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Director: Frank Pavich Starring: Alejandro Jodorowsky, H.R. Giger, Chris Foss, Michel Seydoux, Brontis Jodorowsky, Jean "Moebius" Giraud, Richard Stanley, Devin Faraci, Drew McWeeny, Gary Kurtz, Dan O'Bannon and Diane Obannon. Running time: 90 minutes. This is a documentary about Alejandro Jodorowsky and his attempt to make Frank Herbert's Dune back in 1975. It is only playing in art cinemas and at film festivals so it will be hard to see until you find it in your library. Jodorowsky is a very charismatic filmmaker who made really crazy cult films like El Topo, The Holy Mountain and The Dance Of Reality. He found a number of artists who have since become rather influential to put together this massive storyboard of what Dune would be if Jodorowsky got to film it. Most of the film consists of interviews with the participants. The images from the huge (the book is about 4" thick) bound storyboard are fascinating. In the end, I'm both sad that he didn't get to make his version of Dune and I'm glad that he didn't get to make his version of Dune. I think Salvador Dali would have been an excellent Mad Emperor. Other casting would have included Orson Wells as Baron Harkonnen and Mick Jagger as Feyd. I'm not sure he could have made it without CGI, and probably not for the $15,000,000 budget they were asking for in 1975. Many of the team that Jodorowsky put together continued to work together in making other films. He got H. R. Giger into film; with Giger, Giraud, Foss and O'Bannon later going on to be the artists for other movies, such as Alien in 1979. Many of the scenes off the storyboard were used in later movies. So an fascinating montage shows switching between the Dune storyboard and scenes from other movies like Star Wars, The Matrix, Terminator, Blade Runner, Flash Gordon, Alien, Prometheus, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Masters of the Universe, among others. If you have a Daw SF paperback from the 70s, with a spaceship on the cover, you have one of Chris Foss' paintings. I really liked this movie. It is a bit of history that makes one wonder "what if?" Star Wars was an incredibly influential movie and significantly changed what sort of movies Hollywood made, and what movies audiences like. What if this movie had been made and released 2 years before Star Wars, how different would our movies be today? While the book The Man Who Saved Britain talks mostly about James Bond and how the book, legend and movies influenced British movies, he mentions that about half of British movies were based in or around WW2 - until Star Wars. And after Star Wars, the demand and production of WW2 movies dropped off a cliff (Soviet studios made at least 50% of their films about WW2 up to the end of the Soviet Union). I'm glad this movie got made. Many of the participants are old (Jodorowsky was 84) and H. R. Giger died after this film was made. We got to hear them, in their own words, what they tried to do and see what they tried to make. If this film hadn't been made, this story would have been lost to all but the most fanatical film historians. IMDB Trailer
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Jun 10, 2014 16:40
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 07:28 |
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I'm not going to spend too much time writing about this film. I spent an awful lot of time writing about The Dance of Reality, and it is a bit dispiriting to put so much effort into exploring a piece of art and then have some douchenozzle come along and give the thread rating a 1, masked by anonymity, without having the courage to follow up their vote with a comment. This is a fantastic documentary film, and while it is true that it's success wouldn't be possible without the fantastic charisma of Jodorwsky himself, I think the director also should get some credit for weaving all the interviews to create the feel of a tight story. It's essentially a "gathering" story, sort of like Seven Samurai, where Jodorowsky travels around the world to find his 'spiritual warriors' necessary to aid him in executing his vision. There's an interesting blend of naivety and guile in Jodorowsky's actions as he is both able to bribe Orson Welles by appealing to the man's psychology while at the same time he is manipulated by Dali's patently unrealistic and unfair demands. Although an artist in his own right, he was clearly lower on the totem pole than figures such as Dali or Welles. I've heard people express skepticism at the idea that Mick Jagger would've actually appeared in the film, claiming that it's unrealistic. It's important to remember that he had ties to the art-film scene, performing in Performance and working with outsiders like Kenneth Anger. It seems totally realistic to me that Jagger would be willing to show up in a codpiece in this film at a very reasonable price, given the association Jodorowsky had with Warhol's art community just by itself. Although the man loves money (who doesn't?) he also seems to value being a part of the art scene, the art world, and he would definitely want to be a part of this. One note that I'd like to make - Jodorowsky uses the word "rape" in one of his interviews to describe how he approached adapting Dune. I really don't think he meant it the way it is used most commonly in our current culture, as in noncensensual sex. Rather I think he was more trying to convey a sense of, to quote the dictionary, "plunder, violent seizure, or abuse; despoliation; violation." I think it would be foolish to argue that the man is pro-rape. Still, there are plenty of people who will feel at liberty to take things out of context in order to feel either righteous or smart. One lingering question that the movie leaves us with is, just how insane is Jodorowsky? He's described often as a visionary madman, a modern day prophet. This is a pretty deep question actually, and reaches into further questions of psychology and philosophy. Is there no mysticism to the world? Is there nothing beyond the seemingly-straightforward mechanism of the atoms of the universe? Modern physics, with its newfound uncertainty, gives new age beliefs more wiggle room: everything is energy!, they exult. But is this just a cheap justification to cling to comforting superstitions? How do we differentiate between superstition, religion, and mysticism, or do we? In the end, will the question of Jodorowsky's "sanity" devolve into an argument of semantics? That seems likely. 4.5/5
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Jun 30, 2014 16:20
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