Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985) - The Criterion Collection

Synopsis

Paul Schrader’s visually stunning, 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, the film is punctuated by extended flashbacks to the writer’s life as well as by 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 tribute to its subject and a bold, investigative work of art in its own right.

Cast

Yukio Mishima	Ken Ogata
Morita	Masayuki Shionoya
Cadet no. 1	Hiroshi Mikami
Cadet no. 2	Junya Fukuda
Cadet no. 3	Shigeto Tachihara
General Mashita	Junkichi Orimoto
Mishima, age 18-19	Go Riju
Mishima, age 5	Yuki Nagahara
Mizoguchi	Yasosuke Bando
Mariko	Hisako Manda
Osamu	Kenji Sawada
Kiyomi	Reisen Lee
Mitsuko	Setsuko Karasuma
Takei	Yasuaki Kurata
Isao	Toshiyuki Nagashima
Lieutenant Hori	Hiroshi Katsuno
Izutsu	Hiroki Ida
Kurahara	Jun Negami

Credits

Director	Paul Schrader
Screenplay	Chieko Schrader, Paul Schrader and Leonard Schrader
Executive producers	George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola
Producer	Tom Luddy, Mataichiro Yamamoto and Mata Yamamoto
Associate producer	Leonard Schrader
Music	Philip Glass
Cinematography	John Bailey
Production Design	Eiko Ishioka
Costume design	Eiko Ishioka
Sound	Leslie Shatz
Visual effects	Catherine Craig

Disc Features

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET:

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
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 55-minute BBC documentary about the author
Theatrical trailer
PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by critic Kevin Jackson, a piece on the film’s censorship in Japan, and photographs of Ishioka’s sets

From the Current

Press Notes: A New Chapter for Mishima

Dec 16, 2008

Paul Schrader’s Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, released earlier this year in a Criterion special edition DVD, begins a one-week theatrical run today at New York’s Film Forum, in a new 35 mm print, and this dazzling, thoroughly...

Mishima: Pen and Sword

by Kevin Jackson Jun 30, 2008

The idea of self-fashioning—of deliberately taking the raw materials of one’s body and mind and transforming them into a work of art—has been with us at...

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