Ryuichi Sakamoto Opus: an interview with director Neo Sora

Before dying, knowing that the end was near, Ryuichi Sakamoto planned one last performance. The film, which features a selection of his pop music work, film scores, and experimental and ambient compositions spanning his entire career, rearranges many songs for solo piano; a sample of the strength and mutability of Sakamoto’s work. In a press release, Sakamoto said that the track list was set much later than he normally planned. He explained, “The director, Neo Sora, was quite strict.”

It’s a bit of a joke. Neo Sora is Sakamoto’s 33-year-old son and the person the composer asked to film his final concert. Well, technically, it was Norika, Sakamoto’s long-time manager, who made the request. (Norika is also Sora’s mother.)

The timing was not the best. Sora was in the middle of pre-production on her own first feature film. But family came first. Sakamoto had been battling rectal cancer for several years and his health was declining.

“’Listen, if we miss this shooting window, I feel like we might not be able to do it again,’” Sora remembers his mother saying. “‘So, can you please do it?'”

He agreed, put his own film on hold, and, a few months later, began what would eventually become Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opusthe lasting impression of one of the world’s most influential and celebrated musicians.

A career-spanning concert film might be expected to resemble, say, Taylor Swift’s maximalist commercial spectacle, or take notes from the Talking Heads’ mischievous character. stop making sense, re-released in theaters by A24 late last year. But the inspirations for Opus They were more humble. Sora saw a performance by virtuoso pianist Glenn Gould and conductor Leonard Bernstein from the 1960s titled The creative interpreteras well as the dramatized Thirty-two short films about Glenn Gould. What he learned was that by simplifying the visual language of cinematography, the viewer would be forced to pay more attention to the music. With that, Sora began creating a storyboard and forced Sakamoto to commit to a more advanced track list than he would have liked.

Was it difficult working with your father? Sora described her relationship on set as professional: Sakamoto gave no notes on the making of the film and Sora did not intervene in the performance. “I think I would take him not telling me anything about the filming process as a representation of his trust,” she said.

Filmed in just over a week in September 2022, Opus It is a sober and intimate film. In black and white, the concert is just a man playing behind a grand piano. Off camera, however, there was a crew of more than thirty people, inside the famous studio 509 of the NHK Broadcasting Center in Tokyo, trying to be as quiet as possible.

The location, as with many decisions for the film, was Sakamoto’s choice. He believed the studio had “the best acoustics in Japan.” But he also presented specific challenges. The old wooden floors creaked, which meant the entire team, a mix of Japanese and English speakers, had to wear socks and no shoes. Because the studio was on a transmission tower, no radio wave-emitting equipment was allowed, which meant everything had to be physically connected. (“There had to be a lot of cable handlers,” and more people meant more people making noise.)

And then there were Sakamoto’s own physical limits. He could only do a handful of shots a day. Sora recalled, “There were certain songs that he couldn’t play as well anymore. His fingers just weren’t as dexterous and I think part of that was due to the side effects of the medication he was taking, which affected his extremities.” Sakamoto was putting Vaseline on his fingers to ease the pain.

In the same statement, written after filming, Sakamoto detailed how difficult acting was on his body. “Afterwards I felt completely empty and my condition worsened for about a month,” he wrote. “Still, I am relieved to have been able to record, before my death, a performance with which I was satisfied.” He died in March 2023.

I met Sora in New York before the film’s theatrical release and almost a year since Sakamoto’s passing. She was finishing his as-yet-untitled first feature film, which she had briefly put on hold to make. Opus. Sora told me that it’s about two friends who drift apart when one becomes politically aware and the other remains willfully ignorant. She’s been working on it for almost a decade and hopes to perform it at festivals this year.

“I did not want to Opus go out first, but you can’t help or control those things too much,” Sora said. “I always wanted people to know me just for something I do separately from my father.”

Despite being director of Opus, Sora is reluctant to claim authorship of it. “He was trying to be a conduit for whatever he wanted to do, and I think what he wanted to do was a concert,” Sora said.

While many of the choices (the concept, the location, the set pieces) may have been Sakamoto’s, it’s hard to ignore Sora’s subtle hand throughout. Opus. For what was always intended to be the final performance of an extraordinary artist, the film does not seem like a somber affair. Even when Sakamoto struggles to finish certain pieces, his fingers are no longer what they were before and energy drains from his ailing body, there is a feeling of triumph every time a song reaches its final note. The silence that follows conveys many things: the relief of execution, a hint of ecstasy.

That is, perhaps, the magic of what Neo Sora has done: a concert film that is just a performance, and also more than that.

Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus is in theaters now and will eventually air on the Criterion Channel.