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merely follow the parallel lines of unfolding scenes. It is necessary at times that it forsake these conventional channels and assume an opposing mood, or else abandon the scenes to a state of pregnant silence.
Since, however, my experience as a musical composer in connection with motion picture work covers only about four completed pictures, I cannot say that my knowledge of the subject is any too profound. Nevertheless, I believe that this makes not the slight¬ est difference in so far as the applicability of the theory hereinbefore outlined is con¬ cerned. The truth is that the situation at the present time shows that neither the director nor the composer has yet perceived the essential character of collaboration as superior co-workers in the production of motion pictures. For this reason there are any number of instances of otherwise notable pictures having been deprived of their effectiveness through the abuse or mishandling of musical accompaniments. Similarly, there are not a few cases wherein the aims of the composer, who possesses a better understanding in this respect, have been wrecked.
I shall attempt to apply this truism to an actual case, in a work that I have recently participated. In the production of Dr. Fanck’s “The New Earth” I undertook to do my level best in realizing my own ideas with respect to motion picture music. But the pressure of time up to the hour of the film’s exhibition and a series of other circum¬ stances had the effect of defeating my original intentions, quite painfully in view of my previous anticipations. I was none the less able, however, to perfect them as much as possible within the narrow limits permitted under such difficulties. But my own belief is that the music of “The New Earth” can hardly be regarded as a success. Obviously, at the root of this defect lie the imperfections in the function of motion picture produc¬ tion in Japan and the lack of musical perception on the part of the film editor.
At first I made a detailed study of the text of the scenario and composed a separate musical continuity. Let me illustrate, for example, with a scene on the mountain summit. Mitsuko, the heroine of the story, is about to leap into the fiery crater when Teruo, panting heavily and dragging along his painfully wounded legs, approaches her. She sees
him and is amazed . up to this very moment the musical accompaniment should
be in tune with the rumble of the volcano in emphasizing the dramatic tenseness of the scene.
But she suddenly notices Teruo’s wounded legs, and this, indeed, is a moment wherein every vestige of Mitsuko’s feelings against Teruo, who is the cause of her determi¬ nation to seek death, is wiped off by an infinite compassion that wells up within her. Mitsuko’s decision of suicide has not been brought about through hatred of Teruo. Rather, it may be the very antithesis of this. Accordingly, her compassion for him is a feeling that has been thus far crushed within herself by the sheer force of her will power. Impelled rather by what one might describe as an instinct in her conscious and unconscious being,
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