by Josef Steiff
18
The Devil Within Sara Livingston
Future Perfect
19
Cyborg Songs for an Existential Crisis
SARAH PENICKA-SMITH
Every living holon has the dual tendency to preserve and assert its individuality, such as it is, but at the same time to function as an integrated part of an existing whole, or an evolving whole.
—ARTHUR KOESTLER, The Ghost in the Machine
In his 1967 book, The Ghost in the Machine, Arthur Koestler was concerned chiefly with the machinations of the human body and mind. Twenty-four years later, Masamune Shirow realized Koestler’s title quite literally when he authored the cult manga, Ghost in the Shell. Shirow’s manga deals with cyborgs, the ideal vehicle for exploring the ethical and philosophical ramifications of humanity and technology merged. The manga’s popularity spawned two films which attracted a cult following in their own right, and which explore closely the nature of humanity and our perceived necessity for human identity.
Ghost in the Shell (1995) and Innocence: Ghost in the Shell II (2004) shared both their director, Mamoru Oshii (born in 1951), and their composer, Kenji Kawai (born in 1957). Oshii and Kawai’s collaboration proved to be very fruitful; Kawai’s unusual soundtrack for Ghost in the Shell received wide acclaim. Yet Kawai succeeds not only in the quality of his music, but in the intimate structural significance with which he imbued his soundtrack.
While Ghost in the Shell is a film into which a viewer can read many messages, Kawai’s music provides the key. Through brilliant development of his eerie theme, Kawai reveals Oshii’s deep fascination with his protagonist Major Motoko Kusanagi’s quest for self-knowledge. The soundtrack for Innocence, while more complex, also plays a similar role, perfectly complementing Oshii’s desire to unpack what makes us human.
What Is a Human, Anyway?
Ghost in the Shell deals with the nature of humanity and human identity. At first, the Major struggles to determine whether she qualifies as human in a world still populated by the cybernetically unenhanced, a faction to which she once belonged:MAJOR: Well, I guess cyborgs like myself have a tendency to be paranoid about our origins. ’Cause I suspect I’m not who I think I am, like maybe I died a long time ago and somebody took my brain and stuck it in this body. Or there never was a real me in the first place and I’m completely synthetic. . . .
BATOU: You’ve got real brain cells in that titanium shell of yours, and you’re treated like a human, so stop with the angst.
MAJOR: But that’s just it, that’s the only thing that makes me feel human—the way I’m treated.
The Major objects to feeling that the behavior of others is the only thing which determines her identity. Yet sociologists often claim that how we interact with our environment is all that makes any of us human. According to sociologist Brenda Brasher, “becoming human is a social endeavor. People determine who they are through interaction with the environments they encounter and, in turn, shape by their actions and inactions with and toward them.”
This is how Anne Kull and other scholars of cyborg ontology suggest living in a world of cyborgs will feel: “What will count as human is not given by definition; it is not neutrally available. It emerges only from relations, by engagement in situated, worldly encounters, where boundaries take shape and categories settle into place.” Oshii illustrates this world in all its complexity by giving us a heroine who questions her own identity without the comfortable guarantee most of us believe we have: the guarantee that whatever the results of our questioning, we are at core human, in a world that accepts us as such.
It’s not like that for the Major, whose brain and single section of spinal cord are her only remaining human parts. Her sense of identity receives a further shake up when she encounters the Puppet Master, a top-secret project which has developed self-awareness. The Puppet Master’s existence leads the Major to question her own identity: with her cybernetic enhancements, at what point will she cease to be human? Has she already reached that point? As the film progresses, the Major ceases to question what makes her human, and questions instead the relevance of her perceived humanity.
The Puppet Master’s emergence echoes Koestler’s view of consciousness as something which itself emerges and evolves, rather than simply existing:Consciousness . . . is an emergent quality, which evolves into more complex and structured states in phylogeny, as the ultimate manifestation of the Integrative Tendency towards the creation of order out of disorder, of ‘information’ out of ‘noise’. (The Ghost in the Machine)
When the Major integrates with the Puppet Master, they both evolve in exactly this way, their combined consciousnesses creating something more complex. The ‘noise’ of the Major’s internal struggle with her identity is replaced by her increased awareness of the infinite realm of possibilities open to her now that she has ceased to limit herself. Ultimately, the Major transcends her human status, a process which the Puppet Master initiates when it says, “Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you.” This harks back to Koestler’s discussion of Eastern mysticism and self-transcendence:The transient individual self is thought to enter into a kind of spiritual osmosis with the Atman, the universal spirit—and to merge into it. Other mystic schools attempt to reach the same end by different routes; but all seem to agree that the conquest of the self is a means towards transcending it.
In Ghost in the Shell, Oshii aligns the struggle to maintain a sense of self with humanness. He then proposes an alternative to that struggle, one that allows for independence while celebrating the value of an individual’s role within a functional, changing whole. The Major goes from being the kind of cyborg who values independent human identity to one which, in Anne Kull’s words, “signals the end of a conception of the human as an autonomous individual possessing a ‘self’” (“Speaking Cyborg: Technoculture and Technonature”).
A Musical Interlude
Kenji Kawai’s haunting score for Ghost in the Shell frames and describes the Major’s spiritual struggle. Without the subtle clues Kawai provides in his soundtrack, Oshii’s celebration of consciousness as an emergent quality would not be as clear. Most of the tracks are unobtrusive background music consisting of sparse percussion and an occasional passage of synthesizer. There are three tracks, however, which mark the film’s structure. They are immediately recognizable, because Kawai uses influences and techniques from Bulgarian and Japanese folk song to create a theme which is the focus of all three tracks. The singing is identical in each of these three marker tracks, but the accompaniment changes. Each setting of the theme is more complex, has more emotional pull, asking us to relish the Major’s progress towards transcending humanity and embracing integration.
At its core, the Ghost in the Shell musical theme (henceforth the ‘Ghost’ theme) is a simple, harmonized vocal melody over sparse percussion. The theme follows the same structure each time it appears in the film: the melody is sung once, followed by a percussion bridge, and then the melody repeats, usually with some more elaborate form of accompaniment underneath. Three Japanese women sing the melody and its accompanying harmonies; all three women use an identical vocal quality and change notes and words with such amazing synchronicity that they give the eerie impression they are one voice. The percussion is provided by a single djembe, or African talking drum, with the occasional interruption of bells. These bells also herald the start of each vocal line. The unusual vocal quality, quite foreign in tone to the Western ear, is due to the three singers belonging to a Japanese minyo, or folk song, choir. The percussion accompaniment to the vocal lines is consistent with minyo performance, where, according to Felicia G. Bock, the only traditional accompaniment is some kind of body percussion, drum, or a ringing bell (“Elements in the Development of Japanese Folk Song”).
The soundtrack’s liner notes tell us that the theme is a Japanese wedding song for purging evil influences before marriage. The lyrics use an ancient form of Japanese, which is translated as follows
on Kenji Kawai’s official website:Because I had danced, the beautiful lady was enchanted,
Because I had danced, the shining moon echoed,
Proposing marriage, the god shall descend,
The night clears away and the chimera bird will sing,
The distant god may give us the precious blessing.
The final line is not sung in the first two instantiations of the theme, only appearing at the very end of the film. Despite a lack of available information on why Kawai chose these lyrics, a preparatory song to a wedding is a good match for the union of ghosts which the film’s ending brings. As the Puppet Master proposes the Major merge with him, it’s possible to see in him the god “proposing marriage,” although without further information from the composer this analysis is mere speculation.
Building a Cyborg Kenji Kawai-style
The Ghost theme first occurs over the opening credits, which depict the Major being made—she’s set apart from the film’s beginning as being not quite human, but manufactured. The only addition to the vocals and percussion described above is a synthesizer, which provides a simple and slow moving bass line beginning in the bridge. The music matches the graphics of the opening credits: we see the Major in all her component parts, she is gradually assembled, her skin added, and her hair and body dried of its amniotic fluid. Against this, the music is simple, sparse; like the Major in her base components, this is the barest instantiation of the theme which we’ll hear. Kawai is setting the scene for Oshii, showing us a body with no hint of identity, no flash of spirit.
From this sonic simplicity and visual emphasis on the Major’s mechanical structure, the second instantiation of the Ghost theme marks a significant change. It occurs halfway through the film in a visually lush sequence devoid of dialogue. The Major’s pursuit of the Puppet Master is causing her to question the nature of her own identity. In the scene preceding the Ghost theme’s return, the Major has been diving, a somewhat hazardous pastime for a woman whose body could sink like a stone, as Batou points out. The Major is more philosophical:lf a technological feat is possible, man will do it. Almost as though it’s wired into the core of our being. Metabolic control. Enhanced sensory perception. lmproved reflexes and muscle capacity. Vastly increased data processing speed and capacity. All improvements thanks to our cyber-brains and cyborg bodies. So what if we can’t live without high-level maintenance? We have nothing to complain about. It doesn’t mean we’ve sold our souls to Section 9. We do have the right to resign if we choose. Provided we give the government back our cyborg shells and the memories they hold. Just as there are many parts needed to make a human a human, there’s a remarkable number of things needed to make an individual what they are. A face to distinguish yourself from others. A voice you aren’t aware of yourself. The hand you see when you awaken. The memories of childhood, the feelings for the future. That’s not all. There’s the expanse of the data net my cyber-brain can access. All of that goes into making me what l am. Giving rise to a consciousness that l call ‘me’. And simultaneously confining ‘me’ within set limits.
At this point, the Puppet Master speaks for the first time, an echo in the brains of both agents. It paraphrases the famous Biblical verse 1 Corinthians 13:12, saying, “What we see now is like a dim image in a mirror. Then we shall see face to face.” Or, as the King James version of the Bible famously put it, “For now we see through a glass, darkly: but then face to face.”
After this, the Major wanders the city. As she does so, she sees copies of her body, as a dummy in a shop window, or a business-woman eating lunch. A new setting of the theme kicks in as this unusual sequence unfolds. Kawai christened it “Ghost City,” a play on both the city’s dreamy, detached aura, and also its role as home to myriad ghosts in a range of bodies, some identical in form but presumably diverse in spirit.
At first Kawai presents the theme in the same way as in the opening sequence—identical vocals and slightly busier percussion—and again, it’s at the bridge that the accompaniment changes. The synthesizer enters, but this time with a melody borrowed and developed from the preceding scene. Kawai also adds slightly thicker harmonies beneath the vocal lines. The accompaniment is more prominent, the harmonic language is richer and more immediately sentimental. By adding more layers of sound, Kawai increases the music’s complexity and emotiveness. All this reflects the Major’s position as more than a hollow cyborg shell, but as a person whose own struggles are growing increasingly complex. Kawai’s music signifies the Major’s move away from seeing embodiment as a given part of the human condition into a world where, in Brasher’s words, “universal embodiment is not the defining situation . . . [but a] pre-eminent moral question.” The music and visuals combined remove us from the film’s narrative thrust, instead giving insight into the Major’s internal world in an intensely personal way. Each time we hear it, the Ghost theme signifies a new point in the Major’s understanding of what it is to be human, and what it might mean to leave that concept behind.
Kawai’s third and final version of the Ghost theme best illuminates this progression. Designed as music for the film’s closing credits, it is the theme’s most complex instantiation. Kawai called this track “Reincarnation” because of the Major’s rebirth as part of the new consciousness that has evolved through her merge with the Puppet Master. The music reflects the Major’s evolution into a more complex being by itself increasing in complexity. This time both drums and bells herald the theme’s arrival. The percussion locks into an easy rhythm before the theme begins, providing an almost dance-like feel to the originally sparse music. The synthesizer creeps in as the first repetition of the theme ends, paving the way for a soaring string section in Tokyo pop style to weave a nostalgic spell over the bridge, which Kawai also expands in length. When the vocal line re-enters, the accompaniment remains thick and rich, with full strings, synthesizer and piano over more elaborate percussion.
The strings join the voices as they soar upward for the final time, preparing us for the climax, both of the final theme and of the entire soundtrack. A solo vocalist breaks away from the group to sing the final line of the lyrics, “the distant god may give us the precious blessing.” This is the only time we hear these words and the music that goes with them; the Major’s willingness to accept her status as something beyond human has completed her. More crucially, Kawai’s use of the solo voice points to the quotation from Koestler which starts this chapter: that holons17 preserve individuality while functioning as part of an evolving whole. The soaring strings suggest the Major maintains her emotional capacity—feelings of sentiment, nostalgia, desire—even after she has merged and evolved, and left her tangible humanity behind her. Through Kawai’s music, Oshii tells us that the Major is completed, diversified, emotionally enriched by embracing her part in the whole, while still remaining an individual.
But wait, I hear you say—the music over the closing credits isn’t Kawai’s, it’s by U2 and Brian Eno! And sadly, you would be right. The third version of Kawai’s theme never made it onto Ghost in the Shell’s US release. Instead, Manga Entertainment dubbed “One Minute Warning,” a rowdy rock song by U2 and Brian Eno, over the closing credits. While I can only suggest that this was a marketing ploy on the part of Ghost in the Shell’s financers, it does nothing to enhance the film’s aesthetic value. Despite the magnificent job Kawai did of uniting his theme with the Major’s transformation, Western audiences have been left without ever hearing the theme’s final line—we are denied musical completion. As we shall see shortly, Kawai was evidently determined that this would not happen again in the film’s sequel.
Dolls with Ghosts and What’s Really Going on in Innocence
Innocence, which took nine years to follow Ghost in the Shell, is set three years after it in 2032. Batou is the new protagonist. Section 9 assigns him a case in which gynoids—sex cyborgs—have been killing their masters, an action which they are, for obvious reasons, supposed to have been programmed against. Batou determines that th
e dolls have been ghost-dubbed: souls have been removed from young girls and transferred to the dolls, a highly illegal action. In his battle to suspend the manufacturer’s operations, Batou encounters the Major once more, when she downloads part of her consciousness into one of the dolls to help him shut down the operation.
This shifts the focus of Innocence from humans becoming machines to machines becoming human. In this, Oshii subverts Koestler, Shirow’s primary influence. Koestler believed “machines cannot become like men, but men can become like machines.” Yet in Innocence, machines do become like women. While Koestler may not have agreed with this concept, scholars pursuing the ontological crisis which cyborgs create often argue that machine to man is just as viable a transition as man to machine. Kull’s discussion of Bruce Mazlish’s approach to the coevolution of humans and machines is a good example of this; Donna Haraway’s “second leaky distinction” (between animal-human and machine), from her famous “A Manifesto for Cyborgs,” is even better. For Haraway, the cyborg symbolized a breaching of distinct boundaries in favor of integrated systems. Boundaries which cyborgs confuse include those between human and animal, organism and machine, the physical and the non-physical.
