Alejandro Jodorowsky on SANTA SANGRE from Severin Films on Vimeo.
Ajelandro Jodorowsky talks about Santa Sangre in anticipation of the films re-release on DVD and Blu-Ray.
(via Dangerous Minds)
TagAlejandro Jodorowsky
Where does your knowledge of religions come from?
From my father, in a way. He was an atheist. When I was four he said to me, “God doesn’t exist.” It gave rise to an incredible fear, so I started to read anything that could soothe me, metaphysically speaking. All religions, all esoteric movements, alchemy, the Kabbalah, I read about all this. Except astrology–that always pissed me off.
Hum…did you have a script for The Holy Moutain?
I had a frame but I made up the story little by little, every night.
You were said to shoot after taking magic mushrooms…
No, well… Actually, only one scene was shot after taking shrooms. And we messed up. We had to reach a holy place, the top of the pyramid. The actors and I decided to be as mystical as the place we were in. But I made a mistake, I did not force my cameraman to take magic mushrooms as well. He was sober. He saw us and laughed at us as you laugh at drunkards. He decided to put a distorting lens, to shoot us in a ridiculous, psychedelic way. It was a shitty effect on a beautiful, rare, and clean scene which you should not touch. So we climb the pyramid, guided by our supra-conscience. Once there I scratched the ground and I extracted a stone, a cube which we brought on the top. On the top we found a little flower, a very little flower: it was magic, pure. And the fucking cameraman put a distorting lens to capture that, as if we were monsters.. I wanted to kill him.
I realized what he did too late, we were in wild, virgin territories, I only saw the rushes once back in New York. I fled from Mexico because they wanted to put a bomb in my flat, yelling I was evil. I had 30 hours of film you know, he ruined more than a third. I was fool to believe that if the technicians were clean, they would work correctly. But on the contrary, they did not understand a thing about the movie, there was no communication between us and them. They looked at us as if we were wild beasts and thought they could do anything with the camera. When I think about what we messed up, I feel sick.
Vice: NAKED BLOODY CORPSES, CHARROS, SHROOMS, AND THOSE WHO MADE THEM MONSTERS
This is an interview by Arthur Magazine editor Jay Babcock from Mean Magazine in 1999.
WHAT ABOUT THE TECHNO-PRIEST BOOKS?
The Techno-Priest I write about the whole new industry of the CD-ROM, the new games in the world. The world is going to be dominated by the games, now. Video games. But more advanced than video games. They are audiogram games, no? The games directs the galaxies, and the ruler of the galaxy are the businessman, who is the Techno Priest. Business became religion.
I THINK WE HAVE THAT IN AMERICA, NOW.
Yeah, you have that and you don’t realize. [laughs] In America the god is the dollar, no? That is God. At one time the dollar will be sacred. And the industry will be the Church. That I am doing. Then the Techno Priest is the history of the high priest of that church, that industrial church. You need to learn to know how to make games, how to use the humanity, how to conduct the humanity to make the games, and to buy the games, etc. It is very interesting.
ARE YOU INTERESTED IN DESIGNING VIDEO GAMES YOURSELF?
Yes. Last year I did in L.A. They’re doing that now. I went there and proposed, I say, Listen, I want to make this type of story, are you interested? They said, Yes, sure. I made two games of, and I am making a game of the Meta-Baron, then they are doing. I think, “There is a new artform.” Very interesting.
AND IF YOU COMBINE THE GAME WITH THE INTERNET—
Yes. It is normal. Why is important? Because in the future world, the humanity will work less and less. And will have more and more time for them, the games. And then we will get bored. See my meaning? We are animals, we are bored. And then the games will be the most important thing. You know now, the world, no? All the world we have are games. We see the world through television, like games. You are in America, you know that. You have the live television—when a person is killing somebody, you see that on the television, you can follow that. Life is becoming a show, a game, no? More and more.
SO YOU HAVE TO DESIGN A BETTER GAME—
Yes I think it is important. An artist needs to go there.
On his return to Mexico in the late-’60s, Jodorowsky started writing and drawing a subversive weekly comic strip (”Panic ?Fables”) in the right-wing newspaper The Herald.
“For four or five years every Sunday I drew a comics page, a complete story,” he told me in 2003. “But it was very basic. When I saw [cartoonist and future Jodorowsky collaborator] Moebius making the drawings, I stopped. And I never make any more.”
Arthur Magazine editor Jay Babcock has re-published his 2004 interview with Alexandro Jodorowsky from LA Weekly:
I don’t suffer to write it. But when I need to write a new series, a new album, for three days I do nothing. The only thing I can do is to see movies, see television, read . . . Because I am as if paralyzed! Suddenly, [with relief] the idea comes. I say thank you, because I am grateful. I am really grateful because I received the idea. But I don’t construct the idea. I am not a constructor. I receive the idea.
Q: Where do you think it comes from?
The unconscious. It comes directly from the unconscious. I think the unconscious is a very, very enormous universe, no? And when you open the doors to the unconscious, you start to receive. Sometimes you see a terrible vision of yourself: desires you don’t want to have, ideas you detest, feelings that hurt you. When you open the door, you can see yourself in a very weird way, like a bad trip on LSD. You can have that. You have all the hell, and paradise, no? You need to have the courage to open the doors.
In May it was announced that Jodorowsky was going to work with acclaimed director David Lynch on King Shot which was described as a “metaphysical spaghetti western.” Though he hasn’t exactly been relevant in contemporary filmmaking over the past two decades, it looks like his work with Lynch has paid off as Quiet Earth reports that he now has the funding needed to make his dream project Abel Cain.
Jodorowsky calls the film “the sons of El Topo” (see above), a nod to his 1970 revisionist western El Topo. The story follows Abel and Cain who, upon the death of their mother, embark on a journey to bury her holy body next to their father’s grave on a forbidden paradise island.
First Showing: Alejandro Jodorowsky Gets Funding for Dream Project ‘Abel Cain’
(Thanks Neko)
Did you know that Alejandro Jodorowsky was originally going direct Dune?
From Wikipedia:
In December 1974, a French consortium led by Jean-Paul Gibon purchased the film rights to Dune from Arthur P. Jacobs. Jodorowsky was set to direct. In 1975, Jodorowsky planned to film the story as a ten hour feature, in collaboration with Salvador Dali, Orson Welles, Gloria Swanson, David Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Alain Delon, Hervé Villechaize and Mick Jagger. The music would be composed by Pink Floyd. Jodorowsky set up a pre-production unit in Paris consisting of Chris Foss, a British artist who designed covers for science fiction periodicals, Jean Giraud (Moebius), a French illustrator who created and also wrote and drew for Metal Hurlant magazine, and H. R. Giger. Moebius began designing creatures and characters for the film, while Foss was brought in to design the film’s space ships and hardware. Giger began designing the Harkonnen Castle based on Moebius’ storyboards, and Dali was cast as the Emperor with a reported salary of $100,000 an hour. His son Brontis Jodorowsky was to play Paul. Dan O’Bannon was to head the special effects department.
Instead, some of the people involved went on to make Alien and Jodorowsky went on to write the comic book series Metabarons, and David Lynch gave up the opportunity to direct Revenge of the Jedi to direct Dune (Wikipedia says David Cronenberg was also offered the chance to direct Jedi and turned it down).
More info:
There’s even a A whole documentary on Jodorowsky’s Dune
Jodorowsky: The Film You Will Never See Jodorowsky’s eulogy for the ill-fated project.
Gallery with larger images of some of Giger’s Dune designs [bad link – anyone have a replacement?]
(much thanks to Popjellyfish for all the Jodorowsky Dune trivia)
Richard Metzger also points to this saying it was some footage from the movie (I haven’t watched it yet): It’s actually trailers for two Moebuis animated movies: 1) L’Incal, based on a comic book collaboration between Moebuis and Jodorowsky and later ripped off by Fifth Element and 2) An animated version of Moebuis’s Arzach. Neither was ever released, to the best of my knowledge. The video was uploaded, incidentally, by artist extraordinaire and pop culture maven Popjellyfish.
See Also:
Quenched Consciousness, a Moebius art blog curated by Popjellyfish.
Alejandro jodorowsky – Tarot of marseilles
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Alejandro Jodorowsky talks about his fascination with the Tarot and how he helped recreate what the Tarot of Marseilles looked like 1400 years ago. He also goes into what the different Tarot cards mean. This video is an extra from the 2007 restored DVD of The Holy Mountain (1973 film).
(via Arthur)
Here are two lengthy videos in Spanish with Jodorowsky on the Tarot:
Alejandro Jodorowsky: El Tarot, El Mundo (pt 1/6)
Alejandro Jodorowsky: Especial Tarot (pt 1/6)
You can buy Jodorowsky’s book on the Tarot of Marseilles from Amazon.com.
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