The Seven Lives of Alejandro Jodorowsky

by Vincent Berniïre (Editor)

Overview

A definitive look at the life of legendary filmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky and his many wild creative ventures throughout his 90 years on earth.

A journey through Jodo’s personal life, his life in the theater, his rebirth as a 70s cinematic cult figure and and, of course, tales of his work on Dune, his unfinished cinematic masterpiece. No biography would be complete without an in-depth look into his life the world of comics, his collaborations with Mœbius, his passion for poetry, Tarot, Esoterism, spirituality, Mythical Cabarets, and the overall Jodo philosophy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781643375946
Publisher:	Humanoids, Inc.
Publication date:	10/13/2020
Series:	Seven Lives of Alejandro Jodorowsky Series
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	9.40(w) x 12.50(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Vincent Bernière is a French author, editor and journalist born in Paris in 1969. Throughout his career, Vincent has followed two main paths, journalism and publishing, and has worked in just about all aspects of both fields. After studying history at the University of Paris X Nanterre, he worked in a library and wrote a few articles for pop culture magazine Les Inrockuptibles. Later he became Beaux Arts magazine's editor-in-chief for special issues devoted to comics, as well as an international correspondent for Technikart. He joined publishing powerhouse Le Seuil in 2001, where he headed up an imprint and oversaw the release of many graphic novels, including a book by the Hernandez brothers that won the Heritage prize at Angoulême in 2006. He joined comic book publisher Delcourt in 2008, where he headed up two imprints: erotica and graphic novels from the U.S., including Chris Ware's Building Stories, which won the special jury prize at Angoulême in 2015. Vincent is also the author of several books, including Shoot Again (Panama), Actuel, les belles histoires (with Mariel Primois, La Martinière publishing), Sex Press, la révolution sexuelle dans la presse underground (with Mariel Primois, La Martinière publishing), Le Château des ruisseaux (with Frédéric Poincelet, released by Dupuis) and an anthology of erotic comics (Beaux Arts). In 2017, Vincent took over the reins of Les Cahiers de la BD (a magazine about comics) as editor-in-chief and in 2018 created Revival, a comic book imprint specializing in new editions of old books and books by emerging artists.

Table of Contents

Preface by Nicolas Winding Refn

1st Life: Alejandro Jodorowsky's Origins and Life Story

• The childhood of an artist: the initiation years (Sébastien Bénédict)

• The Chilean socio-political context, etc. (Sébastien Bénédict)

• Fact sheets on family members, with family tree

2nd Life: Theater and Performance

• Bibliography

• Circus, mime, and puppet theater: an illusionist's theatrum mundi (Aurélien Lemant)

• Panic: the Anti-Surrealists (Johan Faeber)

• Mexico's avant-garde theater scene – at the forefront of radical filmmaking (Nicolas Tellop)

• The black and the white: reinventing polarities (Jean-Clet Martin)

• CLAP 1: Dismemberment

• Dismemberment, re-memberment: a mystical corporal articulation (Nicolas Tellop)

3rd Life: Film

• Filmography

• Birth of a 70s cult figure (Yal Sadat)

• Dune, the unfinished odyssey (Clément Pelissier)

• Autobiographical films: a lyricism of matter (emotions that are always etched into substances, things and bodies) (Laurent de Sutter)

• A scene-by- scene analysis of sequences (with screenshots from the film) (Adrien Clerc)

• CLAP 2: The Baroque

• The five elements of Jodorowsky (JCM)

4th life: Comic Books

• Bibliography

• Métal Hurlant: Jodo's first foray into the world of comics (Adrien Clerc)

• Bad BD: the re-appropriation of pop culture in Jodorowsky's comics (NT)

• Analysis of a comic book page (portfolio)

• CLAP 4: Meditations

• Meditations on power (Joachim Dupuis) and on filiation (Abdel Aouacheria)

5th life: Poetry and Literature: a Literary Life

• Bibliography

• Poetic aesthetics and the quest for meaning (Arthur-Louis Cingualte)

• The representation of self: autofiction or auto-creation (Lemant & Tellop)

• A short story? An excerpt from a novel?

• CLAP 5: The Feminine Being

• The magician: the representation of women in Jodorowsky's work (A. L. Cingualte)

6th Life: Tarot and Esoterism: Spirituality

• The Master and the Magicians (Marianne Costa)

• First-person anecdote by Marianne Costa

• Tarology (A. Lemant)

• Jodo's philosophy: a melting pot with 26 ingredients (Patrice van Eersel)

• CLAP 6: Drawing Tarot cards

• Jodorowsky's nine ruling cards (AL)

7th Life: Music

• CLAP 7: The Enlightened Being; Life and Resurrection (Olivier Lung)

Editorial Reviews

Jodorowsky seamlessly and effortlessly weaves together the worlds of art, the confided social structure, and things we can only touch with an open heart and mind.

Erykah Badu

Jodorowsky is one of the most inspiring artists of our time.

Kanye West

Praise for Alejandro Jodorowsky

“No one alive today, anywhere, has been able to demonstrate the sheer possibilities of artistic invention — and in so many disciplines — as powerfully as Alejandro Jodorowsky."

NPR

Jodorowsky is our prophet. Our patron saint of imagination. A man with the mind of a god, where universes upon universes swirl and splinter, explode and coalesce, and wither and flower, all at once, all the time.

Jason Aaron

06/01/2020

Chilean-born artist Alejandro Jodorowsky (b. 1929) achieved fame for directing and starring in the "acid western" El Topo, a film that first ran for several months as a "midnight movie" in New York City in 1970 and was championed by the likes of John Lennon, who arranged financing for Jodorowsky's next film, The Holy Mountain. Jodorowsky went on to make several more controversial films, and his failed attempt to film a version of Frank Herbert's Dune just might be the most famous movie never made. Although his work in the cinema was an ample legacy, as this compendium makes abundantly clear, Jodorowsky's contributions to that medium were only the tip of his creative iceberg. He was also a playwright, mime, actor, composer, mystic, comics writer, novelist, artist, cartoonist, poet, philosopher—all of which are touched on in this illustrated collection of essays and appreciations compiled by Bernière (Shoot Again). VERDICT Fans of the creative, disturbing, psychedelic, restless, and challenging Jodorowsky will find much to appreciate here, as will anyone curious about the radical and ragged edge of 1960s theatrical and cinematic experimentation.—Bill Baars, formerly with Lake Oswego P.L., OR

Library Journal