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span class="inline inline-left">Ryuichi Sakamoto: (JP/Cynthia Webb)Ryuichi Sakamoto, now aged 60, is still handsome, emanating dignity, with his longish grey hair occasionally falling over one eye.

The multi talented Japanese man was awarded the prestigious FIAPF Award for Outstanding Achievement in Film, for around 20 film scores in particular, and for his work as an actor, at the recent Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) in Brisbane, Australia. FIAPF is the International Federation of Film Producers Associations, made up of organizations from 27 countries.

During the APSA ceremony where he played two of his best known compositions, his hit theme from Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence and his theme from The Last Emperor.

Sakamoto began his career in cinema, both as an actor and a composer of film scores in Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, directed by the Japanese master, Nagisa Oshima.

He superbly played Captain Yonoi, a Japanese officer who is involved in a personal war of spiritual and ethical strength with an enigmatic prisoner, Celliers, played by David Bowie, who refuses to submit or to hate. Captain Yonoi nonetheless feels a strong fascination and great respect for the uncompromising prisoner. Takeshi “Beat” Kitano played Hara and Tom Conti played Mr. Lawrence in the movie.

The story is based on the book The Seed and the Sower by Sir Laurens van der Post, who died at the age of 90 in 1996. The book was inspired by his years as a prisoner of war of the Japanese in Indonesia, during World War II. Sakamoto’s musical theme became a worldwide hit.

In Brisbane, Sakamoto was reunited, after 30 years, with his former colleague, Australian actor Jack Thompson, who also had a role in Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence.

Before his association with cinema began, Sakamoto was a pioneer of electronic music. In his younger days he was a member of the Yellow Magic Orchestra and even after launching his solo career he reunited with them several times.

“Although I have lived in New York for 22 years, I am proud to be Asian, and Asia is becoming very important to the whole world, so it means a lot,” he said when asked what this FIAPF Award meant to him.

As for highlights in his career, he said there were many. First, he mentioned “working with a guy like Jack [Thompson]”, who was sitting beside him, beaming.

And he continued, “Working with Nagisa Oshima, the director of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, and receiving awards like the Oscar. Maybe I am just a lucky man.”

He has received an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA and a Grammy among others.

Other well known films which have been scored by Sakamoto include The Last Emperor (1987), The Sheltering Sky (1990) and Little Buddha (1993) — all directed by Bernardo Bertolucci; The Handmaid’s Tale (1990) by Volker Schlondorff; High Heels (1991) by Pedro Almodovar; Wuthering Heights (1992) by Peter Kominski; Snake Eyes (1998) by Brian De Palma; Silk (2007) by Francois Girard; and Hara-kiri: Death of a Samurai (2011) by Takashi Miike.

Actors and extras take part in a scene from Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor. The score for the Oscar-winning epic was composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto. (Bloomberg)
“In the process of scoring a film, I have to be very careful. I want to do the right thing. I let the images in the film itself tell me what I must do,” Sakamoto said

Sakamoto’s musical work is incredibly diverse. In between feature films, he works on compositions for television, documentaries, animated films, solo albums even video game soundtracks and on one occasion, ring-tones for a high-end cell phone model.

He also composed the music for the opening ceremony of the Barcelona Olympic Games in 1992.

Sakamoto has some radical views about intellectual copyright, which he thinks is out of date in this digital age. He is quoted as saying that: “In the last 100 years, only a few organizations have dominated the music world and ripped off both fans and creators. With the Internet we are going back to having a tribal attitude toward music.”

With this aim in mind, he and Max Matsuura have founded Commmons (with three “m”s) — a Japanese record label. The third “m” stands for music. Their slogan is “Think global, act local”.

Sakamoto talked about how shaken up he was by the tsunami that struck Japan in March 2011.

“It was the biggest shakeup we have had since the war, after which novels were written about it for 20 or 30 years. Since the tsunami there has not yet been enough time to process and express the trauma.”

 He is an anti-nuclear activist and expounds his manifesto on his website.

“Japan has been irradiated three times, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Fukushima. People and nukes cannot coexist be it
for weapons or electricity. The worst accident in history has awoken us from our deluded slumber.”

On sitesakamoto.com, he also shows his writing skills and poetic nature, his contemplation of the human condition.

During 2010-2011 he toured Europe, Canada, the USA and Japan, such is his current fame. This month he is touring Japan and Korea.

“I am 60 years old now and maybe I still have 10 or 20 years left, so I must put all my attention and passion into
writing my music.”