1
00:02:47,330 --> 00:02:53,420
I wanted to make a film
2
00:02:53,590 --> 00:02:59,180
that would give the people
who took LSD at that time
3
00:02:59,340 --> 00:03:04,350
the hallucinations that you get with
that drug but without hallucinating.
4
00:03:04,510 --> 00:03:09,810
I did not want LSD to be taken,
I wanted to fabricate the drug's effects.
5
00:03:09,980 --> 00:03:14,730
This film was going to change
the public's perceptions.
6
00:03:25,030 --> 00:03:28,000
My ambition with Dune was tremendous.
7
00:03:29,750 --> 00:03:33,710
So, what I wanted was to create a prophet.
8
00:04:47,990 --> 00:04:50,500
You needed a touch of madness to do it.
9
00:04:50,700 --> 00:04:53,040
You can't have a masterpiece without madness.
10
00:04:53,210 --> 00:04:57,000
Pink Floyd? Dali or Orson Welles or others!
11
00:04:58,290 --> 00:05:00,340
Maybe Dune had too much madness?
12
00:05:01,880 --> 00:05:06,470
But a movie that doesn't have a bit of madness
is not going to conquer the whole world.
13
00:06:45,280 --> 00:06:50,473
I don't think that in the history of cinema
there was ever a film that was taken that far,
14
00:06:50,497 --> 00:06:52,223
only to end up not being made.
15
00:06:52,370 --> 00:06:53,538
To become a different film,
16
00:06:53,562 --> 00:06:57,370
since a film was made that had nothing to
do with those two-and-a-half years of work.
17
00:10:31,590 --> 00:10:35,300
I was exposed to it in the
underground cinema in New York.
18
00:10:35,460 --> 00:10:39,640
And after that we had the courage to
attempt to distribute it in France,
19
00:10:39,800 --> 00:10:45,390
and it was an incredible success for
this movie that was quite revolutionary,
20
00:10:45,860 --> 00:10:49,910
and a natural friendship was
born between Alejandro and me.
21
00:10:49,980 --> 00:10:55,440
Thanks to the success of El Topo I got one
million dollars to make The Holy Mountain.
22
00:11:01,370 --> 00:11:03,120
I did whatever I wanted.
23
00:11:03,870 --> 00:11:10,000
I didn't have a producer,
no critic, no one to mess with me.
24
00:11:11,710 --> 00:11:13,880
I did what I wanted and it was The Holy Mountain.
25
00:11:44,620 --> 00:11:48,250
I gave the movie to Michel Seydoux in France.
26
00:11:48,410 --> 00:11:52,500
And, oh, surprise, in Europe it
attracted a great number of people.
27
00:11:53,380 --> 00:11:55,340
It was playing openly.
28
00:11:56,090 --> 00:12:01,090
In Italy that year, it was the
number two movie behind James Bond.
29
00:12:01,930 --> 00:12:05,100
The Holy Mountain was incredible.
30
00:12:11,100 --> 00:12:15,440
So my ambition grew.
31
00:12:57,820 --> 00:13:02,780
I have never made movies or transactions
unless there was something more to them.
32
00:13:02,950 --> 00:13:06,280
A relationship between human beings
is what makes the difference.
33
00:13:21,760 --> 00:13:22,920
Why?
34
00:13:23,090 --> 00:13:26,470
Because the book was the most
beautiful science fiction book.
35
00:13:26,640 --> 00:13:29,930
It was the bible of science fiction
for all the big devotees.
36
00:13:30,100 --> 00:13:32,770
Because the book had been
a worldwide publishing success
37
00:13:33,520 --> 00:13:35,270
that you could find in every country.
38
00:14:46,720 --> 00:14:51,760
Hollywood sold us the rights for nothing,
mockingly on the inside, I believe,
39
00:14:52,640 --> 00:14:56,020
thinking that we would never be
able to carry out such a thing.
40
00:14:58,940 --> 00:15:02,190
It was a great undertaking to do the script.
41
00:15:05,610 --> 00:15:08,780
Michel Seydoux brought me to France.
42
00:15:08,950 --> 00:15:11,410
He rented a castle, a huge castle,
43
00:15:11,570 --> 00:15:16,080
and I was in that castle dedicated solely to Dune.
44
00:15:17,660 --> 00:15:21,249
Frank Herbert created a world in Dune
45
00:15:21,373 --> 00:15:24,943
but he never said exactly what it was.
46
00:15:25,090 --> 00:15:29,220
And you have a hundred pages of literature
47
00:15:29,760 --> 00:15:34,390
where you go on to discover, with great difficulty,
what the book is about.
48
00:15:35,010 --> 00:15:41,310
It's very... It's like...
I compare it to Proust, in French literature.
49
00:15:41,480 --> 00:15:43,900
It's literary, it's great literature.
50
00:16:53,220 --> 00:16:58,850
He had the genius to make
a storyboard with Moebius.
51
00:29:22,840 --> 00:29:27,010
The first actor is the father, the Duke Leto.
52
00:29:41,900 --> 00:29:45,700
David Carradine had starred in a
very popular television series
53
00:29:46,530 --> 00:29:49,870
in which he was a warrior who was
taught by masters from the Orient.
54
00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:52,950
It was influenced by El Topo.
55
00:29:54,750 --> 00:30:01,250
Then when Carradine knew that I
wanted him he came he came running.
56
00:30:03,970 --> 00:30:06,970
I waited for him in Los Angeles in a hotel room.
57
00:30:07,940 --> 00:30:10,530
I had bought vitamin E.
58
00:31:24,710 --> 00:31:27,840
It happened during a meeting.
59
00:31:28,010 --> 00:31:31,140
"Pink Floyd?" Gibon said, "Okay, I'll go!"
60
00:31:31,300 --> 00:31:35,720
He called Pink Floyd's agent.
He said, "Could I meet with you?"
61
00:31:35,890 --> 00:31:38,690
So one day we went to London.
62
00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:42,400
They were in the middle of finishing the mixing
63
00:31:42,860 --> 00:31:48,200
of Dark Side Of The Moon,
at Abbey Road, the famous studio.
64
00:31:49,860 --> 00:31:53,641
And I remember we got there and they were...
65
00:31:53,665 --> 00:31:58,563
very distant, very standoffish pop stars, distant.
66
00:32:13,260 --> 00:32:20,180
All of a sudden, Jodo, we called him Jodo,
Jodo said, "No. They're pissing me off. Let's go!"
67
00:32:49,380 --> 00:32:53,760
And after that it went very, very, very well.
Very, very, very well, yeah.
68
00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:49,170
Today you are seven years old.
69
00:34:49,330 --> 00:34:50,670
Now you are a man.
70
00:34:51,420 --> 00:34:54,010
Bury your first toy and your mother's picture.
71
00:35:49,140 --> 00:35:52,295
When we started, he was twelve.
72
00:35:53,719 --> 00:35:55,853
There I trained him in karate,
karate jujitsu, Japanese style.
73
00:35:55,900 --> 00:36:02,160
That's all the fist-foot techniques,
joint locks, floor pins, standing pins,
74
00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:05,280
a combination of karate,
judo, aikido and atemi-jitsu.
75
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:26,140
I trained Brontis six hours a day,
seven days a week for two years.
76
00:38:01,570 --> 00:38:09,580
For me science fiction was like a
huge theater, like a huge work of art.
77
00:38:12,870 --> 00:38:20,040
Every spaceship was a being
like an insect, like a fabulous bird.
78
00:38:30,430 --> 00:38:34,930
They were ships with souls, like beings.
79
00:38:36,190 --> 00:38:38,020
It had to be Chris Foss.
80
00:45:58,480 --> 00:46:01,150
Dali, to us, he seemed to be the
only emperor of the world,
81
00:46:01,210 --> 00:46:05,590
with that extraordinary talent,
with his speech and his wording.
82
00:46:29,660 --> 00:46:33,000
The first time we went to New York
was with Michel Seydoux.
83
00:46:34,580 --> 00:46:39,130
We went to the St. Regis because
Michel Seydoux liked the St. Regis Hotel.
84
00:46:40,250 --> 00:46:43,800
And we discovered that Dali was
also at the St. Regis Hotel!
85
00:47:09,160 --> 00:47:15,080
The bar had a six meter long painting,
pre-Rafaelite, where there was a king
86
00:47:16,180 --> 00:47:21,470
and the nobles had a face
like they were hiding something.
87
00:47:22,790 --> 00:47:25,180
Dali told me,
88
00:47:25,604 --> 00:47:28,653
"I like it here because there is
a six meter painting dedicated to a fart."
89
00:47:33,180 --> 00:47:36,480
Dali told me,
"We are going to see each other in Paris."
90
00:47:36,640 --> 00:47:38,350
"I am going to think about it."
91
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:55,990
In Paris, on the Champs Elysées,
there was a very fancy restaurant
92
00:47:56,160 --> 00:47:59,210
and he was there with his court.
93
00:47:59,370 --> 00:48:03,630
He had twelve--twelve!--persons at the table and him.
94
00:49:11,610 --> 00:49:13,240
It was a game.
95
00:49:14,320 --> 00:49:21,540
Also, Jodorowsky was part of the
surrealist movement and Dali liked that.
96
00:49:21,710 --> 00:49:24,790
So it was a game between them.
97
00:49:24,960 --> 00:49:27,040
Who would win the game?
98
00:49:27,210 --> 00:49:29,630
He was going through his first
adventure with Amanda Lear,
99
00:49:29,800 --> 00:49:34,090
this sort of extraordinarily sexy person.
100
00:49:34,260 --> 00:49:36,550
Nobody ever knew if it was a man or a woman,
101
00:49:36,720 --> 00:49:40,680
a completely incredible character.
102
00:49:42,230 --> 00:49:44,730
A sort of muse, a poet's muse.
103
00:50:02,790 --> 00:50:07,790
And you had to meet him you had to
tame him and he needed to tame you.
104
00:50:07,960 --> 00:50:11,090
So he would make you go through
these initiations each time.
105
00:50:36,200 --> 00:50:40,080
She treated me very well, and she became an ally,
106
00:50:40,240 --> 00:50:42,990
because I promised her the role of Princess Irulan.
107
00:51:00,010 --> 00:51:04,890
She said, "Be careful because Dali is destructive."
108
00:51:05,060 --> 00:51:07,890
"If he says 'yes' he is going to do
everything to destroy the film."
109
00:51:44,600 --> 00:51:46,980
"Best paid actor in Hollywood."
110
00:51:47,560 --> 00:51:52,520
"I want $100,000 per hour."
111
00:51:52,980 --> 00:51:55,900
I went back and told Alejandro,
"We're never going to make it!"
112
00:51:56,070 --> 00:51:59,320
But I couldn't pay him "the most in the world."
That would be impossible.
113
00:51:59,780 --> 00:52:00,990
Then step by step,
114
00:52:01,160 --> 00:52:02,717
because we were stubborn and
because Alejandro would tell me
115
00:52:02,740 --> 00:52:05,100
that Dali was the only one
who could play the emperor,
116
00:52:05,540 --> 00:52:07,290
the totalitarian emperor,
117
00:52:08,370 --> 00:52:13,710
we had the idea of paying him by the minutes used.
118
00:52:14,380 --> 00:52:17,737
I go to see Alejandro and ask,
"How many minutes is he going to be filmed?"
119
00:52:17,760 --> 00:52:19,930
"How many minutes will he be in the movie?"
120
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:25,060
Alejandro says, "Maximum five, probably three."
121
00:52:25,760 --> 00:52:26,920
So I said, "That's the idea!"
122
00:52:27,100 --> 00:52:30,890
I go back to see Dali and I say,
"I will pay you $100,000 per minute!"
123
00:52:31,060 --> 00:52:36,190
He says, "That's brilliant!
I will be the $100,000 a minute actor!"
124
00:53:57,230 --> 00:53:59,436
Paris was where
125
00:54:00,360 --> 00:54:15,960
Jodorowsky and Dan O'Bannon saw my work
displayed and they wanted me to join them.
126
00:54:21,640 --> 00:54:23,730
Giger had never done movies.
127
00:54:24,720 --> 00:54:26,890
I said, "You have to make movies."
128
00:54:27,050 --> 00:54:32,890
It was completely new to me
and incredibly fascinating.
129
00:54:55,810 --> 00:54:59,710
I met Jodorowsky for the first time in Paris.
130
00:54:59,880 --> 00:55:09,340
This was the evening when he
attended a Magma concert.
131
00:55:35,890 --> 00:55:41,658
I knew nothing about the project, or the idea,
or the book for that matter.
132
00:55:42,482 --> 00:55:44,983
I learned about all of that afterwards.
133
00:55:45,630 --> 00:55:49,760
Alejandro Jodorowsky didn't give
us any direction on the music.
134
00:55:49,970 --> 00:55:51,930
I believe he trusted us.
135
00:55:52,430 --> 00:55:58,230
Now I had an idea because he had
described the planet, the Harkonnen.
136
00:55:58,390 --> 00:56:02,480
I knew that they were not really the good guys,
that they were more like the bad guys.
137
00:56:02,650 --> 00:56:04,730
So it was rather easy to imagine because
138
00:56:05,480 --> 00:56:12,490
Magma made music that was rather violent,
typically hard, things like that.
139
00:56:17,940 --> 00:56:20,390
I was just amazed by the quality
140
00:56:20,460 --> 00:56:26,590
and I told them I felt just like
Christ when he was on the cross.
141
00:56:26,760 --> 00:56:31,300
I was fulfilled, it was fascinating, the music.
142
00:56:50,450 --> 00:56:54,870
I wanted Mick Jagger to play
Feyd-Rautha, a character.
143
00:57:01,760 --> 00:57:05,750
How am I going to contact this person
144
00:57:05,920 --> 00:57:10,170
who is not going to be impressed that
I have the great power to make a movie?
145
00:57:10,340 --> 00:57:13,275
He is in the peak of his fame, of his glory.
146
00:57:14,299 --> 00:57:15,543
How?
147
00:57:15,890 --> 00:57:19,890
And I was invited to an event in Paris.
148
00:57:20,060 --> 00:57:25,060
It was a big gathering of the Parisian bourgeoisie
and at the other side of the room, a big room,
149
00:57:25,230 --> 00:57:31,740
I don't know, maybe one hundred fifty
square meters, was Mick Jagger.
150
00:57:31,900 --> 00:57:38,990
I saw him from a distance and I think he saw me,
and I saw him walking, he started walking...
151
00:57:39,160 --> 00:57:45,080
He started walking between the people and
then I realized that he was coming to me.
152
00:57:45,250 --> 00:57:48,920
He crossed the room and he stood in front of me.
153
00:57:49,090 --> 00:57:51,590
And I told him, "I want you for my movie."
154
00:57:51,760 --> 00:57:54,000
And he said only one word: "Yes."
155
00:57:56,800 --> 00:58:03,770
I was often invited to Andy Warhol's Factory,
Candy Darling and all those people.
156
00:58:03,940 --> 00:58:08,940
There I met Udo Kier,
who was Andy Warhol's great actor.
157
00:58:13,030 --> 00:58:16,950
He had played great roles,
and he said that he would act for me.
158
01:00:07,390 --> 01:00:09,270
Orson Welles had a bad reputation
159
01:00:11,440 --> 01:00:18,900
because they said that he liked to drink
and eat so much that he ate at the movies.
160
01:00:19,070 --> 01:00:24,200
He ate a lot and then he did not finish the movies.
He was moody.
161
01:00:24,370 --> 01:00:29,210
But I said:
"No, Orson Welles is a genius, he is the one."
162
01:00:29,830 --> 01:00:34,710
And since he liked to eat, they say he goes
to the gastronomic restaurants in Paris.
163
01:00:35,380 --> 01:00:44,100
Therefore I sent a secretary to ask
in all the gastronomic restaurants in Paris:
164
01:00:44,260 --> 01:00:47,470
"Where does Orson Welles eat?"
165
01:01:42,150 --> 01:01:49,836
I had the artworks from the movie,
which I got from Moebius,
166
01:01:50,860 --> 01:01:52,483
who drew the storyboard,
167
01:01:52,530 --> 01:01:56,270
where one can see the Harkonnen Castle.
168
01:02:38,750 --> 01:02:44,840
I was fascinated by the creation
of the Harkonnen people
169
01:02:45,010 --> 01:02:57,690
and when I airbrushed five paintings
I gave my best to create these designs.
170
01:03:44,820 --> 01:03:50,410
If attacked, then the spears would be
set in motion and impale the people
171
01:03:50,570 --> 01:03:57,580
who stood in the way on the pathway up the castle.
172
01:03:57,910 --> 01:04:04,340
And in fact this Harkonnen
fortress was never in the novel.
173
01:04:04,840 --> 01:04:17,580
So this was somehow in Alejandro Jodorowsky's
translation, his interpretation of the story.
174
01:07:54,440 --> 01:07:56,440
It was such a beautiful object.
175
01:07:56,610 --> 01:08:00,200
So well done and at the time,
there were no photocopies.
176
01:08:00,360 --> 01:08:06,910
It was just photos of each drawing.
In color, so well done,
177
01:08:07,080 --> 01:08:09,489
with so much detail about the costumes,
178
01:08:09,613 --> 01:08:11,773
about the techniques used.
179
01:08:25,680 --> 01:08:28,660
This approach was chosen precisely because
180
01:08:28,730 --> 01:08:33,190
I was thinking they might have
a certain distrust of Jodorowsky.
181
01:08:33,360 --> 01:08:36,147
But since we were showing the camera angles,
182
01:08:36,171 --> 01:08:40,650
since we explained each scene
the way we wanted to film it,
183
01:08:40,820 --> 01:08:42,660
they should have been relieved.
184
01:08:43,410 --> 01:08:46,080
But they weren't. It wasn't enough.
185
01:08:54,460 --> 01:08:57,420
In Los Angeles I wasn't optimistic.
186
01:09:00,480 --> 01:09:02,037
The thing is that sometimes
the French and the Americans
187
01:09:02,160 --> 01:09:03,580
have difficult relationships, you know.
188
01:09:04,850 --> 01:09:05,960
Well, we have had.
189
01:09:06,930 --> 01:09:12,900
We were almost at the finish line,
but we had to find the last five million dollars.
190
01:09:13,770 --> 01:09:17,230
The film cost fifteen million dollars.
Well, we estimated it as fifteen million.
191
01:09:18,230 --> 01:09:22,860
We had been invited to Walt Disney
studios by the chairman of the board.
192
01:09:24,070 --> 01:09:27,120
He looked through the project and said:
193
01:09:27,280 --> 01:09:30,830
"This is a wonderful project,"
194
01:09:31,410 --> 01:09:33,420
"but it is like the Concorde."
195
01:09:33,580 --> 01:09:37,290
"It's an exceptional plane, but over here, never!"
196
01:09:37,460 --> 01:09:42,420
And there I said to myself that
we were going to face a lot of problems.
197
01:10:11,450 --> 01:10:16,880
They always received us in a very friendly way
but it was always the same answer.
198
01:10:18,340 --> 01:10:20,750
When we would give them the book,
they were very impressed.
199
01:10:20,810 --> 01:10:22,370
They had never seen anything like it.
200
01:10:23,920 --> 01:10:28,970
Each time, they would tell us,
"It's superb. It's very well constructed."
201
01:10:29,890 --> 01:10:33,520
"You've solved the technical
problems of those special effects."
202
01:10:34,520 --> 01:10:35,850
"It's economically reasonable."
203
01:10:37,270 --> 01:10:39,610
"But we don't get your director."
204
01:10:48,530 --> 01:10:53,580
Hollywood did not visualize
science fiction that way.
205
01:10:53,750 --> 01:10:59,420
It was in 2001: A Space Odyssey or in small B movies.
206
01:10:59,590 --> 01:11:04,470
But a huge movie, that would cost
millions of dollars with all the effects.
207
01:11:04,630 --> 01:11:06,280
They did not conceive of that.
208
01:11:07,260 --> 01:11:08,590
Maybe it was a bit long as well.
209
01:11:08,760 --> 01:11:13,430
Maybe the film was... a bit too long.
210
01:11:54,770 --> 01:11:56,890
The totally outrageous side of Jodorowsky,
211
01:11:57,060 --> 01:12:01,610
especially after The Holy Mountain and El Topo,
212
01:12:02,110 --> 01:12:05,400
did not give them faith that he could
lead this very ambitious project.
213
01:12:05,570 --> 01:12:09,700
Because fifteen million dollars in the middle
of the seventies was a lot of money.
214
01:12:10,360 --> 01:12:13,580
And that was their answer even though
they found everything else to be perfect.
215
01:12:13,740 --> 01:12:15,790
Everything was great, except the director.
216
01:12:16,290 --> 01:12:18,460
You have to be like a poet.
217
01:12:18,620 --> 01:12:22,210
Your movie must be just as you think
of it and just as you want it.
218
01:12:22,380 --> 01:12:27,300
Do not take comments to change this or
that from this person or the other. No!
219
01:12:28,470 --> 01:12:31,840
The movie has to be just like I dream it.
220
01:14:53,280 --> 01:14:57,450
Very disappointed.
Very disappointed because we all believed in it.
221
01:14:57,610 --> 01:14:59,340
I believed in it.
222
01:15:07,460 --> 01:15:12,429
Now this is my take on it,
but I think he didn't feel
223
01:15:12,453 --> 01:15:16,953
like doing something else after such a project,
224
01:15:17,090 --> 01:15:20,260
which was the project of his life, I believe.
That's my feeling.
225
01:15:20,430 --> 01:15:25,980
I think that the humiliation that Alejandro
Jodorowsky suffered, in not having been chosen,
226
01:15:26,140 --> 01:15:30,980
in having been eliminated for being
too original, being too surrealistic,
227
01:15:31,320 --> 01:15:32,690
that is a permanent injury.
228
01:15:32,860 --> 01:15:35,820
I think that Jodorowsky carries
that in his heart for life.
229
01:15:40,240 --> 01:15:44,480
I was convinced that it would be something great.
230
01:15:45,250 --> 01:15:54,590
But then Dino De Laurentiis' daughter
came along and took the project away from us,
231
01:15:54,760 --> 01:15:57,170
and gave it to David Lynch.
232
01:17:36,730 --> 01:17:39,820
I've never seen the movie and I never will.
233
01:19:09,870 --> 01:19:12,370
I think it was a guide, a guide for some.
234
01:19:12,540 --> 01:19:19,170
In any case, I am convinced that our storyboard
made the rounds in the halls of Hollywood.
235
01:19:19,210 --> 01:19:22,590
I can't imagine that isn't the case.
It pleases me to imagine that.
236
01:19:22,750 --> 01:19:24,190
You always have to see the positive.