Alejandro Jodorowsky

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Alejandro (or Alexandro) Jodorowsky
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Alejandro (or Alexandro) Jodorowsky

Alejandro Jodorowsky or Alexandro Jodorowsky (pronounced "Aleh-HAN-dro Hoh-doh-ROV-ski") (born February 7, 1929, in Tocopilla, Chile) is an actor, director, producer, composer, mime, comic book writer and psychotherapist born to Ashkenazi Jewish parents of Russian origin. In 1973 he adopted the Mexican citizenship, but some years later he was naturalized as French. He is particularly known for having directed a handful of esoteric, surreal and shocking films, and for having written several comic books.

The revered cult filmmaker once stated, "I ask of cinema what most North Americans ask of psychedelic drugs." He is also a New Age spiritualist, and one of the world's leading researchers of the Tarot. Jodorowsky has lately committed a lot of attention to developing a psychological therapy called "Psychomagic" which aims to heal the psychological wounds suffered in the early stages of life. This therapy is based on the belief that the performance of certain outside acts can directly act upon the unconscious mind, releasing it from a series of traumas, some of which are passed down from generation to generation. These acts are prescribed by the therapist after having studied the patient's personality and family tree.

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[edit] Artistic career

In 1962 he created the Panic Movement, together with Roland Topor and Fernando Arrabal. He has also worked with famous artists such as Marcel Marceau, Maurice Chevalier, H.R. Giger, Dan O'Bannon, Jean Giraud (Mœbius). John Lennon was a fan of Jodorowsky's work, and had a hand in taking his films to venues in the U.S.

On December 3, 2005, he officiated at the non-denominational marriage ceremony of friend Marilyn Manson and Dita Von Teese (real name: Heather Sweet) at Castle Gurteen in Kilsheelan, home of artist Gottfried Helnwein , in Tipperary, Ireland. Manson has stated that Jodorowsky influenced his entire visual style.[1]

[edit] Film-making career

Jodorowsky once said, "Most directors make films with their eyes. I make films with my cojones (testicles)."

He started his film career in Mexico, where he later made most of his films, with Fando y Lis (1968). The feature-length film debuted in Acapulco at the Film Festival and is famous for having incited a full scale riot there, requiring that Jodorowsky be smuggled out in a limousine.

El Topo (1970), a mystical western, was his second film and is now considered a cult classic. John Lennon and Yoko Ono helped arrange the film's release and distribution in the United States.

Jodorowsky's third film, La Montaña Sagrada (The Holy Mountain) (1973), was entirely financed by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. At a projected budget of $1,500,000 (in USA dollars), it was to have been the most expensive Mexican film production to date. The film reportedly cost only half that amount.

Jodorowsky began working in 1975 on an adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune. The project was intended to involve his son Brontis (Paul), Orson Welles as the Baron, Salvador Dalí as the Emperor, Mick Jagger as Feyd Rautha, Alain Delon as Duncan Idaho, Geraldine Chaplin as Lady Jessica, Dan O'Bannon for the script, Chris Foss, Pink Floyd, H.R. Giger and Jean Giraud (Mœbius). Ultimately, its funding evaporated, but Jodorowsky claimed it was sabotaged by the major studios in Hollywood because it was too French (a strange claim considering that Jodorowsky, while a naturalized citizen of France, has never identified with any particular country or culture. Although the funding and his producer were French: Jerome Seydoux). Many close to the project claim that the set designs later turned up in Star Wars. Several of the people working on Jodorowsky's version of Dune later worked on Alien with elements similar to that of the failed movie. Of course, in the early 1980s, David Lynch would later make his own version of Dune.

In 1989 Jodorowsky completed the Mexican production Santa Sangre. The film received limited theatrical distribution, putting Jodorowsky back on the cultural map despite its mixed critical reviews. The film delved into psychodrama territory with its protagonist becoming the amputated arms and hands of his mother and committing a string of murders in the process. Several of Jodorowsky's sons were recruited as actors.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, Jodorowsky attempted to make a sequel to El Topo called at different times The Sons of El Topo and Abelcain, but could not find investors for the project.

In 2000, Jodorowsky won the Jack Smith Lifetime Achievement Award from the Chicago Underground Film Festival. He attended the Festival and his films were shown, including "El Topo" and "The Holy Mountain", which at the time had grey legal status. According to festival director Bryan Wendorf, it was an open question of whether CUFF would be allowed to show the two films, or whether the police would show up and shut the festival down.

Currently, Fando y Lis and Santa Sangre are the only of Jodorowsky's work available on DVD. Neither El Topo nor The Holy Mountain have been available on videocassette or DVD in the United States due to ownership disputes with Allen Klein. Since the dispute's settlement in 2004, however, plans to re-release Jodorowsky's films have been announced by ABKCO Films. In place of legitimate releases, bootleg copies of both El Topo and The Holy Mountain have been circulated illegally on the Internet and in Italy on DVD.

[edit] Comic books

After his third movie, Tusk he started to deeply study the Tarot and started The Incal with Jean Giraud (Mœbius). This graphic novel has its roots deep in the Tarot and its symbols. i.e. the protagonist of The Incal, John Difool, is linked to the Fool card. The Incal (which would have branch off into a prequel and sequel) would form the first in a sequence of several science fiction comic book series, all set in the same space opera Jodoverse (or "Metabarons Universe") published by Humanoids Publishing.

Comic books set in this milieu The Caste of the Metabarons, The Technopriests, Incal, Moonface, and Megalex and also a RPG adaptation, The Metabarons Roleplaying Game. Many ideas and concepts featured in this universe derive from Jodorowsky's planned adaptation of Dune (which he would have only loosely based upon Frank Herbert's original novel) later turned up in this sequence, which also contain many references to Dune in general.

The aforementioned Metabarons was the center of a lawsuit with French director Luc Besson, because Besson had allegedly taken several ideas from the comic for his 1997 science-fiction film, The Fifth Element. Jodorowsky lost the lawsuit.

Action-adventure comics by Jodorowsky outside the genre of science fiction include the historically-based action-adventures Bouncer, Son Of The Gun and The White Lama.

The Crowned Heart (translated into English as The Madwoman of the Sacred Heart), a racy satire on religion set in contemporary times, won Jodorowsky and his collaborator, Jean Giraud, a 2001 Haxtur Award for Best Long Strip. He is currently working on a new graphic novel for the U.S. market.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Bibliography (incomplete)

  • Las ansias carnívoras de la nada (1991)
  • Donde mejor canta un pájaro (1994)
  • El niño del jueves negro (1999)
  • Albina y los hombres-perro (2000)
  • La danza de la realidad (2001) Jodorowksy's autobiography ISBN 987-566-067-1
  • El loro de las siete lenguas (2001)
  • El tesoro de la sombra (2003)
  • La vía del tarot (2004)
  • El Maestro y las Magas (2006)

[edit] External links

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