Greenberg, Raz. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, Bloomsbury Collections. Copyright Raz Greenberg All rights reserved. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Raz Greenberg. Go Panda! Many other notable figures have been involved with different stages of the production including Jean Giraud, renowned science fiction author Ray Bradbury, and screenwriter Chris Columbus future director of the early Harry Potter films.
He attended a lecture by legendary Disney animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston both also involved with the production of the film and it was probably during this period that he was exposed to another important artistic influence on his feature filmsβthe work of Canadian animator Frederic Back β A French immigrant to Canada, Back was a gifted painter who turned to film and television production in the s, working on everything from film opening titles to animation.
In , he received his first Academy Award nomination for his animated short All Nothing , an amusing and environmentally aware version of the biblical creation story. Lawrence River in Quebec.
Miyazaki was highly impressed upon seeing Crac! He was captivated by the lively way in which Back drew and animated natural scenery and plants; indeed, the film features beautifully drawn painterly backgrounds of the Quebec forests and rivers, whose beauty does not come from their wild, untamed natureβit comes from the harmonious way of life adopted by the people who live among them, people who have learned to co-exist with nature.
This kind of ideal living off the land involves just the right amount of interference with nature while allowing it to thrive. But when such interference goes beyond the necessary needs of manβwhen the natural forests and even the fields sowed by man must make way for railroads, roads, and power-plants, as seen in the filmβmankind loses something. The Man Who Planted Trees also shows how interference with nature can have positive consequences. The film portrays a man-made forest as something that improves the quality of lifeβnot just environmentally but also politically, a strong symbol of peace that even the horrors of war cannot defy the film tells of how minor wood chopping took place in the forest during the war, but its relative distance made such actions non-profitable and they were quickly abandoned.
