Venice Film Festival 2023: the link between David Bowie & composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, ahead of 'Opus' premiere

The 80th Venice International Film Festival begins tomorrow, with a focus on new films from David Fincher, Sofia Coppola and Michael Mann throughout the duration of the festival. But given the “art-house” nature of Venice, there of course will be some more curious features for attendees to discover across its nearly two-week stint in the Italian city.

One of those films, premiering on September 5 2023, is a tribute to the life of Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, who died in March 2023; Directed by the late composer’s son Neo Sora, ‘Opus’ is a concert film of Sakamoto’s final performances from across his storied career at a studio in Tokyo’s NHK Broadcast Center.

The film includes performances of works by Yellow Magic Orchestra, score excerpts from films including Bernardo Bertolucci’s ‘The Last Emperor’ and music from his final album 12. In an interview he had with Deadline before his death from cancer, Sakamoto shared the reasons for the creation of ‘Opus’: “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.”

“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.”

Sakamoto’s manager and wife Norika Sora produced the film, while Albert Tholen, Aiko Masubuchi, Eric Nyari with Jeremy Thomas will executive produce.

What was the link between Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Bowie?

Among the soundtracks that Ryuichi Sakamoto composed was one for the film ‘Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence,’ which was released in 1983. That very film also happened to have a starring role for one Ziggy Stardust - with David Bowie portraying a New Zealand soldier, Jack "Strafer" Celliers, residing in the same POW camp as the film’s titular character, played by Tom Conti.

Sakamoto however wasn’t just the composer for the film, but also had an acting role in the Nagisa Ōshima feature, playing Captain Yonoi - a significant character within the movie at the heart of the final conflict between Bowie and Conti’s characters. Sakamoto indeed shared a number of scenes with Bowie throughout the film.

That would be the only collaboration between the two, and years later in an interview with The Guardian, Sakamoto revealed that not reconnecting with Bowie and working together was his "great regret"