Only recently I got the newly restored 4 disc set of THE LAST EMPEROR. One of the documentaries featured the Composers name Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Byrne. In the recording console area along with Sakamoto and Bertolluci I saw Hans Zimmer! What was Hans Zimmer doing at the Abbey Road studiois in the midst of all this?
People seem to piss on this score because it won the Oscar over Morricone's The Untouchables. However, it really is a great score. Sure, my PREFERENCE would have been for Morricone to win, but to decry The Last Emperor for that reason is stupid.
Incidentally, wasn't it the triple-composer team on The Last Emperor that lead the Academy to introduce its rule about only the principal composer of a film being recognised with an Oscar nomination? After all, Cong Su now has an Oscar for writing a very short source cue for The Last Emperor. I'm not saying that he didn't deserve it, just that the respective contributions of Byrne and Sakamoto to the overall score were much greater.
There also was this lil score by John Williams, called Empire of the Sun. I don't know if any of u cats have heard it before. It is a quite beautiful score, majestic and soaring.
There also was this lil score by John Williams, called Empire of the Sun. I don't know if any of u cats have heard it before. It is a quite beautiful score, majestic and soaring.
After all, Cong Su now has an Oscar for writing a very short source cue for The Last Emperor. I'm not saying that he didn't deserve it, just that the respective contributions of Byrne and Sakamoto to the overall score were much greater.
Well, if you don't dare say it, I do: CONG SU didn't deserve and Oscar at all. I guess his Oscar must be the greatest theft in the musical history of the Academy Awards.
His piece is, at best, relaxing and simple but nowhere as memorable as the other composers' main themes... and it lasts for only 3 mn... It could fit as source music in any new age film. Sakamoto's and Byrne's contributions are much more significant than Su's. They do carry the film, emotionnally and musically.
Listening to this hodge-podge of a score for the first time in years...and it's still as irritating as ever. The sole * score in my collection...
Actually I love this score and it needs a remaster and more music. This is the kind of score infused with world music style and still managed to be orchestral. In comparison to todays scoring this one is very interesting.
I've always enjoyed this score. After seeing it the first time, in Honolulu in 1987, I developed a taste for Sakamoto, which led me to get hold of all the film music he's written that I can find. (I did listen to some of his pop/rock stuff, but it didn't appeal to me in the same way.)
I love Sakamoto's work on LITTLE BUDDHA, particularly its final elegy. And the hard-to-find WUTHERING HEIGHTS has some fine work.
Interestingly, Sakamoto also acted the part of that one-armed Japanese military attache in LAST EMPEROR. So the man is definitely versatile.
Interestingly, Sakamoto also acted the part of that one-armed Japanese military attache in LAST EMPEROR. So the man is definitely versatile.
He's a very well credited actor in Japan.
His most famous outing in western cinema is as the Japanese officer in 'Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence' of course, opposite David Bowie. That was a central role, and of course he also did the score:
Sakamoto's Oscar for the Last emperor is perhaps one of the most deserved in the history of the Oscar competition for a film score. And I'm a big fan of Morricone! It was just too bad for il Maestro that The Untouchables was made the same year, and that was when Williams was nominated for Empire of the sun and The Witches of Eastwick, what a year!! 4 masterpieces! (The same can been said for 1976 for example when two Herrmann classics, Taxi driver and obsession, lost over The Omen, which was the last opportunity for Herrmann to win a single Oscar but enabled Goldsmith to get his ONLY academy award.... I don't want to fall into the "They don't make them like they used to" old song, but still...I mean... is it possible to find the same excitement with the Oscar nominations for best score now even if some are great ? Maybe some people do and I envy them).
Anyway, here's a fantastic concert version of the Last Emperor theme with a huge orchestra and some traditionnal japanese instruments. It moves me to tears everytime I listen to it. I wish I was in the venue.
People seem to piss on this score because it won the Oscar over Morricone's The Untouchables. However, it really is a great score. Sure, my PREFERENCE would have been for Morricone to win, but to decry The Last Emperor for that reason is stupid.
I agree, some people hate the Last Emperor because of the Untouchables, but this is a far cry from an undeserving score, even if not the masterpiece that Morricone's undoubtedly is. Admittedly, I don't care much for the Byrne part, and the less said about the Cong Su story the better, but Ryuichi Sakamoto is a very fine musician , and his part is sweepingly beautiful. The main theme encapsulates perfectly the melancholic tone of this epic movie for the vanishing of a world. Another very good score of his that hasn't been mentioned is for De Palma's Femme Fatale, it has many good cues, but in particular his very personal take on a Bolero-type crescendo piece is quite something.
I wonder if politics entered into the composers' "casting"? Given special permission to film in China, it may have been unseemly to assign a Japanese (!) composer to a film set in the 1930s and 1940s.
Anyway, I'm always amused by the fact that THE LAST EMPEROR was also my last LP!
