Jodorowsky's Dune Page #4

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to the gastronomic restaurants in Paris.

Therefore, I sent a secretary to ask...

in all the gastronomic restaurants

in Paris:

"Where does Orson Welles eat?"

And we discover a restaurant

and then he was eating.

Six bottles of wine. He was eating.

And then I asked to the chef,

"What is the best wine he want?"

He say, "That."

Then, "Send him a bottle."

And then, he drink the bottle

and he want to speak with me.

And then, I speak with all the respect,

because was for me was an idol.

He say, "I don't want to do it.

I don't want any more."

I say to him, "I will propose something."

If you do the picture, even if

we pay what you want as an actor...

"...I will hire the chef of this restaurant

and you will eat, as here, every day."

And he say, "I do it."

I had the artworks from the movie...

which I got from Moebius, who drew

the storyboard, where one can see...

the Harkonnen Castle.

The castle was the big Baron Harkonnen,

no? The big sculpture.

That was where Baron Harkonnen lived.

In himself! The big ego, no?

The castle open the mouth,

a tongue go there, out...

and the spaceship came in the tongue.

I was fascinated by the creation

of the Harkonnen people...

and when I airbrushed five paintings...

I gave my best to create these designs.

In order to go to the castle,

there is a way with tubes.

Enormous tubes. Come out knife.

And then in order to go to the Baron

Harkonnen, you need to walk this way...

"escaping of the big knife

who want to destroy you."

If attacked, then the spears would be

set in motion and impale the people...

who stood in the way

on the pathway up the castle.

And in fact this Harkonnen fortress

was never in the novel.

So this was somehow

in Alejandro Jodorowsky's translation...

his interpretation of the story.

When Paul get killed,

he doesn't die because...

the Messiah is all the humanity

can get enlightened.

In the end, his mind is the mind

of every person. He's a plural being.

I am the others. The others are me.

And then, if the whole humanity

get enlightened...

the Earth changed.

The planet of sand...

start to grow plant, animals,

be like a paradise.

Dune is a Messiah of the planets

because is a planet with consciousness.

With the same consciousness of Paul.

And the planet go to the universe...

to illuminate the other planets.

I changed the end of the book,

evidently!

In the book, it's a continuation.

The planet never changed.

Is not awake,

with a cosmic consciousness.

It's not a Messiah, the planet. I did that.

It's different. It was my Dune.

When you make a picture,

you must not respect the novel.

It's like you get married, no?

You go with the wife,

white, the woman is white...

you take the woman, if you respect

the woman, you will never have child.

You need to open the costume and to...

To rape the bride.

And then you will have your picture.

I was raping Frank Herbert,

raping, like this!

But with love, with love.

And then I came with that.

It was such a beautiful object.

So well done and at the time,

there were no photocopies.

It was just photos of each drawing.

In color...

so well done...

with so much detail about

the costumes, about the techniques used.

Every studio have one book like this.

Every studio.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Universal,

everything, all them...

Michel Seydoux give a book like that.

This approach was chosen

precisely because...

I was thinking they might have

a certain distrust of Jodorowsky.

But since we were showing the camera

angles, since we explained each scene...

the way we wanted to film it...

they should have been relieved.

But they weren't. It wasn't enough.

In Los Angeles, I wasn't optimistic.

The thing is that sometimes

the French and the Americans...

have difficult relationships, you know.

Well, we have had.

We were almost at the finish line,

but we had to find the last $5 million.

The film cost $15 million.

Well, we estimated it as $15...

We had been invited to Walt Disney

studios by the chairman of the board.

He looked through the project and said:

"This is a wonderful project..."

but it is like the Concorde.

"It's an exceptional plane,

but over here, never!"

And there I said to myself that

we were going to face a lot of problems.

They always received us

in a very friendly way...

but it was always the same answer.

When we would give them the book,

they were very impressed.

They had never seen anything like it.

Each time, they would tell us,

"it's superb. It's very well constructed."

You've solved the technical problems

of those special effects.

It's economically reasonable.

"But we don't get your director."

Hollywood did not visualize

science fiction that way.

It was in 2001:
A Space Odyssey...

or in small B movies.

But a huge movie, that would cost

millions of dollars with all the effects.

They did not conceive of that.

Maybe it was a bit long as well.

Maybe the film was a bit too long.

They asked me to make a picture

one hour and a half, for the theaters.

And myself, "No, why the time?"

I will make a picture...

of 12 hours! Or 20 hours!

The totally outrageous side

of Jodorowsky...

especially after

The Holy Mountain and El Topo...

did not give them faith that he could

lead this very ambitious project.

Because $15 million in the middle

of the '70s was a lot of money.

And that was their answer, even though

they found everything else to be perfect.

Everything was great,

except the director.

You have to be like a poet.

Your movie must be just as you

think of it and just as you want it.

Do not take comments to change this

or that from this person or the other. No!

The movie has to be just like I dream it.

The picture need to be exactly

as I am dreaming the picture.

Is a dream. Don't change my dream.

This system make of us slaves.

Without dignity. Without depth.

With a devil in our pocket.

This incredible money are in the pocket.

This money. This sh*t.

This nothing.

This paper who have nothing inside.

Movies have heart.

Have mind.

Have power.

Have ambition.

I wanted to do something like that.

Why not?

Very disappointed. Very disappointed

because we all believed in it.

I believed in it.

Now, this is my take on it...

but I think he didn't feel like...

doing something else

after such a project...

which was the project of his life,

I believe. That's my feeling.

I think that the humiliation...

that Alejandro Jodorowsky suffered,

in not having been chosen...

in having been eliminated for being

too original, being too surrealistic...

that is a permanent injury.

I think that Jodorowsky

carries that in his heart for life.

I was convinced that it would be

something great.

But then Dino De Laurentiis' daughter...

came along and took the project

away from us...

and gave it to David Lynch.

And when I heard that David Lynch

will direct that...

I have a pain because I admire

David Lynch. He can do it!

He is the only one in this moment

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