Amazing that you got to see him perform a show like this, though point definitely taken about the earlier work. You can be told about Sakamoto's innovations in electronic music, but you would certainly not get any hint of that from a film like OPUS.
Amazing that you got to see him perform a show like this, though point definitely taken about the earlier work. You can be told about Sakamoto's innovations in electronic music, but you would certainly not get any hint of that from a film like OPUS.
Coming back to this thread having just seen Opus and it was tremendously moving. “The Last Emperor” was my favorite of the interpretations here, maybe because it’s also one of my favorite scores (and was my introduction to the guy, wound up with where I was in life at the time, which was actually a very good place but paired with a real sense of dislocation), just a lot of emotional complexity expressed by the song and a lot of very deep feelings brought up in me.
There is a connection of sorts to Tokyo Melody, though, kind of. His four-hands performance of “Tong Poo” with his then-wife in Tokyo Melody was an impromptu thing, just very effortless. Here the arrangement’s obviously simpler because it’s one person, but it’s something to see him struggle starting it out (on the heels of getting frustrated with the previous song, too). There’s a real sense of accomplishment in him picking his hands up and getting the song rolling, mixed with sadness that this was something he could just casually do before.
He ended the performance I saw with “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence,” too, but I remember the live performance being softer. There was a real sense of renewal or rebirth in the interpretation of “Mr. Lawrence,” which was a great note to (almost) finish on.
Amazing that you got to see him perform a show like this, though point definitely taken about the earlier work. You can be told about Sakamoto's innovations in electronic music, but you would certainly not get any hint of that from a film like OPUS.
Coming back to this thread having just seen Opus and it was tremendously moving. “The Last Emperor” was my favorite of the interpretations here, maybe because it’s also one of my favorite scores (and was my introduction to the guy, wound up with where I was in life at the time, which was actually a very good place but paired with a real sense of dislocation), just a lot of emotional complexity expressed by the song and a lot of very deep feelings brought up in me.
There is a connection of sorts to Tokyo Melody, though, kind of. His four-hands performance of “Tong Poo” with his then-wife in Tokyo Melody was an impromptu thing, just very effortless. Here the arrangement’s obviously simpler because it’s one person, but it’s something to see him struggle starting it out (on the heels of getting frustrated with the previous song, too). There’s a real sense of accomplishment in him picking his hands up and getting the song rolling, mixed with sadness that this was something he could just casually do before.
He ended the performance I saw with “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence,” too, but I remember the live performance being softer. There was a real sense of renewal or rebirth in the interpretation of “Mr. Lawrence,” which was a great note to (almost) finish on.