Alejandro Jodorowsky
Alejandro Jodorowsky
Alejandro Jodorowsky Prullansky is a French and Chilean film and theatre director, screenwriter, playwright, actor, author, poet, producer, composer, musician, comics writer and spiritual guru. Best known for his avant-garde films, he has been "venerated by cult cinema enthusiasts" for his work which "is filled with violently surreal images and a hybrid blend of mysticism and religious provocation"...
NationalityChilean
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth17 February 1929
CityTocopilla, Chile
CountryChile
My grandfather was a very mystical guy who travelled from Argentina to Chile, across the mountains with a donkey, carrying the Torah.
My father was an atheist, absent. He was a salesman; I was four years old when he told me that the end of life was death.
My ego every day is more and more polite. I tame it.
I was alone as a child. I lived in fairytales, adventures, Shakespeare. They are the friends, my books.
I hated Peter O'Toole. I wanted to kill that guy! When they said he was dead, I was happy. People said, 'Poor Peter O'Toole.' I was happy!
All the pictures I could never do, I'll do it in comics. All the comics I do are the pictures I could never do.
When my father died, I did not cry. When my cat died three days later, I cried a lot.
I felt so alone as a boy because no one wanted to be friends with me.
I don't have interest in life. Life has an interest in me.
I grew up in the north of Chile, and this is why there are a lot of religious symbols in my pictures: because the Catholic Church in Latin America is very strong.
I had a big problem working with stars, because they are too expensive and have too many demands. Their names help you raise the money to make the movie, but then they demand close-ups. They change things. You end up doing things at their service instead of servicing the film.
To have hands, to have fingers, is weird. Real life is weird, to have fingers?
Scientific thought and the miraculous unconscious are two waves in the same ocean.
In movies, images cost - if you want a big image, it takes more money.