: (Naoki Sato) Arguably the most
acclaimed Godzilla movie in a generation, Takashi Yamazaki's 2023 entry,
, marks the 37th film in the franchise but
takes a strikingly different view of the concept. Essentially a movie
about the personal and societal struggles of Japan after World War II,
contains a more compelling human story than
typically seen in these extravaganzas. It follows a kamikaze pilot who
does not complete his mission during the war, landing instead at a
Japanese base where he is suspected of cowardice but also witnesses the
initial emergence of Godzilla, which conveniently wipes out nearly
everyone there. This pilot joins other characters in postwar Japan who
are suffering from extreme survivor's guilt, but they must come to grips
with their common new enemy: the nuclear-generated prehistoric
dinosaur-like lizard that clearly doesn't care for human property. Most
important about
is its success on a shoestring
budget of less than $15 million, providing enough of the kaiju-oriented
destruction of cities and military assets to satiate expected demand for
such visuals but still concentrating on the human elements without
seeming annoyingly cheap. One area of particular intrigue for the film
is its soundtrack, Yamazaki left with a dilemma of honoring the music of
the franchise's past while also taking the new, original score in a
direction better suited for the emphasized emotional turmoil of this
story. Addressing that conundrum is his longstanding collaborator, Naoki
Sato, who stands atop Japanese cinema as its foremost composer during
the past two decades and for whom a Yamazaki film,
, represents the pinnacle to this point in his career.
Ironically, Sato would look for inspiration from another Japanese
composing icon, Joe Hisaishi, for the deep interpersonal aspects of
The basic ingredients of a typical Sato epic score are all
present here, though, sans the electronics and high-range soloists
(notably whistles) that often punctuate his best work. The soundscape
instead emphasizes the bass region, as expected, resonance befitting the
monster supplied especially in the dissonant horror cues. In this case,
the historical setting confines Sato to a more conventional orchestral
and choral ensemble, though modern techniques do indeed bleed into the
soundscape. One notable characteristic of Sato's style for these types
of scores is the resoundingly wet mix of his orchestral recordings, and
that aspect remains intact in
Godzilla Minus One, once again
accentuating the larger-than-life feeling of his contribution. Rather
than apply that sound to crisp and dynamic melodic lines, however, Sato
has chosen to adapt the immensity of his grandest tones to serve the
purpose of cacophony more often than not. The exploration of ambient
tonalities is so pronounced that Sato uses his cues to rotate between
various emotional bludgeons without much regard for specific
synchronization points. Individual moments in these suite-like
recordings capture the essence of suffering extremely well, but they
generally yield an undoubtedly dismal mood overall. The composer
highlights the concept of agony beyond almost all else, with almost no
excitement built in to his original material. His tone is overwrought to
a fault, forcing so much torment, anguish, grief, and misery into most
of his cues that the effect of the music is more numbing than purely
respectful. The long "Pain" cue is itself a perfect encapsulation of
sonic pain via dissonant pulses, and even a cue like "Pride" spends most
of its time detached from any positive emotional response. There are
personal moments when this strategy hints at a payoff, as in the
underplayed "Hope" and conclusive "Pray." But these passages maintain
the struggle of the other cues in their underlying dissonant haze,
suggesting that Japan's battle against its legacy and the monster are
endless.
The biggest head-scratcher involving the spotting
decisions regarding music in
Godzilla Minus One, however, related
to the infusion of chopped up pieces of Akira Ifukube's classic
franchise scores into the scenes of military conflict with Godzilla and
the beast's obligatory stomping of cities and almost perverse
concentration on the disruption of train schedules. The resulting
references to Ifukube scores from the 1950's and 1960's, ranging from
Godzilla to
King Kong vs. Godzilla and
Mothra vs.
Godzilla, don't fit at all amongst Sato's new material. This
re-recorded music is well executed but too faithful, not adapted for the
moment as in Bear McCreary's monumentally profound
Godzilla: King of
the Monsters. It doesn't help that these two, disparate halves of
the score are butchered in the film's mix, shifting back and forth
between these styles haphazardly within the same scenes. Ultimately, the
awkwardly merged soundtrack for
Godzilla Minus One is absolutely
schizophrenic in musical style, sacrificing most narrative development
in the process. The climax in "Last" offers some satisfying sense of
resolution, but only partially. Sato especially struggles to find
footing with his new themes for the concept. It's not unusual for him to
write in a stream-of-consciousness methodology, allowing the underlying
emotional tone and style of his music to carry an identity rather than
outright motific repetition and development. This technique really
diminishes
Godzilla Minus One, though, for his thematic sets for
the human characters and the monster never consolidate as necessary to
form memorable melodic appeal. For the humans, he often relies upon
descending figures of anguish, the foremost example building at 1:31
into "Elegy" on tortured strings over chimes. This material doesn't
transition well to a low brass bassline in "Mission" and shifts to
another rhythmic figure under the primary chords late in "Honor."
Elongated during "Pride," this material persists at 1:19 into "Last" and
is transformed into a different religious identity by "Pray." Voices are
applied very well in this cue, both in solo and ensemble ranks, to
denote religious size.
The nasty lizard, on the other hand, often receives
stereotypical bass blasts on low brass and a rising bass pitch of
immense power. It's previewed with a foghorn effect in the latter half
of "Fear" and debuts in "Portent" before vaguely informing the
dissonance of "Confusion." The Godzilla material inverts into a more
melodic, sinking identity in "Divine," battles the character theme in
higher string ranges and choir in "Resolution," explodes from low brass
in "Unscathed" with banging chimes overemphasized, and unleashes its
final blasts in the middle of "Last." There is surprisingly little
propulsion outside of the latter half of "Mission" and "Resolution" in
this music, an insufficient quantity to keep the music's narrative
moving. Sato also adopts the Hans Zimmer crescendo method of crafting
long suites of emotions rather than specific cues for a scene, which
doesn't help. Most obnoxious is digital manipulation of the orchestral
recordings, especially in "Resolution." The three Ifukube suites are so
strikingly different from all of the original Sato music of excessive
agony that the combined score for
Godzilla Minus One causes
stylistic whiplash, a fatal flaw that makes the original 56-minute album
presentation just as awkward as the score in the film itself. A year
after that initial album, a 79-minute expansion from Milan Records
(digitally) and Rambling Records (a 2-CD set from Japan) added another
ten tracks to a "Deluxe Edition" album. Almost all of the newly released
material is highly redundant with tracks from the prior product, all of
which included as well. The duo of "Pain II" and "Live" contains
continued atmospheric haze while "Scar," "Incident," and "Fear II" are
embroiled with Sato's outright atmospheric horror mode. More palatable
is the crescendo of muscular brass in "Honor II" and the additional
stomping melodrama with choir and chimes over the ensemble in "Divine
II." Curious are the soft acoustic guitar pleasantries of "Days" and the
extensive silence that exists in the mild drama of "Guilt." Finally,
"Resolution (Reprise)" is a completely redundant track. On the whole,
the expansion is definitely not worth significant pursuit, confirming
just how redundant Sato's score can be. Despite all the incredible
potential of having the composer score a massive entry in this
franchise, the end result is a strategic misfire of epic proportions.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
