I think Schrader is more interested in trying to understand Mishima than in judging him. After all, he didn’t actually hurt anybody else, and I think it’s pretty clear that he wouldn’t have hurt anybody else. His suicide was not born of depression or meant as a lashing out against others (as in the case of the typical western suicide, or that of a suicide-bomber), but of a disgust with the contemporary situation in Japan (what he saw as a move away from Imperial tradition and toward a modern, corporatist agenda). But it’s not really the same as self-immolation, either. It’s not a matter of “I’m going to send a message to others by killing myself,” like a self-martyrdom. It has a lot more to do with honor. He committed suicide because living in the contemporary world, in his mind, stripped him of his honor. He had gotten to the point, Schrader argues, where the ideas he brought to life with words (in his novels, plays, etc) had to be carried out in reality. Apparently a few of his followers felt as strongly as he did about this subject. It’s wrong to assume that his followers were somehow duped into participation, and so their deaths are his fault.
We shouldn’t glorify suicide, and I don’t think Schrader does, by the way, but at the same time, we have to admit that, culturally speaking, Japanese suicide typically comes from a different place. I think that taking a moralistic stance would actually have been the typical western move, and the one which demonstrates a lack of understanding about Japanese culture.
Also, I don’t recall Schrader standing up for feudalism or female slavery here, so I’m not sure why that even has to be part of the conversation. I think that Japanese customs (and Asian customs in general) are not judged outright, per se, is because judgment is the less interesting, and far more predictable, model historically speaking. And it is most often paired with a lack of understanding, because in order to judge complex things plainly, we usually have to simplify them, thereby trimming away important details.
Mishima, like Hardcore, Taxi Driver, and, in someways, Cat People, is concerned with the clash between ideological purity and the sometimes messy ugliness of modern life. The idea of abstinence seem particularly significant to his work. Mishima undoubtedly interested him because of his attempt to force the world to meet his standards and failing that he refused to belong to it. I don’t think Schrader glorifies this drive for purity, instead, he wants to examine the mindset that constructs such a drive and see where it leads when faced with the opposition of the actual.
The Comfort of Strangers is another work that seems be thematically similar, but in that case Schrader inverts the proposition and has the two modern characters confront Walken’s different psychological construction of life.
Mishima was a pretty complex individual, but a Westerner with similar ideologies would not have been portrayed as favorably as Mishima was in Schrader’s film. Not only was he gay, but he was also a nutso right-wing extremist and a fanatical bodybuilder. Of course, his sexual orientation is a non-issue in any ethical or moral sense, but I bring it up as it must have played a role in his forming a consciousness of an outsider. There is a tendency in the West to not only exoticize Japan, but also to render unto certain senseless acts more meaning than merited. Someone like Leni Riefenstahl, was relentlessly accused of continuing to engage in fascist ideologies by being obsessed with depicting the human body, but Mishima largely got a free pass even though he espoused similar supremacist ideology.
I don’t know Blue K, Schrader provides a space for empathy certainly, but like Travis Bickle, Jake LaMotta and George C. Scott’s character in Hardcore, I don’t think we are supposed to indentify with Mishima’s belief set so much as we are to understand the complexity and contradictions in it. An argument could be made that the film inherently glorifies him by choosing Mishima as a subject and lavishing such beautiful imagery on him, but I don’t think it necessarily has to be read that way, of course, there is room for debate on whether Schrader successfully communicated his concerns or did lapse into romanticizing, there are definite avenues for concern there, but in context of his larger body of work, it seems clear that Schader’s fascination for these fascistic characters isn’t an unquestioning one.
Yes, your point is right on, Greg. I was probably a bit guilty of interpreting the film more in the context of audience reactions rather than in the context of Schrader’s intentions. It has been years, maybe a decade, since I watched this film—during a relentless period of half a year or so during which I read 4 or 5 of his novels and the Nathan biography on him—so I frankly cannot recall the details of how Mishima was portrayed. I mainly remember the compelling images and the mesmerizing Philip Glass score.
So this is more of a meta-analysis, but I still do believe that a film about a non-Japanese person obsessed with such fascist ideologies would NOT inspire such admiration for the subject. And I think most people would agree that a Western writer with similarly professed beliefs would not have fared so well in terms of public opinion as Mishima has.
I agree with you on both points Blue, and I also have some concerns with the issue of audience reaction versus intention in general and in Scorsese’s and Schrader’s works in particular.
Blue K: There is a tendency in the West to not only exoticize Japan, but also to render unto certain senseless acts more meaning than merited.
And Mishima’s politics are done no justice (in terms of actually understanding what he was about) by placing them under the simplistic “right-wing” umbrella. He actually had an affinity with the anti-corporate left-wing youth protest movement, but rather than pushing toward socialist policies as an alternative, he wanted to go back to imperial rule. The western idea of “right-wing” doesn’t accurately describe his views, because the same political conditions aren’t at play.
Also, I’m not seeing the “senseless act” here. I think it’s far more common, actually, to engage in this mentality of “there they go again” vis a vis Japan. In other words, we spend far more time acting like Japan is this mystery that we’ll never be able to comprehend, than we do actually trying to understand. To downplay Mishima’s suicide as a “senseless act” is to bury it with this kind of typical mysticization. I mean, he had a whole spiel that he gave before he killed himself. He was very vocal and public about his politics. He has a large body of literary work that clearly embodied much of his political and social ideas. You seem to think that Schrader is “rendering meaning” in a heavy-handed way, but I think one would be hard-pressed to argue that he didn’t have a lot of material evidence to work with. It’s not as though Schrader is just speculating all of this. If you can’t see the ties, then you must not really want to.
Also, what “supremacist ideology” are you talking about? Mishima was a nationalist, certainly, but preservation of Japanese historical and cultural ideals (bushido values, etc) doesn’t necessarily add up to supremacist ideology.
Mishima was not just a nationalist, but in his writings, public statements, and actions, he advocated a return to Japan’s recent militarist past which was undeniably predicated on the concept of Japanese racial supremacy. You live in Korea, Bolo Tie, I’m sure you’re more than familiar with the racist ideology behind Japanese militarism of the first half of the 20th century.
And I wasn’t even born when Mishima committed ritual suicide, so I won’t pretend to understand the zeitgeist of Japan in 1970. But from everything I’ve read and heard from my relatives who were living in Japan at the time, I’ve come to believe that the prevailing general consensus even in Japan was that Mishima was a nutcase who had committed a senseless act. And come on, seriously. Forming a paramilitary unit, fomenting a coup in which he demanded a return to absolute monarchy, and then committing an exhibitionistic suicide is deemed senseless by most people. Maybe most people are simply wrong in this case, or you happen to admire Mishima’s zeal, but I’m not making some completely unreasonable statement when I refer to his ritual suicide as “senseless.”
You and I DO agree on one thing, and that is the tendency on the part of Westerners to indulge in “mysticization” when it comes to the Far East in general, but Japan in particular. So my calling Mishima’s ritual suicide “senseless” isn’t to “bury it with this kind of mysticization” as you say, but to detract from it any kind of mystery or awe. I actually said that the Western attitude towards Japan “render(s) unto certain senseless acts more meaning than merited.” So we differ in how that mysticization gets manifest, and I guess we’ll have to leave it at that.
If in the States, some people formed a paramilitary troop, demanded some wacky anachronistic form of government in some utterly unrealistic coup attempt, and then committed ritual suicide, wouldn’t most Americans call the whole scenario senseless? Very few Americans would romanticize it, that’s for sure. But there is this tendency, among the young American intellectuals especially, to romanticize and idealize Mishima’s ritual suicide and, by extension at least, his fascist ideologies.
Blue K: You live in Korea, Bolo Tie, I’m sure you’re more than familiar with the racist ideology behind Japanese militarism of the first half of the 20th century.
Okay, well, I’m not exactly sure we can argue that Mishima was pro-Korean occupation just because he advocated a return to Imperial power. For Mishima, the Imperial crown symbolized the pride and honor of Japan. When Hirohito admitted that the Emperor was not a divine being, for Mishima, some amount of Japanese-ness was sacrificed. Say what you will about this as a political idea—we have a far different history in America, one which doesn’t look highly on royalty and divine right—but to map our ideals onto Japan, and say that an idea like Mishima’s is just universally bad, is kind of shortsighted. He was clearly railing against social changes that were bringing about all sorts of disharmony within Japanese culture. This point of view is upheld by the left-wing movement as well. Both the left-wing radicals and Mishima were against the growing corrupt, corporate culture in Japan, which constituted, I believe, a limited kinship between them. The history of Japan, domestically speaking, has been a history of equality, with subsistence of the many placed above excess for the few. It is still that way, to a large extent (which explains the existence of the salaryman ). You can be sure that left-wing radicals were calling upon traditional Japanese values (i.e. equality), even as they railed against the Emperor and the corporatism spawned by parliamentary politics.
I’ve come to believe that the prevailing general consensus even in Japan was that Mishima was a nutcase who had committed a senseless act.
It depends on what you mean by “senseless.” What I get from that word is that it is an act that “nobody can make sense of.” If that’s how you’re using the word, then I think you’re wrong. And I think Americans have this particular tendency to say “I disagree with that act, so it is pointless to try and understand why it happened.” Was Mishima misguided? Stupid? Irrational? Maybe so. But I don’t think there can be any mistake about why he did what he did. Understanding doesn’t equal approval or justification. And I don’t think Schrader’s film engages in either of those things.
fomenting a coup
A “coup”? Come on. It wasn’t anything near a coup. I think it bears remembering that Japan had only in their recent history formed the parliamentary system. We aren’t talking about a lunatic running around arguing for a return to monarchy that ended 300 years ago. Mishima grew up in a family that followed traditional samurai values, and within his lifetime, he saw that entire value system shattered. If you want to compare the shock value of his life to something else, think of a royalist who lived through the American revolution (only replace the revolution with one of the bloodiest wars in history). I’m not sure I can look at these facts of his life and say that what he did was “senseless,” i.e. not possible to understand.
So my calling Mishima’s ritual suicide “senseless” isn’t to “bury it with this kind of mysticization” as you say, but to detract from it any kind of mystery or awe.
But that is precisely what calling it “senseless” does. You’re essentially saying “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.” I think maybe what you mean to say is that Mishima’s death doesn’t warrant as much interest as Schrader or others appear to think it does. I happen to find it interesting, not because of how bombastic is it (though I can see how that sexes it up a bit), but because it kind of spells the end of an era, the end of a way of thinking in Japan. In a lot of ways, Mishima made himself a contemporary example of traditional Japan, of traditional values, and his suicide was the death rattle for those things, like them or not.
If in the States, some people formed a paramilitary troop, demanded some wacky anachronistic form of government in some utterly unrealistic coup attempt, and then committed ritual suicide, wouldn’t most Americans call the whole scenario senseless? Very few Americans would romanticize it, that’s for sure. But there is this tendency, among the young American intellectuals especially, to romanticize and idealize Mishima’s ritual suicide and, by extension at least, his fascist ideologies.
Again, America’s history is not Japan’s history. We wouldn’t react the same way, nor should we if such a thing were to occur. Our conditions are entirely different. Also, I’m not sure why you keep calling Mishima a “fascist.” Just like “right-wing,” I think the term is merely a convenient way of ignoring complexities in his views and in his life. And that’s actually one of the things Schrader focuses on in the film, how Mishima’s views, not to mention his persona life, never quite seem to follow the standard models, as we know them. This is part of what makes them interesting. Again, not good, or admirable, or justified, but interesting.
Also, something that’s kind of problematic, I think, is that because of what Mishima believed, and because of how he lived his life and died, we kind of limit him to that. In the larger scheme of literature, his output is some of the most interesting and innovative in modern times. The narration in The Temple of the Golden Pavilion is particularly unique and inventive. I don’t really care what he believed. You know, just because Knut Hamsun supported the Nazi regime doesn’t mean that Hunger isn’t one of the most important novels ever written.
All of your points are well-taken. I do disagree that calling Mishima’s ritual suicide senseless “buries it with mysticization”, because even the Japanese general public found it senseless as well. I mean, come on, how many ritualized public suicides do you think were being committed in Japan in the year 1970? And Mishima’s family wasn’t the only one in Japan that once followed Samurai traditions. So substitute another word for senseless if you’d like, but I’m NOT saying “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.” I mean, by the virtue of both my families being “pro-Japanese” even back from the colonial days prior to WW II, both my parents and countless uncles and aunts spent many years going to school and living in Japan. Several members of my extended family still live there permanently essentially as Japanese, and my mother still lives a good 3-4 months every year there. I don’t pretend to be some scholar on Japanese culture, but I’m definitely at least reasonably conversational in the language and have a pretty good grasp of their culture, so I wouldn’t exactly be the typical American who’d just dismiss something as too Japanese and not being understandable.
What I’m actually saying, and I believe the original poster was saying, is that the tendency with the type of Americans who’d be drawn to Mishima’s literature in first place is to actually “romanticize” Mishima and his ritual suicide—probably even more than the Japanese general public as a whole.
And obviously I agree with you that personal beliefs and/or behavior should have no impact on the legacy of work. That should be reflected in the fact that I’ve read quite a bit of Mishima’s writing. He’s a superb writer. But think of Ezra Pound for example. I don’t know too many sane Americans who would publicly profess their admiration for Pound the Nazi sympathizer as opposed to Pound the artist. But many sane Americans do publicly profess their admiration for Mishima the Imperial Japan sympathizer as well as Mishima the artist.
Blue K: Again, it depends on what you mean by “senseless.” Does it mean “stupid” or does it mean “absolutely impossible to come to any sort of understanding about”? Or does it mean something else entirely?
I never argued that Mishima was the last practitioner of traditional values, but rather that he came to embody those traditional values in the larger society, and when he died, it was sort of the last gasp. The fact that people in Japan couldn’t/can’t understand why he did what he did (that they find it "senseless") speaks to that loss, I think. Which is neither a bad nor a good thing. It just is what it is.
the tendency with the type of Americans who’d be drawn to Mishima’s literature in first place is to actually “romanticize” Mishima and his ritual suicide—probably even more than the Japanese general public as a whole.
But is Schrader doing that? I don’t really think he is. What’s at issue is not whether such a thing occurs, but whether Schrader is engaging in it with this biopic.
But think of Ezra Pound for example. I don’t know too many sane Americans who would publicly profess their admiration for Pound the Nazi sympathizer as opposed to Pound the artist. But many sane Americans do publicly profess their admiration for Mishima the Imperial Japan sympathizer as well as Mishima the artist.
I don’t know that this is true. Most Americans don’t even know who Mishima is. Nevertheless, I think it bears mentioning that Mishima’s outrage at contemporary Japan (in his time) was fueled by the same things that fueled left-wing outrage. The meaning of traditionalism, and the kind of world it hopes to bring about, is not universal from nation to nation and culture to culture. Mishima felt that he was losing his identity, that the entire country was losing its identity, in the face of relatively new, western-style economic prosperity. I think it’s too hard to condemn him outright without looking at it in the larger context of the contemporary sea change of that time. I mean, you take a largely homogeneous nation, one that is very traditional, very much isolated from other nations, and then you inject western political values, western corporate values, and over a period of 30 years the country basically becomes a westernized, fully-industrialized nation, that’s going to bring some identity issues to the forefront, especially if you came from a hyper-traditional family to begin with.
This is what makes his politics interesting, I think, that he saw the same kind of peril in the corrupt corporatism that permeates liberal democracies worldwide that bona fide left-wingers rail against every day. To ignore that aspect of his politics is to deny them the dignity they are due. You don’t have to agree, and personally I don’t agree with his politics, either. But I think they are interesting, if only because they are of a type that you don’t see every day. And if we romanticize them in the West, I don’t think it’s because we agree with them, but because we have a particular fondness for stories about loss of traditional values, or of the “old ways.” Our own culture is rife with such stories, and it is the central focus of innumerable works of art. There are a number of reasons why our fondness for such stories might be stronger than that held by the Japanese (perhaps because their history has only relatively recently been about the loss of traditional culture and values). So I think it’s the theme that draws such sentiments, not political agreement. But in any case, I don’t even think Schrader is trying to make that happen in the film, so it’s kind of beside the point…
I think a lot of people express interest in Mishima’s life, and that often this interest is interpreted, simplistically, as admiration. And I mean, we romanticize the founding fathers all the time, and they didn’t always have the greatest ideas, either (Thomas Jefferson was a slave-owner, and believed that the “tree of freedom” should be “watered with the blood of traitors and patriots from time to time,” essentially justifying the politics of Robespierre’s “reign of terror”).
Also, just an addendum:
There’s a pretty good reason for the average Japanese person to find Mishima’s acts “senseless,” because they literally do not make sense in terms of Japanese culture. Certainly, ritual suicide is nothing new to Japan, but stepping forward individually and compelling others to address your individual concerns is a very un-Japanese thing to do. The typical Japanese response to this type of thing is always going to be something like “Who is this guy, trying to act like he’s more important than everybody else? He should be more worried about how unsightly his actions are.” So at the end of the day, it’s not surprising that Mishima’s acts would be written off by the larger culture as “senseless,” because they actually are quite unimaginable within Japanese ideals of decorum. And also, Mishima’s private life and politics bring to the fore a lot of things that Japanese culture has historically been wary of addressing, such as homosexuality and its shameful period of empire in Asia.
And just as I find Mishima’s life and ideas quite interesting, I also find the cultural response interesting. On one hand, I feel like that kind of response is terribly stifling to all things related to the individual, but on the other hand, I feel like it is the perfect antidote to the culture of “me, me, me” that runs rampant in places like America.
-Is this movie an example of cultural bias that western storytellers may have toward Japan? . . . when filtered through perceptions colored by some form of cultural relativism they become beautiful and mysterious-
Well, it’s not simply a matter of the story being filtered through a prism of Western perspective. Remember that what much of the film is actually “filtered” though is Mishima’s literary work—specifically The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Kyoko’s House, and Runaway Horses. And let’s not confuse a ritual suicide, or even other “romanticized” suicidal artists like Plath, Sexton and Hart Crane, with so-called “suicide bombing,” which really is about suicide only at its peripheral —it’s about terrorizing by killing as many people as one can.
-still do believe that a film about a non-Japanese person obsessed with such fascist ideologies would NOT inspire such admiration for the subject.-
Are you saying that you think that people admire Mishima for his facist ideologies rather than despite them?
Schrader’s film focuses mainly in exploring this person, not in judging him, and that is one of the most admirable aspects of the film. I do understand Mishima’s quest for honor, even though coming from Mishima himself it seems more like a quest for glory. I would not call his suicide “senseless” but inferring from what I have read here it seems that maybe “useless” would the appropriate term, after all who could appreciate such thing as Seppuku in the 1970s?
Another film that deals with “suicide” is Paradise Now. This film is about a Palestinian man who decides to become a suicide bomber. What I also admire about this film, even though its not one that I particularly like, is the fact that it doesn’t judge or politicize the man’s actions. It tries its best to just show the suicide bombers situation and his actions for what they are.
To me this “objective” approach shows more respect for the audience and for the subject matter.
How can Harakiri/Seppuko not be antiquated? How can blowing yourself up not be immoral? I don’t think these issues can be fully understood by us, but we can try, and I believe that both Mishima and Paradise Now can aid us in our search for understanding by simply presenting the situations and the characters involved.
-Mishima, like Hardcore, Taxi Driver, and, in someways, Cat People, is concerned with the clash between ideological purity and the sometimes messy ugliness of modern life.-
I agree. And I think you could add Major Charles Rane from Schrader’s Rolling Thunder screenplay, Allie Fox from Mosquito Coast, and a number of others characters from films he’s written and/or directed.
@Matt –
>much of the film is actually “filtered” though is Mishima’s literary work
And don’t forget the tract Sun and Steel, which is quoted in the film, and seems to have been a primary source for the depiction of Mishima’s last years, the formation of the Tatenokai, and so on. Mishima’s world-class fascism (not purely Japanese, and not purely honor-bound) is on full display in Sun and Steel.
Right . . . rather than getting a view of Mishima from an outside observer (either Japanese or non-Japanese), you get Mishima’s self-created literary/iron-pumping/ right-wing/militaristic/ ideological construct reflecting back upon itself.
Really good thread. I commend the participants for an interesting discussion. I saw this film a few months ago, and I thought it was one of the best films, if not the best films, of the 80s.
Bolo tie’s posts refer to the importance of understanding Japanese culture in general as well as the Japan of the 70s. I don’t know much about either, but I do feel you need to know these things before deciding if a Western film of a similar subject would be viewed differently. Personally, I didn’t think Schrader was glorifying the suicide. Instead, the film offers a plausible explanation to the motivation, meaning and significance of the act.
I don’t totally agree with Blue K’s remark that “…the Japanese people found the act senseless.” I don’t know if Japanese people found it senseless so much as something embarassing and too disturbing to deal with. I believe in the commentary, Schrader alludes to the fact that many people didn’t want to talk about the subject—and that Mishima’s widow opposed the making of the film (an interesting story in and of itself).
Another important piece of information in understanding Mishima’s suicide is the claim that Mishima had an interest in bringing together art/ideas and actions. Schrader’s take on the suicide is that it was a kind of performance art—as sick as that may seem—that accomplished this ambition. Fascinating stuff and, really, imo, very different from a suicide bomber.
-Schrader’s take on the suicide is that it was a kind of performance art-
That’s true. . . Mishima’s public life definately had an aspect of performance too it, so the act is more complicated than a simple suicide. It’s performance, it’s political protest, it’s the binding together of Mishima’s life and art, etc. And, yes, like I said before, the difference between it and a “suicide bombing” is that Mishima’s suicide wasn’t terrorism.
Matt: And, yes, like I said before, the difference between it and a “suicide bombing” is that Mishima’s suicide wasn’t terrorism.
But that’s a pretty big difference, no? Why do you choose to compare Mishima’s suicide to a suicide-bombing when they don’t even share the most essential similarity?
you get Mishima’s self-created literary/iron-pumping/ right-wing/militaristic/ ideological construct reflecting back upon itself.
As if it’s fair to characterize all of the movie’s references to his work in this way. What a simplistic argument. Have you ever actually read any Mishima?
Because raysquirrel brought up terrorist in the OP, and that’s precisely my point, they’re completely different.
-Have you ever actually read any Mishima?-
Yes, I have. Have you? Whether you think it’s “fair” or not, the point is that, whatever you may think of Mishima, the film is an attempt to engage his work on its own terms, not as raysquirrel suggests, “perceptions colored by some form of cultural relativism.”
By the way, earlier you wrote “his suicide was not born of depression or meant as a lashing out against others (as in the case of the typical western suicide, or that of a suicide-bomber), but of a disgust with the contemporary situation in Japan” Obviously that was his stated reason committing seppuku, but you have no way of knowing whether or not other more ordinary factors—depression, guilt, anxiety, shame, etc.—played a role.
Uh, guys. I think you guys are actually in agreement. “What we’ve got here…is a failure to communicate.” :)
I know, Jazzaloha, but I thought it might be rude of me to point that out.
As far as I understand it, Mishima’s widow legally forbade Shrader from using certain aspects of Mishima’s life and sexuality in the film.
That’s correct, Banal, they weren’t allowed, for example, to use the novel Forbidden Colors in the film.
Matt: but you have no way of knowing whether or not other more ordinary factors—depression, guilt, anxiety, shame, etc.—played a role.
Culturally speaking, the reasons why people commit suicide in Japan are very different from the reasons why people commit suicide in the West. I’m not saying it’s impossible for a Japanese person to commit suicide because of “depression,” but rather that it’s just not the norm. And knowing what we know of the circumstances surrounding Mishima’s suicide, it would be foolish to assume his motives were otherwise.
-Culturally speaking, the reasons why people commit suicide in Japan are very different from the reasons why people commit suicide in the West.-
I’m sure they are, but a lot of the literature on the subject mentions depression as a significant factor in at least one-fifth of the suicides. I’m reluctant to get too deeply into armchair diagnoses, but depression would not be an unreasonable diagnosis, and (if you’re inclined to look for them) there are clear symptoms of neurotic repression and reaction formation as well. It’s naive to simply assume that nothing other that the desire to make a political statement was in play.
I never argued that “nothing other than the desire to make a political statement” was at play. Certainly political outrage was a large part of it, but he had expressed political outrage publicly already without resorting to suicide. I think a big part of it was the feeling that he could only salvage honor by expressing, in reality, those things which he had already expressed in his writing. He didn’t want to be merely an observer and chronicler of that outrage, as many writers who express political outrage often are.
Obviously there are psychological processes going on in his head at this time, but the processes we associate with this type of act in the West doesn’t map very neatly on to the processes of Japanese people. Culture plays a huge role in how people cope with things in their lives, and so we can’t just look at every suicide and say that A, B, and C were going through the person’s head at the time did it. Culture is going to play a large part in determining when something like suicide is warranted, what its function is, etc.
In the West, we tend to think of suicide as a “cry for help,” brought on by depression over others’ lack of understanding, etc. In the East, suicide is most often done in recompense for shame brought upon oneself, because to bring shame on yourself is to bring shame on the larger society. It’s relatively common, for example, for shamed people in positions of authority (presidents of companies, high-ranking politicians) to commit suicide in Japan (and East Asia, in general). In the West, these people are responsible for creating profits, but in the East, business owners and people with a lot of authority have a far more paternalistic view of their place in the world. You are not just there to create profits, for example, but also to continue providing a livelihood for a workforce that dedicates itself to the corporate mission, etc.
It is highly likely that Mishima felt he was bringing shame on Japan (the ideal of Japan he wanted to return to, anyway) by only writing about his ideas, and not putting them into action. In his mind, by ending his life, he would be setting the scales right (like an apology for bringing shame). In the West, suicide is rather a final way of taking control, of knocking the scales which have tipped against you back in your direction. Two entirely different mindsets.
“Culturally speaking, the reasons why people commit suicide in Japan are very different from the reasons why people commit suicide in the West.”
Bolo, this may have been the case in the past, but it’s no longer really true. “Shame” suicide in the Far East is largely a thing of the past, and Western style suicide brought on by depression and loneliness is far more common now. Of course, I don’t think Mishima committed suicide due to depression, but I just wanted to clarify this point.
“Another important piece of information in understanding Mishima’s suicide is the claim that Mishima had an interest in bringing together art/ideas and actions. Schrader’s take on the suicide is that it was a kind of performance art—as sick as that may seem—that accomplished this ambition. Fascinating stuff and, really, imo, very different from a suicide bomber.”
JazzAloha, I think you’ve made a good point. And I’d add that not only was it a kind of performance art but an act of extreme vanity and exhibitionism. As I’m sure everyone in this thread knows, Mishima was a notoriously vain exhibitionist. And from what I recall from the film, Schrader does not really address how much role vanity played in Mishima’s life. John Nathan, even as a friend of Mishima, definitely stresses this point in his biography.
And this is a little off topic, but the most memorable thing I remember from Nathan’s biography was his comment that Mishima had a very “vulgar” look to him. And it’s really so true. No matter how much Mishima tried to appear elegant, even posing as St. Sebastian, he always looked like a god damn dime bag Yakuza pimp.
RaySquirrel
I though of this movie, as I was walking earlier today (I was also listening to the audiobook of Sam Harris’s The End of Faith which probably got me thinking about this subject). I thought about how Paul Schrader treated Mishima’s suicide. The film is told almost completely told from Mishima’s perspective. It almost romanticizes his act of self-destruction. We see him as a young man who watches other sacrificing themselves with envy. There is absolutely no point in the film where this attitude is condemned or where we see the ugly results of such a self-destructive philosophy.
For instance, if someone from the United States or western Europe were to make a film centering on an aspiring Islamic terrorist (and I am sure such a film has been made but none come to my mind). Would they be so sympathetic to that persons disappointment at his inability at self immolation? Would that film director consciously avoid any comment on the damage and death toll that persons ideology has caused? Would that director also glorify that terrorists exuberant final act of self-sacrifice?
It can be argued that Mishima did not willfully harm anyone with his actions. Though several of his followers did commit suicide alongside Mishima. Is Mishima in any way responsible for their deaths? Does an author who values human life show suicide in a negative light?
Is this movie an example of cultural bias that western storytellers may have toward Japan? Many of the practices of the Tokugawa era would seem cruel and barbaric by modern standards (feudalism, female slavery) but when filtered through perceptions colored by some form of cultural relativism they become beautiful and mysterious (and thus we get The Last Samurai and Memoirs of a Geisha). I have seen many films from Japan that deplore these practices (such as Hara Kiri and Takashi Miike’s _Sabu_).