Vincent Moon retrospective in Miami — A review
August 1, 2014
I’ve been a fan of Vincent Moon since 2010, however, I had never heard about him until last week. Before then, I had spent countless hours watching La Blogothèque videos and other films directed by Moon but never paid attention to his name. I became aware of this videos by just searching for music that I like, which I often play it in the background, but there was something so unique about the videos from La Blogothèque. They are filled with a humanity that is usually absent from music videos, the type of incredible connection you can have to a musician during a live concert. These videos were also adventurous, often featuring some kind of action in the streets that just seemed very exciting and spontaneous. It was only until I listened to Moon talk about his artistic philosophy and filming style at an event hosted by the Indie Film Club last week that I understood how someone can encapsulate so much humanity into a very small video.
Last Thursday, July 24, I attended a retrospective on Moon’s work (read our preview interviews here). It sounded half bombastic to me: attending a retrospective for a guy who’s not 35 yet and has not released commercial work under the auspices of a big production house. Nonetheless, I was intrigued because of my own personal connection to the music that is in most of his work. The setting was The Screening Room, a small gallery in Wynwood, an unassuming room filled with fold out chairs and dozens of aspiring filmmakers.
The talk started as a friendly Q&A led by Diliana Alexander, Indie Film Club’s executive director, who admitted to the audience, “I’ve been trying to bring Vincent to Miami for years.” And there he was in front of an eager, capacity audience. He described his philosophy of making films as an artist would. He creates content that is free of charge and uploads it to Vimeo, YouTube or his own website for everyone to enjoy. His budgets are non-existent. “I believe it keeps things pure,” he said in a heavy French accent (he grew up in Paris, but has no specific home since about 2008). Indeed, the artist approaches each project from a human perspective, his goal, he described, is to make people look beautiful and showcase beauty through what they do: music. But much to my surprise he sees music as an expression of community and culture. He looks at musicians as generators of culture or providers of meaning as a cultural expression.
Diliana Alexander and Vincent Moon
Moon quickly took over the conversation and often interrupted the discussion to share some of his favorite videos. In all of the highlights he shared, he described them as an experience that could not be replicated. Someone in the audience asked him about preparation ahead of each shoot. He said he travels around the world and meets with different musicians and people whom he records, but there’s no direction. When asked about research, he scoffed, paused and said that he traveled to each location without preconceived ideas. That’s when I understood the marvel behind the videos because you are experiencing with him something unique through his camera lens. One of my favorite videos he shared that night is the following. It took place in Argentina and you can see how it captures a moment in time that is quite special. The background sounds add an atmospheric layer that cannot be replicated– Moon mentioned it was firecrackers among other sounds that you can hear in the background adding an almost surreal percussive accompaniment.
As the night went on, a lot of the filmmakers wanted to know how he survives financially or how the artists themselves benefit, as his work is freely available to anyone for download. He was a little puzzled by the questions, just as puzzled as the audience about his disregard for “making it big.” He picks places based on a feeling and admits that his worry is the opposite. His concern is how big budgets actually take away something from his work. He relishes the freedom and challenge of working with minimal resources because limitations spark his own creativity.
I am only thankful to Indie Film Club for creating a space where directors like him can be featured at Miami venues. I leave you with my favorite videos (part I and II) from the Take Away shows. Shot in Colombia, featuring Bomba Estereo. I love how the music blends with the landscape…
Filmmaker Vincent Moon talks about the influence of music and rootlessness in his craft, Part 2
July 24, 2014
French filmmaker Vincent Moon has nearly 700 films under his belt. Despite subjects as diverse as music videos for popular bands like REM or a vérité documentary about a “maestra” of natural medicine in Peru, a certain style shines through. His work is patient but still dynamic. He’s very active behind the camera, yet he makes films of raw intimacy. Asked what he tells his subjects before he starts rolling his digital camera, he says, “Nothing. I really trust in the energy of the moment. That’s where it happens, and before is not the right time. I’m not a director in the sense that I tell people to do this or that. That’s something I really don’t like. I just love to leave people as free as possible.”
He has no concern with “breaking the fourth wall” or calling attention to the fact the camera is present. “I would not even say to them, ‘Do not look at the camera.’ I just think that all these interactions between the camera and the musicians and the moment it goes without words in a sense. There are some energies in the air, and you are asked to find the same ones as the people you are recording, and that’s really, really exciting. I love that. I love this momentum of shooting because I come from this huge love of improvised music.”
His camera often moves around to create relationships between images rather than rely on edits. And a dark palette seems to permeate his work, whether he’s working in black and white or color. He does not come from any traditional school of filmmaking. Responding to a query about his influences, he states: “I came late to films, and my influences are just so diverse … I opened a DVD store 10 years ago to do that, watch all the films possible. But a few names, very diverse and important to me are Chris Marker, Peter Watkins, Guy Debord, Robert Gardner, Peter Mettler, Philippe Grandrieux, Antoine d’Agate, Vittorio de Seta and Peter Tscherkassky.”
He never thought of becoming a filmmaker, or that he would make a career of it. Instead, he had thoughts about the possibility of a filmmaker who existed without a base, who just adopted technologies and locations to keep working. He never thought he would become that filmmaker. “I’m just a complete outsider, and that’s good,” he says with a laugh. “I like that. I just wanted to try things my way, and so I’ve been travelling all those years.”
Though he has been credited for revitalizing the music video (check out this New York Times article), Moon does not want to be known as a music video director. He relates more with the genre of ethnographic film. “We are living in a very interesting moment, this kind of like big truth of the anthropological studies and so on,” he says. “I think we are regaining like a certain in-between, a sort of like interesting balance from an ethnographic type of cinema and a much more poetic, experimental approach, and there’s a few filmmakers exploring those things right now, and that’s really, really exciting.”
The extremely opinionated Moon is curious to explore these ethnographic films, which also include Manakamana and the Oscar-nominated and IndieEthos-championed The Act of Killing. However, though Leviathan has been celebrated on IndieEthos and Film Comment, to Moon, Leviathan is a poor example of execution. “I really, really don’t like this film at all,” he reveals. “It’s very poor actually, in terms of experimental research and everything. I don’t like the images. I hate the sounds. I think the mix is terrible … I mean the idea is interesting, but that’s all. I’m very surprised, actually, it’s had a lot of success for what it is. A lot of people have been talking about it. I’m just wondering if that’s really because of its complete lack of such cinema, that such a film, which is completely outrageous, in my opinion, in terms of its research, in terms of experimenting with tools. There is so much more. But that it has such success, maybe it shows there is definitely not much there that is interesting to see.”
Moving one to his talents, he has had many years and examples to fine tune his skills. Making these films is like an addiction for Moon, and there’s no sign of him slowing down. “It’s a sickness,” he admits. “I did 60 films last year, which are not even only short films. There are a few feature-length films, and that’s just ridiculous, completely ridiculous. I’m trying to do this all, and I have to work all the time on those edits and prepare my next project in Brazil, but it’s too much. That’s why I always want to slow down. I think that technology in a sense, obviously, offers you that easiness of work … It’s very easy to film, to record the sound, to edit, to make the phone calls before, to send the emails after. So you do everything yourself, and it can look really great. You don’t need a team or anything working with you these days, and that’s an incredible thing.”
He has made all his films free to view on his Vimeo page and calls it empowering to anyone else who might aspire to become a filmmaker outside the mainstream of the cinema scene. “It’s very, very powerful,” he declares. “We just have to question this, what it means really because I do not think that the film industry is very much excited about such news.” He pauses to laugh. “They are definitely reluctant about such terms, obviously,” he adds about the commercial film industry.
* * *
This is Part 2 of a 2-part interview. Read the first story here:
Filmmaker Vincent Moon talks about the influence of music and rootlessness in his craft, Part 1
Plus, a different article with a focus on his visit to Miami can be found at the Miami New Times art and culture blog Cultist, jump to that article through this headline:
Indie Filmmaker Vincent Moon To Host Retrospective, Seek “Richness of Miami”
The Vincent Moon retrospective and conversation takes place Thursday, July 24, 7 p.m. – 10 p.m. at The Screening Room, 2626 NW Second Ave., Miami. Free. Indie Film Club Miami has set up an intimate 2-day workshop with Moon on July 26 and 27. Visit www.film-gate.org for more information.
Filmmaker Vincent Moon talks about the influence of music and rootlessness in his craft, Part 1
July 23, 2014
Filmmaker Vincent Moon is a man without a home, and as a rootless traveler, he has shot brief but transcendent films that capture the essence of people in places like Peru, Russia and Malaysia, mostly featuring musicians. His filmography almost reaches 700 films— several almost feature-length— and there’s no sign of him stopping, as he seems to be only scratching at an essence that has drawn him to music and film. Having shot many famous bands like The Fleet Foxes, Phoenix and Yo La Tengo for the French on-line video channel La Blogothèque, Moon’s interest in music is actually beyond fame and celebrity. He is much more interested in how people commune with the music on a fundamental and elusive level.
During a phone conversation from Rio de Janeiro covering his many subjects, which also includes Sufis entranced in a musical chant and Peruvians slipping into song under the influence of Ayahuasca, Moon shares an incident that opened his mind to the power of music as a spiritual experience. “I think, like three or four years ago, something happened to me, and I ended up in a ritual in Cairo one night, very sacred, a very sacred ritual, and I knew this because of the way people were playing the music. I never expected that … I didn’t make any research or anything between music and spirituality, let’s say, or rhythms and trance, and when I saw this, it completely changed my way of thinking about this all, and since then I’ve been pursuing this quest of how people live with music.”
Moon brings up the book Music and Trance: A Theory of the Relations Between Music and Possession by Gilbert Rouget. “It’s a very thick book about how tribes would use music to communicate with the spiritual, and there is not one answer to this,” he says.
He notes that as much as he tries to document a variety of musical experiences, not only are no two the same, from region to region and country to country, but they will infinitely vary once they are repeated without his camera present. His search to even try to document it all is impossible, and he has no pretense that he has the ability to create such a comprehensive survey even if he produced 700 million films. “This is not some archival project of any kind,” he says, “just a very localized experience. It happens there, at the specific moment, probably the next day it will not be the same. I do not try to say: This is how it is.”
Moon left Paris in 2008,but he’s not even sure of the exact date. “I think it was six years ago. I just went traveling. I just wanted to change my surroundings.” He has not had a fixed home since.
Recently the Indie Film Club in Miami, who are the people behind Filmgate Interactive, invited him to its home base. They have presented his work in the past and have set up a talk with the filmmaker as well as a two-day workshop for other filmmakers to spend a lengthy amount of time picking the brain of this prolific auteur. Miami may as well be Singapore to him and will also most likely present a musical opportunity for him to document the city. He notes that the only time he has visited Miami was as a child on his way to Disney World. “So that really doesn’t count,” he says.
As a world traveler, Moon has experience putting biased expectations aside and wants to remain open to the city. As far as what band or subject he may shoot for his project “Petites Planètes,” the output of which can be found on his Vimeo page, he remains open-minded. “If you don’t make any research in advance, you have no expectation,” he says. “That’s the key for me to make such films … So really when I go to a shoot, I only have like two or three ideas before but nothing else. I really don’t want to think about the final result, the length of whatever film and so on. We just make a film and see what happens, and then we are all surprised in the best way possible because we have no idea,” adds with a laugh.
You can read more about Moon in my article for Cultist, the arts and culture blog for the Miami New Times:
Also this interview continues in a second blog post, which covers Moon’s influences, his method and why he hates Leviathan. Read it here:
Filmmaker Vincent Moon talks about the influence of music and rootlessness in his craft, Part 2
The Vincent Moon retrospective and conversation takes place Thursday, July 24, 7 p.m. – 10 p.m. at The Screening Room, 2626 NW Second Ave., Miami. Free. Indie Film Club Miami has set up an intimate 2-day workshop with Moon on July 26 and 27. Visit www.film-gate.org for more information.
Brontis Jodorowsky on the psychomagic of ‘Dance of Reality,’ training for ‘Dune’ and a future with director of ‘Táu’
June 13, 2014
The way Brontis Jodorowsky explains it, his father’s new film, The Dance of Reality, is much more than a cinematic adaptation of the memoir of the same name. After all, his father, Alejandro Jodorowsky, is the man behind “Psicomagia” (Psychomagic), a form of therapy through art. His memoir, published in Spanish in 2001, stands as an example of that. Though it features cruel stories of abuse the director suffered as a child, it is less a fact-based memoir and more an “imagined autobiography” that becomes a sort of redemption for his family.
Speaking via Skype from his home in Paris, Brontis, who in the film plays the role of Jaime Jodorowsky, the grandfather largely responsible for the traumatic upbringing of his father, offers insight into the film and the purpose of it as mystical therapeutic device. He speaks soothingly and builds on his statements explaining the psychomagic behind the film. “I have my father, the public figure that you know. He’s my father. But I also have another father that is the private man, and I also have another father, which is the archetype of the father inside of me that is built up with Jaime, Alejandro and also with me being a father. So there’s a father figure composed by different experiences, and inside this father figure, we have this very negative part, character, father figure, that’s only negative. That was Jaime, my grandfather. So by doing this process of remaking the story and giving him a chance through the movie to humanize, to take off the costume of the domestic tyrant and open his heart, we transform a negative part of the father archetype in our family story into a character that is not a saint but has a different aspect and that can change, you see, that can progress. A heart can be opened, so the father figure in our family tree, genealogy, changes, so we’re transmitting to our children and grandchildren another vision of what the father is.”
The bond between Alejandro Jodorowsky and his son is profound. It comes out beautifully in this new film, the director’s first feature in 23 years. It also comes out in a documentary about the director’s efforts to adapt Frank Herbert’s Dune as a movie. Jodorowsky’s Dune captures one particularly raw moment where the elder 
Jodorowsky seems still a bit haunted by the fact he had his the 12-year-old son train for years to prepare for the part of Paul Atreides, yet the film was never shot (Brontis calls this an example of a “private message” from his father). Brontis looks on the bright side. “Yeah, well, you know, what I acquired during those two years of training was so useful afterwards in my actor’s life, especially all the [physical] training part because that taught my body to learn, which is the most important thing that you can learn: is how to learn, so afterwards, when I went to do theater, I always worked in a very physical type of theater. My body was always involved, but I had a trained body that could learn … It was not a waste of time.”
Jodorowsky’s cinematic version of Dune would have been the first ever attempt to adapt the 1965 novel. Though Jodorowsky made great efforts to gather collaborators like H.R. Giger, Orson Welles, David Carradine and Pink Floyd as just some of his “creative warriors,” every Hollywood studio he presented his grand treatment, which included the script by Dan O’Bannon, storyboards by comic book artist Moebius and lots of detailed concept art by Giger and and Alex Ross, they balked at his ambition, which included no fixed limit to the film’s runtime. “They were afraid of him,” says Brontis, “of his personality, so it wasn’t a problem that it was two hours, three hours or five or 10. How long is Star Wars? Too long, much too long.”
Brontis continues, noting that there was also a fundamental cultural conflict between the source of Jodorowsky’s unrestrained creativity and Hollywood’s bottom-dollar attitude. “Also, I think this is an American thing, that Americans don’t want the success to come from outside, so I think that in a way, they saw the project, but I can’t be sure of this, maybe it was just paranoia, in a way, 
I sense they saw the project, and I think they saw that, wow, maybe that would be a kind of future for movies, and they said, well, why give it to him? Let’s take the ideas and do it ourselves. Instead of doing one movie, we’re going to do this, that and that … I think it’s part of the movie industry’s history. It’s a world of artists and crooks at the same time, of people who dream wonderful things and big bank accounts both at the same time,” he says with a laugh.
Despite all that, the future has been good to the Jodorowsky family, and you will be hard pressed to find a creative clan with a more positive and creative drive, fulfilled with their place in the universe. Brontis has mostly worked in theater, but only recently returned to cinema. In 2012, he acted in Táu, a film shot in the same Mexican desert where his father shot El Topo, in which the younger Jodorowsky made his acting debut alongside his father. With Táu, under the direction of Daniel Castro Zimbrón, for the first time in his life, Brontis took the lead role in a movie. The collaboration went so well, they plan to begin a second film together, later this year. “Now we’re going to do another one that we start shooting in November or December that’s called the Darkness,” he reveals. He notes that it has already been work-shopped at Morelia, Toulouse and most recently at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
During his visit to the Miami Beach Cinematheque, he will introduce Táu at a rare U.S. screening, as the film was never picked up for distribution in the United States. Then it’s on to Speaking In Cinema, an hour-long chat with “Village Voice” film critic Michael Atkinson and “Miami Herald” film critic Rene Rodriguez , who both wrote their own positive reviews of The Dance of Reality (click on their names to read their articles).
It will be interesting to watch how the critics work with Jodorowsky, who says he is looking for having a little more time to deal with questions for Dance than usual screenings allow. “I’ve done quite a few festivals now, and there’s always a Q&A,” says Brontis, “but sometimes it’s just 20 minutes, so I just have time to answer one question.
There is much more with both Jodorowskys in other articles I’ve written. The titles of the articles below are hot links where you can read more (except for Alejandro’s quotes, no quotes overlap):
Brontis Jodorowsky to Speak in Miami Beach: “Miami Must Have Some Rock ‘n Roll”
Pure Honey Film Bits: Jodorowsky
Alejandro Jodorowsky replies to my questions via email, Part 2 – Spanish version
Alejandro Jodorowsky on Dune Documentary: “There’s Nothing Crazy About a 14-Hour Film”
Legendary Director Alejandro Jodorowsky on The Dance of Reality, Dune, and Fatherhood
The of course, there are the reviews:
Jodorowsky heals psychic wounds with fabulist recreation of childhood in ‘Dance of Reality’
Film Review: ‘Jodorowsky’s Dune’ celebrates the creativity necessary to do justice in sci-fi cinema
This interview was done to coincide with this weekend’s second installment of “Speaking In Cinema.” Both Jodorowsky’s Dune and The Dance of Reality are now playing at the Miami Beach Cinematheque, which is hosting the event. Brontis Jodorowsky will present The Dance of Reality in person on June 14. On June 15, he will also introduce Jodorowsky’s Dune and Táu. On Tuesday, June 17, at 7 p.m., Brontis will join “Village Voice” film critic Michael Atkinson and “Miami Herald” film critic Rene Rodriguez for the Knight Foundation-sponsored series “Speaking In Cinema” to discuss this film and other works by Jodorowsky. A meet-and-greet party at the Sagamore Hotel ends the night. Tickets for each screening and the event can be found by visiting the calendar page of mbcinema.com.
Brontis Jodorowsky (Left) and Alejandro Jodorowsky, Photo by Pascale Montandon-Jodorowsky
It was deadline day, and like magic, after almost a month waiting for his response via email, the legendary filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky finally responded to my questions about Jodorowsky’s Dune and his new film The Dance of Reality. As our last correspondence notes, he prefers to communicate in Spanish, so I asked these questions with the help of my Independent Ethos partner, Ana Morgenstern, who is originally from Mexico (from the city were Jodorowsky shot El Topo, no less). Again, the Chilean-born director replied with wit and poetry. Ana noted to me the translation hardly does this poet and intellectual guru justice, so below, you will find Jodorowsky’s email in its uncut, original Spanish.
I presented the English version in the “Miami New Times” art and culture blog “Cultist.” I have already used some of the material from the email in this piece, which should appear in print in this week’s issue of the paper. Jodorowsky’s eldest son, Brontis Jodorowsky, also contributed (more on our chat , done via Skype, will appear in “Cultist” and “Independent Ethos,” like last time). To read the English translation of my correspondence with the elder Jodorowsky, visit Cultist by jumping through the image below:
I did the best I could with the translations— and, like last time, I think they came out pretty good— but for those who speak Spanish fluently (as many in my city of Miami do), the best way to read Jodorowsky’s responses is in his native Spanish:
Hans Morgenstern: La danza de realidad es una pelicula fuerte, crees que va mas alla de una autobiografia?
Alejandro Jodorowsky: ………..Es una autobiografía de la misma manera que “El Topo” es un wstern o “La Montaña Sagrada” un film de alpinismo. Me apodero del genero autobiográfico para profundizar en una gran variedad de temas.
¿Crees que sea un comentario sobre ideologia politica, religiosa o personal?
………………. La realidad no es una suma de alguna de sus partes, es un todo interactivo. Todo es político, todo es religioso, todo es personal, todo es todo. Yo no filmo un trozo de pastel, filmo el pastel entero.
¿Que esperas que la audiencia se lleve consigo despues de ver La danza de la realidad?
……… La finalidad de todo arte verdadero es revelar al ser humano la belleza de su propia alma.
Estoy interesado en tu opiñion sobre el documental de Dune.¿>Que te gusta o que cambiarias del documental?
………….. Opino que su director Pavich es un ser luminoso, puro, bien intencionado. Su documental es producto de un apasionado sueño. Nada que ver con el cine industrial. Y como su filme es la realización de un sueño, tiene la perfección de los sueños: no hay nada que quitarle ni nada que agregarle.
¿Sufres de algún resentimiento de que Dune no se haya completado, aunque sea un poco?
………. De ninguna manera he sufrido. Para mí el fracaso es solo un cambio de camino. Los dos años de la preparación de Duna cambiaron mi vida, fue una experiencia sublime. En mi alma, mente, corazón, sexo, realicé el filme. Solamente faltó filmarlo: un mínimo detalle. Esta falta de sufrimiento resulta de mi formación en las artes marciales. Morir en un combate no es perder el combate. No cuenta el resultado, cuenta la acción que hiciste para obtenerlo, lo hayas obtenido o no. Batallar sin cobardía es el único triunfo de un héroe. Yo me lancé en ese proyecto sin cobardía, sin limites, con una inmensa audacia. Aunque no se filmó, siempre tuve la sensación de haberme realizado.
¿Duneno se haya filmado basado en los planes originales, otros largometrajes han sido influenciados por Dune, ¿es posible entonces que te llamemos el padre del renacimiento del cine de ciencia ficción?
……..Si Dios te lanza un dulce que no le has pedido, no seas tonto, abre la boca. Me pueden llamar como quieran, hasta acepto que me digan madre del tío del pato Donald. Si esos epitetos son producto de una admiración cariñosa que sean bienvenidos. Yo por mi parte lucho por no definirme ni tampoco exaltar mi ego.
Después de haber visto el documental, uno de los temas que salieron a relucir fue la preparación extrema de tu hijo, Brontis. ¿Crees que haya afectado tu relación con el?
…… La preparación que le dí a mi hijo, es la misma que yo me había dado a mí mismo. Practiqué artes marciales durante muchos años. También meditación zen. Brontis y yo tenemos una relación que atraviesa el abismo padre-hijo, para establecer lazos de amorosa igualdad de niveles. Tenemos una profunda amistad.
¿Crees que hubo algún grado de auto-sabotaje al imponer el tiempo del largometraje? En otras palabras, al decir que el largometraje de Dune pueda ir de 12 a 20 horas. ¿no crees que eso cancela cualquier consideración seria por parte de estudios de Hollywood?
…..He vivido siempre adelantado al tiempo, unos 30 años en el futuro. La juventud actual, recien ahora está viendo La Montaña Sagrada y comprendiéndola. Yo tenía la razón, no era ninguna locura pensar en un filme de más de 14 horas de duración. Hoy en día se filman trilogías como el Hobbit y series de Televisión que pueden durar centenares de horas.
¿Cómo afectan las decisiones de financiamiento al arte cinematográfico?
…..Ahí está el problema: al convertirse el gran arte del cine en industria, de golpe se pudrió. Ya no fue más arte, sino un entretenimiento bobo, lacayo del sistema, limitador de conciencias, infantilizador. Se lo comío la horda de productores ávidos de dolares, estrellas egómanas, distribuidores cobardes, técnicos ladrones, criticos pagados, inculcadores solapado de ideas politicas, vendedores de cigarrillos, champaña, marcas de automoviles y publicidad turistica. Los filmes, presos en las salas de cine, se ahogan. El cine de arte está por nacer y ser exhibido en los museos, con el mismo honor con que se exhiben los cuadros y esculturas.
This interview was done to coincide with this weekend’s second installment of “Speaking In Cinema.” Both Jodorowsky’s Dune and The Dance of Reality are now playing at the Miami Beach Cinematheque, which is hosting the event. Actor Brontis Jodorowsky will present The Dance of Reality in person on June 14. On June 15, he will also introduce Jodorowsky’s Dune and another film he stars in, the rarely seen Táu, directed by Daniel Castro Zimbrón. On Tuesday, June 17, at 7 p.m., Brontis will join “Village Voice” film critic Michael Atkinson and “Miami Herald” film critic Rene Rodriguez for the Knight Foundation-sponsored series “Speaking In Cinema” to discuss this film and other works by Jodorowsky. A meet-and-greet party at the Sagamore Hotel ends the night. Tickets for each screening and the event can be found by visiting the calendar page of mbcinema.com.
The legendary filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky finally responded to my questions via email. He prefers to communicate in Spanish, so I had to ask these questions in my limited Spanish. What he replied with is filled with as much wit and poetry as one would expect from the Chilean-born director who creates films that are so much more than trippy, psychedelic or surreal experiences. I had been waiting for his response since around when I got in touch with his eldest son Brontis Jodorowsky, last week (Cult film director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s first son Brontis interviewed in “Miami New Times” ahead film retrospective).
I presented the responses in the same blog where my Brontis Jodorowsky article appeared, the “Miami New Times” art and culture blog “Cultist,” after translating them to English. In one case, Brontis returned to help answer a question his father did not care to address beyond one short sentence. The elder Jodorowsky did begin his email by warning me, “I doubt, Hans, you will be well-served by my answers, but I cannot answer in any other way than how I feel and think.”
On the contrary, what I found were insightful responses if not into the specifics themselves but into the creator in general. I found them humorous and downright life-affirming for anyone who toils in art.
To see the piece, including more from Brontis, visit Cultist by jumping through the image below:
I did the best I could with the translations— and I think they came out pretty good— but for those who speak Spanish fluently (as many in my city of Miami do).I present here the original responses unedited and untranslated:
Hans Morgenstern: Desde una perspectiva de Miami, que es una ciudad tan cosmopólita; cómo te sientes de tener une retrospectiva en Miami?
Alejandro Jodorowsky: ……..No soy lo que fui, no soy lo que seré, ahora estoy siendo. Una retrospectiva es lo que fuí. Si no hubiera domado mi ego interesaría lo que seré en la historia del cine, pero como vivo en el tiempo vivo, es decir el presente, no me conmueve ni el pasado ni el futuro… Hoy día mismo no soy sino que estoy siendo, cambiando continuamente. Si me preguntas cómo me llamo, te diré que me digas “nube”. Si a Miami le agrego el ir, el go en inglés, es Mi-ami-go , mi amigo. En fin, no vivimos en países sino en el planete Pangea. Todas las ciudades son cosmopolitas.
Lo segundo que me da curiosidad es qué es lo que te hizo decidir que tu hijo Brontis jugara un papel en “El Topo” a una edad tan temprana? Esta es una de mis películas favoritas y aunque no tengo hijos siempre he tenido curiosidad de cómo fue la relación en el set, durante la escritura del guión y el rodaje.
…..Como no has tenido hijos no sabes lo que es sentir el amor de padre. Ese amor es tan fuerte como el amor de una madre. Elegí a Brontis porque era el niño de la edad que yo necesitaba : 7 años. Mi hijo tenía la hermosura inocente que yo siempre había querido tener. Como yo era un padre amable y comprensivo, mi hijo tenía un gran placer de estar conmigo. En fin, tu pregunta tiene una sola respuesta: nuestra relación fue la normal, la sana relación que tienen un hijo y un padre que se aman.
Te consideras a tí mismo un “surrealista”?
…No me gusta ponerme etiquetas.
Finalmente, cómo ha cambiado tu estilo de cineasta a través de los años? Cómo describirías el film en el que estás trabajando ahora, se podría calificar como auténticamente personal de “Psicomagia”?
… Para que cambiara mi estilo, tendría que tener un estilos, lo que es una forma de repetición. Los ríos no se repiten. Ten la bondad de compararme a la corriente de un río. Cada una de mis peliculas es difrente: no soy un fabricante de salchichas hollywoodenses. Describiría el film en el que estoy trabajando copmo Arte para no ganar dinero. Me cansa esa industria-puta que consiera genial una película porque produce millones de dólares. Sigo creyendo que el cine es el Arte más completo y profundo de todas las artes. “La danza de la realidad” que estoy terminando ya, no se puede calificar con ninguna etiqueta. Es simplemente Arte. Y por ello, si te gustan tus dos palabras, es “auténticamente personal”.
This interview was done to coincide with a rare month-long retrospective of Alejandro Jodrowsky’s films. A total of four films will screen at the Miami Beach Cinematheque:
Full details and ticket information
The first screening, of Jodrowsky’s 1970 film El Topo, will feature a live introduction by Alejandro Jodorowsky and his eldest son, Brontis Jodorowsky. It happens Sunday, Feb. 3, at 7 p.m. It is timed and coordinated as part of the finale of Filmgate, an interactive media festival for filmmakers by the Indie Film Club, which kicks of Friday, Feb. 1:
More details on Filmgate
Here’s the trailer for El Topo:
Cult film director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s first son Brontis interviewed in “Miami New Times” ahead film retrospective
January 30, 2013
Yesterday, I supplied the “Miami New Times” art and culture blog “Cultist” with a short story on Brontis Jodorowsky, the son of cult filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky. I spoke with him via Skype last week (he lives in Paris). Miami will host a rare appreciation of his father’s films beginning early next week featuring one-night-only screenings of his most famous films. The eldest son of the director offered a reflection of working with his father as an actor in his movies at the Miami Beach Cinematheque. He spoke about his debut as the little son of the titular gunslinger in El Topo to his role playing his father’s father in the autobiographical film-in-progress, the Dance of Reality (no release date yet).
We spoke for a half hour, so I had a lot of material, and I am still hoping to hear back from his father via email, who is very occupied with the post-production of first movie in 20 years. It turned out to be fitting that our conversation began with my curiosity in the name Jodorowsky decided to bestow on his firstborn. Brontis explained it is actually a Greek surname, which alludes to a trio of brothers who seemed to have lived a carefree life in Jodorowsky’s hometown of Tocopilla, Chile where he was born in 1929. “The grass is always greener in the other yard,” the younger Jodorowsky said. “He thought that these children were free and happy,” he explained before adding: “My father had a very severe education from his father … and he remembers his childhood as a very sad and violent thing, and he always felt very different from other people.”
The elder Jodorowsky has never hidden his childhood of abuse, which he covers early in the book that inspired the Dance of Reality (it is only available in Spanish). Brontis pointed out something even more curious about his father. When the director married his first wife and failed to produce a child, Brontis said, 
“My father concluded that he was sterile.” He said his father saw it as poetic justice, as it made him last in the Jodorowsky line, and “he was killing the Jodorowsky name, and then he met my mother, who was convinced this was all crap, and she proved to him that he was not sterile.”
The younger Jodorowsky said his father had never fantasized about naming children until the point his first son was born. He wanted to end the curse of the names Jaime (Alejandro’s father) and Alejandro (his grandfather) in his family, so he went with Brontis, recalling those happy children of his hometown. “Normally, in Jewish tradition, you give your father’s name to your children, but he hated his father and said, ‘I can’t give my child the name of my father because I hate my father, but these children were free and happy, so let’s stop the curse of all the Jaimes and the Alejandros [because he carries his grandfather’s name], and if I call him Brontis he will be a free and happy boy.’”
The younger Jodorowsky cannot help but feel amused that in the new film by his father he plays Jaime. “The main character is his father, Alejandro’s father, and he asked me to play his father. In the end, we make the whole turn of our conversation,” he said with a laugh. “He didn’t name me Jaime in reality, but he named me Jaime in the film.”
I could not help but notice if this film might be the most “psychomagical” of the director’s career, to use one of the director’s own terms. Here is a 10-minute interview with the filmmaker where he explains the concept:
“It is. It absolutely is,” agreed Brontis, “but if you see El Topo and Holy Mountain and Santa Sangre, in all his films he’s really doing some kind of psychomagic. He’s working on something artistic— and at the same time— on a personal level. If he does a film it’s because he needs to do it. It’s not only ‘I’m an artist, and I want to make a movie.’ It’s also because he has to live intimately.”
I am hoping that this humanist and intellectual insight might allow a different perspective than just superficial “that’s so weird” appreciation of Jodorowsky’s cinema. This director is a symbolist in a very Jungian sense. Miami Beach Cinematheque Founder and Director Dana Keith added via email: “My favorite quote from Jodorowsky is ‘I ask of cinema what most North Americans ask of psychedelic drugs.’ He truly expands people’s minds with his surreal films by utilizing his imagination in groundbreaking ways, and making the camera a paint brush. We are very happy that the films have been restored and are now available for MBC and Indie Film Club members and others to experience in a theatrical setting, where they belong. No added stimulants are necessary!”
You can read a longer interview with Brontis Jodorowsky, where he also shares memories from the set of El Topo, by visiting the Cultist Blog (jump through the image):
This interview was done to coincide with a rare month-long retrospective of Alejandro Jodrowsky’s films. A total of four films will screen at the Miami Beach Cinematheque:
Full details and ticket information
The first screening, of Jodrowsky’s 1970 film El Topo, will feature a live introduction by Alejandro Jodrowsky and his eldest son, Brontis Jodrowsky. It happens Sunday, Feb. 3, at 7 p.m. It is timed and coordinated as part of the finale of Filmgate, an interactive media festival for filmmakers by the Indie Film Club, which kicks of Friday, Feb. 1:
More details on Filmgate
So who is Alejandro Jodorowsky? I’ll let the trailers of the four films screening in the retrospective speak for themselves. Warning: these avant-garde movies spawned of the psychedelic era feature (archetypal) images that are sometimes NSFW:
(Copyright 2013 by Hans Morgenstern. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.)
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