LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Alejandro Jodorowsky
built 635 days ago
For years, the only way to see the work of Alejandro Jodorowsky was on grainy, visually censored bootlegs or, more recently, on way-expensive PAL import DVDs. Those bootlegs got around, though; El Topo and The Holy Mountain, included in a new box set with Jodorowsky’s first film, Fando y Lis, have inspired some of metal’s most epic and stoned practitioners. There’s a band and a Sleep album named after The Holy Mountain; Jodorowsky’s surreal, quasi-religious aesthetic shows through in the art of Arik Roper and bands like Yob, Om and Electric Wizard. If anyone could turn the procession of the Weedian in Jerusalem or the climb up Blood Mountain into a movie, this is the guy. He already tried to make a Dune that would have rallied the talents of H.R. Giger, Salvador Dali, Mick Jagger and Pink Floyd.
Source:
The scandal of the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, writer/director Alejandro Jodorowsky's flood of sacrilegious imagery and existential symbolism is a spiritual quest for enlightenment pitting illusion against truth. The Alchemist (Jodorowsky) assembles together a group of people from all walks of life to represent the planets in the solar system. The occult adept's intention is to put his recruits through strange mystical rites and divest them of their wordly baggage before embarking on a trip to Lotus Island. There they ascend the Holy Mountain to displace the immortal gods who secretly rule the universe. -Alan Jones
Source:
Known above all as a film and theater director, Alejandro Jodorowsky (Chile, 1930) began by working in the circus and with marionettes. In 1962, with Arrabal and Topor, he founded the Theater of Panic in Paris, where they staged many happenings. His films, several of which have achieved cult status, include Fando y Lis (1969), El Topo (1971), La Montaoa sagrada (1973), Tusk (1979), Santa sangre (1989), The Rainbow Thief (1990) and Viaje a Tulún (1994). Not only was he the director, but he ... wrote the screenplays, composed the music, and often acted in his films. A noted author of comic books as well, his work includes AnÌbal V, in Mexico, and the Inca Azul series with drawings by Moebius in France. Among his several novels, Donde mejor canta un pájaro (1994) offers an exuberant blend of magical realisms, in both the Yiddish and Latin American traditions, transforming his own genealogical tree into a story of myths and fables.
Source:
Chilean born filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky changed the world in 1971 when he released El Topo, a bizarre psychedelic Mexican western. The film became an immediate hit on the burgeoning midnight movie scene. Since then Jodorowsky has done a number of wonderful films, all fascinating and beautiful, such as Holy Mountain, The Rainbow Thief and Santa sangre. They are all highly personal tales filled with commentary on religion, sex and so much more. Jodorowsky has ... done groundbreaking work on comic books with such legendary artists as Moebius, Georges Bess, Juan Gimenez and many more.
Source:
Alejandro Jodorowsky was born in Iquique, Chile on February 7, 1929. In 1942 he moved to Santiago where he attended university, was a circus clown and a puppeteer. In 1955 he went to Paris and studied mime with Marcel Marceau. He worked with Maurice Chevalier there and made a film, "The Severed Head" or "The Transposed Heads", which is now lost. He ... befriended the surrealists Roland Topor and Fernando Arrabal, and in 1962 these three created the "Panic Movement" in homage to the mythical god Pan. As part of this group Jodorowsky wrote several books and theatrical pieces.
Source:
Alejandro Jodorowsky's films have been compared to psychedelics, by himself as often as anybody else. The Holy Mountain is indeed a spectacular trip. After El Topo became a cult phenomenon and caught the eye of a few wacky Beatles, Jodorowsky was bankrolled by John and Yoko to make a more expensive, even trippier extravaganza. The Holy Mountain, made in 1973, is an invaluable piece of film history in that movies this radical, unconventional, and unhinged from the conventions of narrative cinema are rarely allowed to be made on such a scale (even more rarely were they not made by Federico Fellini). Unfortunately, the downside to having such famous patrons was the effective burying of El Topo and The Holy Mountain for years as pawns and grudges in a few of the many conflicts that transpired since the Beatles started getting paid. Finally these cult treasures arrive on commercial DVD.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Alejandro Jodorowsky