Film, Literature, & the Human Condition

Our first sight of him, he steps into the frame with his back to the camera, the explosive Masaru Sato score already telling us this figure is a force of nature. He scratches his head and swaggers with that world-weary gait in no particular direction until the opening credits finish. The score then momentarily shifts in tone, from intensity to a kind of cheerful lightness. The masterless samurai, portrayed by the venerable Toshiro Mifune, has come to a pause in his meditative stroll to pick a stick up from off the ground. He tosses it in the air and when it lands, he proceeds to walk in the direction it points. He shrugs his shoulders and introspectively squints his eyes and immediately there’s a resonance. We don’t know anything about this character, but we feel compelled to him. Mifune conveys so much in a single gesture that the sum of his gestures in just the first five minutes suffuses the ronin with a depth and vitality that does nothing but draw us in. Then he follows the stick’s desultory guidance into an iniquitous town and the real magic begins. The soundtrack reverts back to its restrained intensity and one of the first images we get is of a stray dog with a human hand in his mouth, running past Mifune. It’s just an inkling of this film’s disturbing beauty. (continue reading…)

I’m not sure if it’s fair to call the great Yukio Mishima crazy. He was definitely an intensely charismatic figure who broadened his horizons to encompass as many facets of cultural literacy as his time allowed. By the end of his life, or at the time he chose to end it, Mishima had written 40 novels, 18 plays, 20 books of short stories, 20 books of essays, one libretto, and a film. That his oeuvre consisted of deep insight into the elements of what makes us human only boggles me to comprehend what had happened to him that lead to his self-imposed doom. Despite his commitment to the Bushido, I cannot understand the force driving him to his death when his fertile mind I imagine still had much to offer. I doubt it was boredom or even a lack of satisfaction. Though his sexuality has been a subject of much speculation, Mishima was still happily married with two young children. In the breathtaking film, Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters, Paul Schrader embarks on a complex examination about the statements Mishima was trying to make and attempts to answer these questions. He doesn’t answer them with answers though. It’s not that simple with Mishima. Schrader’s intricately structured film rather blurs the line between Mishima’s life and Mishima’s art. He slowly shows us that maybe Mishima saw no distinction between the two and that his existence was just another tool for him, like pen and paper, to express his art. Or more so, Mishima saw his life as his magnum opus and the graphic violence of seppuku was the most effective conclusion he arrived at for his greatest artistic accomplishment. (continue reading…)