Analysis of the film 1995. “Ghost in the Shell”

Before moving directly to the topic of the article, namely an attempt to analyze the anime of 1995 "Ghost in the Shell", I propose to go as far as possible in the context of the environment where the object exists. No, it’s not anime, no, it’s not animation, and no, it’s not even cyberpunk. Ghost in the Shell is originally a movie. Accordingly, before taking the picture apart, you need to understand what cinema is and what qualities it must have to be good.

In short, cinema is a naturally connected audio-visual series. From this definition (which is not taken from the Internet, by the way, but with which I think it is difficult to disagree) three key features can be identified. The first feature is that cinema has sound and picture, which, in essence, constitutes its own unique language. With the help of audio-visual, cinema addresses the viewer, it talks to him. The second feature is the pattern. Man, in principle, is a creature that perceives information according to laws, so it would be foolish to expect that a creative direction, the ultimate goal of which is to appeal to the viewer, to a person, should not be natural. The last feature is the connectedness of everything that is in the movie. For greater clarity, this entire structure can be considered using the example of a machine. In this case, film language will act as various kinds of gears and springs, the pattern will be mechanisms that individually perform various functions, and the interconnectedness of all this will ultimately make the machine work and be a machine.

If you translate all these letters into modern cinema, you get this picture. There must be some kind of central idea – the main function it performs. This could be an instructive moral or an author’s thought. Simply put, “what is this movie about??» The presence of a central idea determines what the “machine” is created for and ensures the coherence of the film. Accordingly, individual “mechanisms” inside it must be designed with an eye to the tasks that this machine performs. In other words, everything that is in the film must work for the central idea, otherwise the film simply will not function. Everything should have a meaning, every scene, line of dialogue or composition. And the tool with which this meaning can be conveyed is film language. It can be either rich or poor. In fact, it’s not so difficult to distinguish one from the other, you just need to understand what the director is doing in order to convey the very meaning that somehow works for the central idea of ​​the film. How the director uses color, light, how he “moves” the camera, etc.d. Here even the size of the cinematic stripes matters.

Either children’s cartoons or cartoons for the whole family, for example, from the Disney studio, will help you learn to understand and identify the “central idea” of any work of art. This is because they are very clear and transparently present their ideas.
We draw a conclusion from all of the above: the richer the film language, the more original and relevant the central idea, and the wider it is revealed, the better. Of course, each person is unique, and the same information passed through him can be perceived differently, but, I think, this matter is still somehow correlated. And, oh my ghost, the introduction is already too long, so I suggest moving directly to the film.

The 1995 anime Ghost in the Shell is based on the 1989 manga of the same name. True, the current name “Ghost in the Shell” is in no way connected with its original one, which somewhat neutralizes the thesis above, but this is a separate story and, in fact, it plays absolutely no role. The important thing is that according to the author’s intention, Masamune Shiro, the story should have been named after the book Arthur Kastler "The Ghost in the Machine" 1967, but the publisher did not allow. Therefore, the original title of the work smacked of a classic “action film about special forces”. Let’s get back to the point of the conversation. The anime was directed by Mamoru Oshii. He had money at his disposal, which was rare for 1995, in fact, and before Ghost in the Shell, only Japanese animation could boast of a large budget "Akira". Considerable funding made it possible to make the animation smoother and closer to Western analogues, but at the same time, I don’t know whether this is due to the Japanese vision or a lack of funds, which is not without the peculiarities of anime – static plans and long pauses. In other words, animation was both rich and poor. Was responsible for the sound Kenji Kawai. And, by the way, in the recent premiere “Adorn your farewell morning with flowers of promise.”(which I advise you to get acquainted with) you could also hear it sound. In my opinion, the composer is brilliant. Among the interesting details, we also note that the original story written by the mangaka was radically different from its film adaptation. There were completely different characters, as well as a comedic tone. In the story of Mamoru Oshii and Kazunori Ito (anime writer) there are only three or four jokes, and they do not pursue the goal of making the viewer laugh out loud, when, as in the manga, the narrative was deliberately comedic. And “Ghost in the Shell” was the first anime to use computer graphics, which is quite symbolic, because it touched on the topic of technology.

So what is this movie about?? Let’s figure it out. Most often, in order to identify the central idea of ​​a particular film, you need to follow the dramatic line of the main character. How he appears at the beginning of the picture, what obstacle befell him, and how he changed after overcoming difficulties? WITH Motoko Kusanagi, which is the main character of “Ghost in the Shell”, it works quite well, but this character is not the only bearer of the entire meaning of the picture. The meaning here can be carried by absolutely any part of it, and only at first glance it may seem that this or that gear is in no way tied to the central idea. This will most likely be misleading.

Ghost in the Shell begins with Ninth Division Major Motoko Kusanagi monitoring a meeting through a listening device while sitting on the roof of a skyscraper. What is noteworthy is that the first thing the viewer hears in this case is a joke, killed by poor dubbing in terms of translation (not by the dubbing itself, but by translation. Top dubbing). Therefore, I strongly recommend Advokat’s subtitles to everyone. The opening scene, in addition to sending the viewer back to the first issue of the original manga, does several other things, the most important of which are two. Firstly, it introduces some of the characters in the film. The Ninth Department as a strike force, which in principle does not care whether the murder of a foreign diplomat is legal or not; and Motoko Kusanagi as the key person of the Ninth Department, who, among other things, is absolutely not shy about her nudity (which is actually important). Secondly, the scene sets the stage for the development of the central plot, but on first viewing it will not be so noticeable.

That same lost joke.

The next scene is the opening credits, where the viewer can see borrowed "The Matrix" running green lines of code on a black background and, what is much more important, the “origin” of the main character. The director shows the process of assembling a cyborg: how an organic brain is scanned, how it is placed, already a cyberbrain, inside a cyberbody, how the heroine “sheds snake scales” and is in the fetal position. This all looks like the “birth” of a cyborg. And then, as if from a dream, Motoko wakes up. She wakes up in a dark, empty room that does not reflect her personality at all, and Mamoru Oshii frames the frame so that the character’s image is framed within the city. Only the city and Motoko. These couple of minutes of timing, as long as the opening credits themselves lasted, do a lot. They present the main character as an impersonal creature whose background consists only of the process of assembling a cyber body. Motoko is completely lost, driven into a framework, and the only one with whom she is on the same wavelength is the city. There is so much visual information in this introduction, the film language of the film is so clearly demonstrated here that already at this stage we can conclude that the director is relying on visual storytelling.

This would seem to illustrate a normal brain scan. However, in the future, Motoko will doubt its existence, and therefore this shot is actually more important than it might initially seem.

The first half of the film launches the main plot and introduces a number of minor characters: a scavenger whose cyberbrain was hacked, causing him to lose his self, a diligent police officer Togusoy, recently joined the ranks of Section Nine, and the main antagonist, Puppeteer, who achieves his goals by manipulating the “ghosts” of his victims. I’ll also mention my comrade Motoko, Bateau, but his role in the film is auxiliary, and he does not have any clear dramatic line. Now this part of the film is not so important, although there is enough interesting information presented here, and Major’s problems become more obvious.

The anime is divided into two parts, and after the completion of the first, where the conclusion is made about the significance of memories for a person, a three-minute interlude starts, in the plot of which the main character simply observes the city. However, as with the opening credits, the reality is not that simple. It’s not for nothing that it is written above that the heroine and the city are on the same wavelength. The city in Ghost in the Shell is a full-fledged character, which, of course, has no lines of dialogue, but which has a lot to say even without it. I suggest you look into this. The first thing a scene conveys is mood. The scene is depressing, it feels uncomfortable and lonely. Kenji Kawai’s music plays in the background, which essentially evokes similar feelings and cements the impression. But why? The city in Ghost in the Shell, like the main character, suffers from the fact that it does not know who it is. The fruits of civilization here coexist with echoes of the past, and people there simply cannot keep up with technological progress. The main director’s tools in this scene are reflection and juxtaposition. Let’s look carefully. An unfinished building is reflected in the window of a completed and functioning one; a plane in the sky, which is a metaphor for a living bird, but “more developed”, is reflected there; polluted water bodies contrast with the general condition of the city, and digital advertising with old-fashioned signs and posters; and even Motoko herself looks at a woman (and maybe a man) with exactly the same cyber body. Her attention is also drawn to some boutique, where there are many mannequins that look so much like people, but are not them. Moreover, mannequins appear twice in the frame – some are dressed, combed, surrounded by people and playing some role in their existence, while others are broken, naked and lonely. Here, the remnants of the past are compared with the present, the present, and the general atmosphere of loneliness strives for the viewer to do (IMHO) incorrect conclusions about the harmful effects of technology on a person who simply does not keep up with progress, and therefore gets lost. However, in addition to everything that I have listed and not listed, there is one more important detail – the city lives. It has its own rhythm, it has its own “blood circulation” and its own “breathing”. Rain, people running by, a highway, a rocking boat – everything indicates that this city is alive. This means that, despite the fact that Motoko has problems with self-identity, she is also alive, and this is a key factor in understanding her character.

Silhouette of Motoko, framed by the city.

Then, after an interlude in the middle, the second half of the film begins, where the detective part of the story goes further, light is shed on the Puppeteer and all the i’s are dotted. And we continue to observe the main character in order to identify the central idea of ​​the whole picture. Motoko Kusanagi learns that the department has received a cyberbody independently assembled at the factory, which, among other things, contains a semblance of a “ghost”. You can write a separate article on the topic that there is a “ghost”, so I suggest not going into details and considering that a piece of iron has simply acquired self-awareness. Circumstances are such that the Major is interested in the find, which, in fact, is putting it mildly. Her eagerness to immerse herself in the consciousness of the machine can even be called fanatical, and all because the lonely wandering “spirit” somewhere among the transistors reflects her own “I”. And since the main problems of the character are connected with her “I”, then, as it turns out later, the Puppeteer becomes very important for Motoko.

We move on to the final noaccount-casinos.co.uk scene, which puts the finally formed context for the entire work, necessary for its complete understanding. There is a fight with a spider tank for the stolen cyber body of the Puppeteer. Motoko, relying on intuition, finds the enemy and engages him in battle, without waiting for reinforcements, because she still can’t wait to immerse herself in the consciousness of the machine. The battle takes place in an abandoned and flooded part of the city, inside a museum. In the process, many pillars are destroyed, on which a once great, but now useless building rests, frescoes of extinct animals, the tree of life are shot, and the glass ceiling crumbles. I think the reader will be able to put two and two together and there is no need to parse individual symbolism or metaphor. However, despite all the efforts of the Major, it is not possible to defeat the enemy who is obviously stronger. But reinforcements in the person of Bato arrive just in time. After the battle, a dialogue takes place between the Puppeteer and Motoko, where the first, realizing himself as an incomplete being, offers the second a merger, because due to gender characteristics he cannot live, he is not able to develop. The puppeteer appears in the anime as some kind of non-viable system that seems to exist, but which can only be overcome by one small virus, since this system does not imply diversity. It is unique in itself, but its internal mechanisms are the same.

Here is an excerpt from the climactic dialogue.

"But what will happen to me?? What’s the point of this merger if I can’t have children?. What if I die? — You will give life to our offspring online, just as people pass on their genes to their children. And everything alive dies. I too will become mortal.".

“- But I need a guarantee that I will remain myself. – Why do you need this?? Everything around is constantly changing. The desire to remain yourself limits your possibilities, very limits them. -You never answered me. Why did you choose me? -You and I are more alike than you think. We are similar in essence. We are a mirror image of each other.".

The characters are similar not only mentally, but also externally. In the picture version 2.0 The puppeteer’s voice was replaced with a female one to once again emphasize the similarity, however, the re-release of the original work itself introduced a number of significant errors into it.

Motoko’s response after the merger:

“- Bato, listen carefully. Once upon a time my words, feelings and thoughts were like those of a child. Having matured, I began to think and feel differently… I am no longer the same woman who was called Motoko Kusanagi, but also not the program called “Puppeteer”".

I need to write about something else? In my opinion, this dialogue well sums up what we saw. The dramatic line is completed, the character of Motoko has gone through the path of change, in which the cornerstone was change itself. And the central idea of ​​the picture can be formulated something like this: “Change is a part of our lives, and we should not be afraid of it”. But, again, any formulation will not convey the full meaning, because the idea is complex. It can be changed many times. For example, it does not exclude, but even complements the central idea of ​​another classic cyberpunk from cinema "Blade Runner" – “life is determined by the very desire to live”. And it does this with countless other standardized and popular film ideas. For example, the theme of family is the center of countless films, and Ghost in the Shell, without even trying to expand on it, reveals it because family, like nothing else, demonstrates life through a dynamic system, where its unique parts ensure its viability.

I really like the cover of the recently released comic (not manga) “The Ghost in the Shell: Global Neural Network”. It illustrates well what you usually expect from any work under the Ghost in the Shell tag.

Major Kusanagi and the Puppeteer have been dealt with. But we still have one more key character in the story, whose role is no less important – Togusa. This character is a symbol of the uniqueness that any system needs to survive. In this context, the system is the Ninth Department, which, as we have already found out, is accustomed to solving problems using shock methods. The diligent policeman, unlike his colleagues, does not have cybernetic implants other than a cyberbrain; very conservative in his views, prefers a classic revolver rather than an automatic weapon, and, as a result, solves problems using a different method than the Ninth Department is used to doing. Being a cool action hero in a world where every soldier has a cybernetic body is simply not possible, so an inquisitive mind and ingenuity are used. And while Motoko Kusanagi is defeated in a direct skirmish with a tank, Togusa finds evidence of espionage by the Sixth Section, puts a bug on the car of the escaping enemy, while agreeing with some left-handed trucker, and provides a winning game for his team.

And that’s not all, actually. In the analysis, I did not mention many more interesting things simply because their number floats somewhere in hundredths, or maybe even thousandths. Starting from the love line of Batou, Motoko and the Puppeteer, which is not obvious at all, to individual images, metaphors and symbols. But I think this can already be left for everyone’s personal information. The picture is very rich in semantic content, and therefore with each subsequent viewing the viewer can discover something new. Someone will see in its ending something similar to the ending "Kubrick’s A Space Odyssey, some will note realistic ballistics and meticulous attention to detail, some may discover sophisticated directorial moves, of which “Ghost in the Shell” abounds, etc.d. The fact is that Mamoru Oshii’s painting meets all the criteria described at the beginning of this article. There is such an original and universal central idea that it can be truly useful in real life and will never lose relevance. There are many patterns in the film that definitely work for this idea, which makes it an absolutely complete and integral work. And even if the viewer does not understand the meaning or understands it, but not in the right way, you can be sure that “Ghost in the Shell” will evoke some kind of emotions, because it contains many images that, by definition, should evoke some kind of associations. However, every person is unique (which we have already found out), and therefore, if you saw life in a three-minute interlude, this does not mean that another person will not notice its absence there. Where is the truth then?? In wine, of course, that’s why..

I hope the analysis was, if not very exciting, then at least interesting and informative. Next "Innocence".

Best comments

Interesting look. For me, the love line between Batou and Motoko is more than obvious, just look at the care with which he covers her with his jacket. And the version of the name “Ghost in the Shell”, in my opinion, is not the most successful, although beautiful, I read that in Japanese the meaning is closer to “spirit in a steel shell”. And by the way, Motoko has an organic brain, she is a cybog like Batou. The main idea in my opinion is that Motoko is not sure that she is not completely artificial, and her memories are real. The original film is very good, but the series is not bad either. Thanks for the article.

Perhaps this is the influence of their religion (Orthodoxy) or some irrational fears of intelligent machines.

There is also a purely rational attitude. Purely technically, a person is not much different from the systems he creates, except that he himself is a much more complex mechanism. But humanity does not need machines as complex as himself. Nobody needs a coffee machine that will philosophize without making coffee. Now, if the machine strictly performs its main functions, let it sing, tell jokes, dance and philosophize, as long as it does not interfere with the main tasks. And this is true not only with iron. It’s the same possessive situation with animals. Man is more important than animal. And even when it seems that the interests of a dog are put above the interests of a person, as a rule, they put their own interests, where the dog, albeit not consciously, is perceived as personal property, and not a rational being (another manifestation of the bestial grin of capitalism). Not to mention cows, chickens and other animals that are shamelessly used for sausage.
That is, the person is more important. You cannot integrate into human society on equal rights if you are not human. This can also be interpreted as “the presence of a soul”. This person has it, but others don’t, that’s why he’s in charge. Regardless of the level of intelligence and the presence of self-awareness.
This also correlates well with GitS, when the very fact of having a cyberbrain is important for Motoko. This does not guarantee the absence of artificial changes in personality, but at least it means that the major was born as a human (if, of course, she really has one). Well, then the reasoning of a typical alcoholic: “Who am I??", "where am I?", "who are all these people?».

It turns out that we are eliminating competitors? Yes, you can find a lot of reasons not to like something that goes beyond our understanding or takes us out of our comfort zone ((.

Not without this. Actually, the very concept of interspecific competition from a biology course makes it clear that for at least one of the parties this will not end well. Maybe not immediately, but as long as there is something to compete for, someone will be oppressed.

The article is good. But this can’t be called an original look or anything like that. But, in fact, the film was made for not the most sophisticated viewer. All the questions and techniques are on the surface, but at the same time they are not shoved in your face, as for example in the new “film adaptation”. For noufags, only with a series of acquaintances – excellent. Well, for knowledgeable people, the value of this text, of course, is noticeably lower.

“Innocence” is a slightly different film, no longer about Motoko’s doubts, but probably about Bato’s doubts about whether he did the right thing by letting her go alone. This is purely my opinion)).

The article is good. But this can’t be called an original look or anything like that. But, in fact, the film was made for not the most sophisticated viewer. All the questions and techniques are on the surface, but at the same time they are not shoved in your face, as for example in the new “film adaptation”. For noufags, only with a series of acquaintances – excellent. Well, for knowledgeable people, the value of this text, of course, is noticeably lower.

Well, don’t tell me, I kind of see part of all this, but if you ask me, I can’t explain. I’m used to looking and feeling, but I don’t know how to describe what I saw in specific language.
I find articles like this useful in one way or another.
And in any case, you need to read them after watching.

Not bad.
I’ve read something similar before.
The first screen, if I’m not mistaken, is from a remake of the 1995 film. I was confused at first,. To. I thought, maybe the article is not about the original.

Here the viewer’s worldview is probably important, for me the word spirit may be more appropriate, because I consider Motoko as an integral object “soul + body”, that’s why it’s a spirit, not a ghost (a ghost in our culture is something separated from the body/vessel). Your view of the film is very unusual for me, I mean that the ghost is in some container (castle) and is not attached to it. In “Innocence” this theme was developed quite well, a doll can also have a soul/ghost, although there they still borrowed/copied the ghost from little girls and when copying they spoiled the original and the girls died (lost consciousness), it turns out that the ghost is still attached to the body? (the absence of a ghost turns a person into a doll?). Questions, questions, the hacker apparently transferred his ghost into a completely cybernetic body, and strictly speaking 2501 was not born in a biological body.
The question of soul/consciousness is very complex, once in a conversation with colleagues, I realized that for them the soul is the exclusive prerogative of man, and to my arguments that intelligent machines that are no different from us in terms of consciousness/soul are also people, they responded with the dogma that a machine cannot have a soul, even if a person’s consciousness is placed there. Perhaps this is the influence of their religion (Orthodoxy) or some irrational fears of intelligent machines.
I watched these films more than once, and each viewing added some detail. Passing the film through the prism of their consciousness, each person sees it in their own way, in short, the world is subjective)). In any case, thank you for your opinion and forgive me for some confusion in my comments, the creator did not give me the gift of expressing my thoughts on paper)).
I hope you continue the topic, there are many more films there.

“Innocence” seems to me more difficult to understand, I hope there will be something to emphasize there for oldfags.

How are things going with the cyberbrain in the series?? Motoko once transferred her consciousness to another body after losing her primary one. As I understand it, in the series, cyborgs with full prosthetics are completely machines, in whose cyberbrains there is a digitized consciousness.

Last episode of season 1. Scene of boarding an airplane. There they completely blow off her head with a large-caliber rifle. Moreover, this was already a new body, after an attack on their headquarters by militants of some kind. company, during which her arm was torn off. The body without the arm was preserved and it was into it that she transferred her consciousness to stage the murder.

This is all good, of course, thanks to everyone who supported. But what about the article itself?? I’d like to hear a comment.

Perhaps I’ll write a short explanation about the frame with the brain and the interpretation of the “ghost/spirit”.
The point of my focusing on the brain was not the viewer’s doubt, but the character’s doubt. That is, I inserted it in order to show that this small detail also has weight in history. Besides, who knows, if this shot had not been there and the plot would have been different, then the existence of Motoko’s organic brain would have been questioned from the viewer’s side. For example, there is a manga, Battle Angel Alita, for which a film adaptation will be released in a couple of months. There was no such frame there. And what did this lead to??

Why a ghost and not a spirit?. The Lawyer, whose subtitles I recommended in the article, gave birth to a holivar about the correctness of the translation. He cites sources, but, it seems to me, he loses several compelling arguments. Firstly, he forgets that there is no single correct translation of this or that word (any word). Secondly, the spirit has certain associations in the subcortex of any person’s brain. It is directly related to something intangible, metaphysical, something that is enclosed in the human body, but something that cannot be measured or touched. But in anime, not only is the “spirit” studied, it is also located in a certain place. And it’s not even the heart, but the brain. It looks strange and breaks associations. Secondly, the “ghost”, if we refer to simple perception, not only sounds much more poetic, but does not break this internal structure. A ghost – he is alone, he lives in a certain place, wanders through the empty corridors of the castle. Associations with anime are more obvious. In addition, if we also take into account the second part (and the author’s words from Mamoru Oshii), then inanimate objects, such as dolls, also have a ghost. This is his philosophy. In this case, the concept of "spirit" becomes even more alien to the franchise.