Akira Ifukube: Godzilla (Death Waltz)
Purchased new at Half Price Books
Well, it's election night. I'm neither completely ignoring the results nor paying close attention. I have to teach at 8am tomorrow morning, and I doubt things will be completely decided tonight or even at that time.
I guess for my third blog posting in a row, I'm on the topic of comfort music.
I'll always love Japanese monster movies. Give me a man in a rubber suit stomping through downtown Kyoto, and that's entertainment as far as I'm concerned.
Even before I might have been aware of such things, I'm certain that love in no small part stems from the soundtrack work of Akira Ifukube. He lends depth and resonance to films that at times could be seen as silly.
I will admit to a degree of....hypocrisy? I love Ifukube's soundtracks, even though they largely sound alike. He has some range, but even he admitted that he did two things well: marches and requiems. We are all permitted our own personal taste, and Ifukube just appeals to me. I say hypocrisy because I don't like the soundtrack work of Danny Elfman. I mean, I really don't like it. And part of my complaint is that he has written the same score to films over and over. So how is that different from Ifukube? It's fair to say, it isn't, I just happen to like one and not the other.
In my defense, I went to see Hellboy II: The Golden Army in the theater. For a popcorn movie, I enjoyed the first Hellboy. It tied together some Lovecraftian themes and Rasputin, good casting and performances, and had a solid score thanks to Marco Beltrami. When I went to see the sequel, I could tell it wasn't the same composer despite the credits not appearing at the opening of the film. I wasn't digging it. I even thought at one point, "Oh, you better stop using those raised 4ths, or you're going to sound like Danny Elfman." Sure enough, I saw that Danny composed the music in the end credits. I felt vindicated that I didn't care for the music despite not knowing who had done it. I may not like his music, but I want to be fair too.
It's significant that this film and score ends with an elegy, a requiem, sung for the monster. That seems non-Western to me. The people gathered on the boat, when the oxygen destroyer obliterates Godzilla on the ocean floor, sing a song of mourning to the creature. And Ifukube delivers. The monster couldn't help what it was, it was only acting on its impulses in a world where it didn't belong.
That is, until the sequel happened.
On this election night, I'm hoping there isn't another sequel, though I won't be singing a requiem.
PS: Ifukube is responsible for the signature Godzilla roar. My understanding is that it's a glove covered in rosin, rubbed on the back of a bass, with the tape slowed down. Brilliant.
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