Cannes Roundtable: Alejandro Jodorowsky on La Danza de la Realidad

Alejandro Jodorowsky on revisiting his past on film.

It’s like a psychological bomb, it’s enormous because I suffer as a boy. My father and my mother were immigrants and there was an economic crisis. Then my father was very heavy, almost dressed like Stalin. Then in the picture I made him become human. My mother was a humiliated person. He wanted to be an opera singer but his father made him a salesman. All the time my mother said, “Buenos dias, Alejandrito.” Because he wanted to sing, my father wanted to sing. Then I made him be what he wanted to be, an opera singer. He’s an opera singer. I realized my mother, in the film, she’s not humiliated in the end. She’s the spiritual master of my father. Myself, I see only my father and my mother. With this picture, I put mother and father in union with the son. My mother loves me, my father recognizes me. In the drawing I did, my father is blind because he doesn’t see me. Then I realized what I wanted. I changed my memory. It’s a family healing.

CraveOnline: What are the movies you enjoy to watch?

I see everything. I see everything, all the new pictures. For 23 years, in my house I see one or two pictures every night. Every night, at 2 o’clock in the morning, I see pictures because I suffer a lot. I like that art. For example, one day I say all the ‘30s Hollywood pictures, I see all that. ‘40s, ‘60s, I see all that. I realize with astonishment, Hollywood all the time was making publicity to smoke. They paid to do that because the person is doing nothing smoke. They show them smoking and drinking. You have a problem, drink. The guy works, the good wife is in the house, he makes a cocktail. Publicity. All the time Hollywood, it’s a business. Still today. Did you see Mud? Mud is a guy who is escaping, has nothing to eat but he smokes all the time. From where? All the time, in the bed, from where? Publicity for the [tobacco].

I enjoy all the pictures. I see Gatsby. I was in Nice, I saw Iron Man. I see all the pictures but in all this time, the only picture that made me cry was Bronson, the Nicolas Winding Refn. I see that, I say, “A movie made by a real artist, ah. Ah.” It’s like a dance. He’s free, he writes whatever he wants. He broke everything. Then I went to him and said, “Do you have another film?” “No,” but the next film was Valhalla Rising. I want to have. At the same time, at the Festival of Paris say, “Alejandro, you don’t do movies but you like movies. We want you to present a picture you like.” I say Valhalla Rising but I didn’t see it. I wanted to see it. I needed to present it. They call and Nicolas say, “When I was 15 years old, I see El Topo and The Holy Mountain and he changed my life. I am influenced by him. I come to Paris.” He came to Paris, I saw Valhalla Rising and I was so astonished. I loved it so much and this is a picture I love too.

Then when I see Drive, I liked also. I was so pleased by the elevator, what a beautiful scene. What a movie creation, no? Even making a gangster picture, you say to me, “What is the type I like?” Realistic is the only.

CraveOnline: The Jodorowsky’s Dune documentary suggested George Lucas was inspired by some of your designs for Dune in Star Wars. Did he see your book of designs?

No, the only person who’s seen that is Nicolas, I showed because I didn’t want to show it to any person. He’s seen that. No, no, no. But when we started to sell the picture, we went to Los Angeles, Hollywood with 20 books. Michel Seydoux put a book in every company. Universal, every company, MGM. He wanted producers and it was there, the books. Maybe he saw the book.

Jodorowsky may publish his book of Dune designs one day.

The wife of Moebius is making problems. We don’t know why. If Taschen wants to publish, we will do. And somebody will do the picture. I will be dead but somebody will do it. I will triumph.

CraveOnline: Do you feel the documentary is the presentation of your Dune?

I don’t see it. Today I will see it, tonight. Maybe I will commit suicide, I don’t know.

Alejandro Jodorowsky on the joy he took at seeing David Lynch’s failure of a Dune movie.

But it’s not his fault. It’s the producer. The Italian producer, De Laurentiis, made a picture with Bergman, it was an awful Bergman. Every time he put the business in an artist and killed the artist. You cannot mix art and industry. Now a director has a conflict with a star, they eject the director, not the star. The star is king and the producer is king. You have a photographer, you can eject him. You have a writer, you have 30 writers. They’re not a creator. This is a company. for example, Wong Kar Wai, he made a picture The Grandmaster. All the beautiful scenes, the fights, he’s not doing for him. He’s doing for the [martial arts market]. Then so what? Why do that, Wong Kar Wai? Because he needs to live. He needs to live.