Trailer Trashin’: The Story of the Never Made Masterpiece of Jodorowsky’s Dune
Whether you’re currently single or in a relationship, I hope you all had a good Valentine’s Day weekend, dear readers. Unfortunately, aside from The Lego Movie, it’s still slim pickings at our movie theaters right now if you’re looking for something good to watch. But as always, there are upcoming films to look forward to, and trailers for those films for me to examine. And this week’s installment of Trailer Trashin’ takes a look at the upcoming documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune.
Premise: The story of cult film director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s ambitious but ultimately doomed film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s seminal science fiction novel Dune.
My take: Speaking as a cinephile, one thing that has always fascinated me are the stories of famous lost projects – film productions that were supposed to happen, and in many cases had notable people attached, but ended up not going forward for a variety of possible reasons. One of the most famous of these stories, but one which I didn’t know much about until recently, is Chilean-French director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s attempt in the mid-1970s to make a film based on Frank Herbert’s sci-fi novel Dune. Back in May 2011, it was announced that a documentary would be made about the failed Jodorowsky project. The finished documentary, titled Jodorowsky’s Dune, premiered at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, and it will come to theaters this March. An official trailer for Jodorowsky’s Dune has been released, and I think it looks fascinating.
For this documentary, director Frank Pavich filmed an extensive set of interviews with many of the key players who had been involved in the failed Dune adaptation. Most prominently featured here is Alejandro Jodorowsky himself, who clearly is enjoying the chance to talk about his lost project. Other people who were involved in the project and appear here include French businessman and film producer Michel Seydoux, Swiss surrealist artist H. R. Giger, and British artist and sci-fi illustrator Chris Foss. The other people who are interviewed include Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn, French singer/artist/actress Amanda Lear, who was a close friend and muse of Salvador Dali, and South African filmmaker Richard Stanley.
I really love the glimpses this trailer gives us of what Jodorowsky’s film could have been like. I particularly like the casting ideas Jodorowsky talks about, including Salvador Dali as Padishah Emperor Shaddam and Orson Welles as, I presume, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. The pieces of concept art we see here, which presumably includes some of the work done by H. R. Giger and Jean “Moebius” Giraud, looks incredibly striking, and I can’t wait to see more of it. I’m especially curious about how Jodorowsky planned to depict the Sandworms, which I hope gets covered in the documentary.
Alejandro Jodorowsky in “Jodorowsky’s Dune.”
Photo by David John Cavallo – © 2013 – Sony Pictures Classics.
Dune has long been considered one of the greatest pieces of science-fiction literature in history, but none of the attempts to adapt it to the screen have been completely successful. The 1984 David Lynch film has gone down in history as an example of how not to make a blockbuster, although it does have a cult following and I consider it an interesting failure. The 2000 Sci-Fi Channel miniseries is much better regarded, but it definitely suffered from the small size of its budget. There were talks about another potential film version several years ago, but there hasn’t been any news of that front for a while. I don’t know if Jodorowsky’s version of Dune would have been a good movie or not, but I feel safe in saying it would have been a memorable one. I’m not sure how big of a theatrical release the film is getting, but I’ll definitely be checking out Jodorowsky’s Dune when I get the chance.
Starring: Alejandro Jodorowsky, Michel Seydoux, H. R. Giger, Chris Foss, Nicolas Winding Refn, Amanda Lear, and Richard Stanley
Director: Frank Pavich
Timothy Monforton
