Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters - (Japan, 1985)


Figure 1.--The Japnaese film "Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters" (1985) is about the life of Yukio Mishima, the famous Japanese novelist. Mishima as a boy wears a white shirt with a rounded collar, suspender shorts and long white stockings. Click on the image for another scenre from the film.

The Japnaese film "Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters" (1985) is about the life of Yukio Mishima, the famous Japanese novelist. The director is Paul Schrader film. Curiously few Japanese have seen the film. Mishima’s family will not permit into be shown in the country. The wonderfully crafted film, as the title suggests, is divided into three chapters recealing Mishimas different lives: public, private and literary. Mishima's final day is counterpointed by sgowing his childhood and adolesence in black-and-white sequences and winderfully staged color dramatizations of his novels, Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Kyoko's House, and Runaway Horses. Mishima is depiced as boy about 5-6 years old in the first segment of the movie. He is unhappy because he has been separated at an early age from his mother. He wears a white shirt with a rounded collar, suspender shorts and long white stockings. Mishima is one of the most famous of Japanese 20th-century writers. His life was especially dramatic because he ended it with ritual suicide ("supuku"). The suicide is of course the climax of the film. Mishima came from a very aristocratic Japanese family. He continues to be a ignimatic icons of modern Japan, but his books are so rooted in traditional values. He was a strange combination of international literary darling, accomplisged novelist and playright, a health enthuiast and body builder, and if that was not enough, the founder of a private army in pacifist Japan. He advocated the samurai code. He carried out an elaborate plan for his own death. He occupied an army garrison with soldiers of his privare army and then committed ritual suicide.

Filmology

The Japnaese film "Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters" (1985) is about the life of Yukio Mishima, the famous Japanese novelist. The director is Paul Schrader film. Curiously few Japanese have seen the film. Mishima’s family will not permit into be shown in the country.

Plot

The wonderfully crafted film, as the title suggests, is divided into three chapters recealing Mishimas different lives: public, private and literary. Mishima's final day is counterpointed by sgowing his childhood and adolesence in black-and-white sequences and winderfully staged color dramatizations of his novels, Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Kyoko's House, and Runaway Horses. Mishima is depiced as boy about 5-6 years old in the first segment of the movie. He is unhappy because he has been separated at an early age from his mother.

Costuming

Mishima as a boy wears a white shirt with a rounded collar, suspender shorts and long white stockings (figure 1). A second image from the same scene shows him kneeling at his grandmother's bed and rubbing her legs therapeutically. In the boy's kneeling position you can see the clasp of his stocking supporter (figure 1 click image). Mishima even mentions long stockings and stocking sipporters in his book, Confessions of a Mask, In it he complains about having to wear long stockings as a younger schoolboy with the necessity to "garter our thighs".

Yukio Mishima

Mishima is one of the most famous of Japanese 20th-century writers. His life was especially dramatic because he ended it with ritual suicide ("supuku"). The suicide is of course the climax of the film. Mishima came from a very aristocratic Japanese family. He continues to be a ignimatic icons of modern Japan, but his books are so rooted in traditional values. He was a strange combination of international literary darling, accomplished novelist and playright, a health enthuiast and body builder, and if that was not enough, the founder of a private army in pacifist Japan. He advocated the samurai code. He carried out an elaborate plan for his own death. He occupied an army garrison with soldiers of his privare army and then committed ritual suicide.










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Created: March 26, 2002
Last updated: March 26, 2003