Update October 1 2025: One year after Schrader believed that “Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters” would screen at Tokyo International 2024 Film The festival, the director, finally gets his wish. The acclaimed movie from 1985 will make its Japan -premiere at the festival 2025, which was revealed in Official Tokyo International Film Festival range On October 1st. Schraders Film will be included in a special Spotlight program to celebrate Yukio Mishima 100 anniversary, along with several other titles. Originally reported by Chris O’falt in the article below, “Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters” was never shown in Japan due to controversies about an American director who made a movie about a figure so revered by right in Japan-like concerns about Yukio Mishima’s own reaction views. But never officially forbidden, “Mishima” will now make his Japan premiere at the festival that will run on October 27 to November 5. Read O’Falt’s original story and interview with Schrader below.
Original history published August 9, 2024:
During the decades since the edition of 1985, director Paul SchraderS “Mishima: A life in four chapters“Based on life and the work of the productive Japanese writer Yukio Mishima has grown in status to become a revered classic – so much that during Indieview’s 80s weekWe ranked the second best movie in the decade, just behind Spike Lees “is doing the right thing.”
For such a famous film about one of the most remarkable Japanese artists in the 1900s, it is remarkable that the film has never been shown in Japan. But according to Schrader, it can change this fall. While participating in a Q&A after screening as part of Metrograph’s member series Last month, Schrader broke the news that Tokyo International Film Festival (October 28 to November 6, 2024) wants to give “Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters” its Japanese premiere. Schrader prepared the complex questions as a guest in an upcoming section of IndieWire’s tool kit Podcast.
“The festival wants to show it,” said Schrader, “and there are no legal restrictions for those who show it. But there are many unwritten agreements that we are trying to reveal right now, but to reveal an unwritten agreement is difficult, especially in Japan.”
“Mishima” was never officially banned to appear in Japan, but there were oral agreements that for all purposes, “unofficially” banned the film. To understand how it came about and why it is difficult to loosen, it is important to understand the difficult circumstances during which Schrader made “Mishima.”
Mishima was not just a famous cultural figure; He was well known for his right ideology and reactionary politics. He was intense in his belief that Japan had gone from his traditional culture and politics after the Second World War and abandoned the Emperor’s holiness as a result of falling under Western influence after losing the war. As Schrader portrayed in his film, these were beliefs that Mishima was ultimately willing to die for 1970, when he led four members of his personally trained militia on a Tokyo military base, held his commander hostage and tried to inspire the soldiers at the garrison to rise and close Japan’s 1947. After his suffering speech’s inevitable failure, Mishima implemented his plan to commit Seppuku at the garrison.
At that time that Schrader made “Mishima: a life in four chapters”, which he shot in Japan at the famous Toho Studios, Mishima was an icon for the Japanese right wing.
“The conservative right -wing elements in the country were upset,” Schrader said. “(It was unacceptable to them) that an American, a Gaijin (foreigner in Japan), the enemy of Japan, the subjusifier (where) made (a movie) about a Japanese nationalist ultra -dish hero.”
When the project’s words were spread, the right press put on Toho, as-even if it denied that it partially funded the all-samous film to dump the project. According to Schrader, Mishima’s widow, Yoko Hiraoka, even felt pressed to ask for the rights to her convicted husband’s novels to be returned after she sold them to Francis Ford Coppola, whose Zoetrope Studios produced the film. As a result of the production, things became so heated Schrader was forced to carry a knife -proof vest for protection, and the production was in danger of being shut down just as it began.
“Then I shot one day at the Toho Party and (Zoetrope producer) Tom (Luddy) Come to me and said, ‘It’s okay. We will be able to make the movie, “Schrader said.” It was the second or third day of photography, and I took off the (protective) vest. “
While Schrader remained Persona Non Grata on the Toho party for the rest of the production (even filmmakers, he knew it would not be seen with him), at that time, neither he nor Luddy was not aware of what had changed and why the right attack dogs had been suspended.
“It came out a few years later, Tom discovered that Toho and the conservative fraction had made an unwritten agreement that the right would not stop the production if Toho would guarantee that (the movie) would never be shown in Japan, and it never has been,” Schrader said. “And I didn’t understand what it was until sometime later, because we took the movie to Cannes and I went to the Toho party and told Madame (Kazuko) Kawakita, who ran the company, I want to thank you to help with ‘Mishima.’ And she looked straight at me and said, ‘We had nothing to do with that movie.’ ”
Almost 40 years have passed, all old players have died, and according to Schrader, Mishima himself is now seen as “old history”, and not through the same suffering political lens as he once was.
Although there is nothing legal to limit the Tokyo International Film Festival from showing the film, oral agreements are not easily taken in Japan. According to Schrader, the festival will only show the movie about Mishima’s two children not objecting.
“The negotiations are ongoing,” Schrader said. “It’s really a bit tricky because they try to get some reason from the son and their daughter if they were to object, and it’s not a matter of” oh, they would try to stop it “, but they have to say they will not make objections or agree to say nothing at all.”
Schrader said that “Mishima” screens at the festival (October 28 to November 6) he would fly out to participate and bring his new film “Oh, Canada” recently acquired by kino lorbsto show together with it. It is not a small commitment to the 78-year-old filmmaker, who will be deep into the pre-production on his new film at that time. That’s right, “Oh, Canada” – like Schrader, who suffered several hospital admissions before he wrote, called his “Submit film” – will not be the filmmaker’s last, as it had been billed when he originally shot it.
“Well, it was my last movie, but now I’m working on my last, last movie,” Joking Schrader. “I wrote a script called” Non Compos Mentis “about madness and about sexuality and the crazy things that men do because of romance and sexuality. (The title) comes from the Latin phrase for” out of the mind “. I have money for it.
Schrader said he is close to throwing the two male joints after having a first setback.
“I would do it with Jamie DornanAnd then his boss said: “You know, it took us four years to get you out of the sex movie Ghetto,” said Schrader, referring to the Irish actor’s star production as Christian Gray in “Fifty Shades of Gray” trilogy. “And then he had to release. But now I have an actor, and I think I get the other actor this weekend, and we get started.”
Look for indieview’s Toolkit sections on “Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters” with Paul Schrader on SpotifyThe AppleAnd other major podcast platforms in September.
Visit Metrograph’s website For more information about their upcoming membership shows.
