GHOST STORY
Manga icon arrives on big screen
>> Ghost in the Shell, the Japanese manga created in 1989 by Masamune Shirow, has spawned wildly popular animated films, an anime television series and several video games. All are devoted to the exploits of Major Motoko Kusanagi, a synthetic, “fullbody prosthesis,” augmented-cybernetic human who leads a counter-cyberterrorist task force called Public Security Section 9.
Now, after nearly a decade of fits and starts, during which such talent as Steven Spielberg and Margot Robbie reportedly came and went, a live-action movie adaptation will arrive in theatres on Friday. It will do so with Scarlett Johansson as Major and Rupert Sanders as the director.
Sanders, a 45-year-old Brit, previously called the shots on numerous high-profile commercials and music videos, as well as the feature Snow White and the Huntsman (2012). Speaking by telephone from his office in the Ghost in the Shell post-production department in Santa Monica, California, Sanders explained that he came to the project with both a mission statement and a vision.
“I think [James Bond producer] Cubby Broccoli said to his daughter, Barbara, when he was on his deathbed — his last words were about the Bond franchise — ‘Whatever you do, don’t louse it up’,” Sanders said with a rueful laugh. “That wasn’t too far from my mind. My mission statement was … I think you have to be instinctive. I wanted to make a version of Ghost in the Shell that I felt would capture a big audience but, at the same time, remain true to what I appreciated about it myself, as a fan.
“I think I understood that there needed to be an easier way into the universe, to excite a grander audience about it,” he said. “Let’s be honest: If we were making it for six million dollars, we could be more philosophical and more introverted, but it’d all be set in two rooms. In order to make a film of this scale — which is the only way to make a Ghost in the Shell film, because the anime itself had such great scale, but it’s cheaper to have scale in animation, obviously — and in order to make a Ghost in the Shell film that does it justice, you have to find a way to bring the audience into what a fairly complex idea it is.”
What was Sanders’ way in? Given that the material will be new to many moviegoers, how much of the film is an origin story?
“It’s part origin story,” the director replied. “It’s not an entire origin story. Really we follow the Major, who is trying to hunt down a cyberterrorist who goes by the name of Kuze [Michael Pitt], and, as she follows him, she gets closer to understanding who he is, but also who she is.
“It takes place in a highly visual and stunning realisation of the Ghost in the Shell universe,” Sanders said. “It’s a fastpaced action movie. At its heart that’s what it is, and then there are definitely a lot of philosophical, visual metaphors and conversations bubbling beneath the surface.”
For all the talk of philosophy, metaphors and conversations, everyone’s eyes undoubtedly will be on the film’s leading lady. Sanders called Johansson one of the most gifted actors of her generation and right for the dark, sexy, physical role of the Major in almost too many ways to enumerate.
“Scarlett seemed to me the most cyberpunk, through and through,” Sanders said. “She’s got this attitude and this combination of toughness and masculinity and great femininity that is hard to find, and she’s such a versatile actor.
“From our first conversations, early on, we both really clicked about the Major and about what the Major should be and could be,” he said. “Scarlett came on board very excited about the prospects of creating this character.”
The film does feature many Asian faces — including Takeshi Kitano as Chief Daisuke Aramaki, Chin Han as Togusa and Yutaka Izumihara as Saito — but Sanders and the production have taken flak over the casting of a non-Asian as the Major, originally an Asian character.
“I think the internet is a great naysayer,” the director said, “and, when you’re putting something out, developing something or starting work, when there are no materials out there, people just look for a way to attack you for whatever reason. You see it across the board, in so many different artistic mediums, but film especially, because everyone feels that they are an audience member, therefore they rightly have an opinion. A lot of those opinions barely avoid negativity.
“For me,” he continued, “when people see the film, I think they’ll understand that Scarlett’s not playing an Asian role. She’s playing the cybernetic shell of the Major. That’s true in the anime too. People who know the anime will understand that and see that it’s fairly honest.”
Five years have passed since Sanders made his film debut with Snow White and the Huntsman, five years and no films. That wasn’t the plan, but two projects — Napoleon and The Juliet — fell apart, prompting Sanders to jump aboard Ghost in the Shell when the opportunity presented itself.
“It’s hard to get big films off the ground,” he said. “Both of them were very close to going and then, for whatever reason, neither of them went. I still have another career as a commercial director, so I wasn’t in the line waiting for my check, but it’s hard.
“There’s not a centre where directors go and say, ‘Great, I’ll go and do that one’,” Sanders said. “Even with Ghost in the Shell, it wasn’t an easy thing to bring together. People were still unsure whether it would make its money back, whether it was the right way to do it. Was my vision correct?
“I think, from the outside, people assume that there’s this factory where we’re given assignments and told to go and make them,” Sanders continued. “As a director you have to really fight to get a big-budget film off the ground and, in some cases, sadly, they don’t get off the ground, so you spend a couple of years doing something that doesn’t go.
“That’s frustrating, but you have to brush yourself off, find that next project and go, ‘I’m going to put my heart into this one’.”
Sanders doesn’t know yet what he will direct next.
It’s likely that it’ll be another megamovie — though he added that he doesn’t consider Ghost in the Shell to fall into that category.
“Ghost isn’t really in the mega-movie universe,” Sanders said. “It’s a pretty conservative budget. We worked hard to really make it look like it’s a bigger budget than we had, and that’s part of the creative process. You have to beg, borrow and steal, still, when you’re doing a fairly big-budget movie, but to me it’s more about the story.