Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Paul Schrader
Produced by	Mataichiro Yamamoto Francis Ford Coppola George Lucas Tom Luddy Leonard Schrader Mata Yamamoto
Written by	Leonard Schrader Paul Schrader Chieko Schrader (Original Stories) Yukio Mishima
Starring	Ken Ogata Masayuki Shionoya Junkichi Orimoto Kenji Sawada
Music by	Philip Glass
Cinematography	John Bailey
Editing by	Michael Chandler
Studio	American Zoetrope Lucasfilm Ltd. M Company Tristone Entertainment Inc.
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	USA October 4, 1985
Running time	120 minutes
Country	United States
Language	Japanese
Budget	$5,000,000 (estimated)

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters is an American/Japanese film co-written and directed by Paul Schrader in 1985. It was co-produced by Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas.

The film is based on the life and work of Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, interweaving episodes from his life with dramatizations of segments from his books The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Kyoko's House, and Runaway Horses.

Plot

The film sets in on November 25 1970, the last day in Mishima's life. He is shown finishing a manuscript. Then, he puts on a uniform he designed for himself and meets with four of his most loyal followers from his private army.

In flashbacks highlighting episodes from his past life, the viewer sees Mishima's progression from a sickly young boy to one of Japan's most acclaimed writers of the post-war era (who keeps himself in perfect physical shape, owed to a narcissistic body cult). His loathing for the materialism of modern Japan has him turn towards an extremist traditionalism. He sets up his own private army and proclaims the reinstating of the tenno as head of state.

The biographical parts are interwoven with short dramatizations of three of Mishima's novels: In The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, a stuttering aspirant sets fire to the famous Zen Buddhist temple because he feels inferior at the sight of its beauty. Kyoko's House depicts the sadomasochistic (and ultimately fatal) relationship between an elderly woman and her young lover, who is in her financial debt. In Runaway Horses, a group of young fanatic nationalists fails to overthrow the government, with its leader subsequently committing suicide. Frame story, flashbacks and dramatizations are segmented into the four chapters of the film's title, named Beauty, Art, Action, and Harmony of Pen and Sword.

The film culminates in Mishima and his followers taking a General of the Japanese armed forces as hostage. He addresses the garrison's soldiers, asking them to join him in his struggle to reinstate the emperor as the nation's sovereign. Faced with his proclamation being largely ignored and ridiculed, Mishima commits seppuku.

Background info

The film was withdrawn from the Tokyo International Film Festival and never officially released in Japan, mostly due to threats by far right wing groups opposing to Mishima's portrayal as being homosexual.^[1] Despite this, it has broadcast several times on Japanese TV^{[citation needed]} (with a scene in a gay bar edited out) and it is legal to import the DVD release.

Although Mishima only visualizes three of the writer's novels by name, the film also uses segments from his autobiographical novel Confessions of a Mask. At least two scenes, showing the young Mishima being aroused by a painting of the Christian martyr Sebastian, and his secret love for a fellow pupil at school, also appear in this book. The use of one further Mishima novel, Forbidden Colors, which describes the marriage of a homosexual man to a woman, was denied by Mishima's widow.^[2]

The novel Kyoko's House contains four equally ranking storylines, featuring four different protagonists. Schrader picked out only one. In Runaway Horses, all surviving (and not imprisoned) revolutionaries commit seppuku, while the film only shows their leader's suicide.

Mishima uses different colour palettes to differentiate between frame story, flashbacks and scenes from Mishima's novels: The (1970) contemporary scenes are shot in subdued colours, the flashbacks in black-and-white, the The Temple of the Golden Pavilion-episode is dominated by golden and green, Kyoko's House by pink and grey, and Runaway Horses by orange and black.^[1]

Roy Scheider was the narrator in the original movie version and on the early VHS release. On the 2001 DVD release, Scheider's voice-over was substituted with the narration by an uncredited actor. The 2008 DVD re-release contains both Scheider's and the alternate narration (plus Ken Ogata's for the Japanese version). In a commentary on Amazon.com, Schrader explained this with a manufacturing error in 2001, and that the voice belonged to Paul Jasmin (not the actor of the same name).^[3]

The Film closes with Mishima's suicide (which actually took longer than the seppuku ritual dictates). His confidant Morita, unable to behead Mishima, also failed in killing himself according to the ritual. A third group member beheaded both, then the conspirators surrendered without resistance.^[4] Roger Ebert approved of Schrader's decision not to show the suicide in bloody detail, which he thought would have destroyed the film's mood.^[5]

Schrader considers Mishima the best film he has directed. "It's the one I'd stand by – as a screenwriter it's Taxi Driver, but as a director it's Mishima."^[6]

Reception

"Ambitious, highly stylized drama […] Long, difficult, not always successful, but fascinating." – Leonard Maltin^[7]

"[…] a triumph of concise writing and construction […] The unconventional structure of the film […] unfolds with perfect clarity, the logic revealing itself." – Roger Ebert^[8]

"Schrader may have finally achieved the violent transfiguration that he seeks along with his protagonists; the film has all the ritual sharpness and beauty of that final sword. […] There is nothing quite like it." – Chris Peachment, Time Out Film Guide^[9]

Awards

The film premiered at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival on May 15 1985 where it won the award for Best Artistic Contribution by cinematographer John Bailey, production designer Eiko Ishioka and music composer Philip Glass.^[10]

Home media releases

Mishima has been released twice on DVD in the US.

• The 2001 Warner Bros. release included a behind-the-scenes documentary, an audio commentary by Paul Schrader and a deleted scene. This edition did not, like the theatrical version, feature the narration of Roy Scheider but of an uncredited actor.
• The 2008 Criterion Collection release offered both English narrations by Roy Scheider and (according to Paul Schrader^[3]) Paul Jasmin from the 2001 release. Also, it featured new audio commentaries, video interviews with the film makers and experts on the writings of Mishima, plus The Strange Case of Yukio Mishima, a BBC documentary about the author.

A French DVD was released by Wild Side Video in 2010 titled Mishima – une vie en quatre chapitres in Japanese, English and French language with French subtitles.

A Spanish Blu-ray Disc was released in 2010 titled Mishima – Una Vida en Cuatro Capítulos. It features Scheider's narration with optional Spanish and Catalan, but no English subtitles.

Philip Glass' music score, in parts performed by the Kronos quartet, was released on vinyl record and Audio CD in 1985.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Informations on the production included with the Criterion Collection DVD, 2008.
2. ^ Interview with Paul Schrader on Efilmcritic.com, retrieved 2011-10-31.
3. ^ ^{a b} "Kerry: It took some years but I finally figured it out. The orginal [sic] WB print and VHS contain Roy's narration. When we returned to Lucasfilm some years later to do the DVD, Paul Jasmin's narration (which I'd been using as a temp track during editing) was inadvertently used in the place of Scheider's. The WB DVD has the wrong narration. When Criterion came to do their DVD, this was all unraveled. They included Ogata's narration with a choice of Jasmin's (from the WB DVD) or Scheider's (from the WB VHS). Phew! Paul S." – Commentary by Paul Schrader in the 2001 Mishima DVD customer reviews section on Amazon.com, retrieved 2011-10-31. (Please also see the discussion section of this article on this topic.)
4. ^ Marguerite Yourcenar, Mishima: A Vision of the Void, University Of Chicago Press, 2001.
5. ^ Review by Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times, October 11 1985, retrieved 2011-10-31.
6. ^ Schrader on Schrader and Other Writings, Faber & Faber, 2004.
7. ^ Leonard Maltin's 2008 Movie Guide, Signet/New American Library, New York, 2007.
8. ^ Roger Ebert, The Great Movies III, University of Chicago Press, 2010.
9. ^ Time Out Film Guide, Seventh Edition 1999, Penguin Books, London, 1998.
10. ^ "Festival de Cannes: Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters". festival-cannes.com. http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/939/year/1985.html. Retrieved 2009-06-28. 

External links

• Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters at the Internet Movie Database
• Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters entry at Allmovie
• Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters synopsis at Rotten Tomatoes
• Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters review by Roger Ebert