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Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Paul Schrader
Screenplay by	Leonard Schrader Paul Schrader Chieko Schrader
Story by	Paul Schrader Jun Shiragi
Produced by	Mataichirô Yamamoto Tom Luddy
Starring	Ken Ogata Kenji Sawada Toshiyuki Nagashima Yasosuke Bando
Cinematography	John Bailey
Edited by	Michael Chandler Tomoyo Oshima
Music by	Philip Glass
Production companies	Zoetrope Studios Filmlink International Lucasfilm Ltd.
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release dates	May 15, 1985 (1985-05-15) (Cannes Film Festival) October 4, 1985 (1985-10-04)
Running time	120 minutes
Countries	United States Japan
Languages	English Japanese
Budget	$5 million
Box office	$502,758

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters is a 1985 biographical drama film directed by Paul Schrader from a screenplay he co-wrote with his brother Leonard and Leonard's wife Chieko Schrader. The film is based on the life and work of Japanese writer Yukio Mishima (portrayed by Ken Ogata), interweaving episodes from his life with dramatizations of segments from his books The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Kyoko's House, and Runaway Horses. Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas were executive producers of the film, which has a musical score composed by Philip Glass and production design by Eiko Ishioka.

Plot

The film begins on November 25, 1970, the last day of Mishima's life. He finishes a manuscript and then puts on a uniform he designed for himself and meets with four of his most loyal followers from his private army, the Tatenokai.

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. In adulthood, Mishima trains himself into the acme of muscular discipline, owing to a morbid and militaristic obsession with masculinity and physical culture. His loathing for the materialism of modern Japan has him turn towards an extremist traditionalism. He establishes the Tatenokai and advocates for reinstating the emperor as head of government.

The biographical sections 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 ultimately fatal sadomasochistic relationship between a middle-aged woman and her young lover, who is in her financial debt. In Runaway Horses, a group of young fanatic nationalists plots to overthrow the government and zaibatsu, with its leader subsequently committing suicide. Dramatizations, frame story, and flashbacks 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 hostage a General of the Japan Self-Defense Forces. He addresses the garrison's soldiers, asking them to join him in his struggle to reinstate the Emperor as the nation's sovereign. His speech is largely ignored and ridiculed. Mishima then returns to the General's office and commits seppuku.

Cast

Production

Mishima dramatizes three of the writer's novels and also uses segments from his autobiographical novel Confessions of a Mask. At least two scenes, one showing the young Mishima being aroused by a painting of Saint Sebastian and another where he exaggerates his illness at a military health examination, appear in Confessions of a Mask.

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. As Schrader wanted to visualize a book illustrating Mishima's narcissism and sexual ambiguity, he chose the novel Kyoko's House (which he had translated for him exclusively) instead. Kyoko's House contains four storylines following different protagonists, but Schrader picked only the one which he considered most relevant.

Mishima used various colour palettes to differentiate between frame story, flashbacks and scenes from Mishima's novels: the scenes set in 1970 were shot in naturalistic colours, the flashbacks in black-and-white, 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.

Pre-production began in February 1984. Cinematographer John Bailey instructed the Japanese crew to set up a screening of Hideo Gosha's film Goyokin, which was screened as an important reference for the "look" of the film.

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 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 was a manufacturing error in 2001 and that the voice belonged to the photographer Paul Jasmin.

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. 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.

The film was withdrawn from the Tokyo International Film Festival and never officially released in Japan, mostly due to a boycott exercised by Mishima's widow and threats by right-wing groups opposed to Mishima's portrayal as a homosexual. The title role was originally intended for Ken Takakura, who indeed proposed this to Paul Schrader, but had to withdraw due to pressure from the same groups. In an interview with Kevin Jackson published in 1992, Schrader commented on the fact that his film had still not been shown in Japan: " is too much of a scandal. ... When Mishima died people said, 'Give us fifteen years and we'll tell you what we think about him,' but it's been more than fifteen years now and they still don't know what to say. Mishima has become a non-subject."

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."

Music

The musical score for Mishima was composed by Philip Glass, with parts performed by the Kronos Quartet. A soundtrack album was released on vinyl record and Audio CD in 1985 by Nonesuch Records.

Reception

Critical response

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Mishima has a 79% approval rating and an average rating of 7.5/10 based on 71 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "If Paul Schrader’s Yukio Mishima biopic omits too much to fully depict the author’s life, its passion shines through in its avant-garde structure, Eiko Ishioka’s production design, and Philip Glass’ thunderous score." In his 2013 movie guide, Leonard Maltin called the film an "ambitious, highly stylized drama", later adding that it is "long, difficult, not always successful, but fascinating." In 2007, Roger Ebert added the film to his "Great Movies" list, calling the film "a triumph of concise writing and construction" in which "the unconventional structure...unfolds with perfect clarity, the logic revealing itself."

Chris Peachment of Time Out said: "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."

Awards

The film premiered at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival on May 15, 1985, where it won the award for Best Artistic Contribution.

Home media

Mishima has been released three times on DVD in the US, two of which by The Criterion Collection who also produced its Blu-ray release.

• 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) 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.
• The 2018 Criterion Collection re-release on both DVD and Blu-Ray offered a new, restored 4K digital transfer of the director's cut, supervised and approved by director Paul Schrader and cinematographer John Bailey, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. Existing features from the 2008 Criterion release were carried over with the addition of a new booklet featuring an essay by critic Kevin Jackson, a piece on the film's censorship in Japan, and photographs of Ishioka's sets.

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 Schrader's narration with optional Spanish and Catalan, but no English, subtitles.

See also

• 11:25 The Day He Chose His Own Fate, a 2012 Japanese film by Kōji Wakamatsu about Mishima's last months and death.

References

1. "Review: 'Mishima – A Life in Four Chapters'". Variety. January 1, 1985. Retrieved July 2, 2017.
2. "Mishima". Philip Glass (official website). Retrieved July 2, 2017.
3. UCLA Film and Television Archive. "'Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters' (1985) - Paul Schrader in person". UCLA Happenings. University of California Los Angeles. Retrieved July 2, 2017.
4. "Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved December 22, 2016.
5. "Mishima – Philip Glass". Retrieved 2021-11-08.
6. Ishioka, Eiko. "On the Mishima Set". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved 2021-11-08.
7. Sobczynski, Peter (May 8, 2007). "Interview: Paul Schrader on "Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters"". eFilmCritic. HBS Entertainment. Retrieved October 31, 2011.
8. ^ Jackson, Kevin (2004). Schrader on Schrader and Other Writings. Boston: Faber & Faber. pp. 172–184.
9. ^ Information on the production included with the Criterion Collection DVD, 2008.
10. "Tatsuya Nakadai:"The 8th Samurai," Part 2:Goyokin - The American Society of Cinematographers". 2019-05-07. Archived from the original on 7 May 2019. Retrieved 2022-04-19.
11. ^ "Kerry: It took some years but I finally figured it out. The original 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 on the 2001 Mishima DVD. (Please also see the discussion section of this article on this topic.)
12. Yourcenar, Marguerite (2001). Mishima: A Vision of the Void. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
13. Ebert, Roger (October 11, 1985). "Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters". Retrieved October 31, 2011.
14. "Mishima (1985)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango. Retrieved October 7, 2021.
15. Maltin, Leonard (2012). Leonard Maltin's 2008 Movie Guide. New York: Signet/New American Library. p. 1664. ISBN 9781101604632.
16. Ebert, Roger (2010). "Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters". The Great Movies III. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 252–255. ISBN 9780226182117.
17. Peachment, Chris (1999). Time Out Film Guide (7th ed.). London: Penguin Books.
18. "Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters". Cannes Film Festival. Retrieved June 28, 2009.

External links

• Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters at IMDb
• Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters at Rotten Tomatoes
• Mishima: Pen and Sword an essay by Kevin Jackson at the Criterion Collection

• 1985 films
• American biographical drama films
• American LGBTQ-related films
• 1985 drama films
• Films scored by Philip Glass
• Films directed by Paul Schrader
• Films about suicide
• 1980s Japanese-language films
• American Zoetrope films
• Lucasfilm films
• Warner Bros. films
• Films set in 1970
• Films set in Japan
• Films set in Kyoto
• Films based on works by Yukio Mishima
• Films based on literature
• 1985 LGBTQ-related films
• Films with screenplays by Paul Schrader
• Films based on multiple works
• Biographical films about writers
• 1980s English-language films
• 1980s American films
• Works about Yukio Mishima
• English-language biographical drama films