While
Paul Schrader was a well-established screenwriter [The Yakuza (1974), Taxi
Driver (1976), Obsession (1976), Rolling Thunder (1977), Raging Bull (1980)] and director [Blue Collar (1978), Hardcore (1979),
American Gigolo (1980), Cat People (1982)], he had a hard time
getting funding together to make and then distribute Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
(1985). Toho, who had put up about 2
million dollars, was pressured by not only right wing groups that were furious
that a gaijin was making a movie
about Mishima, but also his widow, Yoko, who did not want two scenes showing
Mishima’s homosexuality in the film. I
don’t know if he approached Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas or if it was
the other way around, but Coppola and Lucas gave him the money to finish the
film (or at least had enough clout to get Warner Brothers to give him the
money), expressing that they never expected to make the money back. They just felt that the work itself merited
being finished. Toho, having put up half
of the money for this film, disavowed any involvement. The film has never been shown in Japan.
This is one of the best
films ever made (if you haven’t read my entry yet for Patriotism, go do so now). I lean towards it not only for its focus on a
favored author of mine, but on just how ambitious a project it was. In my Film and Literature class, the goal is
to explore all aspects of adapting a work into a film. However, our last unit has a dual
purpose. One is to look at biopics of
authors’ lives to see how faithful a film portrays the author (this requires
biographical research of the author).
The other is to look at how authors involve themselves in adaptations of
their own works, from screenwriting (like Bret Easton Ellis writing the
screenplay adaptation to The Informers)
to directing (like Tom Stoppard directing Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern Are Dead) to acting (Stan Lee’s multiple cameos in his
superhero graphic novel adaptations) to producing (JK Rowling producing the
last two installments of Harry Potter). How does the authors’ involvement in the adaptations
affect the adaptation (and to what degree)?
I feel I hold the ace in both cases.
When it came to adapting Patriotism,
Mishima wrote the screenplay, was lead actor, chose the actress, storyboarded
the shots, designed the set, chose the music (his own record copy of Tristan und Isolde), chose costumes, and
directed. The only thing he didn’t do
was act the female lead, cinematography and post-production. Who is more controlling than that? No, really – if you can think of someone
else, PLEASE POST A COMMENT. I want to
know.
But the most beautiful
trump card to play for the unit is M:ALiFC. Because it is not just a biopic. It adapts FOUR OTHER WORKS FROM MISHIMA,
along with the biographical information.
For an adaptation class, the work alone is mind-blowing, but then to be
a biopic on top of that? Now I will admit, since the film is only 120
minutes, we do not get a full-blown adaptation of any of the works, but
Schrader pares down each work to its essence.
And we can relate that work back to Mishima’s life in a tangible way by
the subheadings Schrader uses (“Beauty,” “Art,” “Action,” “Harmony of Pen and
Sword”).
For “Beauty,” the
adaptation is The Temple of the Golden
Pavilion (my personal favorite).
Eiko Ishioka, the production designer, had a color scheme for each of
the three adaptations. This one is gold
(an obvious choice) and green. But what
is so fascinating about the design is that, even though they did not have a lot
of money to make this film, instead of trying to make elaborate sets, they
enlisted stagecraft for sets. Ishioka
creates a small version of the Golden Pavilion, has a gold, wooden walkway, a
bamboo forest off the path, constructs a sort of shouji box for the Superior’s
room (him playing Go alone). The
adaptation focuses on a lot of the key points of the novel: Mizoguchi being befriended by Kashiwagi,
Kashiwagi setting Mizoguchi up for his first sexual experience (which fails as
the temple looms large – the way they arrange this in the film is curious but I
believe works well ultimately), Mizoguchi being chastised by the Superior for
falling behind in his studies, Mizoguchi telling Kashiwagi that beauty is now
his enemy and his wish to destroy the temple, Mizoguchi finding out that the
war with America has ended, so the bombers won’t be coming, Mizoguchi’s visit
to the whorehouse where he tells the prostitute, after finally performing, to
remember him, as he will be famous, and the setting up and lighting the bundles
of straw at the base of the pavilion.
This is all executed quite effectively, beautifully, in a rather short
space. Because Schrader intersperses
parts about Mishima’s life inside the adaptations (or vice versa, if you prefer), “Beauty” also covers Mishima’s
childhood (again, if you didn’t read my comments on Patriotism, go back and do so), adolescence, and being disqualified
for military service. That’s a lot of ground to cover on top of the adaptation. And Schrader does so. And it works. And it’s
gorgeous.
The second section,
“Art,” goes into Mishima’s emergence as a writer. It
also has those two scenes of his homosexuality that Yoko would not allow. The book that Schrader wanted to use for this
section was Forbidden Colors, which
was overtly homosexual. That was the
only book Yoko would not let Schrader use.
However, Schrader gets around this because he uses (throughout the film)
parts of Mishima’s non-fiction work Sun
and Steel, but more for its discussion of his travels and his awakening of
the body. The St. Sebastian stuff in
“Beauty” is more from Confessions of a
Mask (which is mostly autobiographical).
Schrader also uses information from the BBC documentary The Strange Case of Yukio Mishima to
fill in the conversation Mishima had with Akihiro Maruyama (one of Mishima’s
lovers) about his slight build. What
Schrader does use in place of Forbidden Colors is a curious work, Kyoko’s House, which was never
translated into English (and I have therefore never read it). It deals with four characters that are
friends and meet occasionally. One’s a
boxer, one’s an artist, one’s an actor, one’s a businessman. We get to see three of them (sans
businessman) meet for noodles at a cart during an interestingly constructed
scene where the cart (bright pink, one of the two colors in this adaptation,
the other being gray), spins clockwise as the crowd encircles the cart
counterclockwise, giving the impression of a busy street. Again, this is so theatrical in its
execution, but fresh and creative rather than looking cheap. Who Schrader focuses on in this section of
the film is the actor, Osamu. Osamu is
very much taken with himself and appears bored with the world. His mother owns a dessert shop and is heavily
in debt to Kiyomi Akita, a loan shark.
His mother is hassled by hoods, so Osamu goes to see Kiyomi on his
mother’s bidding. Kiyomi “buys” Osamu
and cancels his mother’s loan. Over a
period of time, they have sex, and she beats him and cuts him. Eventually, she kills him and drinks poison,
committing suicide. The noodle cart
inclusion is interesting, as the friends discuss what art is. They note the human body is high art, but the
artist maintains that you have to capture it in some way (painting, sculpture,
etc) in order to preserve its beauty, while the boxer feels it is all about
building the body to its peak. The actor
takes up bodybuilding, but once Kiyomi starts to ruin his body with scars and
bruises, he no longer goes to the gym, a combination of how ugly and scarified
his body has become and that he sees no further use in self-preservation when
his world seems to be headed towards destruction. It is very reminiscent of Fight Club in that sense. What is beauty? What is art?
What does it mean to be a man?
All questions Mishima was interested in investigating.
Part 3 is “Action,”
which follows Mishima into his last years where he forms his private army and
advocates a very rightist agenda (he said at one time it was because the
leftist movement was full). This is
paired quite effectively with Runaway
Horses, which is the second book in his tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility, where he charts what he believed to be the
descent of Japan as a nation from 1912 to 1975. The day Mishima finished it and sent it off
to his publisher was November 25, 1970, the day he and four members of the
Tatenokai took a general hostage at a JSDF base, Mishima addressed the troops,
then committed seppuku. We see parts of this day throughout the film,
and the film culminates, quite powerfully, in the resolution of all three of
the adaptations: the Golden Pavilion
burns down as Mizoguchi escapes, Kiyomi and Osuma lie dead near each other, and
Isao commits suicide in the light of the rising sun, which is the finishing
image of the film. Part 4, “Harmony of
Pen and Sword,” finishes the story of the events leading up to Mishima and his
group’s arrival at the JSDF base. To go
back to Runaway Horses, I feel that
this is the most ambitious part of the movie visually for three specific
scenes: the meeting at the shrine where
Isao tells everyone the plot is off, the secret meeting where the walls drop
away and police pour in and the jail scene (I saw a production of the
Washington Opera’s Fidelio with very
similar staging that used television screens behind bars like the way the bars
were set up in this film). Ishioka’s colors for this adaptation were black and
orange (“shu, a particular hue of
orange used in temples” notes Kevin Jackson in
his article).
When the walls drop away, I always jump.
There are two things I
do not like about this film, even though it’s damn near perfect. One is Ogata’s acting when he addresses the
assembled troops at the JSDF base. He
seems a raving thing, shaking, crying.
That was not the case when Mishima addressed the troops. He looked calm and
collected, not someone about ready to cause his own death. It is unfaithful to portray Mishima like
that, because it makes him look desperate and crazy. The second thing is the music. Ok, I get everyone loves Philip Glass, and
the score he did for The Hours I felt
was quite good (and that movie comes close to how ambitious this movie is with
its different parts, emphasis on author and adaptation of literature). But the score for this film beats you over
the head relentlessly with the arpeggios and ding-dong bells. I like the snares for the trip to the JSDF
base, but the rest is too invasive.
Schrader himself says,
“In many ways, I was out there directing a film that was financed by no one
that was going to be seen by no one.” He
was drawn to Mishima because he was looking for another subject a la Travis Bickle who craved suicidal
glory. What results is one of the most
gorgeous, sensitive, caring biopics and adaptations I’ve ever seen. When Schrader and Ellis started their
Kickstarter program for The Canyons and
one of the levels was for a personal phone call from either one, I was torn
about which one I would choose (and I don’t have the money for it anyways, so
whatever), but it would be Schrader. He’s
already answered the question of why he chose to make this, but I still would
like to hear it once more, because it seems so much like art for art’s sake.
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