I haven't watched through the second disc yet but watching the film for the first time in a decade I connected with the film much more - the red sky is a great change made in the spirit of the film (it isn't as if Schrader wanted to exchange all the swords in the film for walkie talkies
), keeping the stylised atmosphere of the stories. Also, it might seem a very minor change, but hearing the Scheider narration rather than the 'guide track' I was more familiar with was also a revelation. I like very much the way that the English narration is removed somewhat from Mishima's own voice, yet still speaks his words. It struck me as being a little similar to the later Anatomy of Hell in that the discongruity of the narrator draws attention to the filmmaker's (at least attempted!) distance from the subject matter that is being spoken of. Whether it was intended as such may be debatable but in a way that is not particularly important!
However, I also found Ken Ogata's narration also to be interesting. This track perhaps plays more into the feeling of narcissism that I talk about further below - that Mishima is speaking about himself in the third person through his novels as a sense of preparation for his real life action. The only reason why I prefer the Scheider narration to Ogata's is that with the words being spoken by the same actor playing Mishima in the 'final day' section, there is a greater weight placed on the narration being 'definitively' Mishima speaking about himself through his art. With the more detatched Scheider narration we are provided with his art and his life and are given more leeway to decide for ourselves how much we want to link the two together in a 'cause and effect' way, if that makes any sense!
I think therefore that the choice of narrations is less about which narration is better or more appropriate but instead I guess it comes down to a more personal audience preference.
[EDIT on 1st July: The second disc really gets into the ideas raised by the film, including the suspicion of guilt about not having fought in the war and the gist of Mishima's final speech. Again, and this is a common praise for Criterion, I am very impressed by the many different points of view we are given on the film and the man himself. I haven't checked to make certain but doesn't this also mark John Hurt's entry into the Criterion Collection with his readings from Mishima's work in the BBC documentary?]
I hadn't realised that the film has still not been officially shown in Japan - has is been shown since the commentary was recorded or is there any possibility of this changing in the future?
Interestingly the film reminded me of a couple of modern Hollywood films. It puts criticism of the varying plotlines of The Fountain into context as it has a much more complex, yet clear, structure of inner and outer worlds running through it! And the private army staging acts of political violence reminded me a little of Fight Club!
I'm still not too familiar with Mishima's life and work so I'd be very interested to discuss whether I'm on the right track with the following comments on the film:
I was fascinated by the suggestion that for a 'cult' to be successful and to live on metaphysically their charismatic leader/creator figure needs to die so their spirit invests itself in the work or acts that remain. Perhaps that is what people mean when it is said that someone has left behind a "body of work" - that an act of transubstantiation has occured?
The death becomes a prism through which everything is then viewed (it therefore makes it ironic that according to the commentary Mishima's widow tried to divorce his work from his life) - there is the sense in the moment of hesitation (or steeling themselves) before the final act of seppuku that the shocking act is necessary to bind together the various strands of Mishima's life. You have to take the paradoxical acts that might just be seen as posturing and then ally that to the fact that Mishima felt strongly enough to die for his ideology.
That 'transubstantiation' could also be seen in the mythologising Mishima tries to do of himself in his yakuza films, in Yukoku and in his posed photographs (which reminded me of the photos Jimmy Cliff's character was posing for in The Harder They Come, playing at being a gangster vs the wretchedness of his life at that point and inglorious death hunted down like an animal at the end of that film). I was also wondering whether that discharge from the army so he (supposedly) couldn't fight and die gloriously was a source of guilt for Mishima? Did exaggerating his illness show to him a fear that he spent the rest of his life trying to overcome through becoming strong and hyper-masculine in physique and political stance? It was interesting listening to the commentary that Schrader talked about John Wayne as a touchstone for Ken Ogata's performance as wasn't there some talk about Wayne being touchy about his non-participation in World War Two that seemed to be sublimated into Wayne's films where it often seemed as if he was fighting and winning the war single handed?(!) And then Wayne's adoption of the Vietnam War in The Green Berets as almost being just an extension of a conflict that he didn't actually fight in the 40s than an entirely different war. Could the idea of Wayne becoming more right wing perhaps due to a deep seated guilt at not having 'done his part' and wanting to prove his masculine credentials in a more extreme way be applied to Mishima at all, or is that too simplistic a comparison to draw?
The way that Mishima's past is presented in black and white in the film, as well as being a good separator for audience understanding, could also be suggesting that life holds little interest to Mishima - or little interest compared to the vividness with which even his older writings are shown, still full of potency and relevance.
I like the way that the film creates the stylised world of Mishima's work, a perfect world which is a servant to the author's imagination - only objects, characters and themes that are chosen and fit Mishima's worldview are allowed. It is beautifully insular but at the same time creates a feeling of inevitable danger as it feels as if Mishima is retreating into self-destructive fantasy that will inevitably move into his real life as the boundaries between them are blurred - reality is less interesting or coherent than art (you might visit Mount Fuji, but there's no guarantee in reality that you'll be able to see it on the day of your visit!); art feels much more relevant, urgent and necessary than reality.
Interestingly the 'final day' sections seem to be slightly undermining Mishima's attempts to bring his writings into the real world - not getting the chance to say goodbye to his wife because she has already left and taken the children with her; travelling to their destination packed into a generic car that lends a sense of absurdity to the splendor of his army's uniforms; the General they take hostage seeming to be a sympathetic character; the first attempt at jumping the General being scuppered when he wanders off to his desk to get his own 'polishing cloth' for the sword; the jeering crowd ignoring Mishima's requests for silence; the pulling back (a la Life of Brian!) to a crowd-level perspective from which we can barely hear what Mishima is saying; and, from the information in the commentary, the messy, rather than glorious, deaths.
That makes the film more of a masterpiece for me - it is not ignoring that the reality won't always go completely to plan, but at the same time it is impressed with the attempt at trying to write the ending of your own story "signed with a splash of blood". And in the end the act of seppuku itself is what people remember first, rather than the difficulties surrounding it, as other people then work to mythologise that day in history.
(I was very interested to find out through Chieko Kurosawa's interview that apparently Akira Kurosawa was a director who had approached Mishima's widow about making a film of his life. That is a fascinating piece of information in light of some of Stephen Prince's commentary tracks for Kurosawa's films, in which he talks about the way that Kurosawa shied away from depicting ritual suicide in his films and that this reticence might have been because of his brother's suicide, as well as his own unsuccessful suicide attempt. Perhaps Mishima struck a chord with Kurosawa, and perhaps Kurosawa felt that this would be the one film that would have allowed him to explore this subject, and maybe his own reaction to suicide, in a sublimated manner?)
The film is full of paradoxes - having a wife and children yet at the very least being bisexual; finding things so beautiful that it is better to destroy them rather than see them slowly fall into disrepair and decay, the power that gives the person who destroys as you have been the one to remove that beauty and potential from the world and therefore you are inextricably bound into the fate of that object or person, whether it is burning down a temple, firing arrows into St Sebastian or shooting John Lennon! Then the move from wanting to destroy the outside world to making yourself into an object of respect, power and beauty in order to make a final statement by deciding to remove yourself from life before you are destroyed first (either in reputation or by disease etc).
To me that seems a narcissistic act though also one of deep anger and condemnation, as in a sense all suicides are ("look at what actions
you have driven me to have to take")
But I think the film seems to show that Mishima was fully aware of the paradoxes in his writings as well, and accepted them.
It is the final, ultimate paradox that cutting yourself open could be seen as being akin to using a needle to sew the different threads of your life together into a cohesive whole. It is the end of the production process of Mishima's story, and the beginning of his new life as an icon. I love the transition from Mishima's real death (and I actually find it fitting that according to the commentary the reality of the situation was apparently not as slick and without a hitch as in Mishima's story) back through the various endings of the stories and the final seppuku in Runaway Horses - the idealisation of a glorious patriotic death, the music rising and then abruptly ending as the sun's link with the horizon is severed and the credits rolling as the orb rises like a life essence to take its place in the heavens for everyone to view in awe and wonder.