Episode 19: Shuji Terayama’s Pastoral with Angura Research Center

Clara from Angura Research Center was kind enough to join me for this episode on one of cinema’s greatest surrealists, Shuji Terayama. Poet, writer, master of underground theater (known as angura in Japanese) and experimental cinema, and so much more, Terayama had an incredibly rich, prolific career in many art forms, which blend together influences from classical Japanese theater, pop culture, folklore, deeply personal elements of biography, etc. Consider this episode more of an introduction to Terayama: we break down why he is so important and mainly discuss one of his more accessible films, the beautiful Pastoral: To Die in the Country (1974). We also talk about his influential experimental theater troupe, Tenjo Sajiki, and some of his short films, namely Laura (1974), The Trial (1975), The Cage (1964), and Grass Labyrinth (1979), among a few other titles. I strongly recommend checking out the Angura Research Center if you want to explore more about Terayama and Tenjo Sajiki. Clara has been doing really important work translating filmed versions of his plays, which you can watch on her YouTube channel, and writing essays on her site that give some really helpful cultural and historical context. The books we mention in the episode are from Carol Sorgenfrei and Steven Ridgely. All the music in the episode is from Terayama’s lifelong collaborator, JA Seazer, and his score to Pastoral. (And if you do a little digging, you can find the majority of Terayama’s short films on YouTube, all scored by Seazer, though beware that the YouTube version of The Trial that I linked to has some other music included.)