Banned...Bisexuality. ..and Nihilism

Thanks for your interesting comments Bruji.

First I'll react to your questions, ignorant as I am of both Japan and Mishima.

1. Some members of the audience think of Mishima as a closet gay,
others (I do) as a bisexual man.

Well it seems he was an intense, intelligent person. What he did with his body is in my opinion irrelevant, except from when his sensual identity would interact with his art and politics. Closet gay, bisexual... who knows, and who cares really? But I do think the "closet" aspect of his homosexuality could have quite a lot to do with the paradox he wrote, that duality between author and actor, or should I say action man. A gay man martried with kids... that's nothing new really is it? Just look at Oscar Wilde.

2. He was a great artist, of course, but his nihilism is hard to take
for many people. He is harder to swallow, so to speak, than
Genet or Lautreamont. Anybody agrees?

I've never read Lautreamont. But being french I did study Genet at school. It seems to me the shape of revolution Mishima created is far more radical than that of any 60's french writer/thinker/philosoph. Not saying better or worse, but just that it carried the weight of a) post nuclear trauma and b) sociological constraints.


3. I was surprised to see that his widow has tried to 'clear his name'
and that reminds me of Nietzche's sister: they only do bad, instead
of good...

If you look at women in this film, or maybe at large in Mishima's work, you might find some misogyny. Which after all is quite common amongst homosexuals, especially in these times. Just saying women clearly have no good role in this piece. This seems to be caused by the women that mattered in his life. A smothering, almost incestuous grand mother. Then a mother ignorant of maternity at large. How surprising that he wrote women as such. Or even married one?


Now for my own comments. I've read Golden Pavilion as a young teenage, and loved it. I then saw this film in my 20's for the first time, and just watched it again with equal interest. One thing that struck me is its production. Coppola, fair enough, a great cinematographer and producer. But Lucas? I do appreciate greatly his early work, and can see how radical opposition of natural forces could relate to him. But he co-produced this film in the mid 80's? Whilst directing The Empire Strikes Back? Really? I now have an enlightened interest in him, and still can't quite figure out how things came to be this way...

All in all, I think this is a very good film, beautifully made, and very true to the subject. A masterpiece between cinema and theatre.

Vania

Vzap has already said what I was going to write - but concerning his wife, it was an arranged marriage. Mishima had two strange requirements for a wife, if he was to have one: 1. She must take no interest in his work, and 2. She must be shorter than him. (He was 5'1")