"Jodorowsky's Dune"

Wow. I just saw this documentary last night and my mind was pretty well blown.

For those who don't know, Alejandro Jodorowsky is a surrealist filmmaker who's often thought of as having made the first midnight cult movie, 1970's "El Topo." Depending on your perspective, that movie is either visionary brilliance or incoherent crap. In 1973 he got the rights to make an adaptation of "Dune," and this movie talks about the whole pre-production process that took place before the whole thing collapsed due to lack of money.

The people who were going to be involved in this film were Salvador Dali, Orson Wells and Mick Jagger, it was going to have music by Pink Floyd and Magma, and the set design was going to be done by the late, great HR Giger.

The movie was never made but even just watching the storyboards and design ideas was mind-boggling. The vision that Jodorowsky had for this was so expansive, so original and so elaborate that I don't know how they could even have made it, even with today's technology. But getting to see what could have been, and also getting to see what a possessed lunatic Jodorowsky is, was a spectacle in and of itself.

I highly recommend this movie, which is currently making the rounds in small theaters around the US. Seriously, see it if you get the chance.

 

I plan to! I've been waiting for it to be local, but I'll definitely see it once it goes to video if I miss the theater run.

The trailer I saw looked awesome.

 

I'd be really interested in seeing this. Hopefully it gets a DVD release in the future or shows up on YouTube.

 

I enjoyed the film. I can't help but thinking it's merciful that he never got to make "Dune" as it would've been a disaster on a few levels. For instance, I completely get why Jodorowsky went with Dan O'Bannon over Douglas Trumbull for VFX - but there would be no comparison on the end product. O'Bannon's work would have been dated within a few years when compared to Star Wars and Close Encounters. And the actors he lined up (Dali, Jagger, his own son) weren't exactly thesbians (Performance notwithstanding). From what I've read and watched about Jodorowsky, I often doubt his perception of events. Still, it makes a fascinating doc.

Mark

 

Oh, there would have been a ton of problems, for numerous reasons. I didn't like the Lynch version, but anyone who thinks Jodorowsky's version would have been more competently executed is looking through rose-colored glasses. And on a technical level it would have looked like "Dark Star," exactly as Jodo wanted.

At the same time I have a lot of respect for artists like him who have a vision and try to realize it, no matter how crazy it is. There's less emphasis on the technical aspects and more on the pure artistic impulse, and I just like the idea of that purity of vision, even if it's not practical and collapses under its own weight before it even gets to the production stage. "Dune" as directed by Jodo is probably much better as an unrealized idea than the reality would have been. I feel the same way about the Star Wars prequels, which was a much more powerful story before it was ever executed. Some things are better as ideas than as realities.

 

What year would this have fallen in? - in terms of Pink Floyd's (theoretical) contributions.

 

I'll look out for this doc. I love Jodorowsky. "Santa Sangre" is one of my favorite films of all time. I'm a big fan of "El Topo" and "Holy Mountain" as well. It's too bad he wasn't a more prolific filmmaker.

 

You'll probably know about this already, but just in case, here's the trailer for his new film....

 

When they were talking to Pink Floyd about making the movie they were in the middle of mixing "Dark Side of the Moon."

 

The whole story of Jodo approaching them to do the film was actually hysterically funny. In fact, most of the stories of how he got people to agree to be in the movie were pretty funny.

 

AWESOME

 

Saw this in the theater a month or three ago and loved it. I agree that had it gone into production, it likely would have been closer to STARCRASH than a masterpiece,
but it certainly would have been interesting!

 

Saw this over the weekend on blu. Loved it. There is something infectous with Jodo's passion. One can't help but to get caught up too.

 

He's really inspiring in the film, basically coming out and saying that if you have a passion, fight for it and don't
give up hope.

 

I'm very interested to see this, but I lean toward those who find Jodorowsky's films to be incoherent crap. His strength from what I've seen is in staging interesting tableaux, and as a photographer I'm interested in the possibilities in telling a story this way, but feature length films without a strong narrative thread are generally very trying. His version of Dune, I suspect, would be more interesting to think about than to actually see.

 

The Dune books are my favorite literary works. Watched Jodorwsky's Dune three times already. I do think it would be amazing and better then Lynch's but I don't think I would have liked what he changed from the novel. I wished they would have gone through the book page by page on the blu-ray. They say there are only two copies of his book left. I wonder if Spielberg or Lucas also have a copy somewhere.

 

Netflix has it on blu-ray, for those of you who still get discs.

 

I saw this doc and was completely entertained! I would have liked his hippie-trippy take on Dune just fine.

 

Looks like it's widely available to rent for $3.99 on streaming services as well.

http://www.canistream.it/search/movie/Jodorowsky's Dune

Rather than pay for the rental, I'm going to try and hold out for it to show up on a service I'm already subscribed to, though. (Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon, HBO, Xfinity, etc.)

Craig.

 

interesting, thx for the headsup I have never heard of this

 

I read that Netflix has it now.

 

It's on cue

 

So, now...wait; they're NOT selling this on DVD....Blu-Ray only???

 

Doesn't appear so, but the Blu comes with a dvd... For what it's worth, I think it is worth it to shell out the few extra bucks.

 

oh...ok... thanks for the info.