Yesterday's Whisper

“In an interview in 2002, Roger Ebert told Miyazaki that he loves the “gratuitous motion” in his films — the sighs, the walks, the background and foreground elements — the “extra.” Ebert says : Instead of every movement being dictated by the story, sometimes people will just sit for a moment, or they will sigh, or look in a running stream, or do something extra, not to advance the story but only to give the sense of time and place and who they are.

To which Miyazaki replies : We have a word for that in Japanese. It’s called ma. (間) Emptiness. It’s there intentionally. [claps his hands] The time in between my clapping is ma. If you just have non-stop action with no breathing space at all, it’s just busyness. but if you take a moment, then the tension building in the film can grow into a wider dimension. If you just have constant tension at 80 degrees all the time you just get numb.” (reposted)