So its been a while since I've posted, but I've been to see a few films recently I feel are worth reflecting on, capturing my thoughts and hopefully sharing these great works with a wider audience. The first of these works I saw a the Glasgow Film Festival back in February - A documentary chronicling the first attempt to adapt Frank Herbert's seminal Sci-Fi epic to the big screen. The adaptation ultimately didn't get made due to a lack of funding, but the story of its inception is know as Jodorowsky's Dune.
Director: Frank Pavich
Starring: Alejandro Jodorowsky, Michel Seydoux, H. R. Giger, Chris Foss
Rating: 4 Stars
A largely talking heads Documentary which mixes as much of 'how it might have looked' with 'what it might have meant'. Although the adaptation was never made, all the pre-production work was completed and it was ready to be filmed, pending finances, so even if you're unfamiliar with Herbert's novel you are exposed to enough of the artwork and shot compositions to have a pretty clear view of what Jodorowsky's version of Dune would have been.
Alejandro Jodorowsky, a Chilean playwright by trade, whose previous directing credits consist of a film banned in Mexico after inciting a full scale riot (Fando y Lis) and a self starring cult success (El Topo) which looks like it shares the tone of John Boorman's Zardoz, obtained the film rights to Dune in 1975. With a vision of making one of the most ambitious Science Fiction epics the world had ever seen, wherein the story spans multiple planets, races, technologies and religions. Never before had we seen this level of world building. This is a time before Alien, before Blade Runner and crucially, before Star Wars.
It quickly becomes apparent that a production of this scale has never been attempted before and would need a madman with unrivalled levels of hubris to contrive such a project. Initially set to be 14 hours long with an assembled cast containing the Directors son, Brontis, in the leading role of Paul Atreides, Orsen Wells as the Baron Harkonnen, Salvador Dali as the Galactic Emperor as well as Gloria Swanson, Amanda Lear, Mick Jagger and David Carradine as Duke Leto Atreides.
In order to secure his dream cast, not only did Jodorowsky have to promise Wells he'd hire the head chef from his favourite restaurant to be on set everyday, but also that he would bow to Dali's whim of casting his mistress as the Princess Irulan, include giraffes in the film, and making Dali the best paid actor (per minute of screen time) in Hollywood. These extravagances of course inflated the overall budget to levels which at the time simply couldn't be considered by the major studios. A pre production handbook detailing every shot made the rounds, but was ultimately passed on, most likely due to a lack of confidence in the eccentric Director.
But it is this handbook which is the most interesting part of the story. Assembled by the production team of Jodorowsky, his artists and story boarders: Jean Giraud (Mœbius), H. R. Giger, Chris Foss, Dan O'Bannon and Producer Michel Seydoux. Admittedly these names, with the exception of Giger from his work on Alien, meant nothing to me, until it was revealed that in fact Jodorowskys whole artistic team would eventually work with Ridley Scott on his 1979 Sci-Fi Horror.
So we have a production team that went on to arguablly shape the aesthetic of modern Science Fiction and concept art that has been seen by every major studio, at least influencing visuals featured in films such as Star Wars, Contact and The Terminator. It seems ironic that the only Sci-Fi film in the past 40 years not apparently influenced by Jodorowsky's vision is the 1984 Dune production by Dino De Laurentiis, a critical and commercial flop. Although this version which Director David Lynch has all but disowned does give a flavour of what could have been. Star Wars demonstrated there was an appetite for such a sprawling and fantastical epic, so I'm left thinking, what if? What if Dune were as well known and held the same influence on pop culture as Star Wars? What would Cinema look like today?
Alejandro Jodorowsky, a Chilean playwright by trade, whose previous directing credits consist of a film banned in Mexico after inciting a full scale riot (Fando y Lis) and a self starring cult success (El Topo) which looks like it shares the tone of John Boorman's Zardoz, obtained the film rights to Dune in 1975. With a vision of making one of the most ambitious Science Fiction epics the world had ever seen, wherein the story spans multiple planets, races, technologies and religions. Never before had we seen this level of world building. This is a time before Alien, before Blade Runner and crucially, before Star Wars.
It quickly becomes apparent that a production of this scale has never been attempted before and would need a madman with unrivalled levels of hubris to contrive such a project. Initially set to be 14 hours long with an assembled cast containing the Directors son, Brontis, in the leading role of Paul Atreides, Orsen Wells as the Baron Harkonnen, Salvador Dali as the Galactic Emperor as well as Gloria Swanson, Amanda Lear, Mick Jagger and David Carradine as Duke Leto Atreides.
In order to secure his dream cast, not only did Jodorowsky have to promise Wells he'd hire the head chef from his favourite restaurant to be on set everyday, but also that he would bow to Dali's whim of casting his mistress as the Princess Irulan, include giraffes in the film, and making Dali the best paid actor (per minute of screen time) in Hollywood. These extravagances of course inflated the overall budget to levels which at the time simply couldn't be considered by the major studios. A pre production handbook detailing every shot made the rounds, but was ultimately passed on, most likely due to a lack of confidence in the eccentric Director.
But it is this handbook which is the most interesting part of the story. Assembled by the production team of Jodorowsky, his artists and story boarders: Jean Giraud (Mœbius), H. R. Giger, Chris Foss, Dan O'Bannon and Producer Michel Seydoux. Admittedly these names, with the exception of Giger from his work on Alien, meant nothing to me, until it was revealed that in fact Jodorowskys whole artistic team would eventually work with Ridley Scott on his 1979 Sci-Fi Horror.
So we have a production team that went on to arguablly shape the aesthetic of modern Science Fiction and concept art that has been seen by every major studio, at least influencing visuals featured in films such as Star Wars, Contact and The Terminator. It seems ironic that the only Sci-Fi film in the past 40 years not apparently influenced by Jodorowsky's vision is the 1984 Dune production by Dino De Laurentiis, a critical and commercial flop. Although this version which Director David Lynch has all but disowned does give a flavour of what could have been. Star Wars demonstrated there was an appetite for such a sprawling and fantastical epic, so I'm left thinking, what if? What if Dune were as well known and held the same influence on pop culture as Star Wars? What would Cinema look like today?
