Christopher Webster [Celluloid 05.12.11] movie news scifi documentary



Holy Mountain of shit! News has emerged from the Cannes film festival that documentary filmmaker Frank Pavich is halfway through making a film called Jodorowsky’s Dune which chronicles Alejandro Jodorowsky's failed efforts to adapt Frank Herbert‘s novel Dune in the mid 1970s.

While the ambitious production collapsed after two years, Jodorowsky’s team of then relatively unknown concept artists continued exploring the themes and styles started on the project and ended up changing modern science fiction forever: H.R. Giger went on to Ridley Scott’s masterpiece ALIEN, Dan O’Bannon wrote ALIEN and TOTAL RECALL, Jean “Moebius” Giraud created artwork and futuristic worlds for THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, TRON, and THE FIFTH ELEMENT and Chris Foss would go on to work on ALIEN and SUPERMAN.

To give you a sense of how crazy Jadorowsky's version would have been here's what he had to say about it:


"I did not want to respect the novel, I wanted to recreate it. For me Dune did not belong to Herbert as Don Quixote did not belong to Cervantes, nor Edipo with Esquilo.

In my version of Dune, the Emperor of the galaxy is insane. He lives on an artificial gold planet, in a gold palace built according to not-laws of antilogical. He lives in symbiosis with a robot identical to him. The resemblance is so perfect that the citizens never know if they are opposite the man or the machine…

In my version, the spice is a blue drug with spongy consistency filled with a vegetable-animal life endowed with consciousness, the highest level of consciousness. It does not stop taking all kinds of forms, while stirring up unceasingly. The spice continuously produces the creation of the innumerable universes. [Quote via /Film]


Apparently "the film has completed interviews with Jodorowsky, Giger and other surviving members of the original team, shooting in France, Switzerland and the UK, and moves this summer to the U.S. more the second half of its production."[THR]

Snowfort Pictures, Camera One of France and Koch Media of Germany are behind the documentary.

Watch a video of Jodorowsky discussing DUNE after the break.



You might like: David Lynch's DUNE


Stevens in announcing the production said: “This is a rare, intimate look at the creative process of one of history’s most mind-blowing filmmakers. The access he afforded us was incredible. We’re excited to be partnered with Camera-One and Koch Media in order to share it with the world.”

Moritz Peters of Koch Media adds: “Fans of Jodorowsky, Giger, O’Bannon and the rest of the artists will now have a chance to see how they approach their work. We’re avid supporters of adventurous sci-fi films, and happy to be co-producing one that covers such a fantastic subject."

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Anonymous (11 years ago) Reply

Really, does anyone believe his Dune would have been any good at all? His films are quite silly, badly written and badly directed.

Anonymous (11 years ago) Reply

Didn't read the book! What the heck makes him think he can do justice to it? This attitude sickens me.

Hot Fuzz (11 years ago) Reply

Don't know if "good" is the right word. Weird, insane, perplexing? Yes. Good? That's subjective with Jodorowsky.

Anonymous (11 years ago) Reply

I don't buy the 'subjectivity' angle, Jodorowsky has been getting away with that excuse for years. The 'technique' of throwing as much shit as possible at the wall and seeing what sticks does not make for a good 2-3 hour viewing experience or story telling, Dune is a story, a book, not a playgorund to spend other peoples money on sets and props just cos you think they look 'weird'. He didn't make this film ulitmately because he didn't have the ability and everyone else realised it too especially when they saw his previous films.

Anonymous (11 years ago) Reply

Pretty sure it would have looked like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxxO7_gwgqM&feature=related

Anglebender (11 years ago) Reply

What a pretentious goon-He wanted to discard everything Herbert created and use just the name "Dune"? He bought the rights just to trash everything? That pathetic turdling has yet to achieve anything other than semi-cult status with fans of Eurotrash. I'm glad an American made it instead...

Umberto (11 years ago) Reply

Grande non vedo l'ora di vederlo quel pazzo di Jodorpwsky! :-) a me no era dispiaciuta la versione di Lynch...., certamente piu' fedeli al romanzo (ma anche decisamente noiose) le due riduzioni televisive.

agentorange (11 years ago) Reply

I for one would love to see Jodorowsky's bizzaro version of Dune in some alternate history world. As long as it didn't delete Lynch's own masterpiece from existence.

Johnny Zombie (11 years ago) Reply

I'm very glad that Jodorowsky's version of Dune was never made. It would have been a disaster. To claim that it never belonged to Herbert, who created the series of novels, is insane. Jodorowsky's script deviated so far from the source material, that this film would have been reviled. It didn't get made because everybody knew it would bomb. Some people are just too weird and pretentious for their own good.

Anonymous (11 years ago) Reply

You have to wonder what it was about Dune that interested him in the first place. It's so different, he may as well written his own original script.

Anonymous (11 years ago) Reply

sounds like to much LSD

chuck (11 years ago) Reply

No love for Fando Y Lis? How can you not love post-apocalyptic surrealism? Jodorowsky creates visually stunning absurdity and satire. His stuff is more like painting than linear story telling. There is however, no excuse for disrespecting your source material.

cyclops76 (11 years ago) Reply

I'm a huge fan of Moebius, not so much of Jodorowski. I tried to watch "El Topo" once and just couldn't stay awake, what a boring film and such low production standards. Anyway, Moebius in it and all, this movie would have been just plain awful. Their collaboration in comics, however, is brilliant.

John (11 years ago) Reply

Too much spice would be more correct.

quietearth (11 years ago) Reply

Jodorowsky is, hands down, one of the most brilliant film makers of all time.

Anonymous (11 years ago) Reply

you guys should cry more, jodorowski FTW who cares if he's a twat.

Anonymous (11 years ago) Reply

Why all the Jodorowsky hate? Along with people like Arrabal, he's a respected key player in surrealist theatre and cinema with surrealist interests, not just some ordinary film director, whose focus is in high-end production values and linear Aristotelian storytelling. What the fuck, people? Everybody has their own opinion and so on, but you talk about him like Michael Bay.

Marc McKenzie (11 years ago) Reply

Hmmm...imagine if the 'Net was around back then. The furor raised by this project would have been deafening.

That said, reading about this makes me appreciate Lynch's version of DUNE even more. At least he was more faithful to the book, and impressed Frank Herbert.

And let's face it--the collapse of this project did lead to the creation of ALIEN around three years later. Fair trade, if you ask me.

periklis (11 years ago) Reply

In the book "Anarch & Alchemy" Jodorowsky claims that he read the book in one sitting and considers it an archetype (a-la Jung), hence his phrase "Dune does not belong to Herbert". The Jodoverse (all the interweaving storylines from Incal, Metabarons & Technopriests) that sprang from not making that film is one of the best things that happened in comics. Also the aborted film version is a glorious "development hell" story on its own. Hopefully it will happen this time around and fingers crossed for AbelCain to be finally realised next... (whatever happened to King Shot BTW?)

Anonymous (11 years ago) Reply

'Jodorowsky is, hands down, one of the most brilliant film makers of all time.'


..and what are you basing that claim on? You need to have a certain amount of craft/technique to make a good 'LONG-FORM' viewing experience, surreal or not. Lynch is a master of that style and his craft is impeccable. Jodorowky's on the other hand is not. Half-baked ideas in half-baked films, much like Kenneth Anger.

mazigazi (11 years ago) Reply

it's hilarious to read all these possessive fan responses! think about this: any translation of book to film is NOT the book. So, why not make it your own? clearly, you people don't have too many artistic impulses yourselves. c'est nes pas une pipe"
IF this film would have been made, it would be accepted as just another weird midnight film of those crazy 70s and you hard SF fans wouldn't even discuss it much. While fans of Jodo's (admittedly a small group) would await a restored DVD of it, or some such thing.
To "get" Jodo's work is to understand that he is not really a filmmaker, and that he is a magician full of ideas. The guy does a ton of other things besides the few films he has finished. His work is often filled with metaphysical ideas, symbolism, philosophies, etc etc.
this documentary will be interesting, but hopefully Jodo has moved on and is busy making new art.

Anonymous (11 years ago) Reply

'any translation of book to film is NOT the book. '

I think most of us know this onotological fact but it doesn't really address the crux of problems with Jodorowsky's Dune.

There comes a point of difference where you can no longer really call it an 'adaptation' or even call it 'Dune' so much so that what is the point buying the rights to the property in the first place when you could create your own work and save money? It's a crass way of using brand commercialism to sell a movie when it's all boiled down.

This documentary will be interesting to many people not because of Jodorowsky but the fine work of all the talented artists.

Vague, generalised staments like, 'he's a unique visionary artist' or 'it's not the book' don't really mean anything.

Anonymous (11 years ago) Reply

"Vague, generalised staments like, 'he's a unique visionary artist' or 'it's not the book' don't really mean anything."

neither do statements like "It's a crass way of using brand commercialism to sell a movie when it's all boiled down"...i mean seriously, that sentence makes no sense. you're an idiot.

Anonymous (11 years ago) Reply

Only an idiot lacks understanding. It makes perfect sense when you understand the context. Jodorowsky was using the brand of Dune to sell his own collection of subjective ideas, Dune, the story, was secondary. That is a cynical and selfish move on his part.

Anonymous (11 years ago) Reply

"Only an idiot lacks understanding. It makes perfect sense when you understand the context. Jodorowsky was using the brand of Dune to sell his own collection of subjective ideas, Dune, the story, was secondary. That is a cynical and selfish move on his part."

i meant that your sentence is grammatically nonsensical.

Anonymous (11 years ago) Reply

I didn't know this was an article about grammar.

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