And this week's Friday night movie has been... Jodorowsky's Dune!
I have little to no attachment to Dune. I've never seen the reviled movie and I read the book in University but it went over my head. However I have played Dune 2: Building of a Dynasty (fore-father to the mighty Command and Conquer series) and found it fun.
So why would I watch this documentary? Well, I am interested in movies that never get made. The kind that have a tonne of potential but come undone due to studio meddling or by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And this is one such movie: In the mid-seventies, Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky wanted to adapt Dune into a grandiose movie but it never went anywhere.
As is often the case in these types of documentary, the man behind it, Alejandro Jodorowsky, is the driving force of the narrative. And what a person he is: In talking about his unmade movie, he is passionate, enthusiastic and, at times, a complete lunatic. He said he wanted to present an ultimate head-trip of a movie and deliver something that, let;s face it, would've been very much divorced from the source material. Indeed, it is never made clear whether or not Jodorowsky HAS read Dune.
The other key element in the movie is a colossal bible ('the Dune book') that Jodorowsky produced containing every scrap of information about the movie. It has a script and a complete storyboard. It contains designs form the likes of HR Giger, Dan O'Bannon, Moebius and Chris Foss. It even promised starring roles from Mick Jagger, Orson Welles and Salvador Dali as well as music from Pink Floyd!
It may sound grandiose indeed but at the same time, completely bonkers. So in a way, perhaps it is best it never got made. But, as this documentary proved, it certainly left behind an amazing story to tell.
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