- "Jodorowsky's Dunes"
"I bent down three or four hundred meters from the pyramid, grabbed a handful of sand, let go silently, let it fall a little further away, and whispered: I am changing the Sahara Desert. This is trivial, but That ingenious remark is very precise, and I think it took me a lifetime of experience to say it."
-Borges, "The Desert"
After the great success of "Holy Mountain", Jodorowsky was in high spirits and was ready to create a masterpiece. To this end, he invested a lot of time, energy and talent. If it came out, it would become the best and best in his directorial career. Brilliant works will change the way of viewing and thinking of young people (his original words), change the structure of the film industry dominated by Hollywood (peer evaluation), and become an insurmountable monument in the history of science fiction films (with it, no matter what). Neither 2001 A Space Odyssey nor Blade Runner dared to stand up to him).
Jodorowsky couldn't explain why he chose to adapt Frank Herbert's sci-fi classic "Dune", "Why not "Hamlet" or "Don Quixote"? I don't know either." I Think, "Dune" is more of a carrier, a container, the important thing is his ingenuity, his talent, his ideas and artistic conception that Jodorowsky is ready to pour into. After all, a space epic like "Dune" contains no less philosophical value than the two works of Shakespeare and Cervantes, and if it is made into a movie, it will only be more watchable. This can be felt strongly in the small portion of the storyboard manuscripts revealed in this documentary (the unrivaled grand long shot of the opening, the gorgeous process of conception by blood, character modeling, costume design, ship model, architectural sketches ...)
After confirming this idea, what Jodorowsky has to do next is to "find the most suitable warriors for this film", including actors, art directors, styling, editing, soundtrack... You can't Imagine how luxurious his team lineup is: seduce Orson Welles to play his fat colonial emperor (using the chef of the restaurant where the foodie O Fatty loves to go as a bait, he is lured on the pirate ship) , outwit Dali to be the art director (subtly answered Dali's question about whether he had found a clock in the sand; Dali also had to play the "protagonist" of this film - the king of the universe, And asked for the highest salary in the history of the actor, but Jodorowsky, who was so dirty with the routine, coaxed him into the past with $100,000 per minute, when in fact the king of the universe only appeared for a total of three minutes), and invited Ping. K Floyd on the soundtrack (severely reprimanded them for being rude while greeting him over a burger at the first meeting)…
All the preparatory work has been done, and even a particularly thick and exquisite storyboard script was specially produced, and then only Dongfeng owes money to start the film. To this end, he and his friends traveled all over the major Hollywood studios, and the answers they got were different: the creativity was great and cool, but it was too original and too advanced. The subtext is that this is very different from the sci-fi work produced by the Hollywood assembly line, and they are horrified by Jodorowsky's idea, and they worry that there will be no market for such "alien" freak films. Therefore, they all refused to invest in Jodorowsky (his budget was 15 million US dollars, which was not an astronomical figure even at the time, certainly more than the current "Avengers" and "Star Trek" " and so on is much lower). More than that, Hollywood bought the rights to the novel, handed it over to David Lynch to direct, and the result was a dune that sucked like shit.
So, there is not really such a Jodorowsky dune (although in the eyes of moviegoers, it is as real as a dream). It ended up stillborn and turned into the most common sight for us desert travelers on the brink of thirst: a mirage. In reality, the dunes are still dunes, not an oasis with a blue planetary ring, as Jodorowsky tampered with at the end of the original. The fate of this non-existent film, like the last teen Paul, was dismembered by the colonists and fragmented into "shards scattered across the universe". But "Everyone is Paul", this dead movie is left in the hearts of every fan, scattered in the scenes of countless latecomers stealing teachers ("Macro Contact", "Alien", "Prometheus"... ). From a parody perspective, this is the art of imitation of life.
Watching this documentary, Jodorowsky mentioned this "favorite" during the interview, which was full of excitement and excitement. You will be fascinated by this lovely white-haired old man. He is as innocent as a child and confident as a teenager. He can dance, laugh at Yan Yan, make all kinds of gestures, and make all kinds of cute onomatopoeia. You will be infected by his optimism, but, recalling that the "Dune" was rejected by the investors, this old man who had always been happy suddenly became very depressed, sad, and out of anger. He said in a rage:
" The movie has to be exactly like my dream. It's a dream, don't change my dream!
This system (referring to the Hollywood commercialization system) has made us like slaves, without dignity, without depth, like a demon in our pockets, this incredible money in our pockets. (pulls out banknotes) Money is shit, these papers are meaningless. Movies have a heart, (to imitate the sound of a beating heart), bang! boom! boom! It is thoughtful, powerful, and ambitious. I just want to do it, why not? ! "
And then fell into a long, sad silence.
Seeing this, it's hard not to hold back. It's hard not to sigh at the dream that was killed by the business god. It is conceivable that he has been brooding about it. Over the years, the first film made by the heavy director was called "Dancing Reality", and the title was expressing his heart: "Money curses those who worship it, and confuses wealth and soul. "And the soul is what Jodorowsky values most. He said in the interview: "What is the goal of life is to create a soul for yourself." "
Curse Hollywood because of it." Cinema, as a form of artistic creation, has not yet exhausted its full potential, and Kundera points out that it is actually going in another direction, becoming a stupid thing to As for the history of cinema as a form of artistic creation, it has died prematurely” (Donnell, The End).
We can only imagine that this film could have been made in another parallel universe better than ours. , to be favored, the audience there is blessed. Like in an episode of the cartoon "Rick and Morty", among the dozens of parallel universes divided, there is a universe in which Grandpa Rick sacrificed himself to save His grandson Morty is inferior to his bullshit. What
does not appear is like the other side that has disappeared. For Jodorowsky, the "warrior", for his non-existent film, we can only be like Borge Rodviko Ariosto's fantasy is this:
"A warrior found on the moon what had vanished from the earth, such as lovers' tears and sighs, wasted time in casinos, meaningless plans , and unsatisfied desires. "
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