Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters - Criterion Collection
by Paul Schrader
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Ken OgataDirector: Paul Schrader
Brand: Image Entertainment
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Japanese (Original Language); English (Original Language); English (Subtitled)
Format: Color, Dolby, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 120 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-07-01
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Criterion Collection
Movie Reviews of Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters - Criterion Collection
Movie Review: A superb portrait of a complex artist
Summary: 5 Stars
After waiting too many years for a DVD release of this rich & compelling film, we finally have Criterion's glorious edition, replete with extras. The additional material, from commentaries to background material to a fine BBC documentary, is a true gift. But in the end, the film alone is worth every penny by itself.
Biopics have long been a staple of film: some good, some mediocre, and a small handful exceptional. But "Mishima" is in a class of its own. Paul Schrader has created a film about an artist, his life & his soul, that is genuinely a work of art in itself. Its use of interlacing narrative strands, each filmed in a totally different style -- its eye for the exactly apt image that says so much -- its depiction of intense & paradoxical emotional forces at passionate war & equally passionate union with the intellect -- all combine to reveal the essence of this remarkable, tortured man.
As far back as Byron, we've had artists who made their own lives into works of art. But has anyone ever gone to such lengths as Mishima? That question, along with many others, isn't entirely answered here ... but that's all to the good. The viewer is meant to be left with questions about Art, about Life, about Meaning.
I don't want to make it sound ponderous, though. First of all, it's a visual feast, from the crystalline black & white of the biographical strand, to the over-the-top, voluptuous, even explosive color of the adaptations of Mishima's work, which illuminate his psyche. Add to that one of Phillip Glass's most powerful & memorable scores. And finally, there's the knowledge that this is a representation of a real life, not fiction. First & foremost, this is a mesmerizing & exhilarating experience!
As with Mishima's life & literary work, the film interweaves mind & body, thought & emotion. The homoerotic element suffusing the film is lush, violent, tender, bizarre, beautiful, feverish. I don't believe I've ever come across anything so vivid & palpable in many mainstream films. I doubt you'd see it from many other filmmakers. It truly conveys the inner turmoil & obsessive desire of Mishima, a longing not just for a fulfilling sexuality, but for beauty, purpose & harmony within his being.
Whether you're already a voracious reader of Mishima, or you've never read a single word he wrote, you won't come away from this film unmoved. It's a beautifully crafted work, an exemplar of what can be achieved with film. Most highly recommended!
Summary of Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters - Criterion Collection
Paul Schrader's visually stunning, structurally audacious collagelike portrait of acclaimed Japanese author and playwright Yukio Mishima (played by Ken Ogata) investigates the inner turmoil and contradictions of a man who attempted an impossible harmony between self, art, and society. Taking place on Mishima's last day, when he famously committed public seppuku (ritual suicide), the film is punctuated by extended flashbacks to the writer's life as well as gloriously stylized evocations of his fictional works. With its rich cinematography by John Bailey, exquisite sets and costumes by Eiko Ishioka, and unforgettable, highly influential score by Philip Glass, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters is a sincere tribute to its subject, and a bold, investigative work of art in its own right.Special Features
- DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer of the director's cut, supervised and approved by director Paul Schrader and cinematographer John Bailey
- Optional English and Japanese voice-over narrations, the former by Roy Scheider, the latter by Ken Ogata
- New audio commentary featuring Schrader and producer Alan Poul
- The Strange Case of Yukio Mishima, a 55-minute BBC documentary about the author
- New interviews with Donald Richie and John Nathan, collaborators and friends of Yukio Mishima
- New interviews with Bailey, producers Tom Luddy and Mata Yamamoto, composer Philip Glass, and production designer Eiko Ishioka
- A new audio interview with coscreenwriter Chieko Schrader
- A video interview excerpt featuring Mishima talking about writing
- Theatrical trailer
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by critic Kevin Jackson and a piece on the film s censorship in Japan
With Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Paul Schrader constructs a puzzle-box portrait of the controversial author (1925-1970) who turned his life into a work of art. Presented by Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, Schrader outdoes his benefactors in sheer audacity alone. In the opening sequence, which weaves throughout the film, Yukio Mishima (riveting Shohei Imamura regular Ken Ogata) prepares for death as the director cuts to pivotal moments from his past. Shot by American Gigolo's John Bailey and designed by The Cell's Eiko Ishioka, stately black and white footage alternates with eye-popping color sequences. With an assist from Leonard and Chieko Schrader, his brother and sister-in-law, the filmmaker blends Mishima's fiction into his biography, and splits the whole four ways: beauty, art, action, and harmony of pen and sword (the brothers also wrote Sydney Pollack's Japanese thriller The Yakuza). Encouraged by his controlling grandmother, Mishima becomes a conflicted figure, torn between mind and body, pain and pleasure--men and women. As he states, "All my life I have been acutely aware of a contradiction in the very nature of my existence." (This collector's edition includes separate voice-over tracks by Ogata and Roy Scheider.)
The first disc houses a gorgeous transfer of the film, the theatrical trailer, and comprehensive commentary from Schrader and producer Alan Poul; the second offers a making-of featurette (with Bailey, Ishioka, and composer Philip Glass), audio and video interviews (including translator and biographer John Nathan), a 1966 chat with Mishima for French TV, and a 1985 John Hurt-narrated documentary for the BBC. Unlike Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima, which found favor in the East, Paul Schrader's risk-filled endeavor resulted in a ban in his subject's home country--and the director's crowning achievement. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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