Sun and Steel: Art, Action and Ritual Death
The Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima (1925-1970) was also a body builder and kendo master.
In the annals of unusual suicides, Yukio Mishima’s surely ranks close to the top.
In 1970, the Japanese novelist and his followers barricaded an army reserve camp and urged the soldiers to restore the emperor to power.
The troops, it seems, did not take him very seriously. (By some accounts, Mishima didn’t have a loudspeaker, so no one heard him.) Mishima then returned to the commandant’s office and quietly committed seppuku, the ritual act of disembowelment and beheading.
In this light, his essay Sun and Steel, published earlier that year, takes on new resonance. In it, Mishima describes his transformation from a weak, introverted teen who relies on words to a muscular fighter who has discovered a language of the body. Read more
Hello,
My name is Aaron Embry
I thought you might be interested in seeing Yukio Mishima’s film
“Yukoku-the Rite of Love and Death”
with the original score I wrote.
Watch the film here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9201439452997071422
Share your thought in the comments !
Thanks,
Aaron Embry