Whether or not you know the story of how famed midnight-movie pioneer and as auteur-as-auteur-gets director Alejandro Jodorowsky (El Topo, Holy Mountain, Santa Sangre) got the go ahead for an ambitious, big budget version of Frank Herbert’s DUNE – the short version is that it imploded, and much of the creative team went on to make Ridley Scott’s Alien, while David Lynch started over from scratch to make one of the biggest science fiction bombs in history (but I still adore the Alan Smithee cut of Lynch’s film) – this new documentary promises to give a good account of the film that would have starred Orson Welles, Mick Jaggar, Salvadore Dali, Charlie Chaplin’s daughter, David Caradine and Alain Delon. The project, although in the middle of production, was formally announced at Cannes earlier this week. I’m excited, and cannot wait to hear what will be one of the stranger stories of a film never made.
**UPDATED WITH JODOROWSKY PROMO INTERVIEW** – which is tucked under the seat.
Not really related to Dune (although I have to disagree about Lynch’s version, Kurt, as you probably remember – even as a die hard Lynch fan I hated his Dune but that’s another discussion…), I just saw Jodorowsky’s ‘El Topo’ a couple of weeks back and WOW, talk about weird. I can’t say I really enjoyed it all that much to be completely honest but at least it was interesting viewing. Just wonder what your thoughts are on the film, Kurt (or anyone else for that matter
?
While Dune is a pretty unholy mess in ‘clear linear storytelling’ (this should come as no surprise to anyone who appreciates David Lynch films), as something that evokes, well, I think David Lynch (and his production design team for Dune) is in wonderfully top form.
As to El Topo, I’d actually apply the same statement as I do for Dune. El Topo is kinda a film you ‘go with’ and see the strange and wonderful, and certainly weird, places it takes you to. This is my approach with all of Jodorowsky’s films. I don’t find them necessarily profound, but I find the to be encaptivating and off-the-wall spectacles of ideas. Funny that this is short of how TREE OF LIFE reviews are shaping the new Malick. Not deep per se, but spectacularly odd.