From: dave@blackbox.cc.columbia.edu (David Milner)
Subject: MISC: Akira Ifukube Interview
Reply-To: dave@blackbox.cc.columbia.edu (David Milner)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 17:13:02 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.movies
Summary: r.a.m.r. #01658
Keywords: author=Milner

			Akira Ifukube Interview
		       Provided by David Milner

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: Mussorgsky, 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-versus-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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