Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
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| Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters | |
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 American movie poster |
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| 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 episodic, stylized 1985 film based on the life and work of the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, directed by Paul Schrader and written by Paul and his brother Leonard Schrader. The film features original music by Philip Glass and performances by the Kronos Quartet. Ken Ogata stars as Yukio Mishima, while Roy Scheider gives an off-screen English narration, also as Mishima. The film was produced in Japan by Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas while they were involved with Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha.
Schrader has said that he 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." [1]
Contents |
[edit] Plot
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This section requires expansion. |
The film is drawn into four chapters: Beauty, Art, Action, and Harmony of Pen and Sword. Each chapter features black and white flashbacks from Mishima's life, highly stylized, theatrical scenes from three Mishima novels (The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Kyoko's House, and Runaway Horses), and a realistic docudrama-style story of Mishima's final day (the soundtrack follows this by accompanying the black-and-white flashbacks with a string quartet, the theatrical scenes with a string orchestra and synthesizers, and the "docudrama" scenes with a full symphonic orchestra). In the end, the protagonists of all three novels are shown achieving their destructive and/or suicidal objectives as Mishima himself commits seppuku.
[edit] Controversy
This film has never had an official release in Japan, due to the controversy around Mishima himself and his family's wishes. Despite this, it has broadcast several times on Japanese TV (with a scene in a gay bar edited out) and it is legal to import the DVD release.
[edit] Awards
The film was entered into the 1985 Cannes Film Festival where it won the award for Best Artistic Contribution.[2]
[edit] DVD releases
The film has been released twice in region 1, but never in region 2.
- 2001 - Warner Bros. #11530
- Inside Mishima, behind-the-scenes documentary.
- Audio commentary by Paul Schrader.
- Deleted scene.
- Theatrical trailer.
- 2008 - The Criterion Collection #432[3]
- Optional English and Japanese voice-over narrations, the former by Roy Scheider, the latter by Ken Ogata.
- New audio commentary by Paul Schrader and producer Alan Poul.
- New video interviews with Bailey, producers Tom Luddy and Mata Yamamoto, composer Philip Glass, and production designer Eiko Ishioka.
- New video interviews with Mishima biographer John Nathan and friend Donald Richie.
- New audio interview with coscreenwriter Chieko Schrader.
- Video interview excerpt featuring Mishima talking about writing.
- The Strange Case of Yukio Mishima, a BBC documentary about the author.
- Theatrical trailer.
[edit] Soundtrack
[edit] References
- ^ Schrader 2004: 4
- ^ "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.
- ^ http://www.criterion.com/films/588
Schrader, Paul (2004). Schrader on Schrader and Other Writings. Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-22176-9.
[edit] 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
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