TBD | A documentary about an unmade version of Dune from a shamanistic Chilean director. Directed by Frank Pavich Review by Jon Kissel |
The idea that filmmaking is the condensed vision of a single person is probably only true some of the time, if ever. Anyone who’s sat through a credits scroll understands that hundreds of people work on any given film, and those numbers can only classify it as a collaborative medium. However, sometimes a movie gets made that is the perfect distillation of the director’s ego. The version of Dune that had Alejandro Jodorowsky at the helm might have been one of those unfiltered looks into the director’s mind. Jodorowsky strikes me as either a delusional egomaniac or a visionary that could've changed the future of film. In Frank Pavich's documentary Jodorowsky's Dune, the latter is assumed to be true and the former is only implied. While it's impossible to judge something that never happened, Pavich leaves the viewer wishing they could have seen which version of Jodorowsky won out.
A director of Chilean and French ancestry, Jodo's first film caused a riot. Things just got stranger from there with his psychedelic imagery and cinema of the unsettling. Believing film to be the culmination of all art, Jodo is certain his work can make the world a better and more open place. When his producers acquire the rights to Dune, a seminal work of science-fiction, he sees his opportunity. Enlisting the most imaginative production artists he can find, he puts together a giant film compendium documenting every shot, costume, and location of his script, to the point that to read the compendium is to watch the movie. His cast mixes actors like David Carradine, artists like Salvador Dali, and singers like Mick Jagger. Jodo's young son is cast in a key role, and he puts the child through a grueling training regimen. The cast and crew all believe in Jodo's vision, and are ready to follow their leader as far as he'll take them.
However, the fantastical novelty that got Jodo the chance to make Dune is the same thing that keeps him from selling it. His producers say that the studios loved the work, but didn’t like the guy behind it. To the studios’ credit, Jodo’s unshakable dream of a 14 hour epic probably wouldn’t have worked. Nothing comes of all his effort, though the compendia finds its way into studio hands, who then disseminate it throughout their future films. Ridley Scott, George Lucas, and James Cameron have all incorporated imagery from Dune into their work, ensuring that an unmade film lives on.
Pavich interviews all manner of subjects surrounding Dune, from the crew to critics and other directors who have great admiration for Jodo. The most grandiose of them imagines a history in which Dune opens before Star Wars and steals its thunder, pushing the course of filmmaking down a stranger, more introspective path. While the imagery presented is admittedly eye-catching, the only evidence the viewer has is the testimony of partisans. Even Jodo admits to his arrogance, unapologetic all these years later towards all the people who doubted him and reveling in schadenfreude when David Lynch's 1984 version of Dune fails. His gleeful and sincere demeanor papers over the obsessive ugliness in Jodo's personality, and no small amount of pain is still in his son’s eyes when he talks about the brutal exercises he was put through at 12. Pavich's film would have been improved by including someone to gainsay his other subjects' nonstop adulation.
The ideas in Jodorowsky's Dune are worth the indulgence of an ambitious old man. The production anecdotes seem just strange enough to be real, and Pavich films the compendium as something like a flip book, so that the viewer can actually witness scenes from Jodo's unfilmed masterpiece. There's a lot to be said for the alternate history it offers up. Maybe Jodo’s complete disregard for the source material strangles oppressive fan culture in its crib. Maybe the New Hollywood period wouldn't have been supplanted by blockbusters based on the childhood interests of their directors, and today, we'd be witnessing a trippy space opera about sentient alien machines instead of incoherent action scenes built around toy merchandising. B+
However, the fantastical novelty that got Jodo the chance to make Dune is the same thing that keeps him from selling it. His producers say that the studios loved the work, but didn’t like the guy behind it. To the studios’ credit, Jodo’s unshakable dream of a 14 hour epic probably wouldn’t have worked. Nothing comes of all his effort, though the compendia finds its way into studio hands, who then disseminate it throughout their future films. Ridley Scott, George Lucas, and James Cameron have all incorporated imagery from Dune into their work, ensuring that an unmade film lives on.
Pavich interviews all manner of subjects surrounding Dune, from the crew to critics and other directors who have great admiration for Jodo. The most grandiose of them imagines a history in which Dune opens before Star Wars and steals its thunder, pushing the course of filmmaking down a stranger, more introspective path. While the imagery presented is admittedly eye-catching, the only evidence the viewer has is the testimony of partisans. Even Jodo admits to his arrogance, unapologetic all these years later towards all the people who doubted him and reveling in schadenfreude when David Lynch's 1984 version of Dune fails. His gleeful and sincere demeanor papers over the obsessive ugliness in Jodo's personality, and no small amount of pain is still in his son’s eyes when he talks about the brutal exercises he was put through at 12. Pavich's film would have been improved by including someone to gainsay his other subjects' nonstop adulation.
The ideas in Jodorowsky's Dune are worth the indulgence of an ambitious old man. The production anecdotes seem just strange enough to be real, and Pavich films the compendium as something like a flip book, so that the viewer can actually witness scenes from Jodo's unfilmed masterpiece. There's a lot to be said for the alternate history it offers up. Maybe Jodo’s complete disregard for the source material strangles oppressive fan culture in its crib. Maybe the New Hollywood period wouldn't have been supplanted by blockbusters based on the childhood interests of their directors, and today, we'd be witnessing a trippy space opera about sentient alien machines instead of incoherent action scenes built around toy merchandising. B+
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