GORDON - Why this change of heart?

MIYAZAKI - I figured, "Oh, what the hell." [Laughs] And I feel sorry about making my producer do all the interviews.

GORDON - Are you hoping your films will enjoy the same success here that they do in Japan?

MIYAZAKI - I think only about my Japanese audience when I make a film. Of course, I'm delighted that people from other countries also enjoy my films. But I try not to think of this as an international business. [Laughs] Somewhere my producer is probably saying the exact opposite.

GORDON - Were you surprised "Spirited" won an Oscar?

MIYAZAKI - Actually, your country had just started the war against Iraq, and I had a great deal of rage about that. So I felt some hesitation about the award. In fact, I had just started to make "Howl's Moving Castle," so the film is profoundly affected by the war in Iraq.

GORDON - It's also the rare children's film that addresses the subject of aging. Your protagonist is a young girl who's turned by a witch into a 90-year-old woman.

MIYAZAKI - I made this film so that I could show it to a young girl of 60. [Laughs] What's wonderful about the story is that the happy ending isn't that the spell is broken and the girl is young again. It's that she forgets her age.

GORDON - The film doesn't follow Western storytelling conventions.

MIYAZAKI - A lot of people say they don't understand the film, and what that means is just that they have a set definition of how a story is supposed to be told. When the story betrays their anticipations, then they complain. Which I find ridiculous. My father, in his old age, only watched TV programs where he could figure out the story in the first three minutes. He'd say, "I can understand this. I can follow it." But I think it's a waste of time to try to change people.

GORDON - In an interview, "Ghost in the Shell" director Mamoru Oshii claimed that, deep down, you dream of "destroying Japan" and making movies with lots of bloodshed.

MIYAZAKI - [Laughs] It's not that I want to destroy Japan. It's that I predict that it will be destroyed. Oshii and I are friends, so we always dis each other.

GORDON - OK, but what makes him suspect that you have such feelings about Japan?

MIYAZAKI - Maybe it's because I say things like "Oh, I wish the big earthquake would just hurry up and get here." [Laughs] My thoughts are very pessimistic, yes, but my general state of being is very positive.