Kyo x Alejandro Jodorowsky
I stumbled upon my own bootleg of El Topo (arguably the weirdest film ever created) the other day. I was sure I had an old Rolling Stone issue from the early 2010s featuring Kyo and Jodorodowsky lying around somewhere. Well, I found it. I believe there are other translations of this on the internet, but here's my take. It's a genuinely interesting one, for once, and one of those very few instances where our favourite frontman drops the bad guy act and gives us a glimpse of how he perceives the arts industry, creativity and self-expression. Also, my thoughts on Jodorowsky at the end.
Filmmaker Jodorowsky meets his stan, Kyo.
Rolling Stone Japan Edition in July 2014:
Alejandro Jodorowsky (85) recently visited Japan to promote the documentary film Jorodowsky’s Dune (2013), as well as his first release in 23 years, The Dance of Reality. In this issue, we bring you an interview in the form of a conversation between Jodorowsky and Kyo (of the bands Dir En Grey and Sukekiyo), a big fan of the director. The dialogue that ensued was a fascinating exchange between a renowned industry veteran and his younger but equally rebellious musician admirer. (*1)
Kyo: It all started ten years ago, when I was cleaning my room and found this black videotape. It had no label. I was intrigued, so I decided to watch it. That was how I came upon your film Holy Mountain (*2). It pulled me right in, and by the time it was over, I was mind blown. My head was a mess. Then I realised I wasn’t even born (*3) when the film first came out. Impressive stuff. I’ve been a big fan of your work ever since.
Jodorowsky: We actually ran into a lot of issues with The Holy Mountain. I was one of the producers but we couldn’t release it for some 30-odd years. The other producers didn’t want it out. So got my hands on a copy, had it dubbed and distributed it as a bootleg. That’s why you found it on an unlabeled tape. I’m happy I did that; it somehow made its way to you! (laughs) (*4)
Kyo: (laughs) I don’t see it as another film. It’s a collection of different forms of self-expression. Watching it was an incredibly powerful experience for me. Of all the films I’ve ever watched, this was the one that impacted my senses and mind the most.
Jodorowsky: I’m glad to hear that.
Kyo: Oh yes, it was a pivotal film for me (laughs.) I felt this compulsion to watch every film you ever made, including El Topo (1970.)
Jodorowsky: No film of mine has ever met an easy fate. Because films have to sell, and I always rebelled against that. I still do. That’s why I don’t do whatever everyone else is doing in the film industry. That’s why I went as far as to distribute my films as bootlegs on unlabeled tapes. I’m a persona non grata in the industry, I know.
Kyo: The same applies to the music industry. And to me. People tell me that I should make music that sells. But the things I really want to do… don’t sell. That’s why I sometimes encounter roadblocks. I just want to express myself, but on many occasions, I feel restrained.
Jodorowsky: Well, things are better these days than they used to be. These days you can distribute your music on the internet. I know I used to say that the internet is a shallow thing. But hey, these days I’m on Twitter! It’s a place where I can express myself, a place where I can talk about death, philosophy, art… I don’t necessarily share personal stuff, but I enjoy sharing my own thoughts and opinions. I have 950,000 followers right now. And I believe many see it as an art form nowadays! I see what you mean, though. It’s hard to persevere, to be patient. Our fight is one that just keeps dragging on, and those we’re up against are strong and powerful. But we must preserve. I’ll tell you one thing: if you speak the truth, the industry will do whatever it takes to antagonise you. And if you ask them why, they’ll never tell you. The (arts) industry wants to keep the truth under wraps. The truth is not something that can be swept under the rug, though. It will always come out in the end. So you need to persevere.
Kyo: That's what I thought when I watched Jodorowsky’s Dune. I see you there, your internal fight, your battle to stay true to your own form of self-expression. That’s a tremendous creative power you’ve got there.
Jodorowsky: We might age on the outside, you know, but I don’t think we do on the inside. You, for instance, as a musician… I’m just really happy to be having this conversation with a musician. Music has saved me time and again. Mostly John Lennon’s. He even helped me find the funding for The Holy Mountain - he gave us 100,000 dollars! And he told me to do whatever I wanted. That’s how I managed to do exactly what I wanted to do! Speaking of musicians, I also got acquainted with Peter Gabriel. He’s also a fan of my films, and he often recommends them to his fans. Then I met Marilyn Manson. He was also influenced by The Holy Mountain. When he mentioned that publicly, I suddenly gained a ton of teenage goth fans! (laughs) By the way, Kanye West also says he’s a fan. See, I’ve always found support in the music industry. My own son, who calls himself Adanowsky, is a rock musician! He was “The Dance of Reality’s” music director. I’m not sure why, but my work and rock music have always been interlinked. I think rock music is very primal, very genuine. I always come home feeling inspired when I go to a rock concert. Non-commercial rock, in particular, allows people to truly express themselves, and I love to see that.
Kyo: Personally, I feel that if I didn’t fight for that kind of self-expression, I would be a failure.
Jodorowsky: Well, the hardest battle is your own inner battle, isn’t it?
Jodorowsky: If you manage to win that one fight within yourself, you’ll find peace. But you see, there’s no such thing as failure. The rules of the game might change, that’s all. In my work, for example, if I don’t manage to turn something into a film, I’ll release it as a comic. If it doesn’t work one way, I’ll find a different way. I don’t believe in failure.
Kyo: Say, after Santa Sangre (1989,) you never released another film until now. What were you up to for so many years?
Jodorowsky: Precisely, I was writing comics. And drama. I wrote over a hundred plays. All of which were released in Mexico. I also wrote a book about psychomagic (*5), novels, and poem books… and I released a few art albums. I dabble in pretty much everything.
Kyo: I see that you enjoy transcending the realm of film, why is that?
Jodorowsky: When I started making films, I wanted them to represent all art forms. Drama, drawing, painting, sculpture, architecture, philosophy… everything. But I think film is the art form that always gets the short end of the stick. It gets degraded in the same way that fools and whores do. But that happens precisely because it is art! And that’s also why I chose film as my primary outlet. A film is also a form of rhythm, of music. I realised this from a young age, so I became a jack of all trades. I write screenplays, I edit, I even composed the soundtrack for El Topo.
Kyo: My experience as a musician is a little different. There’s not much else you can do when you're a musician. There are these unspoken rules in the industry; if you have a band, you have to stick with them; you’re not supposed to move on. You’re supposed to be good-looking, some sort of ideal… or at least that’s a trend I’ve observed in Japan. I chose not to play by the rules; that’s why I have two bands at the moment. But me doing that was a risky move. As I watched Jodorowsky's Dune, I could definitely relate. And listening to you speak right now validates my own views of what self-expression truly means.
Jodorowsky: So you want to explore the possibilities of playing music with different ensembles. Imagine this: someone who makes music specifically for sick people. Therapeutic music. They make music to make sick people happy and only play in hospitals. If you do that, you’ll fit into a specific cookie-cutter mould, right? If you chose to make peace music for the army, all you’ll ever do is perform in the trenches (laughs). And imagine you want to make symphonic music for guys suffering from erectile dysfunction, the orchestra consisting only of manly men playing arousing sounds. Do you see the trend here? I think music, whatever the ensemble, is always meant to heal people somehow. My film, The Dance Of Reality, is also meant to heal people. That’s why I include psychoanalysis in each of my films. I hope I’ll be able to reach new audiences through that. As an artist, it’s us who create our own audiences, don’t you think?
Kyo: I think I see what you mean.
Jodorowsky: If you manage to be the master of your own audience, then you’ll know that you have succeeded. One more example, what if you were in a band that makes music for toddlers under the age of 3…
Kyo: Oh, wait, I don’t think I would be a good influence for kids (laughs.)
Jodorowsky: I wouldn’t jump to conclusions so fast! Compared to adults, kids know no boundaries. They take in whatever you give them. What if you threw a rock gig for kids and ripped dolls apart or something? (laughs) Kids would love it! The parents too, maybe.
Kyo: Well, dealing with their parents would be the scariest part! Anyway; back to The Dance of Reality. I don’t think this is a recent trend for you, but you seem to be breaking away from typical forms of self-expression in film. New and old imagery, colour schemes… all of it was beautiful, really.
Jodorowsky: I used a new colour technique this time. Compared to what we used to do, these days the possibilities are endless. In the past, all we did was shoot. Now, you can do so many things in post-production. My wife is a painter, so she helped me create the colour scheme during post-production. That’s why the film feels like a painting. The photography can also be considerably edited nowadays: you can change the focus point a posteriori. One can create movement, as if the camera was moving toward the back, you can adjust the speed, make it faster or slower, adjust the lighting… Modern technology is impressive. You can process and reprocess, make your film better and better, you can do anything you want - erase things, add other things… Today film is even more of an art form than it used to be. You can even change the actors’ voices! My 25 year-old actress’ voice was not exactly what I wanted, so I dubbed it with the voice of a 60 year-old woman. Just like that, her role gained a new depth. I could even have replaced it with a man’s voice, or used a set of different voices. I thought that was really interesting. Creatively speaking, it’s like unlocking endless possibilities. I know people overuse special effects, but if you use them wisely and subtly enough, you can create awesome stuff.
Kyo: Earlier, you were talking about one’s inner battle and the way you manage to stay true to yourself and express yourself as such. Just like you mentioned, there are endless ways to express oneself creatively. What I hear is that you think self-expression is very important.
Jodorowsky: It’s a lifeline for me. I will stick with my art until the day I die. Speaking of art, when I think of Japan, I think of the many beautiful things in its creative tradition. Such as reciting haikus in your deathbed (*6.) A while ago, I used to collect that kind of poem. Then there’s the samurai. They had this thing about keeping their body in shape because they could die anytime. In Japanese culture, there’s this idea that there’s a surge of creativity right before death.
Kyo: I’m not sure I noticed that, I’m just too close.
Jodorowsky: Long before you were born, I visited Japan with my friend Marcel Marceau, a mime artist (*7). Back then, I knew nothing about Japan. I had a very Western-centric view of the world. All I knew about Japan, I had learned it at this tea party I was invited to once.
Kyo: But in The Holy Mountain, there’s a scene that feels a lot like Japan…
Jodorowsky: I see what you mean; the opening scene. Where you can see the tea master. Around that time, my perception of art changed considerably. I was in Kyoto, and some guy walked up to me and asked, in English, if I’d like to come over for tea. I accepted. When I walked past his door, I noticed this fireplace in the middle of the room. Not too big, not too small, just what it should be. We drank our tea sitting on the floor, with our legs crossed. On the wall, there was this scroll of paper hanging, otherwise there were no ornaments whatsoever. I then realised that simplicity too, was an art form. His window lattice wasn’t even, the bars were different lengths, it was not symmetrical. It was odd, it was not perfect, but it was unique. Like people. Mankind doesn’t repeat itself. Nobody like you will ever be born again. I think that’s the starting point of creativity. Japan taught me many things. Like origami - I didn’t even know it was a thing! You fold one piece of paper differently, and you can get all these different things out of it. But it always remains just that - paper, - just like humanity remains this human thing all the same. It’s the way we fold things that yields different results, that’s a really transcendental thing. Anothing thing is that everything we do will disappear one day. There’s this ideal that one should be what others want them to be. You fold your origami paper to create an animal. Others create different animals. Me, I’m a creature created by my own creativity. I don’t want to fold my paper just like everybody else. And yet, others push you to become what they want you to be. Because at our core, we’re all the same. We’re all different - alright, - but we’re all made of the same stuff. This is something I learned during that trip to Japan. It really opened my eyes to this duality. But that was fifty years ago, anyway…
Kyo: Yet I feel that Japanese culture shines through in some of your creations. I was happy to see that. What will your next film be about?
Jodorowsky: The title is Juan Solo (*8). I want it to be about the resilience inherent to the human condition. The main character will be this baby that is found in the trash. How will he take his life in hand from there? This is the premise, but I’m still working on the details. It’ll be ready for production soon, I think. I don’t have much time left, so I have to get the ball rolling as soon as I can (laughs.) That’s why I’ve been so busy lately.
Kyo: I can’t wait to see it!
Jodorowsky: One theme in the film is the many forms of love. Parental love, self-love, love from other people, universal love… in the end, it’s about a transcendent form of love. There’s also divine love. And the love of art in all its forms. And the love of work - that’s a really important one. I think if you manage to love what you do, you can reach true happiness. When I ask myself about the part of my job I love the most, it’s the things I do for others. When I do something that helps others, when it makes people feel things when I help them open their minds… whatever work we do in that sense, be it films, comics or books, it’s truly beautiful. Something that changes the world.
*1: Rolling Stone describes their relationship in a very Japanese fashion - as in, in this setting, Jodorowsky being older, acts as a “sensei” (master), and Kyo as a disciple who’s meeting up with him to obtain insight and guidance, not just as a fan.
* The Holy Mountain film in TL;DR format: lots of Tarot lore because Jodorowsky loves Tarot. And shock-value. The film follows the journey of a man who looks like The Fool and Jesus Christ. There’s a lot of Christian imagery. And astrology. And planets. And alchemy. And wacky metaphors.
*3: The Holy Mountain came out in 1973, Kyo was born in 1976. And by the way, Jodorowsky was born in 1926, which makes him 47 years Kyo’s senior.
*4: Jodorowsky did indeed struggle to release The Holy Mountain. I was only released as a DVD in 2007. This interview took place in 2014, and Kyo mentions that he found his bootleg 10 years prior, which would have been around 2004 (when it would only have been available as a bootleg.)
*5: Pyschomagic is a form of therapy invented by Jodorowsky. It is inspired by the Tarot. Jodorowsky believes that Tarot archetypes can be used as a framework to interpret one's life journey and heal trauma from both one's current life and generational trauma that has been passed on to them. It's a form of pseudoscience.
*6: Jodorowsky is talking about Jisei, or “death poems.” They’re a genre of East Asian poetry that has its origin in Zen Buddhism. People on the verge of death basically write haikus about the impending death and the lives they lived.
*7: Marcel Marceau was a tremendously popular French-born mime, and probably the reason why many people still things mimes are a thing in France (they aren't.)
*8: Jodorowsky never released a film called Juan Solo, but he did release a comic book series of the same name. So, what we probably meant is that he was considering a considering making a film adaptation of that. He did release Endless Poetry, an autobiographical film, in 2016, which does kind of fit the description.
I also found a print special edition by Uplink on Jorodowsky that came out in February of the same year. It features comments from several people in the arts industry, including Kyo. Here's the translation:
"I don't remember when I first watched Jodorowsky's Holy Mountain, but I remember finding the video on a shelf at home. My brains were blown and I wanted to be deflowered (*) even more. So that's how I got hooked. Forgive me for begging, but please let me continue feeling the freedom of Jodorowsky."
(*) He uses the kanji for "rape", which I translated as "deflowered", but in context, what he means is he was mindblown and wanted to continue being mindblown. Fun fact: Kyo often uses sexually-charged kanjis for shock value.
My thoughts on Jodorowsky:
I met Jodorowsky twice at book signings in Paris but never really had the chance to have a conversation with him - although he's talkative and strikes me as someone who will have a conversation with anyone.
I read some of his books on mysticism, but even if he's a great writer, he didn't provide much evidence to support his claims. But I still like his work; he's an off-the-wall, artsy-fartsy, free-falling oddball, and that's my jam.
Now 93, Jodorowsky was born in Chile, the child of Jewish-Ukrainian parents. He travelled extensively as a young man, and currently lives in Paris where he held frequent public tarot divinations at local cafés and bookshops (I believe he doesn't do them anymore because he's just too old.)
A prolific artist, he tried his hand at literally everything, including but not limited to: acting, mime, circus arts, gore stage acts, comics, filmmaking, shamanism, magic, and divination. He has written more books than I have brain cells, and spearheaded some questionable theories, such as metagenealogy and psychomagic.
He is best known for directing and starring in El Topo, a weird ass movie, in 1970. El Topo later became infamous due to Jodorowsky’s own allegations of having beaten and raped his co-star Mara Lorenzio… on screen. For the sake of art. He later retracted his statements. Jodorowsky is also good friends with Marilyn Manson (see a trend here?) and officiated at his wedding with Dita Von Teese.
Jororowsky officiating at Manson and Teese's wedding.
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