Review of Jodorowsky's Dune

Another one for the film buffs! In the mid 70's Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky (best known for his trippy cult western El Topo and the mind bending The Holy Mountain) set out to make a film based on Frank Herbert's seminal classic, but long thought unfilmmable sci-fi novel Dune, even though he had never read it. Jodorwosky spent two years working on the design of his movie, only to find that the major Hollywood studios ultimately wanted no part of it, despite all his extensive preproduction work. Frank Pavich's fascinating documentary features an extended interview with Jodorowsky who talks about his epic vision for the project. Pavich spent three years interviewing Jodorwosky about the movie that never was. He wanted Pink Floyd, who had just released their Dark Side Of The Moon album, to do the music. He got British graphic artist Chris Foss to provides many of the key designs; graphic novelist Moebius to draw the elaborate storyboards; and Swiss artist H R Giger to contribute. He cast Salvador Dali, who, at $100,000 per minute for five minutes work would be considered the highest paid actor in Hollywood at that time, Mick Jagger, and Orson Welles in small but important roles. But even though the film was budgeted at $15 million, Hollywood studio executives balked at the project, and it is easy to see why they were suspicious of the flamboyant and idiosyncratic director. Eventually Dino De Laurentiis' daughter acquired the rights to the project and gave it to David Lynch (Eraserhead), but the film was ruined by studio interference. Even though Jodorwosky's ambitious Dune was never made, its fingerprints can still be seen in a number of sci-fi films that came afterwards, from Star Wars through to Alien, which had a number of the same creative people working on the production. Jodorowsky's Dune is not just another talking heads documentary, though, as there are plenty of illustrations of his epic and ambitious vision, as well as some film clips. And Jodorowsky candidly talks also about how a movie is a work of art, full of passion and intellect, a far cry from the rather bland and derivative blockbusters being regularly churned out by Hollywood studios. And he can't quite hide his joy when he talks about how awful Lynch's version of the film proved to be. This is an enthralling, entertaining and informative documentary!