a scene from 'Stranger on the Third Floor', Dir. Boris Ingster (1940)
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the exhibition that never was?
Alejandro Jodorowsky's 'Dune': An Exhibition of a Film of a Book that never was Curated by Tom Morton 2 April - 16 May
Plymouth Arts centre
Based on the top result from a Google search, cult film director and author, Alejandro Jodorowsky was deemed enough of a draw for curator, Tom Morton to use his name on posters and host an exhibition in the Plymouth Arts Centre that promised more than it delivered. His Google search research uncovered an English translation of an interview with Jodorowsky from a c.1977 issue of
Métal Hurlant (#107). The French publication was found, dissected, placed on a table, covered with glass and displayed as the centre piece of the exhibition.
The ripped up magazine and a book on Jean Giraud/Moebius's art borrowed from the local library were the only trace of Moebius's pre-production artwork. Prints of concept art by Christopher Foss and H.R. Giger faced the table displays. There was little else of interest to anyone visiting the gallery that had already done a quick search on the internet for information. What the exhibition did feature prominently were the recent illustrations and sculptures of the curators friends, loosely linked to Frank Herbert's novel, Dune, by their titles or having randomly selected lines from the book scrawled onto illustrations. All you need is a magazine, a Google search for a famous name and a pair of scissors and you have an exhibition - and don't forget to bring your friends along for the ride.
Jodorowsky and Moebius created thousands of pre-production storyboard sketches and designs for their intended film adaptation of
Dune before the project was taken away from them. Jodorowsky relocated to Paris and changed to the medium of comic books and effectively continued to make films on paper, moving away from film studio interference. His concepts for
Dune are present in the
Metabaron's series of
bande dessinée and he has used the comic book medium to juxtapose text and image in a challenging and visceral way that he was not permitted to explore further through the medium of film. Jodorowsky was not interested in a straight adaptation but in experimentation, revealling in the magazine interview, "I did not want to respect the novel, I wanted to recreate it. For me Dune did not belong to Herbert as Don Quixote did not belong to Cervantes, nor Edipo with Esquilo." During his talk, on 6th May, the curator, Morton sidestepped a question from the audience about Jodorowsky's input saying simply, "We talked".
The crumbling Plymouth art centre had a lot of character, the floor creaks and the paint peels and it played host to an exhibition that could have been great. From the presentation talk given by the curator, Tom Morton it was revealed that his main inspiration for the show was a google search and finding out that Alejandro Jodorowsky does not own the rights to the Dune project.
Jodorowsky's anecdotes of his struggle with the material, and his first impressions of Pink Floyd, were regurgitated by the curator to an audience. His google search led to a translation of a
Métal Hurlant magazine article that documented Jodorowsky's struggle to get his version of the film made, the magazine itself was prominantly displayed on two tables under glass. This was the extent of the promised pre production imagery by Moebius from Jodorowsky's work on Dune. The walls had prints of Giger and Foss. The original work on show, modern responses to Dune, were revealed at the talk by Morton to be illustrations made with a distaste for the original text and depicting lines chosen at random from Herbert's novel. Having seen a video interview with Jodorowsky in his own library, flipping through a hardbacked book that contained Moebius's pre-production storyboards and costume designs, I expected at least a glimpse of the existing artwork. It was a long way to travel for a torn up magazine and some prints.
Having dismissed Jodorowsky's 'cult status' and Herbert's writing as being not to his liking, the curator himself seemed unsure of the audience he was aiming for. Those in attendance at his talk seemed to have wandered in to a private party. Using Jodorowsky's name to display a few prints and throw together a few illustrations was a very conceptual, modern take on the adaptation which is exactly what Morton wanted, but exactly the opposite of what the audience wanted to see.
Allegedly 5 books exist that hold the storyboards and conceptual illustrations for Jodorowsky's treatment of Dune and none were present at the exhibition. The comic art that realized concepts originally intended for Dune also exist somewhere... just not here. The exhibition was a missed opportunity.
Here is the top listed item in a Google search for Jodorowsky's Dune;
http://www.duneinfo.com/unseen/jodorowsky.aspThe website goes into detail on Jodorowsky's vision for Dune, translating the Métal Hurlant article and further information on the Dune project can be easily be found online and in the 2006 book by Ben Cobb, 'Anarchy and Alchemy: the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky'.
What the exhibition did show was the importance of research in the creation of a project. Used effectively, research can make the outcome a lot more successful.
