Alejandro Jodorowsky

ABOUT ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY

This eccentric, outspoken Chilean-born director, writer and actor is best-known for two avant-garde cult films, "El Topo" (1970) and "The Holy Mountain" (1973). Jodorowsky, born to Russian immigrants, grew up in a tough Chilean port city. His family moved to Santiago, and Jodorowsky formed a circus troupe and moved to Paris in 1955 to study mime with Marcel Marceau. By 1960, he was writing and directing for the theater, traveling between Mexico and Paris. He co-founded the surrealist review "S.NOB" and, with playwright Fernando Arrabal and artist Roland Topor, formed the theater of the absurd company (heavily influenced by Antonin Artaud) Producciones Panicas. Their first major play was the scandalous four-hour, multi-media "Sacramental Melodrama", staged at the Paris Festival of Free Expression in 1965. Eventually giving up on theater, Jodorowsky returned to Mexico, where he wrote books and comics and experimented with film. His first was "Fando and Lis" (1968), a Fellini-esque love story which was promptly banned after provoking riots.

Jodorowsky then wrote, directed, scored and acted in the film which brought him more fame and notoriety, "El Topo/The Mole" (1970). A meandering, violent and highly impressionistic film, "El Topo" follows the travels of the eponymous hero (Jodorowsky) and his son (Jodorowsky's own seven-year-old son Brontis) as they encounter bandits, massacres, hippies and lesbians, in search of knowledge and/or redemption. A weird combination of the styles of Bunuel, Fellini, Antonioni and Russ Meyer, "El Topo" found its audience through New York's Elgin Theater, which screened the film at midnight showings every night for more than a year. Discovered by trendy downtowners, artsy intellectuals and finally by critics, "El Topo" became possibly the first "cult" film.

"The Holy Mountain" (1973), Jodorowsky's next film, was equally bizarre and portentous (many said "pretentious"). Also filmed in Mexico, "The Holy Mountain" told the story of a thief and his Dante-like travels, chock full of eye-popping sex, violence and religious references. Another midnight movie hit, "The Holy Mountain" disappointed critically and a disillusioned Jodorowsky retired to Paris.

His career never really came back to full-throttle. In 1980, Jodorowsky wrote and directed "Tusk", the tale of an elephant hunt, then went underground again until 1989, when he wrote and directed the Italian-made "Santa Sangria/Holy Blood", the story of a young serial killer (played by Jodorowsky's son Axel) redeemed through love.

Interview with Alejandro Jodorowsky


FILMS

La Danza de la Realidad (post-production)                                                        2013

1990The Rainbow Thief

1989Santa Sangre

1980Tusk (as Alexandro Jodorowsky)

1973The Holy Mountain (as Alexandro Jodorowsky)

1970El Topo (as Alexandro Jodorowsky)

1968Fando y Lis (as Alexandro Jodorowsky)

1965Teatro sin fin (video short) (uncredited)

1957La cravate (short) (as Alexandre Jodorowsky)

"One day, someone showed me a glass of water that was half full. And he said, "Is it half full or half empty?" So I drank the water. No more problem.” 
― Alejandro Jodorowsky

“What I am trying to do when I use symbols is to awaken in your unconscious some reaction. I am very conscious of what I am using because symbols can be very dangerous. When we use normal language we can defend ourselves because our society is a linguistic society, a semantic society. But when you start to speak, not with words, but only with images, the people cannot defend themselves.” 
― Alejandro Jodorowsky

“Most directors make films with their eyes; I make films with my testicles.” 
― Alejandro Jodorowsky

“For a true artist, difficulties become opportunities and clouds become solid present.” 

“Failure doesn't mean anything, it just means changing paths.” 

“Awakening is not a thing. It is not a goal, not a concept. It is not something to be attained. It is a metamorphosis. If the caterpillar thinks about the butterfly it is to become, saying ‘And then I shall have wings and antennae,’ there will never be a butterfly. The caterpillar must accept its own disappearance in its transformation. When the marvelous butterfly takes wing, nothing of the caterpillar remains.” 
― Alejandro Jodorowsky

“And I imagine... with great pleasure... all the horrible stirrings of the nonmanifested to bring forth the scream which creates the universe. Maybe one day I'll see you trembling, and you'll go into convulsion and grow larger and smaller until your mouth opens and the world will come from your mouth, escaping through the window like a river, and it will flood the city. And then we'll begin to live. ” 
― Alejandro Jodorowsky

“If you are great, El Topo is a great picture. If you are limited, El Topo is limited.” 
― Alejandro Jodorowsky

“Let the inner god that is in each one of us speak. The temple is your body, and the priest is your heart: it is from here that every awareness must begin.” 
― Alejandro Jodorowsky