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  • Film & TV Moderators: ghostfreak

4 Jodorowsky films and one LSD trip

my3rdeye

Bluelighter
Joined
Aug 17, 2012
Messages
1,187
So my favorite director Alejandro Jodorowsky released a movie last year: The Dance of Reality. I just ordered the blu ray from amazon. I haven't seen it yet and I know I could download a copy but I want to support this great director and I want to see it in the best resolution. I would have seen it on big screen but my shitty city never showed it. I watched "Santa Sangre" on youtube while at work between calls and hated it. Watched the blu ray on LSD and loved it. So the plan is to watch Dance, Santa Sangre, Holy Mountain, and El Topo back to back in one trip.
8.2 hours of total viewing. No watching the extras. I think I can do it if I drop it right at start of first movie, I should still be tripping at end of last one.
My whole childhood I always heard about this acid western called El Topo it played downtown for decades to acid heads as a midnight movie, pretty much the first cult movie. I couldn't believe this and Rocky Horror just kept playing forever. It's sad that kind of thing doesn't really exist anymore, I would love to see these films on the big screen.
You really should be tripping to watch Jordorowsky IMO. There seems to be a ton of hate of everything counter culture now so these movies get a lot of hate online, you always hear "you shouldn't have to take LSD to enjoy a movie" whatever I can't watch a sporting event without drinking either. You shouldn't be surprised if you watch an acid movie not on acid and don't like it. OTH Jordorowsky seems more popular than ever, with psychedelics becoming cool again I hope to see even more interest in this guy's films.

El topo
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Santa Sangre
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Dance of Reality
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Holy Mountain
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LSD distorts my ability to gauge whether or not a film is any good. Most films are amazing, with sufficient hallucinogens. Hell, wallpaper looks interesting on acid. Personally, I don't like watching serious films that require a relatively high level of cognition in order to comprehend them on a basic level, while I'm tripping off my head. It sounds like you're treating his films as eye candy, to some extent? If they require LSD, then they aren't great films IMO. (I know you said that "haters" say this on the internet, but maybe there's some truth to it?) I've never seen any of his films. I do, however, have a copy of the documentary "Jodorowsky's Dune", which I plan on watching soon... His work interests me. Just added a couple of his early films (Fando y Lis, El Topo & The Holy Mountain) to my Quickflix queue. I'll skip the hallucinogens, though. Too many potentially great film experiences have been distorted and/or ruined with drugs, already.

I very much doubt the director would agree that his films require LSD to appreciate them. (I don't know anything about the man, but it's unlikely.) Did he ever say he was making "acid movies", or have you just decided that for him and everyone else?

I couldn't sit through eight hours of any directors films, on acid, without getting distracted/interrupted by psychedelic revelations and awakenings. I mean: there's more to be gained from LSD, than distracting yourself with pretty pictures, isn't there?... I don't know... It seems weird, to me.

Maybe you can focus, properly, for eight hours straight, on four consecutive unfolding narratives, while your mind is doing backflips... Maybe, you aren't treating his films like eye-candy... I can't really say.
 
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Did he ever say he was making "acid movies", or have you just decided that for him and everyone else?
-------
I don't really care if that is his intent or not. They are acid movies and even if you don't agree there are millions of people who went before you who watched them on LSD who do agree. Also several actors are on LSD or mushrooms in several scenes according to the directors commentaries. What does it take to be an LSD movie to you? Is "The Trip" one? It also gets the same kind of hate from people who cop out and don't drop while watching it. I have no problem labeling a movie as psychedelic. There are some movies i only watch on LSD such as the Wall or Yellow Submarine because they are just better on acid. That's just my opinion, I don't really care if you agree. I wouldn't go see a jam band not on LSD either, it doesn't make the music bad, just I like it a whole lot more on LSD. Maybe you can stare at wall paper for 8 hours but I need actual stuff to do.

"there's more to be gained from LSD, than distracting yourself with pretty pictures, isn't there?"

You aren't one of those go outside and look at nature people are you? I like watching movies on LSD. In the 70's they made movies for people like us pretty much weekly. It's too bad there so few if any psychedelic movies made anymore. It's hard to even find information on old psychedelic films anymore or even any decent lists. Its like our culture just got erased. Now people think it's weird to watch movies while tripping.
Dune is pretty good but Fando and Lis kind of blows. If you are dead set on not taking LSD just avoid the Holy Mountain and watch El Topo is my suggestion.
 
I'm not going to bother with this thread, buddy. Sounds like you've got it all figured out and the acid is really expanding your mind.

Congratulations.
 
Having watched as much of "Jodorowsky's Dune" as I could stomach, I've removed his remaining films from my Quickflix list. The guy isn't worth my time. He's an obnoxiously egotistical idiot. His films are over the top, like Gilliam, but they lack the wit/spark: they're just shock for the sake of shock; sensationalism for the sake of sensationalism. It is disrespectful to the psychedelic experience, to associate his awful Cirque du Soleil train wrecks with LSD. I'm, honestly, a little sick of this absurd insistence that laser shows and other forms of eye-candy go hand in hand with hallucinogens. The class of drugs - hallucinogens - implies, to the uninitiated, a visual/auditory experience. But, that is just the surface.

Make-up and silly costumes are not representative of psych-culture. I ate mushrooms every day for an entire year, and I object to your classification. If your idea of a good trip is sitting down and watching 8 hours of pretentious visually-overloaded cinema, then you don't know very much about psychedelics. You're at the entry level. So is Jodorowsky. I understand where he's coming from. He's trying to do with film, what Picasso did with fine art. But, he's not innovating. He's just rebelling against convention, for the sake of rebelling against convention. His fellow film-makers, meanwhile, as far as he's concerned, they might as well be asleep: because they're not painting their actors green; inexplicably casting naked pre-pubescent boys in leading roles; designing space-ships that look as if they've been painted with post-Halloween vomit; according to his limited perspective, they're not making "art". Part of film-making - or, indeed, any art form - involves being able to work within the confines of the medium. The scale of Dune was absolutely ridiculous. Clearly the guy was fucked off his head during most of his career. A fourteen hour science fiction film? That doesn't make him an artist of great ambition, it makes him an idiot. He should never have been given millions of dollars. Jodorowsky's "Dune" isn't the greatest movie never made. It is an absolute failure, in every department.

The costume and set design - for a serious science-fiction film - was utterly inappropriate. It looks like an episode of Beetlejuice (the cartoon), mixed with some of the weirder animated sequences from The Wall, on acid. How the fuck does that suit the source material? Why are all of his films so heavily reliant on sensational imagery? I mean, what does it add to a film? He says in the documentary that he hadn't even read it when he decided to adapt it into a multi-million epic. Yet, he insists that it would have changed the world. And, I'm sure he believes the bullshit dribbling out of his mouth. He is one of the most unashamedly arrogant artists I've ever encountered. Perhaps the most arrogant. I feel sorry for him, being of his advanced age and having never grown up. He's one of those unfortunate people who resist ego death so much, that they end up - instead - inflating their ego. There is no humility in his words, nor does anything he have to say hint at a deep understanding of anything. The documentary might as well be ninety minutes of Jodorowsky performing auto-fellatio. I lost count of how many times he said he was going to open people's consciousness and expand their minds. Funny thing is, eye-candy doesn't expand your mind. Hallucinations are the temptations of the psychedelic experience. They are surface distractions. And, because they are so extraordinary, they are very effective distractions. The weak will sit, mindlessly, and marvel at all the pretty colours - like a awe-struck infant - while the strong will resist the urge to regress, and meditate. Below the shiny surface of the psychedelic experience, is the real trip: and this - the spiritual/revelatory underbelly - can be expressed, cinematically, or otherwise, without a plethora of bright colours and optical illusions. People who define the psychedelic experience as a sensory experience, might as well define people by the colour of their skin.

It's fortunate - for Jodorowsky - that the film was never produced, because it would have had a colder critical reception than David Lynch's version. (Funny that he got so much pleasure, witnessing David Lynch's version flop.) His project - from the very beginning - was misguidedly ambitious. Yet, in retrospect, his implication is that it wasn't; that it was smothered by a conservative industry. Now, decades later, he can insist that it would have been the greatest film ever made. The thing is, it wasn't. It didn't get anywhere near post-production. There's all these fringe artists that are interviewed throughout the documentary, insisting that there was some sort of conspiratorial regime that disallowed the film from being made. In truth, he wasted nearly ten million dollars - which, adjusted for inflation, is approximately sixty-five million dollars - and the film wasn't even a tenth complete. He spent two million dollars (thirteen million in 2014) on pre-production alone. He gets really angry, during the film, insisting that it was unfair that he wasn't given an inexhaustible budget. Why? Because - in his mind - he unquestionably deserved it; because he is a self-proclaimed genius. How dare investors get nervous as the budget inflates exponentially? They should throw tens of millions of dollars at him! Fuck it, a hundred million! Why not? He is Jodorowsky; or, as he says in El Topo, "I am God!"

I'm tired of people blaming the "evil" studios for not wanting to stuff unprecedented amounts of money into questionable investments. Even if the film turned out to be a masterpiece, despite all evidence to the contrary, who's going to sit through a fourteen hour science-fiction movie? Pulling the plug on the film was the right move. It would have gone down in history as the biggest flop / cinematic-disaster of all time. At least they cut their losses.

Jodorowsky destroyed his own career, through incompetence. "If you fail, it's not important," he says in the documentary. "We need to try." So, clearly, he has no respect for other people's money and - therefore - has no place in big-budget film-making. The industry is what it is: if you want to make low-budget art films, you can experiment until your heart's content; if you want to make big-budget Hollywood films, on the other hand, you have to play by the rules.

There's this thing that disgruntled artists always say about studios. Films must be comparable to other films in order to justify big budgets. When you're pitching, in other words, you have to say it's like this film or that film. The implication being: Hollywood isn't willing to take risks. But, why should they? Artists, typically, don't invest in their own projects. Yet they whinge and fucking moan that nobody else will. Like the studios owe them. What a load of shit. Artists get carried away. If you look at the behind-the-scenes reality of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, he was really struggling to accept the limitations of the budget. In the end, the film had to be re-written by numerous people and a huge number of scenes had to be taken out all-together. Gilliam blamed the studios, publically. He still does. Yet, without them, look what happened to The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Like Dune, it was a fucking disaster.

If you think this is psych culture, you should watch "The Congress" with Robin Wright and Harvey Keitel. Dose acid like you're eating popcorn. You'll probably love it.
 
"I ate mushrooms every day for an entire year"
8)

Yeah I don't care what you think.
Dance of Reality wasn't very good I was a let down.
 
Not sure what you're rolling your eyes about. I guess, maybe, you don't believe me about the mushrooms? Maybe you should check out my trip reports. I suspect that you've made up your mind, though. It seems you've built a relatively impenetrable wall. I am the only person to respond to your thread and you "don't care what (I) think". You also "don't really care (what Jodorowsky's) intent was". (For the record, he implicitly states in the director's commentary of Holy Mountain that he was attempting to make a film that did not require drugs to appreciate it.) I'm not sure what you're looking for, other than re-assurance - from someone/anyone - that you are objectively correct. (You mentioned being frustrated when discussing Jodorowsky in other forums.) In my experience, it is more often than not insecure people who desperately seek confirmation. I get the impression that you're teetering on the edge of realization. I made an attempt, here, against my better judgement, to get through to you. If the confrontational nature of my approach convinced you that I was - in fact - mocking you or attacking you in some way, I apologize. My sarcastic post, earlier, doesn't represent how I feel about this situation. You may not care about what I think, but I do care about what you think. That's why I'm doing this. I was trying to give you a little push in the right direction, because you seem lost. There's not much else I can do. I expected you to shoot the messenger. The vast majority of people do.

I want to help you get the most out of your psychedelic experience. In part, because you remind me of a younger version of myself. And, although I didn't recognize it at the time, many people have helped me in similar ways. I think you have a lot to learn: about yourself; about cinema; and about LSD. You will never learn anything, however, if you continue to blindly reinforce your opinions. I honestly don't mean any offence, but I have to say your tone has been a little immature throughout this thread. I don't understand how someone can be your favourite film-maker of all time when you trash a significant portion of his filmography and require drugs to appreciate the rest. And, you aren't even willing to back up your opinions with any explanation. You're not really interested in having a discussion, it seems.

You want me (or someone, anyway) to agree with you, I think: that the rest of the world is wrong; and psychedelic culture has been erased by some vague conspiracy.

Because you know psychedelics more than everyone else, I guess? (Hence the eye rolling.)

I hope, for your benefit, when the sting wears off, that some of this resonates.

You aren't one of those go outside and look at nature people are you?

^This comment was particularly revealing.

...

The following is a quote from a private message I received, about a week ago:

I love your posts on F&T, your last response in the recent jodorowsky thread was particularly awesome, if the original poster really reads all you said and thinks about it, that could be exactly the information he needs to change his life around, I would never have had the patience to type all that myself but I totally agree with pretty much everything you said.
 
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Nice work here, 4ea!

I used to love me some psychs both in front of a movie screen as well as outdoor, both actively and internally, I still agree with everything you said.
 
Do you intend to gain something from watching these particular movies back-to-back on LSD? As far as I know, there's no continuity between any of Jodorowsky's films, so your plan seems fairly arbitrary. I can respect that not everyone uses psychedelics the same way, and I don't think every trip needs to be some revelatory, ground-breaking experience, but I would never attempt to sit still and concentrate on a screen for 8 hours straight no matter what was playing. I've spent good portions of trips watching films and/or television, and usually find myself wanting to do something else. It can get unnerving depending on the content and physical setting, but it's not so much challenging as it is boring.
 
I appreciate The Holy Mountain especially on psychedelics, it has nothing to do with eye candy (even if I have regularly indulged in watching stuff that way), or even necessarily all that much with the weirdness effect. It is of course all very symbolic and although the first time I watched it I missed a lot of meanings and references, I later realized it's all not done so subtly AT ALL including the spiritual or pseudo-spiritual stuff.
Nevertheless I like getting in that state of mind by going through the realizations step by step, whether I have experienced it / seen it before or not, and despite it being about as subtle as a chainsaw... it's just a nice stepping stone for further contemplation afterwards, because it connects certain themes.

For me it's a bit questionable / uncanny because of where it seems to be on a scale from a very superficial movie to avant garde pieces or videos meant as art more than anything else. It feels awkward and too symbolic to consider it a movie to just watch but somehow too explicit and over-the-top selfconscious to be some sort of avant garde that isn't just a tad too ridiculous to take all too seriously.

Jodorowsky tripped a LOT and i think he had tripping sessions with other people involved with the movie, was it mushrooms mostly?

@watching movies while tripping in general: often when the dose/intensity isn't all too high I feel like I have a choice to either do things like meditate to manifest the otherwise tame potential, or to just make more of a recreational trip out of it. When the dose is high enough, i agree: i too would get too distracted and disinterested in watching something like a movie, other things like any object could get just as fascinating... although sometimes certain images or scenes can distort in ways that can be very worth it compared to projecting effects on real life 'scenery'. So in some ways I like a bit of both, depending on certain factors. If the trip is quite weak it can get boring to me to try and have adventures based on pretty much nothing at all.
What can happen though is that I like to trip on a sunday but that also coincides with being pretty tired from being active all week and feeling like hedonism... if there isn't a reason like that then yeah it can feel like both a waste and feeling guilty. Other times I just feel inspired and super motivated to do much more novel exciting things with my trip.
 
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... My whole childhood I always heard about this acid western called El Topo it played downtown for decades to acid heads as a midnight movie, pretty much the first cult movie. I couldn't believe this and Rocky Horror just kept playing forever. It's sad that kind of thing doesn't really exist anymore, I would love to see these films on the big screen.
You really should be tripping to watch Jordorowsky IMO. There seems to be a ton of hate of everything counter culture now so these movies get a lot of hate online, you always hear "you shouldn't have to take LSD to enjoy a movie" ...

I have only seen one Jodorowsky movie and that was "El Topo" (1970) in an art theater in the French Quarter, New Orleans in 1973. By that time I had quit psychedelics. I can see why such a movie would make one think it is made for trippers, but without psychedelics or even grass it was a good counter culture movie for the time. It explored in metaforic imagery the corruption of our money driven culture, where corporate thieves and the church oppress the ppl. It also delved on a resistance and had elements of Eastern filosofy, somewhat Buddhist renunciation of that life. This at a time when many of us in the counter culture were following this path. So, I'm sure a lot of heads watched it on the big screen stoned or tripping, but it was not a necessity to fully see its message.
 
I love Jodorowosky and his films. This sounds like fun but It's a toss up whether it will lead to anything introspective. I would save El topo and Holy mountain for the "peak" of your trip though, especially El topo. Not sure why you want to do a marathon. You should skip Santa Sangre it's a commercial horror movie, I personally loved it but it has zero spiritual meaning to it, the only interesting thing about it is the "twist" which today seems boring and predictable but at the time was ground breaking.

Do what you like but I have listened to the commentary on his films and Jodrowosky rarely mentions psychedelics except he notes people that are into marijuana and psychedelics are into his films, that's about it. He makes surrealistic spiritual movies so yes they have a lot in common with the psychedelic experience but it is not necessary. The commentary to El topo is great but I know Spanish, not sure how the english translation comes out would recommend listening to it instead of Santa Sangra if you think you will be lucid enough to read translated subtitles and not be totally bored.

edit: oh shit just noticed this thread is years old stupid resurrected threads... hope the OP gained something from it

I would still recommend Jorodowsky films to anyone, the man is a genius
 
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Good lord, can't the man just enjoy some good old fashioned recreational acid and watch a few trippy films? Fuck! Psychedelics don't always have to be deep or meaningful; believe it or not sometimes they can just be fun.

All that aside, I loved "Holy Mountain" on mushrooms.
 
Not sure what you're rolling your eyes about. I guess, maybe, you don't believe me about the mushrooms?

This guy really liked to hear himself talk! Anyway anyone who claims to have done shrooms every day for a year is lying, why you felt the need to make something like that up to impress people on a message board is beyond me. I'm sure there is a reason you are an ex-bluelighter.
I forgot all about this thread and here it is on the front page when I came back. I don't really care what anyone thinks about my film viewing habits and I never did. I didn't make the post for approval. I don't expect to gain anything, i don't drop for any spiritual self growth reasons.
I just like dropping acid and watching Jodo movies although I did see endless poetry at Cannes with no drugs. I also met the man and shook his hand.
Anyway i long ago concluded this board is movies for junkies rather than movies for trippers so I probably won't be back. Try not to die and watch more cult movies!
 
Watching tv on lsd is weird and funny. I particularly like just randomly flipping through channels. Everything has a "wow" factor. I just sit there with my mouth open almost in utter disbelief at what im seeing. Quite often It's like getting flooded with the most frivolous empty nonsense that it's hilarious.
 
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