In the analysis of Evangelion, is auteurism actually valid?

[The Imperialist]

I understand that Anno as director, he essentially has the say on probably all of the aspect of Evangelion. However, of course, it needs to be made with his staff, and I am curious as to how much we can pin everything on Anno.
(The reason I started thinking this was there was some talky thing in an exhibition somewhere and it very much displayed all the physical details in the making of Evangelion and a lot of it does not bare Anno's mark; because from what I have seen and read, it does seem he was in a lot of communication with staff which led me to think that many ideas may have come from other people and Anno might have just added bits and bobs here and there if it sounded good- just an impression though.)

Another sub thinking I have regarding this is how much can we take Anno's own words as canon, that will reveal everything and anything about Evangelion. I mean we have Kubrick who is very much the auteur director, but I just don't see Anno in the same category as Kubrick.

And considering that this is animation, drawing as they did back then, everything would either be deliberate or ways to cut corners, or simple pragmatism, how much artistic control did Anno have and would therefore equate equally with whatever he decided to say about it?

(Another thing for me is to confess that the last time I watched Eva fully with paper and pencil is about two years back so I will probably be rusty on the detail. And regarding rebuild, I have only watched 1 and 2 fully, 3 from the halfway mark in the company of raving mad drunks. However, I did have a chance to go see various exhibitions on Rebuild and the constructions of it so I guess I can visualise. Thank you for bearing with me)

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Film is a very collaborative business art. I wrote/produced/directed a short film for Christmas last December (with hopefully more to come early this year) and I couldn’t have done any of it without the help of everyone who volunteered their time, effort, and creativity to the project.

So, yes. Something as large in scale and scope as Eva needs to input and creativity of a lot of people. Anno, being the head writer and director, had the most input of them all. That being said, the other ideas being expressed by the other collaborators need to be approved by Anno, since he was the head writer and director. In some cases the creativity may not have come from Anno himself (I heard he let someone else take over the writing for Ep 4, for example), but regardless of whether or not he realized the reasons for the creativity of the others, he approved of their art being included in Eva. If there were other animation directors approving animations of the show, Anno had to approve of them being on the project based on what he thought they were able to bring to the project. (And even then sometimes the director will check the work approved of an animation director ad either approve it again or deny it. Denying it usually results in the director finding a new animation director.) Unless the studio (GAINAX at the time) decided to come in and remove Anno from the project, the buck stopped with Anno’s power and ability to approved certain elements into the TV series. For these reasons Anno does need to be recognized as having the ultimate authorial authority when it comes to Eva.

Strangely enough, canon is a slightly different issue. Sure, Anno’s creativity and decisions greatly effect it. In fact, they even create it. But usually when we discuss canon we tend to want to discuss it in a vacuum all to it’s own, without the recognition of the filmmakers’ influence on the material. In this way we kind of treat canon like we would a snow globe. We see it like a little tiny world that we can look into from the outside and wonder what it’s like to live in it and meet (or even become) the characters. (More than anything I wonder what it’s like to be Yui within Eva Unit 01.) This is why when canon changes (DC vs OA, EoTV vs EoE, Star Wars original vs Star Wars Special Editions, ect.) the potential for fans to become upset increases. They might learn something they didn’t like about a character they were internalizing. It becomes less about what the filmmakers’ had intended to say with they work and more about what the audience wanted to see into it. In most cases, what the audiences sees in it matches what the filmmakers’ wanted to say with it. In some cases it doesn’t.

When it comes to these kinds of questions, I really don’t have a clear answer for you. I really have trouble seeing canon as a little world of its own, and tend to see art (including shows like Eva) as more of a way for a filmmaker to communicate with his audience. Sure, I recognize canon. And I recognize the moments in certain shows when canon contradicts itself. But my real focus tends to be on the artist’s usage of the art. Art doesn’t stand in a vacuum. It can’t survive in a vacuum. It’ll always have the influence of the creator and in interpretations of the society around it. (Just look at how many times Shakespeare plays have been reinterpreted into other things.) And these conversations tend to be more useful with it comes to how an art impacts the society it finds itself in.

[The Imperialist]

I have always assumed 'canon' might be treated differently, and separately from the actual material considering that the canon probably came about as pieces of patchwork after the finished product. Unless said canon includes detailed meeting reports and in-depth production notes.

(I have also been involved with a film made by a club as the screenwriter/2nd director/camera director/actor and I do have to say that while it turned out all right, it was quite a bit off from what I had as an image of the film, part of the reason I suddenly became very interested in how much auteurism holds)

[Monk Ed]

In just this past year there have been a number of decisions that I found out were not actually Anno's idea and it has radically changed my opinion of where the genius of Evangelion truly lies: in more than just him. For years I thought that the decision not to kill Touji was purposeful and thought it struck a perfect balance that set the descent arc on an even keel, whereas killing him would have made it too dark too quickly and have robbed e.g. Kaji's death of its power. So imagine my surprise when I learned Anno had never actually planned it that way, and in fact it was an outside restriction!

And then more recently, in just the past few days in fact, I learned (or at least was reminded) of another thing that was actually someone else's idea that Anno incorporated: someone else forbade him to have Leliel use Japanese to communicate with Shinji in episode 16. That was another really important artistic decision that I strongly approved of, and now I know that it too was someone else's idea!

So I have a much greater appreciation now than I ever did for the value of the people around Anno and for hesitating in assigning too much importance to Anno as Creator-God -- although admittedly I never assumed we should consider the entire story as his brainchild, but merely him as the man with the final say on what goes into it and what doesn't, but I had just sort of become a passive believer that all these things that I saw as being good ideas or powerful statements must have been deliberate by him and come from his mind. Still, in most of those cases he probably still at least deserves props for recognizing a good idea when it comes along. Although in other cases, not --e.g. he later said he really should have killed off Touji, so now I know that his kind of creative thinking is actually far more conventional than I ever thought .

[The Imperialist]

That is actually an interesting detail. Would there be a source on it?

[Mr. Tines]

In just this past year there have been a number of decisions that I found out were not actually Anno's idea and it has radically changed my opinion of where the genius of Evangelion truly lies

Working within constraints is what encourages creativity, and tends to give rise to better outcomes than the "anything goes" case. I don't think that external limitations like these take anything from the auteurist nature of any work, any more than the self-imposed limitations of things like dogme or even the sonnet form do.

@Imperialist
Here -- [url]http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/15478/Hideaki-Anno-x-Kazuo-Koike-October-22-2013/[/url]

[Monk Ed]

Working within constraints is what encourages creativity, and tends to give rise to better outcomes than the "anything goes" case. I don't think that external limitations like these take anything from the auteurist nature of any work, any more than the self-imposed limitations of things like dogme or even the sonnet form do.

Although I appreciate the sentiment and do see the truth in it there's a famous rebuke of this old saw somewhere that I can't find or maybe it was actually just an artist friend of mine saying it on Facebook this one time. I see this saying a lot but there's a survivor's bias there in that we forget all the creative works that were slain by their restrictions. In NGE's case in particular I would say that between the two I've described it's only the survival of Touji that could be deemed an actual outside restriction given that it was never a creative decision by someone saying "No way killing any of the Children is creatively stupid", whereas someone saying "No way having the alien talk would be creatively stupid" is in another category altogether, the one of "Shooting down bad ideas".

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Within terms of restrictions I always considered EoE to be Anno & Co. "unplugged." There was no need to get around TV censorship or anything like that, and the restrictions already present in the existing canon and nature of production were enough to keep Eva within the area of being a creative challenge. (Though I will be quick to say that restrictions don't always result in good art. Good art tends to come more from pain or struggle, and less from imposed restrictions, though either one can provide the proper challenge when needed.)

Within terms of Anno's creative inspirations, his live-action films might be a slightly more clear look at how his personal creativity works. Even then, though, they're all adaptations derivative of other material. Love & Pop was an adaptation to an erotic book sequel who's first installment was already adapted into motion picture as a BDSM porno by someone else. Shiki-Jitsu was based on a book written by Steven Segal's daughter. (She also played the leading female role.) And everyone should know what Cutie Honey is at this point, being a manga and/or anime since around the 70's.

[Mr. Tines]

Although I appreciate the sentiment and do see the truth in it there's a famous rebuke of this old saw somewhere

Just because a work is made in a situation where limitations apply doesn't mean that Sturgeon's Law gets suspended.