Ryuichi Sakamoto has died, the great Japanese musician and composer who won the Academy Award in 1988 for the soundtrack of Bernardo Bertolucci’s film “The Last Emperor,” which he created with David Byrne and Cong Su. He was 71 years old. Japanese news agencies were the first to report the news of his passing. Last summer, Ryuichi Sakamoto—who had previously overcome throat cancer and rectal cancer in 2014—announced that he was suffering from stage four lung cancer, with slim chances of recovery. Among his most famous pieces is “Forbidden Colours,” part of the soundtrack for Nagisa Ōshima’s film “Furyo (Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence).”