DIRECTOR IN PERSON 12/17 AND 12/19!

“SCHRADER’S BRILLIANT, BAROQUE BIOPIC COMES CLOSE TO BEING HIS CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT!
It’s fetishistic, lyrical, narcissistic and, at key moments, borderline berserk.
In other words, the movie captures its subject to a tee.”
– David Fear, Time Out New York
Click here to read entire article

“COMPELLING! A FINAL, ENRAPTURED FLOURISH FROM THE AGE OF THE HOLLYWOOD AUTEUR…
Some directors might have been tempted into an overwrought treatment of Mishima’s lurid themes; Schrader holds his nerve
and creates his most formally disciplined work, its textures made more shimmering by the Philip Glass score.”
– Anthony Lane, The New Yorker
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“SUMPTUOUS AND DELIRIOUS! A thematic cousin to Taxi Driver, Schrader's Mishima collaborates with Mishima, symphonizing a life conceptualized as a total work of art. Ken Ogata is the picture of sardonic counterrevolutionary chic.”
– Nick Pinkerton, The Village Voice
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“PHENOMENAL! Parses the novelist's life through four exquisite, mask-unfastening acts.
Propelled by Philip Glass' swelling, mock-heroic score, the film binds a docudramatic recreation of Mishima's
last day to beautiful black-and-white flashbacks and three radiant interpretations of his art-imitates-life novels.”
– Flavorpill

(1985) The life of the controversial Japanese novelist — both for his Nobel-worthy art and for his über-flamboyant life — in four symbolic Acts (Beauty, Art, Action, Harmony of Pen and Sword) and on three planes: b&w flashbacks to his previous life, seeing the lonely, sickly boy before he became the world-famous bodybuilder/writer/actor; highly colored and stylized dramatizations of sequences from his books The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (previously filmed as Ichikawa’s Conflagration), Kyoko’s House, and Runaway Horses; and a docudramatic treatment of the last day of his life, leading up to his own theatrically-staged seppuku. With the late Ken Ogata in the title role; striking design by Eiko Ishioka (Coppola’s Dracula); and an iconic Philip Glass score (later recycled for The Truman Show) that matched each visual style with its own musical motif (“Glass’s score virtually transforms the whole thing into opera. There is nothing quite like it.” – Time Out London), this is one of the most unusual and challenging films ever to have come from a mainstream studio (originally Warner Bros., thanks to exec producers Francis Coppola and George Lucas, though Mishima’s widow prevented it from ever being shown in Japan). From the screenwriter of Taxi Driver and the director of Blue Collar and American Gigolo, with co-scripting by his brother, Japanese film scholar Leonard Schrader, and sister-in-law Chieko. In English-subtitled Japanese, with the original Japanese narration (taken directly from Mishima's writings) spoken by Ken Ogata. “The most unconventional biopic I’ve ever seen, and one of the best... Schrader has throughout his life as a screenwriter and director been fascinated by the starting-point of a ‘man in a room,’ as he describes it: a man dressing and preparing himself to go out and do battle for his goals. Mishima is his ultimate man in a room.” – Roger Ebert. “Mishima might have been [the author’s] own greatest creation, but he’s also the ultimate Paul Schrader character: a wounded visionary, a compromised saint, a seeker of truth and transcendence… Schrader’s triumph in Mishima, his most completely satisfying film, lies in creating a seeker who is aware of his own absurdity, and who is willing to embrace the ridiculous on his way to the sublime.” – Dave Kehr, The New York Times.
Color, Black and White; Approx. 120 minutes

Showtimes today: 2:00, 4:30, 7:00, 9:30

Click here to listen to Leonard Lopate's interview with director Paul Schrader on WNYC

Paul Schrader's latest film, ADAM RESURRECTED starring Jeff Goldblum and Willem Dafoe, is currently playing at Quad Cinema

“FASCINATING. The genius of Schrader's expressionist biopic is the way
he seamlessly unites Mishima's life and art… his most satisfying film!”
– The Village Voice

“The most unconventional biopic I’ve ever seen, and one of the best.
I cannot imagine a better approach to Mishima’s life… A triumph!”
– Roger Ebert

“Has all the ritual sharpness and beauty of Mishima’s final sword…
There is nothing quite like it.”
– Time Out (London)

“Calling Schrader's masterpiece a mere biopic doesn't do it justice.
Dreamy, hypnotic… A perfect union between sound and image,
weighty ideas, and giddy sensual rapture.”
– Nathan Rabin, The Onion A.V. Club

“Gorgeous. Schrader evokes films like Kurosawa’s Rashomon and
Kobayashi’s Kwaidan, while also exploring the themes of masculinity,
honor and dedication that resonate both in Japanese culture and
in the director’s other work. Ogata turns in a determined and
bravura performance, while Glass’ modernist score
lends an ethereal, intense undercurrent.”
– Tim Sheridan, Paste Magazine