The Power of Music Recognized by the World's Film Festivals
Toru Takemitsu's talent was widely recognized and valued abroad as well as in Japan. From the 1960s, his name was heard increasingly at Western film festivals, and works featuring his music, including Woman in the Dunes and Kwaidan, received successive awards and nominations at Cannes. In particular, when Woman in the Dunes won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes in 1964 and director Hiroshi Teshigahara received an Academy Award nomination for directing, overseas press also described Takemitsu's music as indispensable to the film's success.
From the 1970s onward, Takemitsu himself was frequently invited abroad to give lectures and workshops on film music. A decisive event in raising his international reputation was Igor Stravinsky's enthusiastic praise for his Requiem. This also benefited his reputation as a film composer, with Western film professionals taking interest in his recognition by Stravinsky.
This international recognition also led to offers from Hollywood. Takemitsu did in fact contribute some music to Rising Sun (1993), one of the early examples of a Japanese composer participating in a major American film. Although only a portion of his music remained in the released version, it is recorded as a symbolic event in the international recognition of Japanese film composers.
An Innovative Place in Film Music History
In film music history, Toru Takemitsu is often described as the most successful Japanese composer of the 20th century. Few Japanese composers have participated in so many celebrated films while also working internationally in concert music, making his achievements particularly notable. His music is often discussed as inseparable from the evaluation of the films themselves: the artistry of Woman in the Dunes and Kwaidan and the power of Ran cannot be discussed without his contribution.
Film critics also highly regard him as a composer who created music inseparable from a film's content, and Western specialist publications have referred to a Takemitsu effect in Japanese cinema. His arrival brought major changes to Japanese film music. While inheriting the lineage of composers such as Fumio Hayasaka, Akira Ifukube, and Yasushi Akutagawa from the prewar and immediate postwar years, he pushed avant-garde approaches further, introducing the essence of contemporary music to Japanese film.
As a result, experimental uses of sound influenced by Takemitsu increased from the 1960s onward, and film music came to be recognized as more than background accompaniment: it could shape a work's artistry. His presence particularly stimulated Japanese New Wave filmmakers, and Hiroshi Teshigahara, Masahiro Shinoda, and Nagisa Oshima actively collaborated with him to open new realms of image and sound. Equal collaboration between director and composer was an ideal model built by Takemitsu and those directors and became a reference point for later filmmaking.
Numerous Awards and Honors
Takemitsu received numerous awards and honors during his lifetime. In film music, he won the Japan Academy Film Prize for Best Music four times in total and received the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) award for music for Ran in 1987. These helped raise the international standing of Japanese film music. In 1996, the Japanese government also named him a Person of Cultural Merit, an exceptional honor for an artist in film music.
Ran's score in particular received worldwide praise as a landmark in film music history. In response to Akira Kurosawa's request for something Mahler-like, Takemitsu's music has been described as both Mahler and not Mahler. Its vast sonic space and solemn tragedy are Mahlerian, but its harmonies and development retain Takemitsu's individual modernity, creating music thoroughly integrated with the images.
His talent was also highly regarded in Europe, and records show that Swiss director Daniel Schmid was developing an opera film with him. Although it was never realized, the episode illustrates how his musical vision attracted filmmakers across borders. Overall, Takemitsu was a leading figure in raising the standing of Japanese film music, and his work continues to be discussed in both film and music history.
A Cultural Legacy for Later Generations
Several examples exist of Takemitsu's film music being reused or remade in other works. A well-known case is his reuse of his own Requiem in Shohei Imamura's Black Rain, but his existing compositions were also quoted in later films. For example, Koji Wakamatsu's United Red Army (2007) uses a Takemitsu string work in its climax to heighten the tragedy.
In terms of remakes, the musical legacy of Japanese films he scored sometimes becomes a topic when they are remade. Masaki Kobayashi's Harakiri was remade by Takashi Miike in 2011, prompting comparisons with Takemitsu's original music. The avant-garde original score was praised for heightening tension, and the new music, composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto, also takes an approach honoring Takemitsu's version.
Masahiro Shinoda's Silence was adapted again by Martin Scorsese in 2016, drawing attention to how Takemitsu's expression of sonic silence in the original might be carried forward. Although Scorsese's version used new composers, some have noted a sense of homage to the original in its use of quiet.
Toru Takemitsu died in 1996 at age 65. After his death, the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award was established and continues to recognize young composers from Japan and abroad. Reassessment has progressed in recent years, with Western specialist publications increasingly featuring him as one of the great film composers of the late 20th century. Tribute concerts and soundtrack reissues have continued after his death, and the sounds he left behind keep influencing new generations of creators. Working across the boundary between film and music, his contribution to cinematic art in Japan and around the world will continue to be remembered without fading.
