{"id":950,"date":"2023-08-26T15:40:26","date_gmt":"2023-08-26T19:40:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pmcgovern.ca\/wp\/?p=950"},"modified":"2023-09-04T14:51:53","modified_gmt":"2023-09-04T18:51:53","slug":"the-assassination-of-kurahara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pmcgovern.ca\/wp\/?p=950","title":{"rendered":"The Assassination of Kurahara"},"content":{"rendered":"\n


One of my favourite movie scenes is the assassination of Kurahara in Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)<\/a> I think it’s one of most arresting scenes ever filmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yukio Mashima<\/a> was one of the most important authors in post-war Japan. He wrote dozens of novels, essays, and plays. His literary work dealt frequently with the interplay of the traditional and modern, beauty and death. His political views were anachronistic, a throwback to the militarism of the 1930s that modern Japan left behind. He founded a militia, the Shield Society to further his aims. In November 1970 he attempted a coup d’\u00e9tat with the aim of restoring the Emperor to his former position at the center of Japanese government. When it failed, he committed ritual suicide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul Shrader’s film is centered on the last day in Mishima’s life. His story is told though flashbacks to his early life and career, but what sets this biopic apart are theatrical stagings of Mishima’s novels The Temple of the Golden Pavilion<\/em>, Kyoko’s House<\/em>, and Runaway Horses<\/em>. These dramatizations are interposed throughout the film and are staged theatrically on vibrant and highly stylized sets which are masterpieces in their own right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Runaway Horses<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Runaway Horses<\/em> is about what happens when idealism decays into fanaticism, and loyalty into worship. It follows a group of reactionary military cadets in the 1930s who plot to assassinate prominent officials and capitalists. Isao, the ringleader, believes Japan can be cleansed through bloodshed. The plot quickly comes to grief, but they still plan to go through with it knowing full well it will achieve nothing and cost their lives. In the end Isao assassinates a wealthy businessman, Kurahara, and then commits suppku<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Isao, leader of the plot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The scene of Kurahara’s assassination<\/a> opens with Isao in a wooded area, unsheathing a knife. It cuts to the interior of a western-style house, where we find Kurahara reading in front of a large tableau painting, The Death of Sardanapalus<\/em> by Delacroix. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Kurahara in his study<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The painting is on a scrim, opaque when lit from the front, but transparent when lit from the back. The scene’s lighting changes, and we can see Isao approaching, knife drawn. He cuts his way though the fabric, and kills Kurahara. On the far side of the fabric, Isao is a just another fanatic. On our side, he is a murderer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\"\"
The end point of fanaticism<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The painting depicts the last moments of the decadent Assyrian king who kills himself and his destroys his wealth rather than leave anything to his enemies. It is a scene of chaos and debauchery, the opposite of Isao’s fever dream of purity and order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Death
La Mort de Sardanapale<\/em>, Eug\u00e8ne Delacroix, 1824<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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

The mechanics of the scene’s staging mirrors the themes it conveys. Looking closely, we can see the scrim is not a mechanical reproduction. The woman in the foreground is clearly different from the Delacroix’s original. The scrim is hand-painted and would have taken weeks of work by a highly skilled artisan to produce. There may have been a second scrim prepared, but certainly not a third.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assassinating Kurohara is a deliberate act from which there can be no return. So too is cutting the scrim. The actor had to complete the scene on the first take, and perfectly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This film remains relevant because fanaticism continues to play a role in our world. People who are willing to die for their beliefs have always been with us, for good and ill. What it is that motivates them cannot be fully understood by those left in their wake. The ones who really understand are no longer around to tell us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yukio Mishima remains an enigma, and any pronouncements about a man of so many contradictions probably say more about the observer than his life and art. Was his death simply a performance? Was it a political statement or had he turned himself into a character from one of his novels? The film doesn’t attempt to answer these questions, and I don’t think they can ever be answered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my favourite movie scenes is the assassination of Kurahara in Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985) I think it’s one of most arresting scenes ever filmed. Yukio Mashima was one of the most important authors in post-war…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-various"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pmcgovern.ca\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pmcgovern.ca\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pmcgovern.ca\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pmcgovern.ca\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pmcgovern.ca\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=950"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/pmcgovern.ca\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":969,"href":"https:\/\/pmcgovern.ca\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950\/revisions\/969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pmcgovern.ca\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pmcgovern.ca\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pmcgovern.ca\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pmcgovern.ca\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}