EXCLUSIVE: Legendary Oscar-winning Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto died in March at the age of 71 after a seven-year battle with cancer.
In the years leading up to his death, Sakamoto could no longer perform live but in the final months of his life he mustered his strength to deliver one final performance for the concert film Opus.
The film, which will world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 5, features Sakamoto and his piano alone on a stage, performing twenty of his compositions.
Deadline can reveal a first teaser for the film in which Sakamoto gives a moving performance of his music for Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1990 romantic drama The Sheltering Sky.
The selection spans the groundbreaking composer and musician’s entire career, from his popstar Yellow Magic Orchestra period; to his film scores forThe Last Emperor and Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence and the music of his meditative final album, 12
The production has released a posthumous statement from Sakamoto about the work.
“The project was conceived as a way to record my performances – while I was still able to perform – in a way that is worth preserving for the future. We borrowed the NHK Broadcast Center’s 509 Studio to record in, which is a place that I think offers the finest acoustics in Japan,” he explains.
Sakamoto said his filmmaker son Neo Sora who directed the film insisted he choose the pieces he wanted to include well in advance to give time for the preparation of the shoot.
“I played every piece at home which we recorded on an iPhone to construct the overall composition of the concert that will express the progression of time from morning into night. Everything was meticulously storyboarded so that the camera positions and the lighting changed significantly with each song,” he explains in the statement.
The production featured a crew of nearly 30 people headed by U.S. cinematographer Bill Kirstein, who shot the film using three 4K cameras.
“I went into the shoot a little nervous, thinking this might be my last chance to share my performance with everyone in this way. We recorded a few songs a day with a lot of care,” says Sakamoto.
The film features a number of works that Sakamoto had not previously played as solo piano performances, including The Wuthering Heights (1992) and Ichimei – Small Happiness (2011), as well as a new arrangement for the 1978 Yellow Magic Orchestra track Tong Poo.
“In some sense, while thinking of this as my last opportunity to perform, I also felt that I was able to break new grounds. Simply playing a few songs a day with a lot of concentration was all I could muster at this point in my life. Perhaps due to the exertion, I felt utterly hollow afterwards, and my condition worsened for about a month. Even so, I feel relieved that I was able to record before my death – a performance that I was satisfied with,” he concludes in the statement. a
Opus was produced by Sakamoto’s manager and wife Norika Sora alongside Albert Tholen, Aiko Masubuchi, Eric Nyari with Jeremy Thomas taking an executive producer credit.
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