I am an artist. Now the pictures are not made by artists. They are made by companies and produced by multinationals. The art in the picture is lost. Now when artists make pictures, they make them for museums. But museums, for me, are cemeteries.
Alejandro Jodorowsky.
More from the About-Bleeding-Time Dept. (emphasis on “bleeding” in this case). Some of the most extraordinary films ever made finally receive an authorised DVD release in May.
Anchor Bay will release a special limited edition collector’s box set, The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky, on DVD on 5/1/2007 (SRP $49.98). The set will contain El Topo, The Holy Mountain and Fando Y Lis on DVD, fully restored and remastered from new HD transfers in anamorphic widescreen video, with Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 audio (El Topo is 125 minutes in Spanish, The Holy Mountain is 114 minutes in English, Fando Y Lis is 93 minutes in Spanish). The box set will also include 2 music CDs containing the soundtracks for El Topo and The Holy Mountain, as well as a DVD of Jodorowsky’s never-before-released first film, La Cravate. El Topo and The Holy Mountain will also be available separately (SRP $24.98 each). The El Topo DVD will contain audio commentary by the director, the original theatrical trailer (with English voice-over), a 2006 on-camera interview with the director as well as an exclusive new interview, a photo gallery and original script excerpts. The Holy Mountain DVD will include audio commentary with the director, deleted scenes with commentary, the original theatrical trailer (with English voice-over), the Tarot short with commentary, a restoration process short, restoration credits, a photo gallery and original script excerpts. Fando Y Lis will include audio commentary with the director and the La Constellation Jodorowsky documentary. Subtitles on the discs will be available in English, French, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese.
• Jodorowsky’s official site (in Spanish)
• Jodorowsky discusses the new releases with Premiere Magazine
• Jay interviews Jodo: Mean Magazine | LA Weekly
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Jordan Belson on DVD
• Further back and faster
• Kenneth Anger on DVD…finally
• The Brothers Quay on DVD
• El Topo
• Gangsters on DVD
• Blade Runner DVD
• The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda
That’s interesting because, as much as I like his written work – novels or scenarii for various comics strips artists – I never knew he was also producing films as well.
Yeah, he’s an amazing guy. Also directed plays in Mexico and was part of the Panic Movement in Paris with Fernando Arrabal and Roland Topor. The films are far more visceral and intense than his comic scripts.
“The Panic Movement performed theatrical events designed to be shocking, as a response to surrealism becoming petite bourgeoisie and to release destructive energies in search of peace and beauty. One four-hour performance known as Sacramental Melodrama was staged in May 1965 at the Paris Festival of Free Expression. The “happening” starred Jodorowsky dressed in motorcyclist leather and featured him slitting the throats of two geese, taping two snakes to his chest and having himself stripped and whipped. Other scenes included a staged murder of a rabbi, a crucified chicken, a giant vagina giving birth to Jodorowsky, naked women covered in honey and the throwing of live turtles into the audience.”
I’ve yet to see any Jodorowsky films, although I loved reading about his designs for a Dune film.
The Metabarons as a film would be fine lunacy.
The link i left out: http://www.duneinfo.com/unseen/jodorowsky.asp
God yeah, the Dune movie! Would have been incredible if he could have pulled it off. Salvador Dali as the Emperor, Moebius and Giger doing the designs, music by Pink Floyd… In the Jodo documentary they talk to Moebius about it and he shows the storyboards. He storyboarded the entire film so on a shot by shot level it certainly would have worked. Instead we got Alien, so all wasn’t entirely lost.
As well as his first three films, Santa Sangre is highly recommended and also very easy to find.
Santa Sangre is the only one of Jodorowsky’s films I’ve actually seen. On TV rather than the big screen unfortunately.
Really looking forward to finally being able to see these 3 though.
:-)