Shūji Terayama

Personal Info

Known For Director

Gender Male

Birthday 1935-12-10

Deathday 1983-05-04 (47 years old)

Place of Birth Aomori, Japan

Also Known As Shûji Terayama, 寺山 修司, Shuuji Terayama, 테라야마 슈지, 슈지 테라야마

Shūji Terayama

Biography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Shūji Terayama (December 10, 1935 – May 4, 1983) was an avant-garde Japanese poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer. According to many critics and supporters, he was one of the most productive and provocative creative artists to come out of Japan. He was born December 10, 1935, the only son of Hachiro and Hatsu Terayama in Hirosaki city in the northern Japanese prefecture of Aomori. His father died at the end of Pacific War in Indonesia in September 1945. At the age of nine, his mother moved to Kyūshū to work at an American military base while he himself went to live with relatives in the city of Misawa, also in Aomori. At this same time, Terayama lived through the Aomori air raids that killed more than 30,000 people. Terayama entered Aomori Prefectural Aomori High School in 1951, and in 1954 went to prestigious Waseda University's Faculty of Education to study Japanese language and literature. However, he soon dropped out because he fell ill with nephrotic syndrome. He received his education through working in bars in Shinjuku. His oeuvre includes a number of essays claiming that more can be learned about life through boxing and horse racing than by attending school and studying hard. Accordingly, he was one of the central figures of the "runaway" movement in Japan in the late 1960s, as depicted in his book, play, and film "Throw Away Your Books, Run into the Streets! In 1967, Terayama formed the Tenjō Sajiki theater troupe, whose name comes from the Japanese translation of the 1945 Marcel Carné film "Les Enfants du Paradis", so can be translated as "children of heaven", however its correct translation is "Ceiling Gallery" and has a meaning similar to the English expression "Peanut Gallery". The troupe was dedicated to the avant-garde and staged a number of controversial plays tackling social issues from an iconoclastic perspective. Some major plays include "Bluebeard", "Yes", and "The Crime of Fatso Oyama", among others. Also involved with the theater were artists Aquirax Uno and Tadanori Yokoo, who designed many of the advertisement posters for the group. Musically, he worked closely with experimental composer J.A. Seazer and folk musician Kan Mikami. He was also involved in poetry and at 18 was the second winner of the Tanka Studies Award. Terayama experimented with ‘city plays’, a fantastical satire of civic life. Also in 1967, Terayama started an experimental cinema and gallery called 'Universal Gravitation,' which is in fact still in existence at Misawa as a resource center. The Terayama Shūji Memorial Hall, which has a large collection of his plays, novels, poetry, photography and a great number of his personal effects and relics from his theatre productions, can also be found in Misawa. In 1976, he was a member of the jury at the 26th Berlin International Film Festival. Terayama published almost 200 literary works, and over 20 short and full-length films. He was married to Tenjō Sajiki co-founder Kyōko Kujō, but they later divorced, although they continued to work together until Terayama's death on May 4, 1983 from cirrhosis of the liver. Description above from the Wikipedia article Shūji Terayama, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia

Known For

Director

1984
1983
The Lemmings

as Director

1983
Video Letter

as Director

1981
Fruits of Passion

as Director

1981
1979
1979
Grass Labyrinth

as Director

1978
1978
Shintokumaru

as Director

1978
1977
Father

as Director

1977
The Eraser

as Director

1977
1977
1977
Boxer

as Director

1975
Labyrinth Tale

as Director

1975
Smallpox Tale

as Director

1975
The Trial

as Director

1974
Butterfly

as Director

1974
Laura

as Director

1973
JRA CM

as Director

1971
1971
1964
The Cage

as Director

1960
Catology

as Director

Writer

2013
Lemming

as Writer

1994
On the Far Side of Twilight

as Original Story

1984
Farewell to the Ark

as Screenplay

1983
La Marie-vison

as Writer

1983
Video Letter

as Writer

1983
The Lemmings

as Writer

1981
1980
1979
Grass Labyrinth

as Screenplay

1979
Private Collections

as Screenplay

1978
Third Base

as Writer

1978
Shintokumaru

as Writer

1977
The Eraser

as Screenplay

1977
1977
The Reading Machine

as Screenplay

1977
Boxer

as Screenplay

1975
Smallpox Tale

as Screenplay

1975
The Trial

as Screenplay

1974
Butterfly

as Writer

1970
Tomorrow's Joe

as Lyricist

1964
The Cage

as Screenplay

1962
A Flame at the Pier

as Screenplay

1961
1961
Epitaph to My Love

as Screenplay

1960
Get 'em All

as Screenplay

1960
Youth in Fury

as Screenplay

Actor

2017
Where is Tomorrow, Shuji Terayama

as Himself (archive footage)

1983
Video Letter

as Self

1978
1977
1973
JRA CM

as Himself

1966

Crew

2021
海王星

as Creator

1983
Video Letter

as Cinematography

1975
Labyrinth Tale

as Script

1967
Mothers

as Poem

Editor

1983
Video Letter

as Editor

Sound