En route to a speaking engagement at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, Alejandro Jodorowsky listed some of his favorite American filmmakers; Alfred Hitchcock, George Romero, Billy Wilder- all got high marks from the notoriously eccentric director of El Topo. John Waters received kudos ("I thought I could not be surprised, but in Pink Flamingos-the singing asshole!" exclaimed the director. "It looked like it was praying ... and why could you not pray with your asshole?"). Walt Disney's name, however, brought a cloud over the sparkling gray eyes of the 60 year old filmmaker. "I 'ate Walt Disney," he said stonily. Asked why and the Russian-Chilean director who denies being of any nationality ("I am Jodorowskian") replied, "Because Disney made all the monsters nice."
Jodorowsky is one cinematic monster who shows no signs of being made "nice." Santa Sangre, his first film in more than 10 years, means Holy Blood, and in this crazy, violent but wonderful film, there's plenty: An elephant dies of a spectacular nose bleed, a husband slices off his wife's arms and then slits his own throat, a man tears off his ear. Steel Magnolias it ain't, but I'd rather see Jodorowsky's old fashioned hallucinatory spectacle any day.
Remembering the avalanche of images from El Topo, one of the more outrageous works to come out of the surrealist '60s, l jumped at the chance to tag along when the phantasmagorical filmmaker gave a talk to the soberminded students at the institute. Here was a confrontation between two different cinematic worlds. In one corner, we had Jodorowsky, the endearing but egocentric iconoclast. In the other, the new crop of young American filmmakers who, in the words of the girl next to me, were "not used to his type of movies here. Mostly we get talks from commercial filmmakers."
This winter day proved an exception to that rule. In the next two hours, this gentlemen, who bears more than a passing resemblance to the older Charlie Chaplin, gave the class a crash course in cinematic vitality. "Movies are my passion- not a business," he rhapsodized. He told the crowded classroom that he got only a nominal fee for making Santa Sangre (which he wrote, directed, cast and scored) in exchange for complete artistic control. He also said that he was now promoting it for the sheer desire to get his movie to an audience. "If someone want to make pirate copy, come see me, I give master. I want my picture to be seen." In answer to one young man who confessed Santa Sangre's display of imagination left him feeling inadequate, Jodorowsky quickly replied, "When I look at you, I see 10 lights coming from your head!" Gesturing to his crotch, the maestro continued, "And a parrot, there! The parrot is speaking, not you." As the class stared, not quite sure if this was an exercise or a fit. Jodorowsky added with a flourish, "At the same time, I am seeing me, dead 3,000 years, looking back with enormous pleasure." A smile covered his face as the audience erupted into spontaneous applause.
The afternoon was filled with Jodorowsky's unorthodox views and advice. "I don't like professional actors. They are working for themselves." How to handle such selfish thespians? "You need to cheat them!" Jodorowsky heartily recommended. One cast member of Santa Sangre balked at doing a nude scene. This was remedied when Jodorowsky gave the actor three bottles of tequila. "After that," shrugged the old man innocently, "I say nothing- he do everything."
When he described his travels with his theater group through the Mexican countryside in the '60s and '70s, performing classic theater for the lower classes, one student asked how he was able to hold their attention with heavy intellectual fare, "Is easy," said the master, "On the stage I put two naked women. Then I perform Nietzche, Kant- with two naked women," he marveled, "you can do anything!"
Perhaps the most galvanizing moment of the event came when he told of his experience seeing the motion picture Dune. Before David Lynch filmed it, Jodorowsky had put in two years of work on the science fiction classic. "When I knew David Lynch will do Dune," moaned Jodoroswky, "I was ill for a year! Then my children bring me to theater, and I start to see film." Huddled in his seat on the stage, Jodorowsky the storyteller became a broken moviemaker woefully peering up at an invisible screen. "Suddenly, I start to do this...." As if infused with helium, he began to rise, an expression of delight breaking across his troubled countenance. Halfway out of his seat, Jodorowsky yelled triumphantly, " FANTASTIC! DUNE IS A HORRIBLE PICTURE!! If picture was good," he added, dropping back into his seat, normal again, "I think I die of jealousy."
Long past the appointed end of class, Jodorowsky was still speaking to a full house. He asked how long they wanted to hear him talk. "Until you drop," came a voice from the back of the room. Happily, he continued. "To me . . ." he began with aplomb, "the Virgin Mary is a chicken...."