Alejandro Jodorowsky never got to make his Dune movie.
But he planned it.
A new documentary looks at what might have been… Film scholars will talk at length about such unfinished works.
If youre a fan of genre cinema, you could understand Pavichs fascination with the source material.
Why did you choose Jodorowskys adaptation of Dune for your documentary?
To me, this is the greatest unmade film.
Its the most fantastical.
Add Pink Floyd on top of that for the music…
There are more unmade movies than there are made movies.
To me, this one seemed the most complete.
Jodorowsky made the movie.
He just didnt shoot it.
He did all the design.
He figured out every shot, every angle, and every camera movement.
Everything was laid out.
I dont think you’ve got the option to say that about too many other projects.
It never really became anything as fully realized as Alejandros vision.
Your poster says The Greatest Science Fiction Movie Never Made.
Absolutely true, in my opinion.
You cannot NOT fall in love with him.
The film would have been incredible.
The vision was unique and spectacular and ahead of its time.
Jodorowsky is a very emotional person.
Hes a true, natural-born performer.
Not only is he a director and an artist, but hes also an actor.
He was also a mime many years ago.
He acted in films and in theatre.
So he really is the perfect person to take you on this journey.
He would have taken some serious liberties with Herberts novel.
A book is a different work of art than a movie.
If someone readsDuneand is inspired to make a painting, its not going to be the same.
It will be something else, because a painting is different than a book.
Lets make a comparison with other movie adaptations.
KubricksShiningis very different from Stephen KingsShining, but the movie became the more powerful work.
It became the one that most people talked about.
I think thats what Jodorowsky was doing.
Hes not a director for hire.
I think so too.
He respected his films, and they both came from that same world to some extent.
Herbert was also thrilled to have Lynch turn his book into a movie.
He was a fan of Eraserhead.
Its been adapted twice now, the David Lynch version in 1984, and a televised version in 2000.
In this age of remakes, Dune should be about due for the reboot treatment.
Hollywood likes to go back over things, over and over again.
Its a tough question.
I think so many other science-fiction movies have taken inspiration from that.Star Warsis an example.
Do you thinkStar Warswould have opened on the desert planet of Tatooine if Arrakis were not a desert planet?
They also both had two suns.
There are so many things that come from there.
So I wonder ifDunewould be made again into a film.
People might feel they have already seen it.
Its sort of what happened with theJohn Carter Of Marsfilm.
Duneis such a massive story.
I dont know I think it would have to be made into several films.
This would be getting close to what Alejandro wanted to do.
It would have to be something massive, because the source material is so massive.
I think hes still too strange for the studios.
Hes still too out there.
Thats simply not how Alejandro works.
Hed rather have a smaller budget and complete freedom.
Todays movies require $100 million budgets.
I dont think anyone would put him in charge of such an amount to make a movie.
Id love to see him do it.
It would be incredible to see it, but I have my doubts.
A month ago I went to seeNoah.
Aronofsky was allowed to make this movie, a multi-million dollar biblical epic.
Its shocking, its incredible, and this world that was created is massive.
He went from doingThe WrestlerandBlack Swanto doing that mega-film.
The director went on to makeGodzilla.
So yeah, Hollywood sometimes gets behind something.
So you never know.
You interviewed Jodorowsky over a three-year period.
When were you able to say, This is a wrap?
We could have made our own fourteen-hour movie if we wanted to, for sure.
But I think we needed to keep it from point A to point Z.
Its a smaller, tighter version of that.
You do the interview, and you have an idea of what the story is.
Then you take it back to the editing room and you start working with it.
You find what works and what doesnt work, and what line to follow.
And thats how it sort of went about.
There are a million interesting stories that happened during his production period.
We needed to keep it to a tighter story.
What made that 90 minute documentary fly by for some people was like a train that doesnt stop.
Its a straight story.
Funny things happened along the way, sad things, amazing things.
But you cant take too many detours.
There is this editing term, which is called kill your darling.
Of course, there are many additional things that we can put in when the DVD gets released.
Theres artwork, extra footage, all sorts of great stuff.
It could easily have been a twenty-hour long documentary.
It never gets boring, for sure.
I keep coming back to that production book.
Someone has to publish that.
There are some copies left, right?
Because this is the most impressive archive of unreleased Moebius, Giger and Foss artworks out there.
Its as thick as three phonebooks.
It would be very costly to print, but Id love to see that in bookstores one day.
That would be incredible.
I know Id be the first in line to buy a copy.
I want it on my shelf.
I dont know what the plan is.
I dont know if theyre thinking about it.
I think they have a desire.
I think theyd like to put it out.
It would be fantastic if it could be shared with the world.
Giger wasnt involved in movies back then, and Jodorowskys Dune was the first movie he ever worked on.
All these roads really lead back to Jodorowsky, because that entire team went on to makingAlien.
I think hed be perfect for Alien.
And then they brought Moebius and Chris Foss on-board.
So these four visionaries went on to makeAlien, and we all know how influential that movie became.
What would science fiction look like today without that look?
Not just the monster, but also the overall feel of everything.
The ship is not new; its not pristine.
Its like a beat-up tanker floating through space.
Its worn and rusty and dirty like life.
And that look, that motif clearly comes out of these guys.
There are mentions in your documentary of Jodorowskys influence on George Lucas, Ridley Scott, and Robert Zemeckis.
It does sound like it to me.
I dont know if they got it from reading the book.
But some of those shots looked like they were picked straight from the pages [of Jodorowskys book].
It would be interesting to hear what theyd say after they saw the documentary.
It would be an interesting conversation.
What is your next project?
How do you follow up on something so huge and important?
Ive gotten a few things off the ground, and Ill see what feels right.
But what do you follow that up with?
This movie did phenomenally well.
It started at Cannes.
How can it get better than that?
And it went on from there to all those incredible film festivals.
It was released in North America and it played in New York for ten weeks.
Its been out for three months and its still playing in theatres.
I didnt make a psychedelic documentary.
I made it the way I wanted to tell it, and he loves it.
He absolutely adores the film.
But he gave us a gift.
So he really gave me something incredible, something that has completely changed my life.
And I respect it in this film, and I want to continue respecting it in my life.
I really cherish him as a great artist, and I cherish him as a friend now.
So whatever comes next, I think it has to be something he would approve of.
Now how did you manage to do that?
Its just common sense.
you could get everything for free, movies, albums, software… Everything is available for free now.
And people need to understand that people worked hard on these films.
They are taking someone elses thing and putting it out there.
Go do something positive.
I dont want to live in that world.
I think a lot more people will buy the DVD now.
I certainly want to buy it, even though Ive seen the movie in a theatre already.
Thanks to the magic of DVD and Blu-ray that can offer additional features.
Hopefully, more people will be inspired by this amazing man and his amazing words.
Thank you very much, Frank Pavich.
Jodorowskys Dune is out on DVD now in the US; a UK release has not been confirmed.
