Mishima - A Life in Four Chapters
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Mishima - A Life in Four Chapters |
| Original title | Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters |
 | |
| Country of production | USA Japan |
| original language | English Japanese |
| Publishing year | 1985 |
| length | 120 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Paul Schrader |
| script | Paul Schrader Leonard Schrader Chieko Schrader |
| production |
Tom Luddy Mataichirō Yamamoto Chieko Schrader |
| music | Philip Glass |
| camera | John Bailey |
| cut |
Michael Chandler Tomoyo Oshima |
| occupation | |
| |
Mishima - A Life in Four Chapters (Original title: Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters ) is an American - Japanese feature film from 1985 . The film, directed by Paul Schrader , is based on the biography and work of the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima . Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas served as executive producers .
In four chapters, the film describes the last day in the life of Mishima, who died by ritual suicide on November 25, 1970 , and interweaves it with biographical flashbacks and dramatized excerpts from three of his novels: The Temple Fire , Kyōko no ie and Under the Storm God .
action
In a framework story set on November 25, 1970, the last day of Mishima's life, the writer can be seen finishing a manuscript. He dresses in a fantasy uniform and meets with four loyal supporters from his private army . Together they drive to the center of the Japanese armed forces in Tokyo .
In flashbacks, you can see Mishima's career from ailing boy to a celebrated exponent of young Japanese literature of the post-war period . At the same time, he pays homophile to a homophilic , narcissistic body and muscle cult and a strong longing for death. Repelled by the materialism of modern Japan, the author turns into a radical traditionalist who sets up a private militia and calls for the reinstatement of the Tennō as supreme head of state.
The scenes, which alternate between the present and the past, include shortened dramatic versions of three of Mishima's novels. In Kinkaku-ji (English: The Temple Fire), the stuttering priest candidate Mizoguchi sets fire to the Golden Pavilion because he feels inferior in view of its beauty. Kyōko no ie (not published in German) tells of the sadomasochistic relationship between an older woman and leader of a gang of protection rackets and a young actor who is dependent on her. In Homba (German book title Unter dem Sturmgott ) the assassination plans of a group of young nationalists are revealed, whose leader Isao commits suicide after the murder of a prominent representative of the upper class. The frame story, flashbacks and dramatizations are divided into the four chapters Beauty , Art , Action and Harmony of Pen and Sword mentioned in the film title .
In the finale, Mishima and his supporters take a general in the Japanese army hostage. Mishima gives a speech in front of the soldiers who have been summoned from the barracks, in which he calls on them to overthrow the government and restore the Tennō. When his appeal goes unheard, he commits seppuku . At the moment of his death he becomes one with his fictional characters: the last pictures show Mizoguchi in the middle of a sea of flames, the corpses of the elderly woman and her lover and Isao's suicide.
background
Literary templates and biographical parallels
In Schrader's film three novels of Mishima are visualized: The Temple Fire , Kyōko no ie and Under the Storm God . The rights to use the novel Kinjiki (not published in German), which depicts the marriage of a homosexual man to a woman, were refused to Schrader by Mishima's widow. Schrader chose the three books mentioned from Mishima's extensive oeuvre because he was looking for a book from the early, middle and late creative phases that had parallels to the author's biography. In addition, these three main topics should cover: 1. the obsessive relationship to beauty, 2. sexual ambivalence and narcissism and 3. Mishima the revolutionary.
Another, strongly autobiographical novel, Confession of a Mask , remains unmentioned, but obviously also served as a basis: A scene in which the underage Mishima gets excited by a portrayal of the martyr Sebastian and his secret love for a classmate is found both like that in the book. For the narrator's comment, mostly passages from Taiyō to tetsu (also not published in German) were used.
The literary models are reduced to a few scenes, in keeping with the running time of the film. Kyōko no ie contains a total of four equal storylines with four protagonists, Schrader selected only one of these, however, in which a narcissistic actor sells himself to his mother's believer. After the denial of the rights of use by Kinjiki , Schrader had the Kyōko no ie , which was not published in other languages, exclusively translated. The episode he chose offered him the sexual ambivalence and narcissism that had interested him in Kinjiki .
The film ends with Mishima's seppuku, which actually dragged on longer than the ritual allows. Immediately afterwards, his confidante Morita Masakatsu also attempted suicide, but it failed. Both were beheaded by a third conspirator. The three survivors were then arrested without resistance. Film critic Roger Ebert praised Schrader's decision not to reveal the bloody details of the actual course of events, as these would have destroyed the mood of the film. Incidentally, when drawing Mishima's life path, the script is based closely on the biographical facts that Schrader had undertaken to uphold.
production
In the early 1980s, Paul Schrader succeeded in getting producers Tom Luddy and Francis Ford Coppola interested in a film project about Yukio Mishima. It took another two years for Mishima's widow and Jun Shiragi, the administrator of the literary estate, to give their consent to the project. Previously, Bob Rafelson , Elia Kazan , Roman Polański , Nagisa Ōshima and Akira Kurosawa had unsuccessfully sought permission to dramatize Mishima's biography. - At the initiative of producer Mataichirō Yamamoto , the Japanese production company Tōhō and Fuji Television pledged a proportion of two million US dollars .
Paul Schrader wrote the script together with his brother Leonard and his Japanese wife Chieko. Chieko Schrader not only translated the dialogues into Japanese, but also insisted that the film should have a “revelation” in the finale instead of ending immediately with Mishima's suicide, as originally intended. As a result, a scene was added to the end in which the dying Mishima becomes one with his characters in the novel. For the design of the scene image in the novel sequences, the designer was Eiko Ishioka obliged for the composition of film music Philip Glass , both participated in a feature film for the first time.
While preparing for production, Mishima's widow revoked her permission to film her husband's biography because she was bothered by the theming of Mishima's homosexuality and the detailed account of his attempted coup. The contractually secured project could still be realized, but was increasingly confronted with obstacles. The threats from right-wing groups , especially against coproducer Yamamoto, increased. The main criticism of these groups was the fact that a foreign film team was making a film about their admired national idol. The feared attacks did not take place. Tōhō and Fuji also suddenly declared that they did not want to participate in the film. Only after Yamamoto, who was heavily indebted at the time, indicated that the only way out in this case was suicide, did both companies comply with their promise. A press conference at which Mishima's biographer Henry Scott Stokes attacked Schrader for allegedly plagiarizing his work was ignored in Japanese media coverage. Ken Takakura , who was to play the role of Mishima, withdrew from the production and was replaced by Ken Ogata . Schrader later expressed dissatisfaction with the cast of Ogata, who would not have had Mishima's sexual ambiguity .
The shooting with a predominantly Japanese film crew took place in the spring and summer of 1984 on the grounds of Tōhō in Tokyo, with outdoor shots in Kōriyama and near the Fuji volcano . The Fukushima Prefectural Administration building in Kōriyama served as the backdrop for Mishima's attempted coup, since, according to Associate Producer Alan Poul , shooting on the original location was out of the question. According to Poul, Mike Mansfield , US ambassador to Japan, obtained the necessary filming permission from the Japanese Ministry of Culture and Foreign Affairs . According to Tom Luddy, however, paying a bribe to the Yakuza , who had ties to an influential local politician, paved the way for the desired filming permit. The shooting took place during the cherry blossom festival , as the building was empty at the time.
In April 1984, the Warner Brothers film studio , through the intermediary of George Lucas , agreed to provide a further three million US dollars for the film after an initial refusal . In an interview with Kevin Jackson, Schrader suspected that none of the financiers expected the film to make a profit. On the one hand, this would have meant great luxury for him when filming, but also great pressure and a high level of responsibility, because excellent work was expected from him.
Film start
Mishima premiered on May 15, 1985 at the Cannes International Film Festival . According to Roger Ebert, the reactions were positive, but according to an article in the Chicago Tribune and Karsten Witte von Zeit , they were rather mixed. The film opened in American cinemas on September 20, 1985, with box-office earnings of just under 450,000 US dollars. According to Roger Ebert, Schrader had already foreseen a poor performance at the American box office at the premiere in Cannes. The picture was similar in Europe: In Paris , where the film started earlier than in the USA, Mishima ran on nine screens in the first week, but the number was reduced to three within a very short time due to poor sales.
Although originally intended for participation in the Tokyo International Film Festival , Mishima was not included in the program because of threats from right-wing groups and the objections of Mishima's widow. The film was officially excluded from participation due to an "error in submission" on the part of the producers. Despite a letter of protest signed by Martin Scorsese , Woody Allen and Louis Malle , among others , the organizers stuck to their decision. To date, Mishima has not been shown in Japanese cinemas either. The Tōhō studio even denied having co-financed the film.
On October 31, 1985 launched Mishima in the original language version with German subtitles in German cinemas. On November 12, 1995, the ZDF broadcast the film in a dubbed version.
Visual style
In order to visually distinguish the game scenes at different times and partly biographical, partly fictional, the film assigns them different color palettes: natural, muted colors in the 1970 setting, black and white in the flashbacks, the colors gold and green in Der Tempelbrand , Pink and gray in Kyōko no ie , orange (more precisely: "Shu" or 朱 , a color used in temples) and black in Unter dem Sturmgott . At Schrader's request, the sky, which was originally dark blue in the final suicide, was also colored orange in the “ Unter dem Sturmgott ” sequence for the 2008 DVD release. In addition, the fictional element is emphasized by theatrical artificiality such as visible sliding backdrops , models and painted skies.
While cameraman John Bailey photographed the fictional scenes in a very modern style, he and Schrader oriented themselves in the flashbacks to the strict image composition of Japanese cinema from the 1930s to 1950s. For the scenes set on November 25, 1970, they opted for a documentary style “in the manner of Costa-Gavras ” (Schrader).
In one of the last shots of the film, in which Mishima, facing the camera, kills himself, Schrader made use of what is known as the dolly zoom , which deliberately creates a visually irritating effect by stretching the perspective. This is occasionally referred to as the "vertigo effect", after Alfred Hitchcock 's feature film of the same name , which used this technique for the first time and which Schrader openly admires.
For other settings in Der Tempelbrand and Kyōko no ie , Schrader used, according to his own statement, visual ideas from Bernardo Bertolucci's Der große Errtum and Nicolas Roeg's performance .
Film music
Producer Tom Luddy brought Schrader and composer Philip Glass together. Schrader decided against the usual procedure in film productions to create a "temp track" for the film from existing pieces of music, which the composer of the film music should use as a guide. Instead, he provided Glass with a copy of the script and other material on Mishima. Glass created a synthesizer version of the film music, which the director used at the desired points in the film and changed where necessary. Glass used this version as a template for his final composition.
The Mishima film music is largely carried by orchestral and synthesizer sounds. In the 1970 scenes a militaristic percussive element is in the foreground, in the scenes from Kyōko no ie an additional electric guitar suggests rock 'n' roll sounds. The biographical flashbacks, in turn, are accompanied solely by string instruments (recorded by the Kronos Quartet ). Since Glass assumed a predominantly western audience for the film, he deliberately avoided Far Eastern elements in the music, with the exception of the use of wind chimes . The composer called his work for Mishima , which he later rewritten as his String Quartet No. 3 , as one of his favorites.
subjects
Fascination Japan
Kevin Jackson discovered a lasting fascination for Japan in Schrader's work. Schrader had already written a highly acclaimed essay on the films by director Yasujirō Ozu in 1972 , and his first script, Yakuza (1974, director: Sydney Pollack ), which he had also written together with his brother Leonard, was set in the criminal gang milieu of Japan. Schrader explained his and his brother's affinity as follows: “Japan is a small moral universe full of codes and very strict rules governing all forms of behavior and etiquette. It is not uncommon for a person to escape from one prison to find themselves in another. All of the restrictive aspects of cultural life in Grand Rapids [Schrader's birthplace] , against which my brother and I rebelled but which we later missed, were found in Japan. But since we were strangers in a foreign country, we didn't feel so limited by them. "
The author as a fictional character
In retrospect, Schrader identified Mishima as his favorite directing work, citing among other things that “Mishima was the kind of personality I would have liked to have created had it not already existed. He has all the power of fiction. In fact , he is a fictional character because he is a character created by a great writer. […] I believe that his life was his final work, and I am convinced that Mishima saw it too. "
Roger Ebert supported this point of view in an essay from 2007. All his life Schrader was fascinated by the “man in a room” who, like in Schrader's script for Taxi Driver , dresses up and prepares to go out and for his goals fight: "Mishima is his ultimate 'man in a room'." Nick Pinkerton of the Village Voice agreed: Schrader presented Mishima as thematically related to Taxi Driver . "Both works combine with isolated characters who make themselves myths and who write as if they were sharpening a knife."
For Schader, Mishima formulated a problem that has been a major problem for modern authors since the advent of television: “Nowadays, writers are much more known as media figures than for their work as authors. Mishima understood this change very quickly. "
Suicide as an artistic act
Shooting Mishima , Schrader said, satisfied his urgent need to make a film about a suicidal artist that he had cherished since his unrealized biography about Hank Williams . The suicidal impulse is closely linked to the artistic impulse to change the world: “It is part of the artistic process.” Nick Pinkerton stated not without hesitation: “The writer's last moment is uncritically staged as Mishima imagined it - as his masterpiece, a moment of perfect unity that increases his bloody suicide. "
Mishima shows four suicides, three of them according to the ritual of Seppuku: the ritual suicide of the author, the double suicide (or murder and subsequent suicide) of the couple in Kyōko no ie , the likewise ritual self-evacuation of the conspirator Isao in Under the Storm God , and the Seppuku of the officer Takeyama in Mishima's own directorial work Yūkoku , from which a short - re-enacted - excerpt can be seen. All three ritual suicides shown have a political, nationalist- restorative background: Mishima kills himself after his failed appeal for the re-establishment of the emperor, Isao after the betrayed planned blow against representatives of modern Japan, and Takeyama after the suppressed attempted coup in 1936 .
Politics and fetishism
For Schrader, Mishima's political behavior was “75 percent theater”: “He was fixated on the emperor, and in a very strong, sexual sense also on the militaristic, but his interests were primarily ritual and artistic. […] It was all a masquerade, in the style of D'Annunzio . ”In contrast, Henry Scott Stokes saw his suicide in the Tokyo center of the self-defense forces as a clearly politically motivated act. For Ebert, Mishima's private militia was an expression of his libidinal relationship between life and work: “His private army combined the ritual with repressed sexuality. His soldiers were young, handsome and ready to die for him, and their uniforms were as fetishistic as those of the Nazis . "
homosexuality
Schrader was repeatedly confronted with the accusation that he had downplayed Mishima's homosexuality or even completely ignored it. Schrader said: “Mishima is an admired figure in gay circles, but that wasn't why I wanted to do the film. I wanted to examine the dilemma of the relationship between life and art. Homosexuality played a part in this, but it wasn't necessarily a component. The same dilemma could have existed in a heterosexual. ”In addition, according to Schrader, even the few homoerotic allusions in the film - Mishima dances with another man in a gay bar - were difficult to enforce because he had committed to all biographical details of the script, e.g. B. through interviews with contemporary witnesses.
Mishima's aftermath
In Schrader's eyes, Mishima's death represented an incomprehensible and anything but everyday act even in traditional Japanese society: “Japan is a society based on consensus [...] it cannot be repeated often enough. When Mishima died it was said, 'give us 15 years and we'll tell you what we think of him'. But more than 15 years have passed and people still don't know what to say. Mishima has become a non-person - a fascinating one at that. People read his name, but there is no official position. If you are at a dinner party and his name comes up, there is complete silence. "
In 2012, more than 30 years after Mishima's death, the film 11:25 Jiketsu no Hi: Mishima Yukio to Wakamonotachi by Japanese director Kōji Wakamatsu about the author's attempted coup was released.
Reviews
“The most unusual biopic I've ever seen, and one of the best. [...] a triumph of precise writing and precise construction [...] The unconventional structure of the film [...] unfolds with perfect clarity and reveals the logic behind it. "
“Schrader applied extremely formalistic techniques to later biographical films […] but it is the diagram structure in Mishima that best suits its subject, defined by its will to harmony. […] It's hard to spot the real Mishima in the middle of the mirror cabinet of literary representatives, but Ken Ogata […] - tense, with translucent, youthful cheerfulness - conveys this human continuity. As he looks down on demonstrating students, he is the epitome of sardonic, counter-revolutionary chic, secretly savoring the expectation of his own death. "
"Ambitious, strongly stylized drama [...] long, difficult, not always accurate but fascinating."
“Perhaps Schrader has finally completed the violent transformation that he and his protagonists are looking for [...] Philip Glass' haunting music transforms the whole thing into an opera. With nothing to compare. "
“This film looks stuck by all means. [...] The painfully bright colors catch the eye. Pathos strikes the mind. The camera circles around itself while idling. It tilts its surprise effects into the picture like a bulldozer. This beauty in the form of intentional flawlessness is optical waste. Aesthetic economy, scarcity of funds, a cautiously questioning approach to the myth seem to be excluded on the subject of Mishima. "
“A haunting artist portrait that is complex in form and content, assembled in a collage of biographical and fictional sequences. At the same time a demanding meditation on how the pursuit of beauty and perfection can become independent, and an important experiment on the difficult relationship between art and life, aesthetics and morality. "
"With magnificent, often surreal images, flashbacks shot in black and white and staged excerpts from Mishima's works, director Paul Schrader unfolds a fascinating biography."
Awards
Mishima was honored for Best Artistic Achievement at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival (cameraman John Bailey, set designer Eiko Ishioka and film music composer Philip Glass).
Publications
Mishima was released twice on DVD in the USA , 2001 by Warner Brothers , and 2008 in an expanded new edition by Criterion Collection , which includes the BBC documentary The Strange Case of Yukio Mishima (1985). Roy Scheider originally did the English voiceover for the film, which was heard in the theatrical version and the VHS releases. On the first US DVD release from 2001, the voiceover was spoken by a different actor (without naming his name). The DVD release from 2008 after Scheider's death contains both versions (as well as the Japanese version spoken by Ken Ogata, which did not reach theaters). In a comment on Amazon.com , Schrader cited a mistake in the production of the 2001 DVD as the cause, the alternative voice-over came from Paul Jasmin (not identical to the actor of the same name).
In 1986 an original language version with German subtitles was released on VHS cassette in Germany . A DVD was not released.
A French DVD was released by Wild Side Video in 2010 under the title Mishima - une vie en quatre chapitres .
A Spanish Blu-ray Disc was released in 2010 under the title Mishima - Una Vida en Cuatro Capítulos .
The film music by Philip Glass was released on LP and audio CD in 1985 .
On November 28, 2019, "Mishima" will start again in German cinemas as Director's Cut.
Web links
- Mishima - A Life in Four Chapters in the Internet Movie Database (English)
literature
- Double seppuku . Article in Der Spiegel 8/1984 on the preparation of Mishima for production . (Contains a detailed error in the budget.)
Remarks
- ↑ The division of the film into the chapters Beauty , Art , Action and Harmony of Pen and Sword is reminiscent of the division in Henry Scott Stokes' biography The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima , Chapters IV to VII: The River of Writing, The River of Theater, The River of Body, The River of Action. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York 1974, ISBN 0-374-18620-0 , pp. 170-234.
Individual evidence
- ^ Interview with Paul Schrader on Efilmcritic.com , accessed October 31, 2011.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Kevin Jackson: Schrader on Schrader and Other Writings , Faber & Faber , 2004, ISBN 0-571-22176-9 , pp. 172-184.
- ^ Marguerite Yourcenar : Mishima or The Vision of Empty , Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-446-13916-8 .
- ^ Review of Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times, October 11, 1985, accessed March 13, 2012.
- ↑ a b c d e f g Audio commentary by Paul Schrader and Alan Poul on the DVD edition of the Criterion Collection.
- ^ Henry Scott Stokes: The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima , quoted from Don Ranvaud: Portrait of a Novelist as a Macabre Suicide . Article in the New Straits Times , Malaysia, August 10, 1984, accessed March 19, 2012.
- ↑ a b c d Interview with Tom Luddy in the DVD edition of the Criterion Collection, 2008.
- ↑ a b Aljean Harmetz: Mishima: A Look At The Relationship Of Art And Life . Article in the Chicago Tribune on March 26, 1985, accessed March 18, 2012.
- ↑ Interview with Chieko Schrader in the DVD edition of the Criterion Collection.
- ↑ a b c d Roger Ebert: Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985). (No longer available online.) Chicago Sun-Times, December 15, 2007, archived from the original on February 26, 2009 ; accessed on July 29, 2018 .
- ^ A b Gene Siskel : Mishima: A Question Of Artistry, Suicide. . . And investment . Article in the Chicago Tribune on September 22, 1985, accessed March 18, 2012.
- ↑ a b Karsten Witte: Sword and Mask - The Return of the Japanese Writer Yukio Mishima . Article in Die Zeit Nr. 45 of November 1, 1985, accessed on March 13, 2011.
- ^ Mishima in the Internet Movie Database .
- ↑ a b Essay on the film by Kevin Jackson in the DVD edition of the Criterion Collection.
- ↑ Interview with Mataichirô Yamamoto in the DVD edition of the Criterion Collection.
- ↑ a b Mishima - A Life in Four Chapters. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 30, 2017 . .
- ↑ Information about the film on DVDBeaver.com , accessed October 30, 2011.
- ↑ Interview with John Bailey in the DVD edition of the Criterion Collection.
- ↑ Accompanying text by Paul Schrader to the 1985 film music for Mishima (Elektra / Asylum / Nonesuch Records).
- ↑ Interview with Philip Glass in the DVD edition of the Criterion Collection.
- ^ Greta Stetson: Philip Glass Wishes He Had Time to Take a Four-Hour Hike. Article ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. via the Telluride Musicfest 2009 on Watchnewspapers.com, accessed March 18, 2012.
- ↑ Mark Mobley, Joy In Repetition: Philip Glass Turns 75th Article on Philip Glass' 75th Birthday on Npr.org, accessed March 18, 2012.
- ^ Paul Schrader: Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer , University of California Press, Berkeley 1972.
- ^ A b Nick Pinkerton: Yukio Mishima, A Life in Four Chapters, and Countless Contradictions . Village Voice article on December 17, 2008, accessed March 16, 2012.
- ↑ The Strange Case of Yukio Mishima , BBC documentary , Great Britain 1985.
- ↑ Entry in the Internet Movie Database .
- ^ Entry in the archive of the Cannes International Film Festival 2012 , accessed on June 22, 2012.
- ^ "[...] the most unconventional biopic I've ever seen, and one of the best. […] A triumph of concise writing and construction […] The unconventional structure of the film […] unfolds with perfect clarity, the logic revealing itself. ”- Article by Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times of December 15, 2007, Retrieved March 13, 2012.
- ^ "Schrader applied ultra-formalist technique to later biopics [...] but it's Mishima’s diagrammatic structure that most perfectly suits its subject, defined by his will to harmony. […] It's difficult to make a real Mishima stand out in his hall of mirrors of literary surrogates, but Ken Ogata […] —taut, with a glimmer of juvenile glee — provides that human continuity. Facing down student demonstrators, he's the picture of sardonic counterrevolutionary chic, secretly savoring the anticipation of his own death. "- Nick Pinkerton: Yukio Mishima, A Life in Four Chapters, and Countless Contradictions . Village Voice article on December 17, 2008, accessed March 16, 2012.
- ↑ "Ambitious, highly stylized drama [...] Long, difficult, not always successful, but fascinating." - Leonard Maltin's 2008 Movie Guide , Signet / New American Library, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-451-22186-5 .
- ^ "Schrader may have finally achieved the violent transfiguration that he seeks along with his protagonists [...] Philip Glass' insistent score virtually transforms the whole thing into opera." There is nothing quite like it. "- Time Out Film Guide, Seventh Edition 1999, Penguin, London 1998, ISBN 0-14-027525-8 .
- ↑ Mishima on Cinema.de, accessed on March 13, 2012.
- ^ "Kerry: It took some years but I finally figured it out. The original WB print and VHS contain Roy's narration. When we returned to Lucasfilm some years later to do the DVD, Paul Jasmin's narration (which I'd been using as a temp track during editing) was inadvertently used in the place of Scheider's. The WB DVD has the wrong narration. When Criterion came to do their DVD, this was all unraveled. They included Ogata's narration with a choice of Jasmin's (from the WB DVD) or Scheider's (from the WB VHS). Phew! Paul S. “- Comment by Paul Schrader in the customer ratings for the 2001 Mishima DVD on Amazon.com , accessed on October 31, 2011. (See also the discussion page for this article on this topic.)
- ↑ 23 November 2019 9:00 am: As Director's Cut: "Mishima" is coming back to the cinemas. Retrieved November 26, 2019 .
