Hayward/Terror Tracks, 4. Creative Soundtrack Expression: Tôru Takemitsu's Score for Kwaidan

Kwaidan [Japanese Ghost Stories], directed by Masaki Kobayashi in 1964, is regarded as a seminal film not only for its magnificent mise-en-scène but also for its experimental soundtrack, created by the Japanese composer, Tôru Takemitsu (1930-'96). The chapter, working with the notion that 'Japanese culture supports the animist notion of spiritual energy contained within the apparently 'inanimate'' (Brophy, 2005: 155), argues that Takemitsu has an animistic view of natural sounds when using the sounds of stone, ice or bamboo in Kwaidan. Takemitsu's mission in the film is to give a strong life to each natural and instrumental sound to the extent that it can confront ma. By bestowing equal value to each sound, regardless of its origin, his work in Kwaidan transcends conventional distinctions between underscore and sound effects. The uniqueness of Takemitsu's soundtrack to Kwaidan is three-fold. The first aspect is the effective use of musique concrète through modulating concrete sounds and juxtaposing them with