Terayama Shuji's films

[Roberta Novielli]

Terayama Shuji's works had been one of the main subjects of my research on
Japanese independent cinema during my stay in Japan (91-94). His works were
hugely  commemorated in 1993, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of
his death. In only one year, there were published about 200 among books and
tokushu in different magazines in Japan. I contributed myself with a few
essays which appeared in a special issue of Mainichi Graph, in a
monographical book published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha and in the book on
Terayama's experimental films published by Image Forum (Daguerreo Press)
mentioned by Michael. I also wrote a long article on him for "Il Giappone"
(University of Naples), here in Italy.
Regarding your request for  bibliographic advice, I'm afraid the best
pieces on him are not in English - they're so few, indeed - but in Japanese
and in French. Max Tessier has dedicated pages and pages of his books to
Terayama, and in the most famous French cinema magazines such as _Cahiers
du cinema_ Terayama has always got a special 'regard' as a genius for
years.
As for the books published in Japan, the list is too long to write down in
such a short message, but maybe the most useful is "Terayama Shuji zen
shinario" (two volumes, Film Art Sha, 1993) which includes all the
screenplays he wrote for his own films and for other directors (Shinoda,
etc.).

Hope it helps,
Roberta