Alexandro Jodorowsky was born in Chile in 1929, but moved to Mexico and made nearly all his films there. He is a wildly creative artist. He started his career as a mime artist with Marcel Marceau in France and was also a stage actor. He is also an artist, writer, actor and director. Since his first film in the late sixties, the controversial Fando & Lis, he has unfortunately only made a handful of films; but he has left an indelible mark on the avant-garde cinematic landscape.
"Most directors make films with their eyes; I make films with my testicles." - Alexandro Jodorowsky
"I ask of film what most North Americans ask of psychedelic drugs." - Alexandro Jodorowsky
"I don't live in France, I live in myself." - Alexandro Jodorowsky
La Constellation Jodorowsky (1994)
On the Fando & Lis DVD is a documentary on Jodorowsky by Louis Mouchet, entitled: La Constellation Jodorowsky. Mouchet asks Jodorowsky a potpourri of questions about his films, philosophy, art etc. He begins the interview with Jodorowsky with the simple, but spellbinding inquisition, "Who are you?", to which Jodorowsky replies with a tale involving the Emperor of China. Jodorowsky states that when we can define ourselves we cease to be.
He shares with us his thoughts and definitions of his lifelong quest for knowledge and the unknown, and his exploits into the panic movement in France, and how he avoided the lynching by the audience at the premiere of Fando and Lis.
There are also interviews with his associates, Fernando Arrabal, Marcel Marceau, Jean Giraud and the musician Peter Gabriel. We learn of his plans of the project of Dune, which fell through and was later made by David Lynch. There is also an interesting and amusing look at Jodorowsky as an orator in a class of students, in which Mouchet is invited to join in. It is a fascinating and enlightening look at the life and works of this creative and artistic guru.
Tusk (1978)
The Rainbow Thief (1990)
Jodorowsky also directed Tusk in 1978, and The Rainbow Thief in 1990. The two films are dissimilar to his other films. Jodorowsky was restricted while making them and he has since disowned them, saying that those films look like they were directed by someone else.
Jodorowsky Links
