This documentary chronicles the exceptional history of the 70s movie version of Frank Hebert's Dune by Alejandro Jodorwosky, a film that was never actually made. It gives you a short filmography of Jodorowsky and then leads you through his vision of the movie he was going to make. However, Jodorowsky's Dune would not have been a movie version of Frank Herbert's novel, but rather a re-imagination of the basics of the book in the mind of an avantgarde director who himself said that he wanted to make movies for people who wanted to experience LSD, but didn't want to take the actual drug, and Jodorowsky acknowledges the former fact with the words: "I was raping Frank Herbert... but with love." People in this documentary keep saying that the film would have been ahead of its time. This may be true in some way. However, I am more confident in saying the following: It would have been one of the worst movies ever made. They show you Jodorowsky's finished costume designs and storyboards, and it looks intriguingly weird at best, and boastfully horrible at worst. The colors you will see are truly like an LSD trip. Some of Jodorowsky's crew went on to make Alien, and his costume design and color scheme (i.e. use all the colors there are) can be seen in Flash Gordon.
Jodorowsky says that when he saw David Lynch's 1984 version of Dune, he was glad because the movie was so much more terrible than what he would have produced, even though he felt sorry for Lynch. Yet I believe that there is no way on earth that Lynch's movie could ever be worse than Jodorowsky's vision. Jodorowsky's film would have been a bastardization of Herbert's work for the sake of an attempt to, for lack of better words, "enlighten the world" according to Jodorowsky's own understanding.
However, his casting choices were, admittedly, inspired: Mick Jagger as Feyd Rautha? Udo Kier as Piter De Vries? Hell yeah. His own son as Paul? Well, I don't know him, but Jodorowsky made him undergo rigorous physical training for 2 years before the movie was to go into production, and then it never did!
The best scene in "Jodorowsky's Dune" is when the Chilean-French director rants about Hollywood film making and how money controls everything. Amazingly honest and true.
Jodorowsky says that when he saw David Lynch's 1984 version of Dune, he was glad because the movie was so much more terrible than what he would have produced, even though he felt sorry for Lynch. Yet I believe that there is no way on earth that Lynch's movie could ever be worse than Jodorowsky's vision. Jodorowsky's film would have been a bastardization of Herbert's work for the sake of an attempt to, for lack of better words, "enlighten the world" according to Jodorowsky's own understanding.
However, his casting choices were, admittedly, inspired: Mick Jagger as Feyd Rautha? Udo Kier as Piter De Vries? Hell yeah. His own son as Paul? Well, I don't know him, but Jodorowsky made him undergo rigorous physical training for 2 years before the movie was to go into production, and then it never did!
The best scene in "Jodorowsky's Dune" is when the Chilean-French director rants about Hollywood film making and how money controls everything. Amazingly honest and true.