Hacker Chronicles 2/HACKER2.BIN/443.SF018088.TXT

Text File | 1993-02-23 | 18KB | 393 lines

SF-LOVERS Digest            Tuesday, 9 Feb 1993        Volume 18 : Issue 88

Today's Topics:

                        Films - Conquest of Space &
                                Japanese Monster Movies (3 msgs)

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Date: 14 Jan 93 00:51:09 GMT
From: phred![e-mail] (Jim Nevermann)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Is there...

...a video of the movie "Conquest of Space"? It came out about 1955 or so.
It was loosely adapted from the then popular book "The Conquest of Mars" by
Dr. Werner Von Braun (sp?) and beautifully illustrated by space artist
Chesley Bonstell. Both featured a mission to Mars via a rather elegant
looking ship with jettisonable tanks (to get them out of Earth orbit from a
wheeled space station) and long overlarge swept wings for gliding through
the thin Martian atmosphere. As I remember (I was only about six whe n I
saw it), the plot was "neat" except for a very phony part where the ship
was chased in the vacuum of space by a huge FLAMING meteor! No, no, NO!

By chance I caught just the final 20 minutes of the movie on TV two years
ago, and it still looked fairly good. Is there a video of it out there?

Thanks.

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Date: 29 Dec 92 10:41:14 GMT
From: [e-mail] (David Milner)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: AKIRA IFUKUBE INTERVIEW

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
inet:   [e-mail]
usenet: ...rutgers!columbia!blackbox!dave
        ...rutgers!columbia!blackbox.cc.columbia.edu!dave

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Date: 13 Jan 93 18:41:07 GMT
From: [e-mail] (David Milner)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS SUBTITLED

                                  GOJIRA
                                  (1954)

An English subtitled edition of the original Japanese version of GODZILLA,
KING OF THE MONSTERS! is now available on VHS tape from Zontarian
International Pictures. The price, including postage and handling, is $32,
and the video can be ordered from Jan Arthur Johnson, 29 Darling St. #2,
Boston, Mass. 02120.

The Japanese version of the film is a darker, and more complex, rendering
than the one distributed in the United States. It also is seventeen minutes
longer, despite the fact that it does not include the additional footage
featuring Raymond Burr shot specifically for the American release.

Is the Japanese version better than the American one? While The New York
Times called GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS! "an incredibly awful film"
when it was released in the United States in 1956, Japanese film critics
have named GOJIRA (1954) as being the second best movie ever produced in
Japan. Only Akira Kurosawa's THE SEVEN SAMURAI was rated higher.

The picture quality of the Zontarian International video, although good,
does leave a little to be desired.

The translation, done by Horacio Higuchi, a contributor to MONSTER!
INTERNATIONAL, a fanzine devoted solely to foreign monster films, is
generally superb. The common mistake of transliterating director Ishiro
Honda's first name as Inoshiro was, however, again made.

Jan Arthur Johnson did the subtitling, which includes not only a full cast
and credits list, but also even newspaper headlines and ship names.

   (I am in no way associated with Jan Arthur Johnson
      or Zontarian International Pictures.)

David Milner
Columbia University
inet:   [e-mail]
usenet: ...rutgers!columbia!blackbox!dave
        ...rutgers!columbia!blackbox.cc.columbia.edu!dave

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Date: 13 Jan 93 18:44:23 GMT
From: [e-mail] (David Milner)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: GODZILLA VS. BIOLLANTE review

                          GODZILLA VS. BIOLLANTE

The original Japanese version of GODZILLA VS. BIOLLANTE, released in
December, 1989, could have been one of the best of the Godzilla films. The
story is decent, the tone of the film is serious, and the special effects
are much improved over those seen in all of the previous Godzilla films.
Unfortunately, the film's many shortcomings, including a score which is
almost comical in spots, uneven pacing, a few bad acting performances, some
abrupt editing, and the inexplicable inclusion in the cast of characters of
a psychic girl who can somehow sense when Godzilla is going to appear,
prevent it from living up to its potential.

The HBO Video version of the film, released last December 9th at a list
price of $69.95, is even more flawed. The dubbing is not good, although
worse jobs have been done on a few of the other Godzilla films, and for
some strange reason, the video is in mono, despite the fact that the
original Japanese version is in stereo. The main title looks cheaply done,
and the pronunciation chosen for Biollante, 'buy-oh-lan-tea,' is grating.
The original pronunciation, 'be-oh-lon-tay,' would have been a much better
choice. About the only desirable features of the HBO release are its
letterbox format, and its complete cast and credits list.

If GODZILLA VS. BIOLLANTE had simply been slightly edited, something which
generally is a mistake, but which in this case would have been a good idea,
the HBO Video release could actually have been significantly better than
the original. Replacing some of the music also would have helped.

These changes would not have cost much to make, but while watching the
video, you get the impression that when it was decided to release GODZILLA
VS. BIOLLANTE directly to home video, instead of distributing it first in
theatres, it also was decided that the amount of money spent on bringing
the film to the United States should be kept to a minimum. If this really
is true, then HBO, frankly, did itself a great disservice. The home video
edition of GODZILLA 1985, a film which, granted, is better than GODZILLA
VS. BIOLLANTE, sold over one million copies in the United States at a list
price of $89.95. GODZILLA VS. BIOLLANTE never will sell that many copies in
this country, even if it is reissued at a lower, "sell-through," price.

David Milner
Columbia University
inet:   [e-mail]
usenet: ...rutgers!columbia!blackbox!dave
        ...rutgers!columbia!blackbox.cc.columbia.edu!dave

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End of SF-LOVERS Digest
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