style of director Wes Anderson that emerges from the conversation between actor Nijiro Murakami, who played the voice of an important role in "Inugashima," and creator Kunichi Nomura, who showed his versatility in both front and backstage?
Japan in the near future. In Megasaki City, where the canine influenza pandemic is spreading, Mayor Kobayashi, fearing that humans may be infected, banishes all dogs to "Inugashima" (Inugashima). One day, a 12-year-old boy boards a small plane alone and lands on the island. He is Atari, an orphan adopted by the mayor, who has come to save his beloved dog and best friend, Spots. Atari begins his search for Spots with five brave and kind-hearted dogs he meets on the island as his new companions, and he finds himself closer and closer to a conspiracy among the adults that will determine the future of Megasaki...
Their Instagrams show how they interact with each other, but it is not often that they appear in the media together like this, is it?
NomuraThat is true. I am a behind-the-scenes person, so I don't really go out in the public eye.
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)But when I search for it, I get the occupation "actor" (laughs).
NomuraNo, I'm not an actor (laughs).
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)But in this work, I would be called an actor.
NomuraI'm not an actor, I'm a voice actor.
Left: Nijiro Murakami, Right: Kunichi Nomura
How did you two meet?
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)First it was our mother.
NomuraYes, it is.
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)Nun's office to her mother (TRIPSTERI was taken to the
NomuraI have known Nijuro's mother for a long time. She used to give me live performances when I used to run a beach house ("sputnik" on Tsujido Beach).
I have the impression that you actively communicate with young talents. What is your impression of Murakami-san?
NomuraVigor.
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)LOL!
NomuraI think it's great that we still have the slightly cocky feeling we had when we were young.
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)Really?
What kind of person is Mr. Nomura to you? I think they are about twice as old as each other.
NomuraI am the same age as Nijuro's father.
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)Yes, the parents' generation. He is just very caring and kind. He is also a shy person who doesn't take off his glasses easily (laughs).
What do you mean by taking good care of them?
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)They teach me a lot of things.
What do you mean by cocky, Mr. Murakami?
NomuraPerhaps it doesn't sound good to say "cocky," but I think there are more and more polite girls these days. I am already old, but I am still young, so I have many opportunities to meet young people. I often have the opportunity to meet young people, and I find that they have a very strong honorific language, but they are passive.
Yes, I have. I hear that a lot.
NomuraIf you don't know something, you may ask, "What's that? What does it mean? Can you tell me?" I would be happy to teach them as much as they want, but I would just say, "Please take a picture with me," and that would be the end of it.
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)LOL!
NomuraWell, maybe that's just me being intimidating. Anyway, I think most of the children are quiet. Looking back, when we were young, we were often called cocky, but the adults loved us. But nowadays, there are very few such children. In that respect, Nijirou doesn't take a stance, or rather, he treats us as we are, and I think that is good. It is simply easier for them to come to me like that.
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)Kunichan is already like a relative, or a relative of mine.
Listening to the conversation in this way, it is impressive that they are speaking naturally without using honorifics.
NomuraWhen I was about Nijirou's age, I didn't use honorifics either. I was like "teece" (laughs).
In terms of honorifics and tame-mouthed, English is ambiguous in that respect.
NomuraThat's right. I have many foreign friends who are younger than Nijirou, and they are all like "Yo Kun! My young Japanese friends also talk like that in other countries, but when they speak Japanese, they suddenly become keigo (polite expressions).
Now, "Inugashima". I think Mr. Nomura had many roles in this production. Original idea, voice actor, casting director. How were you involved in the casting?
NomuraAs for the cast members living in Japan, I made all the decisions.
What was it about your role as "Editor Hiroshi" that made you decide to cast Murakami in this role, which requires a rather large amount of dialogue?
NomuraFirst of all, Wes (Anderson)'s films are often like a "Wes group," with actors who have appeared in the film once appearing in it many times. So we know each other very well. When I went out to eat with them, I found out that this person and that person were actually very good friends. So I was hoping that we would be like the Japanese version of the "Wes group" in Japan as well. We don't record together, but we want to work with people who are somehow connected to each other.
I see.
NomuraWhen I mentioned this to Wes, he said, "It would be nice if we could do it that way," so I chose him for the role from that perspective. Also, not to go back to my earlier point about English and Japanese, but Japanese has a way of speaking that is unique to the age and profession of the actor, so I wanted to make sure that the age of the actors and the actual cast members were close, and that their tones and voices were similar.
If you are an announcer, you look like one; if you are a teacher, you look like a teacher.
NomuraYes, I did. But at first, I didn't have that many details in mind. But as Wes and I talked about it, we came up with a detailed set of characters, such as this scientist who was 32 to 35 years old, had been working at a research institute for a while, and was now doing practical work. Then, we decided to use a group of children who were close to their actual age. However, we are only asking you to provide one line or so.
Front right: Editor Hiroshi (voice: Nijiro Murakami)
The "Hiroshi editor" played by Mr. Murakami has quite a lot of appearances.
NomuraYes, it is. Hiroshi is a high school student, so of course he is a teenager. I asked for Nijiro's voice because I thought it would have the freshness and strength of a boy in its tension.
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)At first I took it with a voice memo on my iPhone. I was told, "I don't know if I'll ever use it."
NomuraI sent it to Wes this time. I sent it to Wes, who then sent it to Wes. Some people's voices were better suited for this role than others, but when Wes heard Nijiro's voice, he said, "Yes, that's Hiroshi, let's go with him. In the case of Nijiro, he had more lines than the others, so I even asked him to add more.
At the time of recording, did you already have enough pictures to add your voice?
NomuraI started work on "Inugashima" around this time three years ago. The first step was to collect storyboard samples. Next, I received a rough draft of the script in English, which I read, thought about how it would be received in Japan, and made minor changes. Then I changed it into Japanese.
It's a pretty detailed process.
NomuraIn the meantime, we had a storyboard, so we decided to use it to apply the voices. It took me a lot of time to apply the voices, because the length of the English and Japanese texts are completely different.
I can somewhat imagine.
NomuraMoreover, Wes's line delivery is very unique.
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)I understand. There's something called the Wes Clause.
NomuraI would intentionally repeat the same words over and over again, or speak in a stiff but offbeat way to make people laugh. It was very difficult to translate them into Japanese and try to make them as short as possible to fit the English while still utilizing Wes's good qualities. Subtitles were also very difficult. Subtitles have their own speed, so if I tried to match the speed of the subtitles, Wes's phrases would be lost.
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)Yes.
NomuraI would be asked to summarize this part in one line, but if I summarized it, I would miss the point of making the lines before and after intentionally go together and make the audience laugh by shifting them slightly. And well, we did all kinds of things like that.
Even while watching it, I thought the structure was quite complicated, with a mixture of Japanese, English, and subtitles. I thought there must be a lot of hard work behind this.
NomuraSo I read them all for scale, but in the end my voice....
Mayor Kobayashi (voice: Kunichi Nomura)
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)To the Mayor!
NomuraYes, that's right. He said it sounded like the voice of "Mayor Kobayashi," the worst role. Not the person I actually tried to cast, but the voice actor who was told to "keep Kun's voice".
So that was the process.
NomuraI've always been behind the scenes, and I've never acted, nor do I have much interest in acting. However, I've had a radio show (antenna* TRAVELLING WITHOUT MOVING : J-WAVE 81.3), so I asked everyone to stay after the recording, and I said, "Can you record me while I read a little?" We did a lot of things like that. I had worked out what tone I wanted to use, so when I asked Nijirou and the others to record, I knew that this was the approximate scale and this was how I would speak to the character. I had never done any acting before, but I would tell them to do it this way and that way (laughs).
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)You were teaching acting.
Was the recording done in several sessions?
NomuraI recorded it in bits and pieces.
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)At first, I was asked to record a little more than I wanted, and when I sent it in, I was told to record it "a little faster" or "in a place with as little sound as possible," so I had to stay in the bathroom. I think everyone does that kind of thing.
NomuraMy wife got suspicious when I recorded secretly in the car in the morning (laughs). Also, Nijirou had a scene in which he talks outside, so I asked him to record it outdoors in a place with a sense of openness, but not in a noisy place.
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)We recorded it in Yoyogi Park in the middle of the night (laughs).
NomuraWe did it sitting on a bench while college students and others were happily drinking.
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)We did it! We also went into the studio once to record. At that time, Ryuhei (Matsuda) and Yojiro (Noda) also took turns. At that time, I talked a little with the director via Skype. Anyway, Kunichan told me to make "Hiroshi the editor" younger, since he was set to be about 15 years old. He also wanted me to speak faster. He told me to speak three times faster than I do now. The lines written by the director are very difficult to speak.
I recognized Murakami's voice immediately when I watched the film, and it left a great impression on me. I was also able to hear your lines in English very naturally. You studied abroad in Canada when you were in high school.
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)I don't use it on a daily basis anymore, so it's not so easy.
NomuraThe only one with English dialogue was Nijirou, and that was very difficult. It was very difficult to make it sound too smooth, or too pronounced, because it would have been strange. It was about half Japanese English and half English. If I spoke too fast, I would sound like Kane Kosugi, but that would be too fluent (laughs).
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)Yes. I intentionally speak parts that are not pronounced in English.
NomuraYou can't pronounce R and L too nicely. But if you start worrying about that, you will start speaking slower, so you need to be faster there! He said something like that.
Mr. Murakami, did you meet with director Wes Anderson this time?
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)We haven't met yet. I think he is coming to Japan, so I hope to meet him then.
Some of the Japanese cast members, including Mr. Nomura, went to the international film festival in Berlin, but were you unable to go because of your schedule?
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)That's right. At that time, I was in a stage production. I was invited, but I was disappointed.
NomuraI'm really going, and I'm taking you with me." And he said, "The stage..." I said, "I'm really going. I told him to move it somehow.
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)I just couldn't do it because of the production.
NomuraIf it had been on a later date instead of the opening film, I could have gone, but since it was the opening film this time, it was difficult.
The film ended up winning the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin International Film Festival.
NomuraBoth Mari Natsuki and Yojiro were so excited.
Mr. Murakami, I understand that you have just seen the completed work.
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)It was so much fun. I had no idea what the story was about until then.
Is that so?
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)First of all, I had not received a script. I had only received my lines, so I only had a vague idea of who was speaking where and how.
NomuraThe rule was that we were not allowed to give the lines on paper. We also tried to make the story as unintelligible as possible. This is not only for Nijuro, but for all the other American actors. This is something that everyone says, but I don't feel that Wes improvises while filming together. The actors don't know what they are doing; they feel like they are just one piece of the puzzle. Only Wes knows the complete system.
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)That's really how I feel.
NomuraMany people saw the show for the first time in Berlin, and it was the first time for them to see how I had cooked it up. Wes re-records the songs, but he doesn't try to record them in a different way, because he has it all in his head. Because he has it all in his head. That's why we finish the shoot on schedule. We're all ingredients in the dish.
It is true that there is no blurring or gaps in any of the works I have seen.
NomuraJust looking at my own lines, I can't tell what's interesting, but when I see the finished work, I can see how it comes to life because of the way it flows before and after the lines. It's a bit of masochistic pleasure.
How do you see "Inugashima" now?
NomuraI honestly don't know if the movie is interesting or not anymore, since I've been involved with it since the first draft.
It's the production side, isn't it?
NomuraSo if everyone was happy after watching the film, then I was finally relieved of my role. I feel relieved that I have fulfilled my responsibility. Wes trusts me a lot, and when I say that I like Japan, he says, "Well, let's go with that. I told him, "No, no, don't tell me you understand so easily," and he said, "No, I trust Kun. I'm trusting you," he says, and I lose sleep.
I know that you have known director Wes for a long time, but what do you think about the timing of making another stop-motion film?
NomuraHis last film, "The Grand Budapest Hotel," was a worldwide hit, and there are high expectations for his next film. He is a risk taker, and I think that is wonderful.
Mr. Murakami, what are your thoughts on Wes Anderson's work?
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)I haven't seen that many of the early films, but the one I have seen many times is "The Darjeeling Express". I haven't seen that many of the earlier films, but the one I've seen many times is "The Darjeeling Express. The Darjeeling Express" is a film I rewatch regularly.
NomuraOh, by the way, "The Darjeeling Express" was supposed to be there too. I couldn't make it out because of a bad turn of events.
village (esp. Kyoto and vicinity)How many roles did you play?
NomuraNo, that's what I don't know. Did they make you be a train passenger or something? (Laughs)
