Jodorowsky's Dune

2013 documentary

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Details Alejandro Jodorowsky's failed attempts to rape Frank Herbert, but with love.

Jodorowsky actually says that that's what he wanted to do. I suppose most people watching this documentary are going to come away with one conclusion--Alejandro Jodorowsky is a weirdo. And I can see that. Geniuses, especially the artistic kinds, are often too different to be accepted by non-geniuses. Still, I can't see how anybody can watch this and not fall in love with Alejandro Jodorowsky. This was wall-to-wall fascinating. Here's are ten things I picked up from this movie:

1) "You can't have a masterpiece without madness." That's a thread that runs through this entire thing and, I reckon, Jodorowsky's entire career. There's truth to it. I've tried writing before, and I just can't. There's a required devotion, and I really do think a person's got to be a little crazy to create great art. Of course, somebody could read the 2,500 or so blog entries I've written over the past several years and say, "But you've committed to this crap? Isn't there madness there?" And yes, there probably is. But it takes a special kind of madness to make things that are beautiful. Jodorowsky's got that special kind of madness.

2) Jodorowsky wanted this movie to change the world, duplicate an LSD trip without the drug, and introduce a god. Those are ambitious goals he and his "warriors" had! I do not, by the way, buy everything in this movie about how this film would have changed blockbusters or been some sort of revelation. It is interesting watching some of the career trajectories of people involved with this though. Would Alien have existed without the preproduction work with this movie?

3) Jodorowsky wanted to make Dune without first having read it.

4) David Carradine was going to be in this, and the first time Jodorowsky and Carradine met, the latter saw the former's vitamin E pills, got excited about them, and then ate 60 dollars worth of them.

5) Jodorowsky yelled at the members of Pink Floyd for eating hamburgers when they met. Pink Floyd? Magma? Holy cow, this would have had a bitchin' soundtrack!

6) Son Brontis trained for 6 hours a day for 2 years--karate and acrobatics--for the Kyle MacLachlan role. That's dedication. So many of the people involved with this had a similar dedication. Jodorowsky in the 70's commanded that kind of dedication from the people he worked with, and the shocking thing is that he seemed to get it.

7) Salvador Dali was going to be in this? I don't believe I'd ever heard his speaking voice. It was as strange as his mustache. I would have loved to be a fly in the wall at that first meeting, by the way. Jodorowsky talked about how Dali asked him if he'd ever found clocks in the sand, apparently some sort of surrealist ice-breaker. Jodorowsky answered that he'd never found a clock but that he lost a lot. I want to go back in time and party with those two.

8) Udo Kier, Mick Jagger, Orson Welles, Salvador Dali. I'm not sure why a studio didn't jump all over this. Welles, by the way, was chosen for a part because he was fat. "A guy who's always in the air because he's too heavy. . .Orson Welles!" The delivery in that part of the interview was awesome.

9) The guy in charge of Carpenter's Dark Star special effects--Dan O'Bannon--was involved with this early on. His first meeting with Jodorowsky involved a special marijuana and Jodorowsky's face turning into some sort of mandala. Does Jodorowsky hypnotize people or is he just hypnotic?

10) "Don't change my dream." That's what separates people who make movies and artists. Jodorowsky doesn't make movies. He makes dreams. And the conviction he has in his ideas just makes you have to appreciate the man. So does hearing him passionately talk about how movies should have heart, mind, power, and ambition. Jodorowsky once said that he makes movies with this testicles. Director Nicolas Winding Refn says in this that studios approached with this Dune were scared of Jodorowsky. It's a shame that studios are scared of directors who make films with their testicles.

Bonus thing: The glee on Jodorowsky's face when he describes seeing Lynch's Dune and finding out it was "awful" and a "failure"? It made me so happy.

"What is the goal of life? It's to create yourself a soul." --Alejandro Jodorowsky