thinking wheels hidden behind meteorites, waiting, camouflaged as metallic rocks, for a drop of life to pass through those lost galactic fringes to slake thirsty tanks with psychic secretions.вЂќ How could Foss resist? machines greater than suns wandering crazed and rusted, whimpering like dogs seeking a master. caterpillar-tracked hot rods so vast that their tails would disappear behind the horizon. humming-bird ornithopters which fly us to sip the ancient nectar of the dwarf stars giving us the juice of eternity. whore-ships driven by the semen of our passionate ejaculations. womb-ships, antechambers for rebirth into other dimensions. In JodorowskyвЂ™s introduction to a later book of FossвЂ™s paintings, the director explains what he expected from the artist: вЂњI wanted jewels, machine-animals, soul-mechanisms. To visualise the filmвЂ™s spacecraft, Jodorowsky hired Chris Foss, a British artist known for his airbrushed paintings on the covers of Isaac AsimovвЂ™s novels, and his line drawings in the ground-breaking sex manual, The Joy of Sex. Needless to say, none of this happens in HerbertвЂ™s novel. And he ended with pictures of Paul being murdered and then transforming into a sentient planet, before flying off to spread good vibes throughout the galaxy. He began with a long, unbroken shot inspired by the opening of Orson WellesвЂ™ Touch of Evil, the difference being that the camera doesnвЂ™t just rove around a town, it crosses the universe. Working at what Jodorowsky has called a вЂsuperhumanвЂ™ pace, Giraud broke down the entire film into a storyboard of 3000 drawings. The first of these was Jean вЂMoebiusвЂ™ Giraud, one of FranceвЂ™s most acclaimed comic artists. Seydoux rented a castle for Jodorowsky to write in, and when his screenplay was finished, the auteur set about recruiting collaborators - or, as he put it, fellow вЂspiritual warriorsвЂ™. This grandly mystical tone was typical of the project. HeвЂ™d be making an вЂњartistical, cinematographical godвЂќ. He wouldnвЂ™t be making a mere film, he recalls in a 2014 documentary, JodorowskyвЂ™s Dune. change the young minds of all the worldвЂќ. But Jodorowsky didnвЂ™t just want to adapt a book, he wanted to вЂњchange the publicвЂ™s perceptions. Its teenage hero, Paul Atreides, leads armies and rides giant worms, and so, in the days before digital effects, putting HerbertвЂ™s sprawling interstellar saga on screen would have been a colossal feat. Published in 1965, HerbertвЂ™s novel chronicles the battle for control of a desert planet called Arrakis - or Dune. When Seydoux agreed, Jodorowsky realised that heвЂ™d now have to sit down and read it. Jodorowsky chose a science-fiction novel, Dune. Kanye West borrowed its psychedelic religious imagery when staging his Yeezus tour in 2013, and, back in the 1970s, both films helped to establish the вЂmidnight movieвЂ™ circuit of films that were best watched late at night, preferably after ingesting a mood-altering substance or two.ДЄs bamboozling as they were, El Topo and The Holy Mountain were so profitable that a French producer, Michel Seydoux, contacted Jodorowsky in 1974 and offered to fund whichever film he fancied making next. The Holy Mountain (1973), partly funded by John Lennon, was even weirder. El Topo (1970) was roughly what you would get if Clint Eastwood remade Alice in Wonderland as a western, and Monty Python remade it as a satirical farce, and then scenes from both films were cut together, with extra whipping and nudity. The filmвЂ™s writer-director was Alejandro Jodorowsky, a Chilean-born avant-garde theatre veteran who made two of the most gloriously surreal films of the 1970s - or, indeed, any other decade. Why HitchcockвЂ™s Kaleidoscope was too shocking to be made Gladiator 2: The strangest sequel never made?

The most significant and impressive screen version of Frank HerbertвЂ™s science-fiction bestseller is one that was never actually made. Nor do I refer to the mini-series that was on the US cable channel Sci-Fi (now called Syfy) in 2000.

I donвЂ™t mean the David Lynch version from 1984, which should be lodged near the top of any sensible list of the worst films in history. But Villeneuve, the French-Canadian director of Sicario, Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, will need all the help he can get if his film is to compete with an earlier adaptation of the same novel. The Oscar-nominated TimothГ©e Chalamet is its star the supporting actors include Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Charlotte Rampling, and Jason Momoa. Denis VilleneuveвЂ™s Dune, which is due out next year, looks as if it might have one of the all-time great casts.

Dune pdf