Notes on the film music of Takemitsu Tōru

Abstract

Over a period of forty years, Takemitsu composed the music for over a hundred films, yet until now no full account of this major part of his creative output has appeared. The present article is an attempt at a beginning. Takemitsu's unusual degree of participation in the picture-making process is illustrated by reference to his collaboration with a number of famous directors, with particular emphasis on such qualities of his music as: its use of silence to slash monotony; its departures from realistic conventions of time and place; its care over the placement of discrete sounds; its masterly creation of atmosphere; and the wide range of styles it encompasses. A discussion of Takemitsu's musical aesthetics in general - in particular, his distrust of the concept of "building sounds" and his attraction to the approach to nature found in the music of Debussy and his own traditional culture - leads to an examination of the way in which these general qualities are specifically exemplified by the film score in which, for the author, the intentions of director and composer most successfully coincide: that for Yanagimachi Mitsuo's Fire Festival (1985).