{"id":506,"date":"2009-02-12T01:53:29","date_gmt":"2009-02-12T07:53:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=506"},"modified":"2014-09-06T14:58:00","modified_gmt":"2014-09-06T20:58:00","slug":"article-du-c-u-ebertfest-x-pt4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=506","title":{"rendered":"Article du C-U: Ebertfest X, pt.4"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Big Ten\u201d<\/strong>
\nRoger Ebert\u2019s Film Festival reaches the end of a decade \u2013 but without its founder and host<\/p>\n

by Anthony Zoubek<\/em><\/p>\n

~~~~~<\/p>\n

Dateline \u2013 Champaign, Illinois
\nFriday, April 25, 2008<\/em><\/p>\n

THE BEST FILMS AT<\/strong> the 10th annual Roger Ebert\u2019s Film Festival<\/strong> were enigmatic and prophetic, capitalizing on the ambitions of filmmakers remaining true to the vision of their work \u2013 even in the face of the financing issues, distribution mishaps, and audience misconceptions plaguing their films upon initial theatrical release.<\/p>\n

Paul Schrader<\/strong>\u2019s MISHIMA: A LIFE IN FOUR CHAPTERS<\/strong> (1985) closed out a long Friday evening of filmic festivities. Chaz Ebert<\/strong>, taking the stage on her absent husband\u2019s behalf, noted the 10 p.m. start time and the remaining, near-sellout Virginia Theatre<\/strong> crowd there to watch Schrader\u2019s little-known masterpiece, the very best movie screened this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the hardcore audience,\u201d Chaz said. \u201cWhether the films are funny, challenging, dramatic, you stay.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Among the night\u2019s special guests was Schrader himself, bringing a private print of the film, which \u2013 long out of print \u2013 earned a deluxe DVD release\u00a0during the summer thanks to The Criterion Collection<\/strong>, \u201cthe guardians of cinema,\u201d per the director. Also in attendance was, to use Chaz\u2019s vernacular, \u201cthe elegantly multidisciplinary\u201d designer Eiko Ishioka<\/strong>, internationally acclaimed for her stage, film, advertising, and graphic designs. Ishioka provided the intensely moving visual ambiance that gives MISHIMA<\/strong> its organic pulse. Notably, Ishioka won an Academy Award<\/strong> for costume design on Francis Ford Coppola<\/strong>\u2019s BRAM STOKER\u2019S DRACULA<\/strong> (1992) and has also worked closely with filmmaker Tarsem Singh<\/strong>, whose image-orgasmic THE CELL<\/strong> would play “Ebertfest<\/strong>”\u00a0on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

As was the case prior to the festival-opening screening of HAMLET<\/strong>, film scholar David Bordwell<\/strong> discussed the intellectual command the movie takes over its audience. \u201cIn film circles, the 1970s are always talked about as film\u2019s last Golden Age,\u201d Bordwell said, \u201cbut I also like to look at the 1980s. In some ways, these films are bolder than the 1970s trailblazers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 1980s were not just about the blockbusters,\u201d Bordwell continued. In some ways, the stigma of \u201cEighties films\u201d makes \u201cdetermined movies like MISHIMA<\/strong> that much more underappreciated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bordwell explained Schrader\u2019s importance to cinema \u201cas a writer and a film critic\u201d as much as the screenwriter of TAXI DRIVER<\/strong> (1976), RAGING BULL<\/strong> (1980), and THE LAST TEMPATION OF CHRIST<\/strong> (1988). Specifically, Schrader\u2019s \u201ccritical writing is a major contribution to our understanding of cinema,\u201d Bordwell said, citing Schrader\u2019s article on film noir<\/em> as \u201cthe best ever written on the subject.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schrader\u2019s body of work, with MISHIMA<\/strong> providing the best example, makes a case for films giving us \u201cglimpses of a world that is tangible,\u201d Schrader said. \u201cThat is, a world that harbors a seemingly untouchable or indefinable Zen, but remains tangible,\u201d giving \u201cphysicality to the spiritual\u201d and duality to the \u201charmony of pen and sword.\u201d<\/p>\n

~~~~~<\/p>\n

AGAIN, THE OPPORTUNITY FOR<\/strong> the audience to screen the filmmaker\u2019s personal print \u2013 a true director\u2019s cut \u2013 lent itself to the event-status brought to most of the movies shown at Ebertfest. The crispness and clarity of the moving image made clear how little the film has been seen since 1985, and the loving care with which Schrader put together and continues to take care of his creation. The movie lived up to any expectations of being, as Bordwell previewed, \u201cone of the most unusual and penetrating experiences any of us are likely to have at the movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

MISHIMA<\/strong> is the unconventional biopic of Yukio Mishima<\/strong>, Japan<\/strong>\u2019s most celebrated author and playwright, whose novels made him the Ernest Hemingway<\/strong> of the East. But Yukio\u2019s works, including Temple of the Golden Pavilion<\/span>, Kyoko\u2019s House<\/span><\/strong>, and Runaway Horses<\/span><\/strong>, were relatively unheard of in the West. His central themes, relative to the dichotomy of traditional Japanese values and spiritually-barren contemporary life, were also relative to Yukio\u2019s own inability to find spiritual well-being, unable to align himself with traditional values in the face of his own bisexuality and masochism.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A writer during the same era as literary provocateurs Gore Vidal<\/strong> and William Faulkner<\/strong>, Yukio yearned for the same self-promotional \u201cpop idol\u201d status afforded them as well as struggled with his lack of celebrity status in a country vastly changing due to the impact of Western culture \u2013 visualized through the blossoming technology of television. For example, Vidal is a recognizable, reputable figure among audiences who never read any of his works thanks to the small screen. (At one point in MISHIMA<\/strong>, a reporter asks Yukio, played by the late Ken Ogata<\/strong>, who he \u201cwould like to be.\u201d His response, indicative of television and American culture, is \u201cElvis Presley<\/strong>.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Yukio conceives his life and work as two defining but diametrically opposing forces that must somehow reflect each other. He ultimately forms his own \u201cprivate army,\u201d the Tatenokai<\/strong>, a political militia budding with young men meant to appease more than just the author\u2019s buried sexuality. On the last day of his life \u2013 on which he intends to finally link his powerful literary work with what he perceives to be a celebrity-making message \u2013 Yukio and four members of the Tatenokai visit the headquarters of the Eastern Command of Japan\u2019s Self-Defense Force<\/strong>. With an Eastern Command leader tied up to a chair, Yukio commits seppuku<\/em>, a meticulously rehearsed suicide by self-disembowelment, immediately followed with his decapitation by a Tatenokai member.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll my life, I have been acutely aware of a contradiction in the very nature of my existence,\u201d Yukio explains. \u201cFor 45 years, I struggled to resolve this dilemma by writing plays and novels. The more I wrote, the more I realized mere words were not enough. So, I found another form of expression\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

~~~~~<\/p>\n

MASS MEDIA ALLOWS AUTHORS<\/strong> to become media stars. A writer\u2019s work is no longer confined to the printed word. Yukio was one of the first writers to seize the notion that media makes life an artistic product, and his biography \u2013 at its beginning and its end \u2013 was metaphysically entwined with the themes of his literature. His inability to entwine the public\u2019s perception of his art with the artist is envisaged by Schrader and Ishioka\u2019s vibrant use of three distinctive layers: Yukio\u2019s life, his art, and his self-aggrandizing finale.<\/p>\n

Flashbacks to Yukio\u2019s coming-of-age are shot in strikingly rich, high-contrast black-and-white. In stark disparity, we see Yukio\u2019s last day on earth, as he mounts his political statements and prepares for the death he hopes will bring him infamy, in realistic cinema v\u00e9rit\u00e9<\/em> and color. Highly-stylized adaptations of scenes from Yukio\u2019s narratives \u2013 shot on a soundstage with minimal, richly textured props, exaggerated to highlight the theatre of the writer\u2019s creative non-fiction \u2013 are inserted at key moments to draw thematic links between the writer\u2019s dramatic inventions and how the multi-interpretable truths embedded in those inventions lent themselves to his misguided reality.<\/p>\n

Yukio\u2019s biography remains in balance with Schrader and Ishioka\u2019s brilliantly overt and artful interpretation of an author who writes with purpose, even though his life struggles leave him without a sense of purpose.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

During a post-screening question-and-answer session, Schrader said he made the film after becoming \u201cenamored by the idea of suicidal glory \u2013 of suicidal sacrifice.\u201d He also said he reflected on his experiences writing TAXI DRIVER<\/strong>, the Martin Scorsese<\/strong> classic about a desolated, lonely, uneducated American male looking for blood-bathed celebrity, and was intrigued by the fact that, as a protagonist, Yukio \u201cis the same exact guy. To make a movie about the West and then go to the East and talk about a writer \u2013 an intellectually accomplished man, supposedly the antithesis of Travis Bickle \u2013 we find that we still get a person interested in suicidal glory.\u201d<\/p>\n

In telling the story of a writer, \u201cI had to tell the stories of their fantasies,\u201d Schrader explained, citing the visual compartmentalization of the three biographical attributes of the movie. The film had to have several distinct, dissimilar, juxtaposed tones because \u201cMishima, as a man, was compartmentalized. He went from one part of his day to another \u2013 from the structured crosshatching of themes across three novels \u2013 that come out of a compartmentalized life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of the movie\u2019s style, Schrader admitted, was born not just out of thematic visualization but also out of problem-solving \u2013 aspects of the story were stylized to make them cinematically palatable. \u201cInspiration is just another world from problem-solving,\u201d he said. \u201cThe graphic design of the film was actually born of problem-solving.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ishioka said that Ebertfest marked \u201cthe first time I\u2019ve seen the film on a big screen since 1985.\u201d At the time of its making, she was not a professional film designer and had only directed a few television commercials and designed some live theater. MISHIMA<\/strong> was \u201ca very serious, very intellectual film,\u201d she continued. \u201cMy feeling, that I created this film, was like being a blind horse running under Paul\u2019s direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe demanded I design for the parts of the film that take place in 1950s Japan,\u201d Ishioka continued, \u201ca time when Japanese culture was being influenced by America\u2019s \u2018bad taste\u2019 culture [as portrayed] on television.\u201d In line with the film\u2019s allusions to Yukio\u2019s culture shock, she had to be in the mind set of \u201cimitating Japanese bad taste culture imitating American bad taste culture imitating real American culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This, concluded Bordwell as moderator, \u201calmost exclusively visually tells the story of the history of Japanese popular culture and politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Agreeing, Schrader said Yukio was \u201cdefined by a need to be loved by the West,\u201d noting that the perception of the West is itself defined by \u201cthe great lie that is the movies.<\/p>\n

\u201cFilm manufactures reality,\u201d Schrader continued. \u201cWe get two hours of manufactured reality. In life, what we really have are conundrums without resolutions. [In MISHIMA<\/strong>] what we get is a two-hour exploration of conundrums \u2013 without resolutions \u2013 that at least helps us understand the conundrums better.\u201d<\/p>\n

~~~~~<\/p>\n

MISHIMA WAS NEVER<\/strong> released in Japan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere, it\u2019s a consensus culture,\u201d the director said. \u201cIn Japan, there is little agreement on Mishima because no one can agree on Mishima. The artistic community of Japan has seen the movie, or is at least aware of it. The general public has not.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the film was effectively banned, people did not seem to mind it because it meant they wouldn\u2019t have to see it [nor] formulate any opinion,\u201d Schrader explained. \u201cI remember when there was a possibility of releasing the film in Japan, we had a promotional dinner; purposely, no one talked about Mishima.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schrader said that, of all the films he\u2019s made, MISHIMA<\/strong> is his favorite \u201cbecause it\u2019s so damn peculiar.\u201d<\/p>\n

The movie was \u201cmade by fools,\u201d he opined. By 1980s blockbuster standards, MISHIMA<\/strong> was financed on a shoestring budget that few, except producers Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas<\/strong>, were willing to admit they helped compile.<\/p>\n

\u201cEssentially,\u201d Schrader quipped, \u201cthe movie was made by no one.\u201d<\/p>\n

~~~~~<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Return to \u201cThe Big Ten\u201d pt.3<\/a><\/p>\n

Continue to \u201cThe Big Ten\u201d pt.5<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

MISHIMA: A LIFE IN FOUR CHAPTERS<\/strong> is a co-production of Zoetrope Studios<\/strong>\/Filmlink International<\/strong>\/Lucasfilm Ltd.<\/strong> distributed theatrically by Warner Bros.<\/strong> and on DVD by Warner Home Video<\/strong> (2001) and the Criterion Collection (2008). It was directed by Paul Schrader, produced by Mataichiro Yamamoto<\/strong> and Tom Luddy<\/strong>, and written by Paul Schrader, Leonard Schrader<\/strong>, and Chieko Schrader<\/strong>, and stars Ken Ogata, Masayuki Shionoya, Hiroshi Mikami, Junya Fukuda, Shigeto Tachihara<\/strong>, and Junkichi Orimoto<\/strong>. 1985, 35mm, Color\/B&W, 121 minutes.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

~~~~~<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Big Ten\u201d pt. 4 \u00a9 2009 Anthony Zoubek. Used with permission.<\/p>\n

CUBlog edit \u00a9 2009 Jason Pankoke<\/p>\n

All photography courtesy of Schrader Productions<\/a>,
\nartwork courtesy The Criterion Collection<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Back to the fore, MacDuff\u2026<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Visit the Article Index<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Return to Home Page<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anthony Zoubek finally explains it all for the C-U Blogfidential readership. In this fourth entry, he fawns mercilessly over MISHIMA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,137,13,30],"tags":[170,72],"class_list":["post-506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-area-festivals","category-article-du-c-u","category-public-events","category-roger-ebert","tag-mishima-a-life-in-four-chapters","tag-roger-eberts-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}