BROADCASTS.com

Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away is one of those rare films that is both super popular and super weird. Rife with cinematic non sequiturs, unforgettable imagery, and moments of horror, it is an outstanding example of a story form that goes all the way back to the myth of Psyche and Eros from Apuleius's Golden Ass, if not earlier. In this type of story, a girl on the cusp of maturity steps into a magical realm where people and things from waking life reappear, draped in the gossamer of dream and nightmare. Musicologist and WS assistant Meredith Michael joins JF and Phil to discuss a strange jewel of Japanese animated cinema.

Support us on Patreon and get early access to Phil Ford's new podcast series on Wagner's Ring Cycle.

Sign up for JF's upcoming online course on Shakespeare's Macbeth on Nura Learning.

Listen to volume 1 and volume 2 of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel
\nFind us on Discord
\nGet the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau!
\nGet your Weird Studies merchandise (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.)
\nVisit the Weird Studies Bookshop

REFERENCES

Hayao Miyazaki, Spirited Away
\nKyle Gann, Robert Ashley
\nRobert Ashely, Perfect Lives
\nApuleius, \u201cPsyche and Eros\u201d from The Golden Ass
\nHenri Bergson, Time and Free Will
\nKentucky Route Zero, video game
\nLegend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, video game
\nJean Sibelius, 5th Symphony
\nQuentin Tarantino, film maker
\nMark Rothko, American painter
\nGiles Deleuze, \u201cWhat is the Creative Act?\u201d
\nGK Chesterton, Orthdoxy
\nHerman Hesse, Siddhartha
\nAndrew Osmond, BFI Guide to Spirited Away

Special Guest: Meredith Michael.