Alejandro Jodorowsky | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Jodorowsky in 2011 | |
| Born | Alejandro Jodorowsky Prullansky (1929-02-17)17 February 1929 (age 96) Tocopilla, Chile |
| Citizenship |
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| Alma mater | University of Chile Paris-Sorbonne University |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1948–present |
| Movement | Panic Movement |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 5, includingBrontis,Axel andAdán |
| Relatives | Alma Jodorowsky (granddaughter) |
Alejandro Jodorowsky Prullansky (Spanish:[xoðoˈɾofski]; born 17 February 1929) is a Chilean and Frenchavant-garde filmmaker. Known for his filmsEl Topo (1970),The Holy Mountain (1973) andSanta Sangre (1989), Jodorowsky has been "venerated bycult cinema enthusiasts" for his work which "is filled with violentlysurreal images and a hybrid blend ofmysticism and religious provocation".[1]
Dropping out of college, he became involved in theater and in particularmime, working as a clown before founding his own theater troupe, theTeatro Mimico, in 1947. Moving to Paris in the early 1950s, Jodorowsky studied traditional mime underÉtienne Decroux, and put his miming skills to use in the silent filmLes têtes interverties (1957), directed with Saul Gilbert and Ruth Michelly. From 1960 onwards he divided his time between Mexico City and Paris, where he co-foundedPanic Movement, a surrealistperformance art collective that staged violent and shocking theatrical events. In 1966 he created his first comic strip,Anibal 5, and in 1967 he directed his first feature film, the surrealistFando y Lis, which caused a huge scandal in Mexico, eventually being banned.
His next film, theacid westernEl Topo (1970), became a hit on themidnight movie circuit in the United States, considered the first-ever midnight cult film, and garnered high praise fromJohn Lennon, who convinced formerBeatles managerAllen Klein to provide Jodorowsky with $1 million to finance his next film. The result wasThe Holy Mountain (1973), a surrealist exploration ofwestern esotericism. Disagreements with Klein, however, led to bothThe Holy Mountain andEl Topo failing to gain widespread distribution, although both became classics on the underground film circuit.[1] Aftera cancelled attempt at filmingFrank Herbert's 1965 science fiction novelDune, Jodorowsky produced five more films: the family filmTusk (1980); the surrealist horrorSanta Sangre (1989); the failed blockbusterThe Rainbow Thief (1990); and the first two films in a planned five-film autobiographical seriesThe Dance of Reality (2013) andEndless Poetry (2016).
Jodorowsky is also acomic book writer, most notably penning the science fiction seriesThe Incal throughout the 1980s, which has been described as having a claim to be "the best comic book" ever written.[citation needed] Other comic books he has written includeThe Technopriests andMetabarons. Jodorowsky has also extensively written and lectured about his own spiritual system, which he calls "psychomagic" and "psychoshamanism", which borrows fromalchemy, thetarot,Zen Buddhism andshamanism.[2] His son Cristóbal has followed his teachings on psychoshamanism; this work is captured in the feature documentaryQuantum Men, directed by Carlos Serrano Azcona.[3]
Alejandro Jodorowsky was born on February 17, 1929, inTocopilla, Chile to immigrantUkrainian Jewish parents Jaime Jodorowsky Groismann and Sara Felicidad Prullansky Arcavi fromYekaterinoslav andElisavetgrad in theRussian Empire. According to Jodorowsky's account,he was conceived from sexual violence that his mother had faced, as his father wasphysically and sexually abusive towards her. Due to this, his mother disliked Jodorowsky, and detested his father.[4] Alejandro also had an elder sister, Raquel Jodorowsky, but disliked her, as he believed that she was selfish and trying to "expel me from the family so that she could be the centre of attention."[5] Alongside his dislike for his family, he also held contempt for many of the local people, who viewed him as an outsider because of his status as the son of immigrants. Jodorowsky did not have aBar Mitzvah or celebrate any Jewish holidays as his parents concealed their Jewish identity for much of Jodorowsky's life.[6]
Jodorowsky moved toSantiago at the age of 9, a decision he did not favor, as he liked the local areas of Tocopilla.[7] Growing up, his dislike of the American mining industrialists who worked locally and treated the Chilean people badly later influenced his condemnation ofAmerican imperialism andneo-colonialism in Latin America in several of his films.
He immersed himself in reading, and also began writing poetry, having his first poem published when he was sixteen years old, alongside associating with such Chilean poets asNicanor Parra,Stella Díaz Varín andEnrique Lihn.[8] Becoming interested in the political ideology ofanarchism, Jodorowsky briefly attended theUniversity of Chile, studyingpsychology and philosophy, but dropped out after two years.[9][10] After leaving university, he developed an interest in theatre and particularlymime, he took up employment in acircus as aclown, as well as beginning a career as a theatre director.[1] Meanwhile, in 1947 he founded his own theatrical troupe, the Teatro Mimico,[8] which by 1952 had fifty members, and the following year he wrote his first play,El Minotaura (The Minotaur).
Jodorowsky moved to France as he felt there was little for him left in Chile.[1] He settled inParis and started to study philosophy at theParis-Sorbonne University.[6] He also started to study mime with French actorÉtienne Decroux and joined the troupe of one of Decroux's students,Marcel Marceau. It was with Marceau's troupe that he went on a world tour, and wrote several routines for the group, including "The Cage" and "The Mask Maker". After this, he returned to theatre directing, working on the music hall comeback ofMaurice Chevalier in Paris.[1]
In 1960, Jodorowsky moved to Mexico, where he settled down inMexico City. He continued to return occasionally to France, on one occasion visiting theSurrealist artistAndré Breton, but had increasingly felt disillusioned by him as he felt he had become somewhat conservative in his old age.[1] Continuing his interest in surrealism, in 1962 he founded thePanic Movement along withFernando Arrabal andRoland Topor. The movement aimed to go beyond conventional surrealist ideas by embracing absurdism. Its members refused to take themselves seriously, while laughing at those critics who did.[1]
It was in Mexico City that he encounteredEjo Takata [es] (1928–1997), aZen Buddhist monk who had studied at theHoryu-ji andShofuku-ji monasteries in Japan before traveling to Mexico via the U.S. in 1967 to spread Zen. Jodorowsky became a disciple of Takata and offered his own house to be turned into aZendō. Subsequently, Takata attracted other disciples around him, who spent their time inmeditation and the study ofkoans.[11] Eventually, Takata instructed Jodorowsky that he had to learn more about his feminine side, and so he went and befriended the English surrealistLeonora Carrington, who had recently moved to Mexico.[12]
In 1957, while Jodorowsky was in Paris studying mime, he createdLes têtes interverties (The Severed Heads), a 20-minute adaptation ofThomas Mann's novella. It consisted almost entirely of mime and told the surreal story of a head-swapping merchant who helps a young man find courtship success. Jodorowsky played the lead role. The directorJean Cocteau admired the film and wrote an introduction for it. It was considered lost until a print of the film was discovered in 2006.
In 1966, he produced his first comic strip,Anibal 5, which was related to the Panic Movement. The following year he created a new feature film,Fando y Lis,[8] loosely based on a play written byFernando Arrabal, who was working with Jodorowsky onperformance art at the time.Fando y Lis premiered at the 1968Acapulco Film Festival, where it instigated a riot amongst those objecting to the film's content,[13] and was subsequently banned in Mexico.[14]
In 1970, Jodorowsky released the filmEl Topo, which sometimes is known in English asThe Mole,[8] which he had both directed and starred in. Anacid western,El Topo tells the story of a wandering Mexican bandit andgunslinger, El Topo (played by Jodorowsky), who is on a search for spiritual enlightenment, taking his young son along with him.[15] Along the way, he violently confronts a number of other individuals, before finally being killed and being resurrected to live within a community of deformed people who are trapped inside a mountain cave. Describing the work, he stated that "I ask of film what most North Americans ask of psychedelic drugs. The difference being that when one creates a psychedelic film, he need not create a film that shows the visions of a person who has taken a pill; rather, he needs to manufacture the pill."[16] Knowing howFando y Lis had caused such a scandal in Mexico, Jodorowsky decided not to releaseEl Topo there,[14] instead focusing on its release in other countries across the world, including Mexico's northern neighbour, the United States. It was in New York City where the film would play as a "midnight movie" for several months atBen Barenholtz'sElgin Theater. It attracted the attention of rock musician and countercultural figureJohn Lennon, who thought very highly of it, and convinced the president ofThe Beatles' companyApple Corps,Allen Klein, to distribute it in the United States.[17]
Klein agreed to give Jodorowsky $1 million to go toward creating his next film. The result wasThe Holy Mountain, released in 1973. It has been suggested thatThe Holy Mountain may have been inspired byRené Daumal's Surrealist novelMount Analogue.The Holy Mountain was another complex, multi-part story that featured a man credited as "The Thief" and equated with Jesus Christ, a mysticalalchemist played by Jodorowsky, seven powerful business people representing seven of the planets (Venus and the six planets from Mars to Pluto), a religious training regimen of spiritual rebirth, and a quest to the top of a holy mountain for the secret ofimmortality. During the completion ofThe Holy Mountain, Jodorowsky received spiritual training fromOscar Ichazo of theArica School, who encouraged him to takeLSD and guided him through the subsequentpsychedelic experience.[18] Around the same time (2 November 1973), Jodorowsky participated in anisolation tank experiment conducted byJohn Lilly.[19]
Shortly thereafter, Allen Klein demanded that Jodorowsky create a film adaptation of Pauline Réage's classic novel of femalemasochism,Story of O. Klein had promised this adaptation to various investors. Jodorowsky, who had discoveredfeminism during the filming ofThe Holy Mountain, refused to make the film, going so far as to leave the country to escape directing duties. In retaliation, Allen Klein madeEl Topo andThe Holy Mountain, to which he held the rights, completely unavailable to the public for more than 30 years. Jodorowsky frequently decried Klein's actions in interviews.[20][21]
Soon after the release ofThe Holy Mountain, Jodorowsky gave a talk at the TeatroJulio Castillo,University of Mexico on the subject of koans (despite the fact that he initially had been booked on the condition that his talk would be about cinematography), at which Ejo Takata appeared. After the talk, Takata gave Jodorowsky hiskyosaku, believing that his former student had mastered the art of understanding koans.[22]
In December 1974, a French consortium led by Jean-Paul Gibon purchased thefilm rights toFrank Herbert's epic 1965 science fiction novelDune and asked Jodorowsky to directa film version. Jodorowsky planned to cast the Surrealist artistSalvador Dalí, in what would have been his only speaking role as a film actor, in the role of EmperorShaddam IV. Dalí agreed when Jodorowsky offered to pay him a fee of $100,000 per hour.[23] He also planned to castOrson Welles as BaronVladimir Harkonnen; Welles only agreed when Jodorowsky offered to get his favourite gourmet chef to prepare his meals for him throughout the filming.[24] The book's protagonist,Paul Atreides, was to be played by Jodorowsky's son,Brontis Jodorowsky, 12 years old at the start of pre-production. The music would be composed byPink Floyd andMagma.[23] Jodorowsky set up a pre-production unit in Paris consisting ofChris Foss, a British artist who designed covers for science fiction publications,Jean Giraud (Mœbius), a French illustrator who created and also wrote and drew forMétal Hurlant magazine, andH. R. Giger.[23] Frank Herbert travelled to Europe in 1976 to find that $2 million of the $9.5 million budget had already been spent in pre-production, and that Jodorowsky's script would result in a 14-hour movie ("It was the size of a phonebook", Herbert later recalled).[25] Jodorowsky took creative liberties with the source material, but Herbert said that he and Jodorowsky had an amicable relationship. The production for the film collapsed when no film studio could be found willing to fund the movie to Jodorowsky's terms. The aborted production was chronicled in the documentaryJodorowsky's Dune, directed byFrank Pavich. Subsequently, the rights for filming were sold toDino De Laurentiis, who employed the American filmmakerDavid Lynch to direct, creating the filmDune in 1984. The documentary does not include any original film footage of what was to beJodorowsky's Dune though it states that the unmade film was an influence on other science fiction films, such asStar Wars,Alien,The Terminator,Flash Gordon andRaiders of the Lost Ark.[26][27] In particular, the Jodorowsky-assembled team of O'Bannon, Foss, Giger, and Giraud went on to collaborate on the 1979 filmAlien.[28] Later, in January 2023, Frank Pavich, director of the documentary filmJodorowsky's Dune, published an essay inThe New York Times related toJodorowsky's Dune (and more) that involved artwork generated bygenerative AI.[29]
After the collapse of theDune project, Jodorowsky completely changed course and, in 1980, premiered his children's fableTusk, shot in India. Taken fromReginald Campbell's novelPoo Lorn of the Elephants, the film explores thesoul-mate relationship between a young British woman living in India and a highly prized elephant. The film exhibited little of the director's outlandish visual style and was never given wide release.
In 1989, Jodorowsky completed the Mexican-Italian productionSanta Sangre (Holy Blood). The film received limited theatrical distribution, putting Jodorowsky back on the cultural map despite its mixed critical reviews.Santa Sangre was a surrealisticslasher film with a plot like a mix ofAlfred Hitchcock'sPsycho withRobert Wiene'sThe Hands of Orlac. It featured a protagonist who, as a child, saw his mother lose both her arms, and as an adult let his own arms act as hers, and so was forced to commit murders at her whim. Several of Jodorowsky's sons were recruited as actors.
He followed in 1990 with a very different film,The Rainbow Thief. Though it gave Jodorowsky a chance to work with the "movie stars"Peter O'Toole andOmar Sharif, the executive producer,Alexander Salkind, effectively curtailed most of Jodorowsky's artistic inclinations, threatening to fire him on the spot if anything in the script was changed (Salkind's wife,Berta Domínguez D., wrote the screenplay).
That same year (1990), Jodorowsky and his family returned to France to live.[30]
In 2000, Jodorowsky won the Jack Smith Lifetime Achievement Award from theChicago Underground Film Festival (CUFF). Jodorowsky attended the festival and his films were shown, includingEl Topo andThe Holy Mountain,[31] which at the time had grey legal status. According to festival directorBryan Wendorf, it was an open question of whether CUFF would be allowed to show both films, or whether the police would show up and shut the festival down.[32]
Until 2007,Fando y Lis andSanta Sangre were the only Jodorowsky works available on DVD. NeitherEl Topo norThe Holy Mountain were available onvideocassette or DVD in the United States or the United Kingdom, due to ownership disputes with distributorAllen Klein. After settlement of the dispute in 2004, however, plans to re-release Jodorowsky's films were announced by ABKCO Films. On 19 January 2007, it was announced online thatAnchor Bay would release a box set includingEl Topo,The Holy Mountain, andFando y Lis on 1 May 2007. A limited edition of the set includes both theEl Topo andThe Holy Mountain soundtracks. And, in early February 2007, Tartan Video announced its 14 May 2007, release date for the UKPAL DVD editions ofEl Topo,The Holy Mountain, and the six-disc box set which, alongside the aforementioned feature films, includes the two soundtrack CDs, as well as separate DVD editions of Jodorowsky's 1968 debut featureFando y Lis (with his 1957 shortLa cravate a.k.a.Les têtes interverties, included as an extra) and the 1994 feature-length documentaryLa constellation Jodorowsky. Notably,Fando y Lis andLa cravate were digitally restored extensively and remastered in London during late 2006, thus providing a suitable complement to the quality restoration work undertaken onEl Topo andThe Holy Mountain in the States by ABKCO, and ensuring that the presentation ofFando y Lis is a significant improvement over the 2001 Fantoma DVD edition. Prior to the availability of these legitimate releases, only inferior quality, optically censored,bootleg copies of bothEl Topo andThe Holy Mountain have been circulated on the Internet and on DVD.[33]
In the 1990s and early 2000s, Jodorowsky attempted to makea sequel toEl Topo, called at different timesThe Sons of El Topo andAbel Cain, but did not find investors for the project.[34]
In an interview withPremière, Jodorowsky said he intended his next project to be a gangster film calledKing Shot. In an interview withThe Guardian newspaper in November 2009, however, Jodorowsky revealed that he was unable to find the funds to makeKing Shot, and instead would be entering preparations onSons of El Topo, for which he claimed to have signed a contract with "some Russian producers".[35]
In 2010, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City staged the first American cinema retrospective of Alejandro Jodorowsky entitledBlood into Gold: The Cinematic Alchemy of Alejandro Jodorowsky.[36][37] Jodorowsky would attend the retrospective and hold a master class on art as a way of transformation.[38] This retrospective would inspire the museumMoMA PS1 to present the exhibitionAlejandro Jodorowsky: The Holy Mountain in 2011.[39]
In August 2011, Alejandro arrived in a town in Chile where he grew up, also the setting of his autobiographyThe Dance of Reality, to promote an autobiographical film based upon his book.
On 31 October 2011,Halloween night, theMuseum of Modern Art (New York City) honored Jodorowsky by showingThe Holy Mountain. He attended and spoke about his work and life.[40] The next evening, he presentedEl Topo at the Walter Reade Theatre at Lincoln Center.[41]
Alejandro has stated that after finishingThe Dance of Reality he was preparing to shoot his long-gestatingEl Topo sequel,Abel Cain.[42][43] By January 2013, Alejandro finished filming onThe Dance of Reality and entered into post-production. Alejandro's son and co-star in the film, Brontis, claimed the film was to be finished by March 2013, and that the film was "very different than the other films he made".[44] On 23 April, it was announced that the film would have its world premiere at the Film Festival in Cannes.[45] coinciding withThe Dance of Reality premiered alongside the documentary filmJodorowsky's Dune, which premiered in May 2013 at theCannes Film Festival, creating a "Jodorowsky double bill".[46][47]
In 2015, Jodorowsky began a new film entitledEndless Poetry, the sequel to his last "auto-biopic",The Dance of Reality. His Paris-based production company, Satori Films, launched two successfulcrowdfunding campaigns to finance the film. The Indiegogo campaign has been left open indefinitely, receiving donations from fans and movie-goers in support of the independent production.[48] The film was shot between June and August 2015, in the streets ofMatucana in Santiago, Chile, where Jodorowsky lived for a period in his life.[49] The film portrays his young adulthood in Santiago, years during which he became a core member of the Chilean poetic avant-garde alongside artists such asHugo Marín,Gustavo Becerra,Enrique Lihn,Stella Díaz Varín,Nicanor Parra and others.[50][51] Jodorowsky's sonAdan Jodorowsky plays him as an adult; andBrontis Jodorowsky plays as his father, Jaime.Jeremias Herskovitz, fromThe Dance of Reality, portrays Jodorowsky as a teenager.[49]Pamela Flores plays as Sara (his mother) and Stella Díaz Varín (poet and young Jodorowsky's girlfriend).Leandro Taub portrays Jodorowsky's best friend, the poet and novelist Enrique Lihn.[52] The film premiered in theDirectors' Fortnight section of theCannes Film Festival on 14 May 2016.[53]Variety's review was overwhelmingly positive, calling it "...the most accessible movie he has ever made, and it may also be the best."[54]
During an interview at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016, Jodorowsky announced his plans to finally makeThe Son of El Topo as soon as financial backing is obtained.[55]
Jodorowsky released a 12" vinyl with the Original Soundtrack of Zarathustra (Discos Tizoc, Mexico, 1970).[56]
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Jodorowsky started his comic career in Mexico with the creation ofAnibal 5 series in mid-1966 with illustrations byManuel Moro. He also drew his own comic strip in the weekly seriesFabulas pánicas that appeared in the Mexican newspaper,El Heraldo de México. He also wrote original stories for at least two or three other comic books in Mexico during those days:Los insoportables Borbolla was one of them. After his fourth film,Tusk, he startedThe Incal, withJean Giraud (Mœbius). Thisgraphic novel has its roots deep in the tarot and its symbols, e.g., the protagonist ofThe Incal,John Difool, is linked to theFool card.The Incal (which would branch off into a prequel and sequel) forms the first in a sequence of several science fiction comic book series, all set in the samespace operaJodoverse (or "Metabarons Universe") published byHumanoids Publishing.[57]
Comic books set in this milieu are Incal (trilogy:Before the Incal /Incal /Final Incal),Metabarons (trilogy:Castaka /The Caste of the Metabarons / Weapons of the Metabaron), andThe Technopriests and also anRPG adaptation,The Metabarons Roleplaying Game. Many ideas and concepts derived from Jodorowsky's planned adaptation ofDune (which he would have loosely based uponFrank Herbert's original novel) are featured in this universe.
Mœbius and Jodorowsky suedLuc Besson, director ofThe Fifth Element, claiming that the 1997 film borrowed graphic and story elements fromThe Incal, but they lost their case.[58] The suit was plagued by ambiguity since Mœbius had willingly participated in the creation of the film, having been hired by Besson as a contributing artist, but had done so without gaining the approval ofIncal co-creator Jodorowsky, whose services Besson did not call upon. For more than a decade, Jodorowsky pressured his publisherLes Humanoïdes Associés to sue Luc Besson forplagiarism, but the publisher refused, fearing the inevitability of the outcome. In a 2002 interview with the Danish comic book magazineStrip!, Jodorowsky stated that he considered it an honour that somebody stole his ideas.[citation needed]
Other comics by Jodorowsky include the WesternBouncer illustrated byFrancois Boucq,Juan Solo (Son of the Gun), andLe Lama blanc (The White Lama), the latter were illustrated byGeorges Bess.[59]
Le Cœur couronné (The Crowned Heart, translated into English asThe Madwoman of the Sacred Heart), a racy satire on religion set in contemporary times, won Jodorowsky and his collaborator,Jean Giraud, the 2001Haxtur Award for Best Long Strip.[60][61] He is currently working on a new graphic novel for the U.S. market.[citation needed]
Jodorowsky's comic book work also appears inTaboo volume 4 (ed.Stephen R. Bissette), which features an interview with the director, designs for his version of Frank Herbert'sDune, comic storyboards forEl Topo, and a collaboration with Moebius with the illustratedEyes of the Cat.[citation needed]
Jodorowsky collaborated withMilo Manara inBorgia (2006), a graphic novel about the history of theHouse of Borgia.[62]
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Jodorowsky spent almost a decade reconstructing the original form of theTarot de Marseille.[40] From this work he moved into more therapeutic work in three areas: psychomagic,psychogenealogy andinitiatic massage. Psychomagic aims to heal psychological wounds suffered in life. This therapy is based on the belief that the performance of certain acts can directly act upon the unconscious mind, releasing it from a series of traumas, some of which practitioners of the therapy believe are passed down from generation to generation. Psychogenealogy includes the studying of the patient's personality and family tree in order to best address their specific sources. It is similar, in its phenomenological approach to genealogy, to theConstellations pioneered by Bert Hellinger.[63]
Jodorowsky has several books on his therapeutic methods, includingPsicomagia: La trampa sagrada (Psychomagic: The Sacred Trap) and his autobiography,La danza de la realidad (The Dance of Reality), which he was filming as a feature-length film in March 2012. To date, he has published more than 23 novels and philosophical treatises, along with dozens of articles and interviews. His books are widely read in Spanish and French, but are for the most part unknown to English-speaking audiences.
For a quarter of a century, Jodorowsky held classes and lectures for free, in cafés and universities all over the city of Paris. Typically, such courses or talks would begin on Wednesday evenings astarot divination lessons, and would culminate in an hour-long conference, also free, where at times hundreds of attendees would be treated to live demonstrations of a psychological "arbre généalogique" ("tree of genealogy") involving volunteers from the audience. In these conferences, Jodorowsky would pave the way to building a strong base of students of his philosophy, which deals with understanding theunconscious as the "over-self", composed of many generations of family relatives, living or deceased, acting on thepsyche, well into adult lives, and causingcompulsions. Of all his work, Jodorowsky considers these activities to be the most important of his life. Though such activities only take place in the insular world ofParisian cafés, he has devoted thousands of hours of his life to teaching and helping people "become more conscious," as he puts it.
Since 2011 these talks have dwindled to once a month and take place at theLibrairie Les Cent Ciels in Paris.
His filmPsychomagic, a Healing Art premiered in Lyon on 3 September 2019. It was then released on streaming services on 1 August 2020.[64]
He has cited the filmmakerFederico Fellini as his primary cinematic influence;[65] other artistic influences includedJean-Luc Godard,[66]Sergio Leone,[66]Erich von Stroheim,[66]Buster Keaton,[66]George Gurdjieff,Antonin Artaud,[67] andLuis Buñuel.[68] He has been described as an influence on such figures asMarilyn Manson,[69]David Lynch,[70]Darren Aronofsky,[71]Taika Waititi,[72]Guillermo del Toro,[73]Nicolas Winding Refn,Jan Kounen,Dennis Hopper,Eric Andre,[74] the musical duoSuicide,[75] andKanye West.[76]
Fans included musiciansPeter Gabriel,Cedric Bixler-Zavala andOmar Rodríguez-López ofThe Mars Volta,[77]Brann Dailor ofMastodon,[78]Luke Steele andNick Littlemore (of the pop-duoEmpire of the Sun).[8]Wes Borland, guitarist ofLimp Bizkit, said that the filmHoly Mountain was a big influence on him, especially as a visual artist, and that the concept albumLotus Island of his bandBlack Light Burns was a tribute to it.[79]Lady Gaga was influenced by Jodorowsky andThe Holy Mountain in the video for her song911.[80]
Danish directorNicolas Winding Refn thanks Alejandro Jodorowsky in the ending titles of his 2011 filmDrive, and dedicated his 2013 Thai crime thriller,[81]Only God Forgives, to Jodorowsky.[82] Jodorowsky also appeared in the documentaryMy Life Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, directed by Refn's wifeLiv, giving the couple a tarot reading.[83]
Jodorowsky has influenced the poetic work of his friendDiego Moldes, in two books:Ni un día sin poesía (Not One Day Without Poetry, Madrid, 2018), with a prologue by Alejandro Jodorowsky and inNi una poesía sin día-Not a Poem Without a Day (New York, 2023).[84]
Argentinean actorLeandro Taub thanks Alejandro Jodorowsky in his bookLa Mente Oculta, for which Jodorowsky wrote the prologue.[85][86]
Jodorowsky holds both Chilean and French citizenship.[87] His first wife was the actress Valérie Trumblay. They had three sons: Teo, Axel "Cristobal", and Adan. They divorced in 1982.[88] He is currently married to the artist and costume designer Pascale Montandon.[89]
He had five children.
On his religious views, Jodorowsky has called himself an "atheistmystic".[95]
He does not drink or smoke,[96] and has stated that he does not eat red meat or poultry because he "does not like corpses", basing his diet on vegetables, fruits, grains and occasionally marine products.[97]
In 2005, Jodorowsky officiated at the wedding ofMarilyn Manson andDita Von Teese.[8]
When Jodorowsky's first feature film,Fando y Lis, premiered at the 1968Acapulco Film Festival, the screening was controversial and erupted into a riot, due to its graphic content.[98] Jodorowsky had to leave the theatre by sneaking outside to a waiting limousine, and when the crowd outside the theatre recognized him, the car was pelted with rocks.[99] The following week, the film opened to sell-out crowds inMexico City, but more fights broke out, and the film was banned by the Mexican government.[100] Jodorowsky himself was nearly deported and the controversy provided a great deal of fodder for the Mexican newspapers.[101]
In regard to the making ofEl Topo, Jodorowsky allegedly stated in the early 1970s:[102]
When I wanted to do the rape scene, I explained to [Mara Lorenzio] that I was going to hit her and rape her. There was no emotional relationship between us, because I had put a clause in all the women's contracts stating that they would not make love with the director. We had never talked to each other. I knew nothing about her. We went to the desert with two other people: the photographer and a technician. No one else. I said, 'I'm not going to rehearse. There will be only one take because it will be impossible to repeat. Roll the cameras only when I signal you to.' Then I told her, 'Pain does not hurt. Hit me.' And she hit me. I said, 'Harder.' And she started to hit me very hard, hard enough to break a rib...I ached for a week. After she had hit me long enough and hard enough to tire her, I said, 'Now it's my turn. Roll the cameras.' And I really...I really...I really raped her. And she screamed ... Then she told me that she had been raped before. You see, for me the character is frigid until El Topo rapes her. And she has an orgasm. That's why I show a stone phallus in that scene ... which spouts water. She has an orgasm. She accepts the male sex. And that's what happened to Mara in reality. She really had that problem. Fantastic scene. A very, very strong scene.
In the documentaryJodorowsky's Dune, Jodorowsky states:[103]
When you make a picture, you must not respect the novel. It's like getting married ... if you respect the woman, you will never have child. You need to open the costume and to rape the bride – and then you will have your picture. I was raping Frank Herbert ... but with love.
Jodorowsky was criticised for these statements.[104][105] Matt Brown ofScreen Anarchy wrote that "it's easier to wall off a certain type of criminality behind the buffer of time—sure, Alejandro Jodorowsky is on the record in his book on the making of the film as having raped Mara Lorenzo while making El Topo—though he later denied it—but nowadays he's just that hilarious old kook from Jodorowsky's Dune!"[105] Emmet Asher-Perrin of Tor.com called Jodorowsky "an artist who condones rape as a means to an end for the purpose of creating art. A man who seems to believe that rape is something that women 'need' if they can't accept male sexual power on their own".[104]Jude Doyle ofElle wrote that Jodorowsky "has been teasing the idea of an unsimulated rape scene in his cult classic filmEl Topo for decades ... though he's elsewhere described the unsimulated sex in that scene as consensual", and went on to state that the quote "has not endangered his status as an avant-garde icon".[106]
On 26 June 2017, Jodorowsky released a statement[107] on hisFacebook account in response to the question: "Did you rape an actress during the filming ofEl Topo?" The following excerpts are from said statement:[where?]
Where did [the people claiming that I raped Mara Lorenzio on the set ofEl Topo in front of the camera] find reports of this alleged incident that would have happened in 1969?
It's very possible that they read some of the interviews I did in the United States or England back then. I producedEl Topo independently. When I told the Mexican film industry that I was going to travel to New York to sellEl Topo, they made fun of me. "You're crazy, onlyEmilio Fernandez ('El Indio') has ever managed to release a movie there and that's why there is a statue of him. No Mexican film has ever crossed the cactus wall." In the North American cinematographic environment of the time, Mexican cinema was despised. Hollywood dominated everything.
I had to break through using the only tool I had: shock through scandalous statements. This is how I did it: I dressed up as the mystical bandit character [the titular El Topo], I introduced myself in the interviews with a beard, a mane and a black leather suit, and I said things that purposefully shocked the interviewers. "I am an anti-feminist, I hate women. I hate cats. I've eaten human meat tacos withDiego Rivera.El Topo is a film where things really happened: that scene of rape is a real rape! I killed the animals (that in reality I had purchased dead from a local zoo) with a fork I sharpened myself!" These aggressive, meant to be humorous declarations conquered the era's young public who were against the establishment and affected by the Vietnam war. This is how I managed to getEl Topo to be noticed and seen, and, thanks to the openly proclaimed admiration ofJohn Lennon andYoko Ono, my film became a cult classic. Half a century has passed and it continues to be screened and discussed.
Jodorowsky also offered details in that same statement on the filming of the so-called "rape scene", proclaiming that it would be impossible to commit such a crime on a large movie set:
Filming a scene like this is not achieved with just a cameraman, two actors and an expanse of sand. Cinema is the most costly art because a large number of technicians and artists are required to execute it. First of all, you needed a group of workers to clean a hundred square meters of desert with rakes because of dangerous snakes and spiders that were hidden in the sand. They remained for the duration of the filming, at the ready, to intervene if necessary. There was also a group of makeup artists, hairdressers and dressmakers in charge of costumes.
[In the movie,] El Topo rips apart the woman's dress in a take that lasts 10 seconds.
It is followed by another take of El Topo [doing the same], but from a different angle. Filming stopped for half an hour or so for the technicians to change the reflectors. That is to say that in order to shoot an action sequence that does not even last more than three minutes, several hours were needed. And it wasn't just a single cameraman, but two cameras, each with one operator and four assistants. A total of 10 camera people. Added to this were crewmen placing rails where the camera slid, handling the counterweights of a crane, holding silver reflector cards so that each face is well-lit. There was also the assistant director, the group of set decorators, other actors, etc. A big crowd that the audience does not see. In addition, there were people holding the individual umbrellas protecting the actors from the sun, others that delivered water and food, etc.
How could I have possibly assaulted the actress in front of such a large assembly of people?
At the slightest hint of any actual violence, a group of men and women would have thrown themselves at me and immobilized me. The actress would have also been defending herself, howling, scratching. And I, vile satyr, would have ended up persecuted, tried and imprisoned.
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1957 | La cravate | Yes | Yes | Yes | Short film |
| 1968 | Fando y Lis | Yes | Yes | No | |
| 1970 | El Topo | Yes | Yes | No | Also composer, costume, and production designer |
| 1973 | The Holy Mountain | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 1980 | Tusk | Yes | Yes | No | |
| 1989 | Santa Sangre | Yes | Yes | No | |
| 1990 | The Rainbow Thief | Yes | No | No | |
| 2013 | The Dance of Reality | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 2016 | Endless Poetry | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 2019 | Psychomagic, a Healing Art | Yes | Yes | Yes | Documentary |
Acting roles
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1957 | La cravate | Himself | Short film |
| 1968 | Fando y Lis | Puppeteer | |
| 1970 | El Topo | El Topo | |
| 1973 | The Holy Mountain | The Alchemist | |
| 2002 | Cherif | Prophet | |
| 2002 | Psicotaxi | Himself | Short film |
| 2003 | No Big Deal | Pablo, le père | |
| 2006 | Musikanten | Ludwig van Beethoven | |
| 2007 | Nothing Is as It Seems | Unnamed character | |
| 2011 | The Island | Jodo | |
| 2013 | Ritual: A Psychomagic Story | Fernando | |
| The Dance of Reality | Old Alejandro | ||
| 2016 | Endless Poetry |
Documentary appearances
Selected bibliography of comics, novels and non-fiction writings:[108][109]
Beginning withThe Incal in 1981, Jodorowsky has co-written and produced a series of linked comics series and graphic novels for the French-language market known colloquially as theJodoverse. The series was initially developed withJean Giraud using concepts and designs created for Jodorowky's unfinishedDune project.
Jodorowsky's Spanish-language novels translated into English include:
Jodorowsky himself stated that "El Topo is a library...of all the books I love. He also acknowledged the influence of Jean-Luc Godard, Luis Buñuel, Sergio Leone, Erich von Stroheim, and Buster Keaton.
Waititi said, "the films and graphic novels of Alejandro Jodorowsky have influenced me and so many others for so long. I was stunned to be given the opportunity to bring his iconic characters to life and I am grateful to Alejandro, Fabrice and everyone at Humanoids for trusting me to do so."
Like his demonstrative contemporary Quentin Tarantino, del Toro readily anoints the wide range of directors from whom he draws inspiration. Interviews will be happily diverted into discussions of Akira Kurosawa, Stanley Kubrick, David Lean, Ingmar Bergman, or Steven Spielberg. Then, without taking a breath, he'll swerve into a deconstruction of the extravagant whimsy of Terry Gilliam, the lurid colour schemes of Dario Argento, or the symbolism of Chilean maestro Alejandro Jodorowsky.
Interviewer: "Growing up during a high point in the history of counterculture with shared disapproval of the Vietnam war, was Easy Rider an important film for you and Vega?" Martin Rev: "I'm sure Alan saw that picture. I saw it and certainly related to it as it was very much a part of the times and the war in Vietnam for many years. I think one picture we found closer to what we were feeling and doing at that time was Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo. It came out around the time that we first started. It was maybe within a year of the beginning of Suicide. I think he [Jodorowsky] was feeling a lot of the things that we were feeling. It was in the same kind of spiritual ambiance and extremism. We didn't see ourselves as being extremists, but the film also showed experimentation and innovation. We didn't set out to be innovators either, but we set out to do what we felt we needed to do to express ourselves."
We're always talking about how we want our songs to look like Jodorowsky's movies. That's always our goal.
The film is dedicated to [Alejandro] Jodorowsky ... and there's a bit of Jodorowsky existentialism.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of April 2025 (link)However, while Buñuel's attacks on religion are primarily confined to Catholicism, Jodorowsky not only violates but de-centres Western religious traditions by creating a hybrid amalgamation of Western, non-Western and occult beliefs. A self-described "atheist mystic", he has claimed to hate religion (for it "is killing the planet"), but he loves mysticism and occult practices like alchemy.
No como carne... Ensaladas, verduras, cereales, nueces, frutas... A veces, cuando mi cuerpo me lo pide como camarones...[non-primary source needed]
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