Calligraphy Terayama

[hakutaku at kansaigaidai.ac.jp]

It sees that the more one thinks about it the more calligraphy references one can remember. Here are a few more of various kinds - some very wellknown.

Terayama Shuji's Saraba hakobune has the scene from 100 Years of Solitude wherein the main character writes the names of everything in his house and sticks it on the object including himself.

Ugetsu monogatari has the siddham script spell that prefigures the earlier mentioned Kobayashi Kaidan scene of Hoichi that seems the likely inspiration for Greenaway's Pillow Book with its many scenes of Japanese and Chinese inscriptions on skin.

Shinoda's Double Suicide has many kinds of examples including the blownup sections of text and images from woodblock books and more strikingly the splashy abstract calligraphy that looks almost like blood on the walls done by Shinoda's calligrapher relative. 

Otomo's 2006 live action version of Mushishi has a wonderful digital calligraphy scene drawn from the manga and anime versions mentioned earlier.

The title characters of Suna no onna were written by Teshigahara Sofu, the director's multitalented father who was a prominent avantgarde calligrapher among other things.

Otomo's Akira has a large framed calligraphy by the noted artist Tomioka Tessai on the wall of a politician's office and a scene of religious frenzy where the name akira is being written in red with a giant brush on the street pavement, etc.

Itami's Tanpopo has a scene where Goro is writing a sign for the new shop name Tanpopo where the joke comes from what an impossibly bad calligrapher he is.

One thing that comes up in reviewing many such references is how well integrated calligraphy was in Japanese arts, film, and life. The way so many films from the 50s through the 70s used arresting examples of calligraphy in their titles and opening credits while it is much less frequent now may in part relate to the decline in popularity of the postwar avantgarde calligraphy scene that was so vibrant in the 50s through the 70s as can be seen in the calligraphy journals of those years such as Bokubi.

Paul Berry
Kyoto