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[#Horror #reTweet] Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013)
Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013)
By anythinghorror
Of all the words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: ‘It might have been’. Except for the plans to have Shia LeBeouf take over the Indiana Jones franchise getting dropped. That’s not sad, that’s proof of a higher power forestalling the Apocalypse.
Hollywood history tells of a number of films that for various reasons never got made, or finished: Tim Burton’s SUPERMAN LIVES, David Cronenberg’s FRANKENSTEIN, Orson Welles’ HEART OF DARKNESS, Alfred Hitchcock’s KALEIDOSCOPE, Terry Gilliam’s THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE. Perhaps the best known of these was Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s DUNE, the story of which has been filmed and is available now.
As this is Anythinghorror, let’s have a bloody scene from EL TOPO!
Almost forgotten now, Jodorowsky had, along with George Romero and David Lynch, helped define the Midnight Movie circuit in the late Sixties and early Seventies with surreal, drug-fuelled movies like EL TOPO and THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (I remember sitting through a VHS copy of EL TOPO about thirty years ago, and realising then that I didn’t have enough drugs in my life).
In 1975, Jodorowsky began on what he called a “spiritual journey”, to adapt Frank Herbert’s seminal sci-fi novel DUNE to film. Jodorowsky had entered filmmaking without any prior training or knowledge, never expecting the depth of opposition to his initial efforts from the local film industry and the press (with actual riots having broken out at theatre releases of some of his work).
Would you give millions of dollars to this man?
He approached his films as a classical artist rather than a businessman, and when he set out to make DUNE, he gathered together men and women he didn’t call crewmembers but “spiritual warriors”. And though he hadn’t read the book (I don’t blame him, having tried it myself, and finding it a chore and a half), he was still enthusiastic: “For me, DUNE will be the coming of a god. I wanted to make something sacred, free, with new perspective. Open the mind!”
Some of the gorgeous spaceship designs, courtesy of artist Chris Foss
For the following two years he assembled an eclectic group of artists for in front of and behind the camera, and the stories behind each of these was fascinating: his own 12 year old son Brontis (whom he had used in EL TOPO) would play the hero Paul Atredeis, and had him trained in numerous physical and spiritual arts; David Carradine, who would have played Paul’s father Duke Leto, first meet Jodorowsky and ate all of his vitamins; Orson Welles would be the evil Baron Harkonnen, and his services were secured when Jodorowsky agreed to supply the man with his favourite chef; Mick Jagger signed up to take the part of Feyd, a role later taken by another musician, Sting; and most bizarrely of all, Salvador Dali would have played the Emperor of the Universe, a role he agreed upon for the staggering fee of $100,000 per hour of filming, a sum he probably never thought Jodorowsky would agree upon. But, Jodorowsky did.
I dated at least one of these characters – guess right for a No-Prize!
But it’s the talent behind the character that’s telling: the music would have been supplied by Pink Floyd, script by writer/director Dan O’Bannon, and art, costume and set designs by future ALIEN designer HR Giger, British sci-fi paperback illustrator Chris Foss, and French comic book legend Jean ‘Moebius’ Giraud.
A book of over 3,000 storyboards was produced, many paintings, costume trials, and a script that by all accounts went all over the place, and that’s even taking into account that we’re talking about a galactic story set millennia in the future and featuring giant spice-eating worms.
The final picture would have run over 20 hours, and cost a (then) staggering 15 million dollars, and would be “a film that gives LSD hallucinations without taking LSD.” Jodorowsky was driven (“In that time, I say, if I need to cut my arms in order to make that picture, I will cut my arms. I was even ready to die doing that.”).
HR Giger, working out a plethora of issues creativelly…
But Hollywood reality crashed down hard on his spiritual journey. Nowadays, $15 million might just about cover the overhead on those JOHN CARTER McDonald Happy Meal promotions, but pre-STAR WARS, no studio was going to fork out that amount of money on a sci-fi project, especially not a 20+ hour long epic driven by a Chilean auteur who, frankly, acted as mad an outhouse rat. The rights lapsed, eventually getting bought by Dino de Laurentiis, who let David Lynch create his own vision of the story. And the rest, as they say…
JODOROWSKY’S DUNE is a dense but fascinating look at this project. Nearly everyone involved at the time was interviewed, there’s a wealth of paintings and sketches, and some of the storyboards are animated for the documentary (the opening sequence would have been literally universe-expanding, something that would have made the ending of 2001 look like something from Tommy Wiseau).
Yes, it looks cool, but what’s the city mileage like?
And it’s equally fascinating to realise that, though the movie itself never saw (and never will see) fruition, its legacy lives on. Dan O’Bannon wrote ALIEN, and brought in H.R. Giger, Foss, and Moebius to the project. And the visions influenced many other movies, including BLADE RUNNER, THE FIFTH ELEMENT, and many others.
Would Jodorowsky’s DUNE have been a masterpiece, or a train wreck? Both, probably. There’s a thin line between clever and stupid, as David St Hubbins of Spinal Tap fame said, and as crazy as Jodorowsky is, he makes some pertinent points about how the money men restrain the creative process.
Too true, Alejandro…
His movie might have been the LORD OF THE RINGS of its day, released on Betamax in a four-tape set for a weekend of Ludes and C&C Cola. The Seventies was a trippy time, and directors and auteurs had a freedom that doesn’t exist nowadays. But this film probably would have been too much for it, though at least Jodorowsky wouldn’t have had a shaved, conjoined cat and mouse being milked like Lynch did.
Probably.
JODOROWSKY’S DUNE is available on DVD and VOD from various sources. The trailer is below.
Deggsy’s Summary:
Director: Frank Pavich
Plot: 5 out of 5 stars
Gore: 1 out of 10 skulls
Zombie Mayhem: 0 out of 5 brains
Reviewed by Deggsy. Open the mind!
Filed under: Deggsy’s Corner, Horror Documentaries, Movie Reviews, New Posting
October 15, 2014 at 12:49AM
via AnythingHorror Central http://ift.tt/11oywt3
