Review of Jodorowsky's Dune (2013) by Andre D — 06 Jun 2015

As a documentary, this film hits the important notes but I couldn't help but find it a bit pretentious. There was all this talk about Dune's potential and that if done right, it would have been great, but you could say that about so many projects though. At one point, Jodorowsky says that if need be, the movie would be 12 or 20 hours long. This was just one of many things he said that are problematic when regarding the production of a movie. Whether Jodorowsky acknowledges it or not, I believe he later realized that his Dune was not suited for a movie but much more fit for the mediums of TV or graphic novels.

Jodorowsky is largely an uncompromising powermaniac that simultaneously doesn't mind changing whatever he wants from the book (which is fine) but refuses to take input from others' criticisms, as he said in the film. With such a stubborn philosophy, you're going to have a hard time growing artistically and an even harder time getting funds for such ambitious projects. I'm not saying that he should have simply accepted the Hollywood studios' comments but that he was hard headed to others in general. He even addressed some of his cruxes as a filmmaker by referencing his lack of cinematography expertise. Kubrick made changes with his interpretation of A Clockwork Orange, he was also a perfectionist and had strong artistic vision, but where he differed from Jodorowsky was in that he was much more diplomatic. Kubrick had more trust in others' artistic abilities and he was conscientious of not only what was feasible but what was able to be executed in a way that still captivated audiences. A 12 or 20 hour film is not going to be entertaining. Rather than make 2001 ridiculously long, Kubrick made a film that was still accessible with followups to 2001 in the medium of novels.

So Jodorowsky had the vision but lacked the understanding of bringing it to life. Near the end of this documentary, the movie attributes that many later works took great inspiration from Dune which is true for a lot of examples, but I was frustrated at how they ignorantly neglected Dune's many profound influences. They presented Dune as if it was the origin of modern sci-fi when in actuality, it was part of a continuum that goes back ages.