2FTV7H1 Alejandro Jodorowsky's Film Analysis under Latin American Perspective and ...

36 Pages·2015·0.28 MB·English

The Research Thesis
Module: 2FTV7H1

Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Film Analysis under Latin American Perspective and Psychoanalysis.

Monica Jativa

Thesis submitted for the MA Degree in Film and Television: Theory, Culture and Industry,
University of Westminster

© 2014, University of Westminster and Monica Jativa
Abstract
Alejandro Jodorowsky is a contemporary filmmaker with a diverse cultural background so I
research his personal life to help the film analysis. He lived his infancy in Chile, his adulthood in
France and for several year in Mexico. His personal lives influence his work as a filmmaker. He
also has a multi-disciplinary education going from alchemy, psychoanalysis, philosophy and
literature. This makes his work complex and symbolic. Because of that he could be considered a
surrealist but Jodorowsky´s work will fit better under Magic Realism based in Ethnography,
especially from Latin America.
In this dissertation I will analyse his films under the perspective of the Latin American influence
in the content. The selected films are his most representative work El Topo, (1970) The Holy
Mountain (1973) and Santa Sangre (1989). I will take from this film the most recurrent motifs
and eventually I analyse each one of the films. The analysis is more focused in the films content
related to Latina America sociological and ethnographic studies.
List of Content.

Introduction
Chapter 1
Alejandro Jodorowsky´s background.
Chapter 2
2.1 Jodorowsky´s films in context.
2.2 Jodorowsky about films.
Chapter 3
General themes or motifs of Jodorowsky´s films
Chapter 4
Film analysis
4.1 El Topo
4.2 Holy Mountain
4.3 Santa Sangre
Conclusion
Introduction

This dissertation will involve detailed analysis of El Topo, (1970) The Holy Mountain( 1973)
and Santa Sangre ( 1989) by Alejandro Jodorowsky, one of the most famous „underground‟
filmmakers of our times. Jodorowsky puts a lot of his own life in his films following his
motto “art is for healing” so I will begin by exploring his personal life and background. I will
also mention the relation between his films and magic realism from Latin-American literary
and artistic traditions and also surrealism. I consider that his work is highly influenced by his
cultural background and especially the time he lived in Mexico. He expressed a Latin
American idiosyncrasy whether he realised it or not but that many of his viewers perceive.
Concerning his films, I will analyse the mise-en scene, particularly the overt symbolic aspects
of his work and how symbols draw upon or can be understood in terms of psychoanalysis,
psychotherapy and semiotics. The thesis will focus in particular on the Latin American
dimensions of his work.
The film examples are chosen because they are particularly representative of his work at the
height of his film career. He has also participated in several projects as a scriptwriter, director,
editor etc. but only in these films has he been in authorial control over each area of the
filmmaking process. So these films are his films as an auteur and are clearly perceived as such
by critics, commentators and audiences in a direct way along the lines of Caughie‟s
typification that, “in the presence of a director, who is genuinely an artist, a film is more
likely to be the expression of his individual personality; and that this personality can be trace
in a thematic and/or stylistic consistency over all the director´s films.” (Caughie, 1981, p9)
Jodorowsky directed and wrote the films, in two of them he also acted, and he participated or
was present in the editing, and was nearly always the centre or focus of discussion and
promotion of the films. People go to see Jodorowsky films because of Jodorowsky.
In general, his films are associated with surrealism, the hallucinogenic, gorishly baroque, are
considered as anarchist, spiritual, hippy, and so on. At the time he realise El Topo was
contributing to the counterculture of the time, a movement that was “a youthful amalgam of
radical politics, oriental (or occult) mysticism, liberated sexuality, hallucinogenic drugs,
communal life styles, and rock and roll that was sufficiently widespread to see itself as a
movement.”(Hoberman, 2008, p285) El Topo was a hit among the counterculture circles in
Europe and in USA because of its controversial content, and its overtly symbolic and graphic
mise en scene that crossed over more recognisable examples of art cinema and commercial
cinema, often finding itself typified as „cult‟ cinema. This opened the way to more overtly
surrealist films like The Holy Mountain and Santa Sangre.
Jodorowsky is one of the filmmakers that just a few lovers of cult films know. Given the
cross-over, or ambiguous status, of his films and also the difficulty of „pinning him down‟, in
terms of a national or even regional identity he has never been considered to be in the
mainstream of the various broad categories of cinema that both audiences and theorists work
with. Therefore there are just a few mentions of him in books of film theory or serious
criticisms and only one book dedicated exclusively to film analysis. He was almost forgotten
until his announcement of a new film The Dance of Reality (2014) that portrays his childhood.
It is in part for these reasons, as well as others, that further examination of his work is needed.
Chapter 1
Alejandro Jodorowsky´s background.
Jodorowsky was born in Iquique, a small town in Chile, in 1929 to Russian-Jewish parents.
Jodorowsky grow up in a repressive environment: “His father was a Stalin-loving
disciplinarian who ran a general store called Casa Ukrania, and his mother was a distant
woman who forced her son to wear his hair long in memory of her deceased father.” (Benson,
2014, web) Perhaps this upbringing and origins sowed the seeds for his refusal to be identified
in national or other terms of cultural identity. He has said “My homeland is my shoes.”
(Memoria Chilena, 2014, web, my translation) For him nationality is not a relevant issue “He
has never fitted in. When pressed on the question of cultural identity, he simply stated that he
is Jodorowskian” (Cobb, 2006, p19)
Shortly after he was born, his family move to Tocopilla where he spent his childhood until he
was ten years old. For Jodorowsky, Tocopilla was “a tough town, filled with sailors and
whores. I lived a very sexual childhood.” (Hoberman, 2008, p285) His classmates
experienced group masturbation and mocked Jodorowsky because of his circumcision as Jew;
as he states “My sex had the form of a mushroom.” (Hoberman, 2008, p285) All these
childhood issues are drawn upon in his latest film, The Dance of Reality. In this film
Jodorowsky explores his childhood with a poetic evocation that mixes with a kind of realism,
and the audience is never sure what is „imagined‟ or „real‟. This ambiguity is reinforced in
interviews or even in his autobiography, where he refuses to give any detailed facts or dates.
In fact his books, which go from novel to poetry, memoirs and essays, had the same oneiric
feeling that his films have. However, in some ways his latest film offers a new kind of access
to his previous ones, as his memories about his childhood in this last film give an
autobiographical dimension to many of the tropes used in his previous films. For example, it
can explain, in a way, his constant use of cripples. Tocopilla “had a factory to create
electricity that gave cancer to everyone. When I was born, there was not a hospital.” (
Zakarin, 2014, web) So probably he grew up in an environment with a lack of medical
facilities, a Latin America reality at the time, and he was indeed surrounded by cripples in his
childhood. Resembling what he shows in the film, during his young years he was surrounded
by cripples, a product of negligence in a nearby mine.
When he was ten years old his family moved to Santiago, the capital of Chile, where later he
attended the University of Santiago. Is not clear what he studied since “depending on the
interview, Jodorowsky studied philosophy, psychology, mathematics, physics, or medicine.”
(Hoberman, 2008, p286) He also studied by his own “the teachings of Buddhism, Hinduism,
Judaism, Surrealism, Christianity, Nietzsche and Karate.” (Cobb, 2006, p17) And in Santiago
is where he starts to get involved with the artistic world. He started in theatre and poetry. This
diverse cultural background that he built up begins his reputation as an alchemist or at least
indefinable, as he states “You cease to exist when you say „That is what I am.‟ As soon as I
can define myself. I am dead.” (Cobb, 2006, p17) His studies make him a man that knows a
little bit of everything instead of mastering a particular branch of knowledge or craft.
He has said that Chile during the fifties had a „poetic atmosphere‟ and he has said “in the
fifties, in Chile they lived poetically as no other country in the world.”(Jodorowsky, 2009,
p30, my translation) This is since many poets were involved in politics, culture and education
rather than just in independent or detached existentialist or romantic writing. In Chile almost
every aspect of daily life was influenced by poetry. This was the decade in which the most
representative poets of Chile emerge, like Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda and Nicanor Parra;
plus the influence of other Latin American writers such as Jorge Luis Borges or Gabriel
Garcia Marquez. It is around this time that he starts what he calls „poetic acts‟ that he defines
as “something beautifully [?] aesthetic and without justification” (Jodorowsky, 2009, p 40, my
translation) For example, as a teenager he recreated in his house the funeral of his mother with
a dummy. All this had a big impact on his family that did not approve of his artistic and
eccentric life.
In 1953 he left Chile and cut every link with his family. He arrives at Paris with empty
pockets but willing to work. He tried to make contact with Breton, a founder of surrealism
writer, but they did not get to meet. Instead Jodorowsky‟s main influence in the world of
surrealism was Antonin Artaud who rejected mainstream theatre (including left-wing theatre),
proposing that theatre “must make itself the equal of life…themes will be cosmic, universal
and interpreting according to the most ancient text.” (Hoberman, 2008, p 286) Artaud
proposed the „Theatre of Cruelty‟ a concept or practice that Jodorowsky will use in his films.
The „Theatre of Cruelty‟ is the stepping stone of Jodorowsky point of view of art “Artaud´s
anarchic ideas about the transforming alchemical power of theatre ignited Jodorowsky´s long
belief that art could actually change the way people see; that the artist is a master magician
who can change reality” (Cobb, 2006, p34) He teams up with “Fernando Arrabal, a Spanish
writer and enfant terrible of the Theatre of the Absurd and Roland Topor, the French born
Polish novelist, playwright and sometimes actor.” (Cobb, 2006, p 34) . Together they form the
„Panic Movement‟, based on the Greek god Pan. They did „happenings‟ in contexts and
locations that broke with the theatrical norm. The point of this kind of theatre was to “promote
in the actors/spectators a radical theatrical act which consist in interpret their own drama”
(Jodorowsky, 2009, p49, my translation). For Jodorowsky this was a kind of theatre that heals,
it had a therapeutic function.
In Paris Jodorowsky also worked with Marcel Marceau in his company for six years. During
this time he realises his first short film La Cravate (1957) a mime version of Thomas Mann´s
story The Transposed Heads - A Legend of India (1940). This short is an important and
representative step in his life: “La Cravate acts as a vital link in the progression of
Jodorowsky´s cinema by fingerprinting the transition of art from stage to screen.”(Cobb,
2006, p26) In one of the tours of Marcel Marceau, Jodorowsky visited and then stayed in
Mexico. There he wrote a weekly comic called „Fabulas Panicas‟ or Panic Tails. He works as
a theatre director, on more than one hundred plays and he also starts his career as a writer.
One of the most important things that he did in Mexico was his training with the „shaman‟
Panchita. This training will help with the emergence of his own practise, „Psicomagia.‟
Jodorowsky had said that in general “Mexico is an oneiric country in which the unconscious
continues to emerge.” (Jodorowsky, 2009, p105, my translation) It is a country in which the
practice of witchcraft (or shamanism) and magic is commonplace. Here each neighbourhood
has a witch or shaman. Shamanism is “a family of traditions whose Practitioners focus on
voluntarily entering altered states of consciousness in which they experience themselves or
their spirit[s], travelling to other realms at will, and interacting with other entities in order to
serve their community.” (SHI, 2014, web) These practices are from the indigenous cultures of
South and Central America. The worldview of these communities is more holistic in relation
with man and the environment. Holism is a way of perceiving the world as a whole, “the idea
that natural systems and their properties should be viewed as wholes, not as collections of
parts.”(Wikipedia, 2014, Holism) In these communities there is no division in between spirit,
mind and body. People go to the local shaman to heal emotional and physical scars and
diseases.
Panchita was one of the most famous shamans of Mexico, and as Jodorowsky said “on the day
of consultation he could easily attract three thousand visitors”. (Jodorowsky, 2009, p109, my
translation) At the time he met Panchita, Jodorowsky had recently made his first film El
Topo. She was eighty years old but he said that she had “the aura of a great lama
reincarnated” (Jodorowsky, 2009, p112, my translation), and he became one of her pupils.
Her practice could go from healing the evil, as she calls it, with infusions and ritual. In
extreme cases she performed „surgical operations‟ in which she (apparently) removed a heart
and replaced it with another or even repaired a broken spine. Jodorowsky himself experienced
one of this „surgical operations‟ on his liver and claims he never felt pain in the liver again.
During his training he witnessed several of these procedures but could never figure out what
or how she did it. Jodorowsky‟s conclusion about this shamanistic practice is that “I will
never say that the manipulations of Panchita were true, but neither would I say otherwise.”
(Jodorowsky, 2009, p 126, my translation) Jodorowsky did acknowledge that “the healing and
weird phenomenon that happened around her, could be explain by a set of psycho-
physiological laws (Jodorowsky, 2009, p 136, my translation) It is clear he believed in the
magic of these procedures of Panchita and in keeping the mystery behind them alive.
Jodorowsky is aware that this shamanistic magic works in the patients because the patient
believes in it. Rationality is one of the tools that the human mind uses to explain the world
and Panchita‟s procedures are outside any rational explanation. This shamanic perception of
the world is not irrational either; it does not follow the dialectic perception in which if
something is not rational it is irrational. In front of the shaman “there is only the world, one
dream tingling with signs and symbols…the world was like a forest of symbols in permanent
relations” (Jodorowsky, 2009, p 126, my translation) as in the holistic point of view, it
embrace everything at the same time. Jung has argued that symbols “should be understood as
an expression of an intuitive idea that cannot yet be formulated in any other or better way”
(Jung, 1967, p70), so the shaman is the one that sees and „uses‟ these symbols. Jung also
explains this idea with myths like the Christian idea of a Kingdom of Heaven and Plato‟s
Cave. Jodorowsky has said of magic and shamanism, that, “what makes these things unsettle
us is our belief in the objective world, our modern mentality known as rational.” (Jodorowsky,
2009, p126, my translation)
In the shamanic perception is more important the intuitive knowledge .Panchita had this
intuitive knowledge that perhaps only a few people have, “Panchita´s power lays precisely in
the fact of maintaining with the world an internal relationship.” (Jodorowsky, 2009, p131, my
translation) Jodorowsky has stated that despite being her pupil he did not intend to became a
shaman like her or become her successor, as for him “you cannot became a shaman if you did
not grew up in a primitive context” (Jodorowsky, 2009, p 132, my translation)
Jodorowsky´s experience with Panchita gave him some of the most important bases related to
his philosophy of Psicomagia or Psychomagic. Out of this participation in Panchita´s
procedures he came up with the concept of the „sacred trick‟, in which it “is necessary that the
sick person, admitting the existence of the miracle, believes firmly that that he will be cured.”
(Jodorowsky, 2009, p10, my translation). He said that with her, he “learned how to treat
people. Thanks to Panchita I understand that we are all kids or sometimes adolescents”
(Jodorowsky, 2009, p127, my translation) He also “learned the way to handle the language of
the objects and the vocabulary of symbols” (Jodorowsky, 2009, p137, my translation) But
most importantly he “understood the place of magic in all primitive cultures” (Jodorowsky,
2009, p137, my translation)
Jodorowsky developed Psicomagia drawing on different cultural backgrounds and
philosophical influences, a result of his studies in different areas of philosophy, spirituality
and his time with Panchita. It consists in a practice in which Jodorowsky starts reading the
Tarot. First he practiced with his family and friends, eventually with random people in a cafe
in Paris for free, and has never ask for money to read the Tarot. In the reading he does not try
to predict the future, instead he attempts to reveal the secrets of the consultant. The consultant
has to be honest with Jodorowsky but sometimes the unconscious mind hides something from
us and there is when the Tarot reveals the consultant‟s secrets of his present life, past and past
generations. With this information he advises a Psychomagic act. Each act is personal and