Ryuichi Sakamoto: CODA

An out-of-tune and worn-out piano that has survived a tsunami can acquire its very own personality and its entirely unique sound. This is just one of the discoveries in this inspiring and poetic music documentary about the Japanese master composer and multi-artist Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda is an inspiring and poetic music documentary about the Japanese composer and artist. Sakamoto's musical career spans four decades, and genres as diverse as synth-pop and music for symphonic orchestra, also including scores for films such as The Last Emperor (1987) and The Revenant (2015). His artistic expression has been constantly developing all these years, in keeping with his personal growth and his philosophy of sound and music.

Director Stephen Nomura Schible catches Sakamoto's singularity as an artist. Through archive footage, interviews and other sequences, the film itself lives up to Sakamoto's ideal of being present and absorbed into one's surroundings. In 2014, Sakamoto was diagnosed with throat cancer, and although the film addresses this, his illness never takes hold of the narrative. Rather, it deepens our realisation of how Sakamoto's vitality and strength find their way into his music.

Director

Stephen Nomura Schible (b. 1970) is a director and producer, born in Japan, and now based in New York. He studied film at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and has helped introduce several Japanese filmmakers to a Western audience. Schible has previously directed a video documentary about Eric Clapton, and co-produced Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation (2003).

This film is part of