Not exactly the stuff that lends itself to commercial success, but certainly an artistic success for Schrader and a noteworthy entry for the 1001 book. 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. Schrader contrasts this adult martinet with the shy sissy whose grandmother warned him he would get sick if he went outside. It depicts events of writer Yukio Mishima told in flashback, in the context of the four seasons of the title and with dramatizations from Mishima's novels thrown in. Their worship validates his supremacy and denies his deep-seated feelings of inferiority. Schrader seems to assume that the hero of the novel, Isao, is simply a stand in for Mishima.
In a commentary on , Schrader explained this was a manufacturing error in 2001 and that the voice belonged to the photographer Paul Jasmin. In , a group of young fanatic fails to overthrow the government, with its leader subsequently committing suicide. He is shown finishing a manuscript. It is Schrader's problem, and also his gift, to make films he believes in. Because he is bending over backwards not to criticize Mishima, Schrader simply refuses to examine the uglier implications of his public suicide.
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. I'm sure this helped with the films success Artistically anyway! I thought it would be a typical biopic, and I thought the best way to approach its complex subject, Yukio Mishima, was through his literary work. Advertisement These scenes from his life find mirrors in the sequences inspired by three of his novels, Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Kyoko's House and Runaway Horses. With great subtlety, he interweaves black and white scenes from Mishima's early life with lush full-color scenes from his early novels. It may seem impossible to reconcile their aesthetics with the frequent violence and sex of his work, but at a deeper level few filmmakers are more concerned with the morality of the characters.
Oddly enough, Schrader thinks he is protecting Mishima in the last section, by not moralizing about the suicide, but he is actually diminishing him as an author. And it all seems to make sense somehow! The film becomes something additional when we make additional jumps, this time from the past to literature. I got my first apartment in Atlanta in 1985. He must have found Mishima's headlong dedication to his art a powerful attraction. And now for a bit of effulgent praise for the Criterion edition: this edition is one of their best, certainly sitting in the same tier as their most enjoyable releases in terms of physical beauty the box is itself a lovely, shiny delight and careful, loving, thorough supplements. After watching the film, I really wanted a chance to keep engaging with it, and the set as a whole hit the right notes.
On the last day of his life, he is ceremoniously dressed by a follower and adheres to a rigid timetable that leads to his meticulously planned and rehearsed suicide, or seppuku. Temple of the Golden Pavilion involves a young monk at an ancient temple, who is overcome by its beauty and burns it down. Clue got panned when it came out, but it's not without its fans and does have an interesting cast going for it and is okay if you're in the mood for something light. Interesting that both of them were Oscar nominated for this action flick. The film closes with Mishima's suicide which actually took longer than the seppuku ritual dictates. The connection between the sordid ugliness of Isao's loveless home and his desire to die a violent death is clear enough in the book.
Runaway Train I just watched this one. As a boy, Mishima was afflicted with a paralyzing stutter, was weakly, was the target of bullies. Ishioka's sets of dazzling red and gold include collapsing walls that open before the monk vagina-like. The Japanese dialog was co-written by Leonard's wife, Chieko. This is unquestionably a brilliant, inspiring film, but it's not quite flawless. That made him doubly sympathetic to the deep-rooted Catholicism of his lifelong collaborator Scorsese.
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 in adulthood trains himself into the acme of muscular discipline, owing to a and with and. His loathing for the of modern Japan has him turn towards an extremist. Her journey is unpleasant even during the best of times, but it's a pretty fascinating. Mishima, whether consciously or not, included some truly vile scenes of parental cruelty and manipulation in this book precisely because he understood on some level that Isao's decision to end his own life was not entirely unselfish. I am a librarian hoping to gain inspiration from the greatest films of all-time.
Here we also see a young boy who is none of those things, along with a poetic work that confronts the internal struggles that turn such a youth into a man willing to sacrifice himself for what becomes his poetic philosophy. Considering that he is a man fully committed to plunging a sword into his own guts, he seems remarkably serene; his life, his work, his obsession have finally become synchronous. A different type of non-commercial film in Agnes Varda's Vagabond. But it is absent from the movie. He addresses the garrison's soldiers, asking them to join him in his struggle to reinstate the Emperor as the nation's sovereign. .