The annals of film history are stuffed with examples of
films left unmade despite the best efforts of those involved. From Tim Burton’s
woe-begotten Superman Lives, with Nic Cage in the lead and a
screenplay from Kevin Smith, to Stanley Kubrick’s epic, long-gestating Napoleon project— we’ve either luckily dodged or
been robbed of collaborations so unique as to boggle the mind. But perhaps no
unmade film looms as largely over the cinematic landscape as Alejandro
Jodorowsky’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 science fiction epic Dune.
Fresh off the mind-bending cult successes of El Topo and
The Holy Mountain, the Chilean-French surrealist turned his
attention to the novel, which he freely admits he knew nothing about when he
initially decided to adapt it. He enlisted some of the most creatively-diverse
help imaginable in doing so. With
production design from acclaimed comic artist Jean “Moebius” Girard and H.R.
Giger; special effects work from Dan O’Bannon, who cut his teeth on John
Carpenter’s
Dark Star;
original music to be composed by Pink Floyd and Magma; and one of the wildest
casts ever assembled (Orson Welles, Mick Jagger, David Carradine, Jodorowsky’s
own son and Salvador Dali as the mad emperor of the universe) Jodorowsky’s Dune might remain a film ahead of
its time even today. But luckily for us, Jodorowsky’s Dune
comes along at the right time, an entertaining documentary that examines this
unmade masterpiece.
Even as he enters his 85th year, Jodorowsky
remains as captivating as ever, leaving no mystery as to how he amassed such a
massive talent pool to help create his vision. Amongst a film filled with
spectacular production art and gorgeously-rendered storyboards, it’s his
charisma that leaves the biggest imprint on viewers. Whether he’s relaying one
of many hilarious anecdotes about convincing some of the more mercurial artists
(Welles and Dali) to join his project; discussing his passionate belief that
they were all out to change the young minds of the world through this film; or
even at one point calming down his cat, Jodorowsky is never anything short of
mesmerizing. His vision for a sci-fi epic, meant to change the hearts of youths
across the planet, sounds audacious when spelled out here. When discussed by
the people involved in making the film, it comes across as possible, even
downright plausible.
It’s easy to fall in love with the platonic idea of a movie
though, and while the documentary is deeply enamored of both the man and his
vision, it never becomes Pollyanna-ish about it. Talking heads discuss that
it’s hard to imagine how his vision could have been made corporeal. Star
Wars started production shortly after this project and struggled to
realize its less ambitious vision of a far-flung intergalactic epic. And for
all of his charisma, Jodorowsky also proves to be an intensely capricious man—
and as entertaining as his anecdotes were—it’s unsurprising that Hollywood
studios weren’t excited about the prospect of doing business with such a
volatile personality. But the film ends with a brilliant summation of the
numerous ways his vision of Dune spread across the landscape of sci-fi
filmmaking, even without a single frame of film ever having been produced of
it. O’Bannon, Moebius and Giger all went on to work on Ridley Scott’s Alien,
and the vision realized by that horrifying picture owes quite a bit to work
created over the course of their collaboration on Dune. So it
ends up that even in death, Jodorowsky’s Dune has extended its tendrils into
the majority of important sci-fi cinema in the intervening decades, and thanks to Jodorowsky’s
Dune, it has gotten the respect it so richly deserves.
