From: dave@blackbox.cc.columbia.edu (David Milner)
Subject: AKIRA IFUKUBE INTERVIEW
Keywords: Godzilla Japan Monster
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 10:41:14 GMT

This interview was conducted in the home of composer Akira 
Ifukube, who scored films such as GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS,
GODZILLA VS. MOTHRA, GHIDRAH, THE THREE-HEADED MONSTER and 
DESTROY ALL MONSTERS, on December 17, 1992. 

Q: First, let me say that I was very sorry to hear about the death
of screenwriter Shinichi Sekizawa. Let me ask you, how well did you
know him?

A: We actually never met.

The only time I worked with a script writer was on Daiei's SHAKA.

In the Japanese film industry, script writing and music composing
is totally separated.

Q: What got you interested in music? What type of music did you
listen to when you were young?

A: I was born in Hokkaido, in a very small village. My father was
the mayor of the village, and the population of the village was
half Japanese and half Ainu. So, I was raised with the songs,
actually folksongs, of both the Japanese and the Ainu.

I began my music career as a player in the student orchestra at
school. I then became a concert master while in college. I played
a lot of the classical pieces of Europe, but I really liked only
Stravinsky and Faure because their music was just so different. It
was their music that made me decide to become a composer.

The Ainu, with their improvisational style of both making music and
dancing, greatly influenced me. I became very different from the
other music students who were raised with European pieces because
of this. They were taught that composition is quite difficult, but
to me, it seemed relatively easy because of the freedom allowed for
by the improvisational style of the Ainu.

Q: Do you think perhaps it was easier for you to write music not
only because of the Ainu influence, but also simply because you
were gifted with a talent for music?

A: I really don't know how to answer that question.

Q: You mentioned Stravinsky and Faure, but which of the other
classical composers do you like?

A: Musorgsky, Bach, Ravel, Bizet - not the one who wrote CARMEN,
but the one who worked under Louis XIV of France. He was a lute
player, and he would play lullabies while the king went to sleep.
Prokofiev, too.

Q: Not Beethoven or Mozart?

A: I have performed them, and they are certainly great, but I just
can't relate to them. They are just too different culturally.

Q: Are there any contemporary groups that you think are good?

A: I really don't pay much attention to popular music.

Q: I have heard that your favorite of your own film scores is the
one to GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS. Which other of your own
scores do you especially like?

A: Unlike American film composers, Japanese film composers are
given just three or four days to write the music for a film.
Because of this, I have almost always been very frustrated while
writing a score . Therefore, I can't really select any that I would
say I particularly like.

Q: Were there any that you were not particularly happy with?

A: Several, but I can't say which ones. In each case, it's not
because the music is bad, but instead because the films themselves
were not well suited for my style of music.

Q: I have heard that you scored GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS
without seeing any footage. Is this really true?

A: The relationship between special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya
and myself is quite an interesting story.

Back in the late 1940s, Tsuburaya had been purged by the GHQ - the
General Headquarters - of the United States occupation army because
during the early to middle part of that decade, he had worked on
war films. This made him unable to do film work any longer.

One day, while I was living in Kyoto, I was drinking sake with a
friend who was an actor, and some guy came to say hello to the
actor. The actor knew that this man had no money because he was
unemployed, and so he gave him some sake. After that day, I met
that man several times, and I always gave him some sake.

When I was commissioned by Toho to score GODZILLA, KING OF THE
MONSTERS, I was introduced to the special effects director, Eiji
Tsuburaya, and it turned out to be the man to whom I'd given sake
in Kyoto.

Tsuburaya, who never showed his rushes to anyone, must have felt
guilty, or that he owed me, because he would allow me to see them.
This continued until the day he died.

Q: Your early scores were all written for small orchestras. Was
this done by your choice, or was this imposed on you for budgetary
reasons?

A: The size of the orchestra was mandated by Toho.

In the age of silent films, the orchestra would have to fit into
the pit in front of the screen, so to people in the film industry,
a small orchestra was what seemed to be appropriate.

Also, the recording studios that we used were pretty small, so
there were physical limitations on the size of the orchestra.

Q: If you had been able to use a larger orchestra, do you think
your early scores would have been very different?

A: Yes, absolutely.

Q: Your marches all have relatively simple melodies, and yet at the
same time are in complex, and often varying, time signatures. How
did you develop this style of composing marches?

A: It was not a conscious decision; this is simply the way I write
music. I do, however, consciously try to avoid having my music
sound too European.

Q: I would say that given how much the time signatures do change in
them, your marches are very smooth sounding. If you were not paying
very close attention, you would not notice the changes.

A: I can't really answer that.

Q: When you are composing, do you have in mind specific
instruments, or do you do the orchestration afterward?

A: There are two types of composers. Like Stravinsky, some are
always conscious of which musical instrument will be playing a
given melody line, but others do work out the orchestration only
after they have finished composing.

I am like Stravinsky. I always compose with specific instruments in
mind.

Q: I would think that it would be more difficult to do the
orchestration afterward because each instrument has such a unique
set of tonal characteristics. Is this true?

A: Yes, doing the orchestration afterward is more difficult.

Q: You created the roar, and the footsteps, of Godzilla heard in
GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS.

A: There was an electrical engineer in Toho named Tonenawa who made
some kind of very primitive electric amplifying instrument. It was
basically just a box with several coils in it that were connected
to an amplifier and a speaker. When you struck it, the coils moved
very violently, and this made a huge, shocking sound.

I was introduced to the instrument when I was conducting the score
to a film produced before GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS. I
accidentally stepped on it, and said, "what the heck is that," when
I heard the noise that was produced.

When I was assigned to create the sound of the footsteps of
Godzilla, I decided to use that instrument.

For the roar of Godzilla, I took out the lowest strings of a
contrabass and then pulled them using a glove with resin on it. The
different kinds of roars were then created by changing the playback
speed of the tape on which that sound was recorded.

Before that, the sound engineers of Toho had tried to use the roars
of many different animals to create the one of Godzilla. They went
to the zoo, and recorded the roars of many different mammals, but
no matter how the sounds were manipulated, they sounded too much
like the animals that had actually created them. The sound
engineers also tried to alter the voice of a night heron bird, but
this, too, was not successful.

Q: The scene in GODZILLA VS. GHIDRAH in which the tanks are
approaching MOTHER is very similar to one in DESTROY ALL MONSTERS.
Also, the scene in that film in which Ghidrah battles some F-15s is
similar to a scene in RODAN, THE FLYING MONSTER in which Rodan
fights F-86s. The music heard during these scenes in GODZILLA VS.
GHIDRAH is exactly the same as the music heard during the similar
scenes in the previous films. Was your intention to remind the
audience of these similar scenes in the previous films?

A: I'm amazed that you remember those scenes so well!

At first, the Japanese Self-Defense Force said that it could not
cooperate with Toho in the production of GODZILLA VS. GHIDRAH
because of the possibility of classified information being
revealed. Soon afterward, though, an officer came to see the rushes
of the film, and he agreed to allow the footage of the F-15s to be
used.

This changed the timing of the Ghidrah vs. F-15s sequence, and I
therefore had to change the piece that I'd written for it. The
score was going to be recorded the following day, however, and
there was no time to compose a new piece of music. So, I checked
the film library, and found that the theme used in RODAN, THE
FLYING MONSTER would fit. That's why I used it.

The same thing happened in the sequence showing the tanks
approaching MOTHER.

By the way, the sequences in GODZILLA VS. MOTHRA (1992) in which
the glowing letters of the title are seen and the officials at NASA
spot the meteor approaching the Earth were both also added at the
last moment, and I had to change my original score to accommodate
those changes as well.

Q: Speaking of GODZILLA VS. MOTHRA (1992), I very much like your
new arrangement of the SONG OF MOTHRA, but why did you increase the
tempo of the piece?

A: Director Takao Okawara determined the length of the scene into
which I had to fit that piece, and that required that I speed it up
a little bit.

Q: What do you think of the scores to GODZILLA 1985 and GODZILLA
VS. BIOLLANTE?

A: I don't really know about GODZILLA 1985, but my impression of
GODZILLA VS. BIOLLANTE is actually quite negative, both in terms of
the direction and the music.

By the way, during the production of GODZILLA VS. BIOLLANTE, Toho
asked my permission to use some of my music in the film, and I said
that they could as long as it was not done in a popular style.
Then, just before the film's was completed, a Toho representative
came to me and said, "well, it became popular music." By that time,
it was too late to do anything about the situation.

After the film was released, my daughter came to me and said,
"however much you try to escape from Godzilla films, they always
use your name and your melody lines, so why don't you just score
the next one yourself?" This is why I agreed to work on GODZILLA
VS. GHIDRAH.

Q: What do you think of the work of John Williams?

A: I have some of his recordings. I don't really see too many
movies, but I have been told by some people that his music is
similar to mine.

Q: TriStar Pictures may start producing Godzilla films in the
United States next year. How would you feel about them using your
music in their films?

A: It is hard for me to imagine that they would use it.

I just don't think that American audiences would accept the tonal
character of my music.

Q: One last question - should Beethoven have used voices in the 9th
Symphony?

A: He should have called it a symphonic cantata instead of a
symphony.


David Milner  Columbia University
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