INDEX
Disconnecting the Audience from Mental Inertia. The Ideal Relationship between Visuals and Music
-What kind of film music has inspired you in the past?
Ishibashi: Most of the Fassbinder films I mentioned were composed by a composer named Peer Raben. He has composed a lot of music for these scenes. There are a lot of songs that make you think, “Why are they putting this kind of music on this scene?” [Laughs.] Like, a bad guy is lying down in his room, and there is a very dramatic music playing.
A booklet authored by Eiko Ishibashi, containing a piece discussing Peer Raben within “Ulrike Ottinger’s Berlin Trilogy.
– “Why this song here?” [laughs].
Ishibashi: Yes, [laughs]. But it pulls the viewer away from stopping to think and forces him or her to confront the film. It is a departure from the theory that “this kind of music should be used for this kind of scene,” which is a theory that both the viewer and the creator have. Of course, it is tiring to listen to such music all the time, but I think it is great to encounter such moments in a film. Of course, it’s exhausting to listen to all that music, but I think it’s great to see a film where you can encounter such moments.
-I think it’s a tension between the images and the music.
Ishibashi: I am attracted to the fact that the music does not follow the emotions of the characters, nor is it related to the behavior of the main character, but rather it flows independently from the film and makes you wonder “where is this music coming from?
In the first place, there is no music in the world of the film, so I think it is a very good way to make the music sound as if it exists in an unnatural way. To begin with, there is no music playing in the space where the man is sleeping [laughs]. So, music that makes you think, “What the heck? [laugh]. So I think it’s okay to have music sometimes that makes people think, “What the heck?”
-So you are saying that it is okay to have a moment when you are surprised by music.
Ishibashi: Jean-Luc Godard has also employed such use of music, and Ennio Morricone in Sergio Leone’s films is truly remarkable. ‘Once Upon a Time in the West,’ a Western film from 1968 (known in Japan by the title ‘Western’ in its shortened version), features a haunting melody with the harmonica that can evoke trauma just by hearing it. More recently, Todd Haynes’ ‘May December’ (scheduled for release in Japan in 2024) also featured a very intriguing use of music.
-There is a scene in ‘Evil Does Not Exist’ where you use a song that comes in through guttural noise.
Ishibashi: I was surprised and very happy because I did not expect you to use it like that. Hamaguchi edited the opening scene where the cymbals lead to the guitar and strings. The cymbals and guitar are one piece of music, but the strings are a separate piece. So Hamaguchi connected them in the editing stage.
-That’s amazing.
Ishibashi: When I saw the opening for the first time, I said to myself, “Yay! I was so happy [laughs]. Actually, I asked Jim O’Rourke to play the guitar based on his impression after listening to the string piece. I then added the cymbal sound to it and made it into one piece, and gave the data to Hamaguchi separately from the string piece. Then he was able to connect them in that way.
