2023017
Maybe 20 times, but these seem infinite
Ryuichi Sakamoto passed away.
He created so much goodness and comforted so many lonely souls. It's a pity that we have one less admirable creator, a pure person. Here is a previous article in honor of Ryuichi Sakamoto:
Ryuichi Sakamoto, like a man who will not be carried away by time, has proved his talent again and again with the experience of time.
If it were not deliberately calculated, it would be hard to imagine that this once white-haired teenager was 71 years old.
But just a few years ago, Sakamoto went through a life-or-death ordeal — a sudden detection of throat cancer that interrupted all his work. This powerful life experience not only changed his lifestyle, but also sublimated his understanding of music and life.
During his illness, Sakamoto's saliva production was only half that of before, and he was often awakened by thirst in the middle of the night. He said that this was the closest he came to death in his life, and he felt the finitude of life.
As long as you can still graba breath,
you fight.
You breathe...
keep breathing.
(As long as there is a breath, fight, breathe, continue to breathe...) ）
I ain't afraid to die anymore.
I'd done it already.
(I'm not afraid to die anymore, I've already died once.) ）
The soundtrack of "The Revenant" is his first work after his comeback, and the two lines often said by Xiao Lizi in the film are very similar to Sakamoto's own heart.
In this soundtrack, he rejects lyricism, but achieves classics. Sakamoto uses music to strengthen the "cold" in "The Revenant", the strings are heavy and majestic, suddenly playing two or three notes floating randomly in the snowy mountains and valleys, and before they die, they are once again awakened by the heavy strings.
Sakamoto didn't write the music very full, he just used a way similar to "white space" to make the audience pay more attention to the wind, snow, and the difficulty of the steps in the picture.
A high-end soundtrack is like that, it doesn't need to tell you where to be sad, it just needs to blend in with the picture, find a balance, and let the audience feel it for themselves.
Life, too, needs to be felt with the heart.
From the song "Walker" from Sakamoto's new album last year, you can hear that he is so meticulous about the body taste of life - Sakamoto tries to show the scene of people walking when they walk, so he puts the sound of people's feet stepping on dead leaves, and the low cries of some animals, which are always ignored...
But when it comes to life in real words, he has only one sentence:
"Next, I just want to live without pretense."
Sakamoto's diet has also changed a lot since his illness, and he has combined the popular European and American ideas of "raw food" with traditional Japanese eating habits to form a unique hybrid eating method:
Breakfast in Sakamoto – seasonal fruits
Common fruit platters of bananas, apples, kiwi fruits, etc. and homemade vegetable juices
Sakamoto's lunch – staples, vegetables and whole grains
Common dried fish, homemade radish pickles, yam puree, onions and other ingredients
Sakamoto's Dinner – Meat and vegetables
In any case, eating foods that are good for the body is not only for health, but also closely related to the quality and vitality of the work.
He firmly believes in the dietary credo of "You are what you eat" and believes that "food can promote the highest artistic expression".
When he was in elementary school, Ryuichi Sakamoto participated in the orchestra
Some people will lament Sakamoto's super talent, in fact, it is difficult to determine whether he is really talented, after all, no one can travel back to the 50s to help him do the music quotient test, we can only say that all the experiences have created a dazzling Sakamoto.
Japan in the 50s, depression and loneliness. His father, who had been an editor by Yukio Mishima, sent Sakamoto to an extremely avant-garde kindergarten where teachers taught piano and encouraged children to create.
"At the beginning of the new semester, the teacher said to the class: 'Is it fun to take care of animals? Please turn the feeling of that time into a song. ’
This was the first time I composed music, when I was about four or five years old. At that time, I thought I had probably tasted joy. ”
When he played "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" in the quiet concert hall, only his breath, heartbeat and music remained
In 1983, in the movie "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence", Sakamoto played a Japanese battalion commander in a prisoner of war camp in Indonesia, along with David Bowie and Takeshi Kitano, but Sakamoto felt that his acting skills were very humiliating at the time, and had discussed with Takeshi Kitano to steal the film out and destroy it... None of this is the point, though, what matters is that Sakamoto scored the film and won the BAFTA Award.
Four years later, he swept the Oscars, Grammys and Golden Globes with the soundtrack of "The Last Emperor".
However, he was portrayed by the media as an international Japanese musician with no path, but Sakamoto always had the will to "never succumb to authority and rules", just like his works, there are no traces of deliberate embellishment, no conformity.
He is always exploring the limits of his creation, moving between styles, relaxed and weighty, and demonstrating his abilities with great control and balance.
"I am the kind of person who is very contradictory, on the one hand I want to do everything perfectly, but on the other hand, I hate to be obsessed with perfection and try hard to destroy."
It is this inner struggle that shapes Sakamoto's musical achievements.
Someone asked Sakamoto what kind of music he wanted to make, and he said, "In 100 years, people will still listen to music, and this is the music I want to make." ”
Music lovers affectionately call him "Professor", not only because of his high graduate degree from Tokyo University of the Arts, but also because of his high literacy and understanding of classical music.
He focuses on thinking about the changing forms of music, exploring the impact of music on interpersonal emotions, and has innovative ideas that are both metaphysical and relevant to the times. He travels between classical and modern, experimental and pop, seeing the world through music, and then getting feedback from the world through music.
You can't attribute him to any one genre because he's so rich and so different.
Other articles by Mo Yiao: Tom Witz (I) | Freud's contempt