Mishima—A Life in Four Chapters (The Criterion Collection, 2008)
Paul Schrader has always opined that Mishima—A Life in Four Chapters was his best film as a director,
and I have to agree. Originally released
in 1985 (and executive produced by Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas), the
film is a fascinating bio-pic about controversial Japanese author/actor Yukio
Mishima. Schrader, a successful
screenwriter who has also had an interesting hit-and-miss career as a director,
co-wrote the film with his brother Leonard and filmed it in Japan with a
Japanese cast and crew. Ironically, the
film was banned in Japan
upon its release due to the controversial nature of Mishima’s infamously public
display of seppuku (suicide) in
1970. But despite Mishima’s questionable
act, there is no doubt that he was a formidable novelist, poet, and
artist—certainly one of his country’s greatest. Schrader’s film attempts to visualize Mishima’s life and work, and make
sense of his final days in different stylistic approaches that are beautiful to
behold and brilliant in conception. Philip Glass provides one of his best motion picture scores to date,
John Bailey’s cinematography is absolutely gorgeous, and Eiko Ishioka’s
theatrical production designs are perfectly suited to Schrader’s
sensibilities. Whether or not you know
anything about Yukio Mishima, you will find the picture to be an extraordinary
cinematic experience.
Criterion Collection has done another outstanding job of
producing a new, restored high-definition digital transfer of the director’s
cut, which was supervised and approved by Schrader and Bailey. There are optional English and Japanese
voiceover narrations (by Roy Scheider and Ken Ogata, respectively—the U.S. theatrical
release only had the Scheider narration). There is also an audio commentary by Schrader and producer Alan
Poul. A second disk contains a wealth of
background and supplementary material, including the excellent 1985 BBC
documentary The Strange Case of Yuko
Mishima. There are vintage video
interviews with Mishima himself, new segments of Mishima’s biographers and
translators, Philip Glass, John Bailey, and other members of the film crew, and
more. Highly recommended—one of the best
DVD releases of the year so far.--Raymond Benson
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