In December 1974, work finally began on the Dune movie. Alejandro Jodorowsky of Il Topo/Holy Mountain fame was halfway through a suitcase full of drugs and signed on to direct. He planned to film the story as a ten-plus hour mega-feature. To make it happen, he assembled a ruthless creative team he called the “seven samurais,” which included Orson Wells, Salvador Dali, Gloria Swanson, Eurocomix genius Moebius and restraunteur/bar owner H.R. Giger. Also involved, to produce the soundtrack was fucking Pink Floyd.
From Jordorowsky’s production notes:
In film, the Duke Leto would be a man castrated in a ritual combat in the arenas during a bullfight. Jessica - nun of the Bene Gesserit -, sent as concubine at the Duke to create a girl which would be the mother of a Messiah, becomes so in love with Leto that she decides to jump a chain link and to create a son, Kwisatz Haderach, the saviour. By using her capacities of Bene Gesserit - once that the Duke, insanely in love with her, entrusts her with his sad secret - Jessica is inseminated by a drop of blood of this sterile man… The camera followed the red drop through the ovaries of the woman and sees its meeting with the ovule where, by a miraculous explosion, it fertilises it. Paul had been born from a virgin; and not of the sperm of his father but of his blood…
In my version of Dune, the Emperor of the galaxy is insane. He lives on an artificial gold planet, in a gold palace built according to not-laws of antilogical. He lives in symbiosis with a robot identical to him. The resemblance is so perfect that the citizens never know if they are opposite the man or the machine…
The Baron Harkonnen is an immense man of 300 kilogrammes. he is so fatty and heavy that, to move, he must make continuous use of antigravitational bubbles attached at his limbs… His delusion of grandeur does not have limits: he lives in a palace built like a portrait of itself… This immense sculpture is drawn up on a sordid and marshy planet… To enter the palace, one must wait until the colossus opens the mouth and draws a tongue from steel (landing strip…).
Moebius began sketching creatures and characters for the film, while Giger designed the Harkonnen Castle based on Moebius’ storyboards.
Castle Harkonnen by Giger
Sandworm by Giger
Dali was cast as the Emperor with a reported salary of $100,000 an hour.
Shockingly, the money dried up. Dune got filmed by Lynch instead.
May 15, 2009, 1:07pm
