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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Alejandro Jodorowsky 4K Restoration Collection Brings Clarity to Underground Film

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Alejandro Jodorowsky’s films are confounding, grotesque, beautiful and healing, often within the same frame. The post-violence images of the opening sequence of El Tropo are made more horrific as they are reflected through the eyes of a seven-year-old boy, still naked from a rite of passage. Jodorowky’s films are a gateway drug. The Alejandro Jodorowsky 4K Restoration Collection of his cult classics Fando y Lis, El Topo, and The Holy Mountain, as well as his new Psychomagic, A Healing Art, are a first taste. The most surrealistic of the psychedelic filmmakers had no special effects, or even fancy cameras in his earliest days. He had visions, and created a physical world to capture those visions inside of a camera.

No stranger to psychedelics, it was John Lennon who first brought Jodorowsky out of the after-hours circuit and into the daylight, which colored the films. Jodorowsky became the “father of midnight movies” because his 1970 spiritual western epic, El Topo, played at midnight or 1 am every night at the Elgin Theater in Manhattan’s Chelsea district. Lennon and Yoko Ono caught it a few times and advised their advisor, manager Alan Klein, to buy it. The ex-Beatle went on to fund The Holy Mountain, and ABKCO Films went on to have as problematic a relationship with Jodorowsky as the British quartet had with Klein. It was patched up, of course, by evidence of this brilliantly restored set of films.

The Holy Mountain was deemed controversial at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival because of its sacrilegious imagery but Fando y Lis, Jodorowsky’s first feature, caused a riot when it premiered in Acapulco, Mexico in 1968. Jodorowsky escaped hidden in a limousine as he was chased out of town by an angry mob, but the film established the Chilean-born son of Russian immigrants as an auteur of surrealist cinema. He became one of the most influential and creative forces on mainstream science fiction when the script, notes, storyboards, and concept art to his mid-70s would-be adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel, Dune, made it to major film studios. You can see their shadows over Star Wars, Flash Gordon, the Terminator series, The Fifth Element, and 1979’s Alien.

You can feel shadows in this collection as well. You don’t need to look in Dune notes to find as diverse a gathering as the bar scene in Star Wars. There are enough varied character looks in the black and white film Fando y Lis, which has cannibals, zombies, vampires, freaks, horny old ladies, an army of transvestites, a man playing a burning piano, and a degenerate Pope played by Tamara Garina.

Jodorowsky made the film on weekends with nothing but a one-page outline. The film, which is an adaptation of the absurdist play by Spanish-born French author Fernando Arrabal, is Jodorowsky’s transition from live theater. Jodorowsky created a theater company while still at the University of Santiago. Alternating between Paris and Mexico City, he collaborated with Marcel Marceau for his mimeograms like “The Cage,” directed Maurice Chevalier’s comeback, and directed staged works of surrealistic and absurdist playwrights like Eugene Ionesco and Samuel Beckett, launching the Panic Movement, which staged shocking theatrical events.

Jodorowsky had staged Fando y Lis, a story about young Fando (Sergio Klainer) and his paraplegic lover Lis (Diana Mariscal) as they quarrel their way to the magical city of Tar. But on film, the sparse natural landscapes and its vibrant and varied population take on surrealistic qualities by the very grain of the filmstock.

The real-life mime, which is being rehearsed at one point, is a microcosm of the varied worlds and the boxes they come in. Set in some post-apocalyptic rubble, the film travels through a world of perversions, murders, pedophilia, and sadomasochistic narcissism to make the viewer conclude the real world is an illusion.

El Topo is a Robin Hood western and Jodorowsky’s band of thieves are very merry men. They laugh at death. They also laugh at pain, suffering and any number of weapons. The film is told in the mixed styles of Federico Fellini, Luis Buñuel, and Spaghetti Western auteur Sergio Leone, who found himself impressed by the work. “Sergio Leone, he went to see El Topo,” Jodorowsky told Den of Geek while promoting Psychomagic, a Healing Art. “And I cannot believe he appreciated it. I admired him a lot. He was a real artist of industrial movies. He understood what’s in industrial movies. You need to be very intelligent to do that, and he did it. The picture, all of his pictures, I love these pictures.”

Jodorowsky plays the enigmatic master-gunfighter whose nickname, “The Mole,” supplies the title for the film. His son is played by the director’s real life twelve-year-old son Brontis Jodorowsky, who spends the entire film nude and half of it either on a horse or collecting arms. It is the boy’s seventh birthday. His first day as a man, and he has to bury his first toy and a photograph of his mother, then he has the entire world washed away as The Mole goes off to duel only to be left to die in the sun. El Topo doesn’t die though, he wakes up 20 years later to find himself worshipped by a cult of dwarves in a subterranean community. They raise the cash to tunnel out of the cave only to find the world a vastly different and darker place.

The Holy Mountain (1973) opens with the fly-covered Thief (Horacio Salinas) who is hung on a cross by a gang of young, naked boys and a deformed man who lights cigarettes with his elbows. Jodorowsky plays the Alchemist, who transmutes the Thief’s shit into gold. The film is a satire of capitalism, consumerism, and militarism. Tourists pour into the central town to film public executions while chameleons and toads reenacts the Spanish conquest of Mexico. There are “Christs for sale” signs on display throughout the streets. Jodorowsky’s work is about transformation, and the Alchemist, the Thief, and seven wealthy thieves from seven different planets go on a metamorphic pilgrimage to kill the Nine Masters of the Summit in exchange for eternal life.

Producer Allen Klein wanted Jodorowsky to follow The Holy Mountain with an adaptation of Pauline Réage’s S&M classic novel Story of O, but Jodorowsky threw himself into the Dune adaptation. For the comic allegory The Holy Mountain, Jodorowsky cast transvestite actors he found at Max’s Kansas City in New York. He famously avoids working with stars, but for the science fiction adaptation, he assembled a cast which included Salvador Dalí, Orson Welles, Gloria Swanson, Mick Jagger, and David Carradine; he brought in Pink Floyd and the prog band Magma to do the score; and Swiss artist H.R. Giger and French comic book artist Moebius for design. He would try his hand at a mainstream film, with mainstream stars with his 1990’s The Rainbow Thief, which starred Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif. But his greatest works are his most intimate.

Jodorowsky developed a form of personal therapy he called “psychomagic” in the 1980s. The practice combined Jungian psychology, the tarot and confrontational art. In 1965, Jodorowsky’s avant-garde “Movement Panique” gave a four-hour long performance called “Sacramental Melodrama,” in which he got whipped, symbolically castrated a rabbi, slit the throats of two geese, and nailed a cow’s heart to a cross. He is no less confrontational when faced with trauma. For Psychomagic, A Healing Art, the director escaped his emotion prison to enter the pain of the world.

The film contemporaneously breaks the wall between reality and performance. The documentary is intercut with scenes from some of Jodorowsky’s films. In a revealing clip from his movie The Dance of Reality, a mother teaches her son not to be afraid of the dark by having him strip nude and be painted black to match the hue of darkness. The healing concepts of Psychomagic are personal yet universal, and the film continues themes Jodorowsky has explored since he began making movies.

Jodorowsky supervised the color correction of the restorations. The Alejandro Jodorowsky 4K Restoration Collection also contains the 1957 short film Le Cravate, a mime adaptation of a Thomas Mann story about a young man, played by Jodorowsky, who falls in love with a French woman who owns a shop where you can buy human heads. In all these films, you see why he has been cited by everyone from Steven Spielberg to Marilyn Manson, to Kanye West, whose “Yeezus” tour was inspired by The Holy Mountain.

The Alejandro Jodorowsky 4K Restoration Collection is essential viewing for visual artists and fans of the visual arts. The images may have lost the full power of their brutality because of the subsequent works they inspired, but the messages are all applicable today, and will be tomorrow. Art can heal or destroy, Jodorowsky shows how it can do both and still be a work in progress.

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The Alejandro Jodorowsky 4K Restoration Collection is available on Blu-Ray now. Psychomagic, A Healing Art is also available on Alamo on Demand.

The post Alejandro Jodorowsky 4K Restoration Collection Brings Clarity to Underground Film appeared first on Den of Geek.

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imaginetonyandbucky · 7 years

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Helping Hands

Chapter Fourteen: Near At Hand

With Lewis’s advice in mind (“Don’t overwhelm the man with big gestures”) Tony had asked, impulsively, what Bucky wanted to do for a date. After they’d stopped making out on his workstation like horny teenagers. Which had involved Tony having to adjust his slacks a few times, because… yeah.

Despite not liking the phrase, Tony had to admit, Lewis was right. Tony was slumming it. He’d never dated so far outside of his own social circles. Not that most of his best people didn’t come from less than extravagant backgrounds. Lewis herself had worked at a pet shelter, and Pepper had been the executive assistant for a CEO cretin who’d been sexually harassing her. Of course, Ty Stone was a paparazzi and gossip-monger, with a side-order of high-end blackmailer, so obviously people from all walks of life had an equal opportunity to be assholes.

But mostly, Tony had dated in his social circle, or close to it. Business moguls and the daughters of industry barons, actors and politicians’ sons. A few models. The lead singer of a Top 40 band. And the people, like Ty, who hung on the edge of that crowd. People whose idea of a spectacular date included jetting to Paris or walking the red carpet or blowing a hundred grand in a casino, chasing Lady Luck.

Bucky had turned adorably shy and asked if they might go to dinner and catch a show on Broadway and had apologized as if the idea was too extravagant, too expensive.

Tony sent off a quick text to Pepper, asking what shows SI currently had tickets for -- they kept a small bank of seats on reserve at most of the major theaters for the purposes of wining and dining important vendors and partners, or as rewards for enterprising employees -- and discovered that Bucky had never actually been to a live Broadway performance in his life, which just seemed a shame. Concerts, yeah -- and Tony teased him into admitting that he’d been in a band himself, back in high school, though obviously losing an arm made playing guitar a little difficult -- and a few grade-school plays where Steve had played second Octopus, but not one of the full-overboard high theatrics spectacles, like Cats or Hamilton.

“Wicked, Cirque du Soleil, or Hamilton?” Tony asked, as Pepper returned his text. “Oh, and seats at Balthazar’s for dinner, excellent.”

[Read more here, mobile users be aware]

Bucky blinked. “How did you do that?”

Tony waggled his phone. “I have a personal assistant for a reason. And that reason is to make my life easier and save more time for sciencing. Or, you know, partying. Same thing, really. Just I try to science with less booze. It’s safer.”

“Hmm,” Bucky answered, then leaned over and kissed Tony’s cheek. “Thanks. What time should I be ready?”

Tony checked the itinerary Pepper had updated for him as soon as they were done texting. “Dinner’s at 6, so, 5:30?”

“Sounds great,” Bucky said.

“I don’t get another kiss?” Tony asked, plaintive.

“After the date, Tony,” Bucky teased. “Wouldn’t want you to think I’m easy, would I?”

While Tony tried to pick his way through that minefield, Bucky left the lab, the traces of his laughter hanging in the air.

Tony walked into the living room and Bucky stood up from where he was lounged against the couch. For someone who’d never owned a suit before -- his dress uniform did not count, Bucky had protested -- he wore it well. James Bond in training.

Bucky also apparently had two entirely different personalities. There was the angry-sullen Bucky that he’d given to Christine for the photo shoot, expressions that made it look like he was considering the shortest route to cutting your heart out, and then there was this one. The date-Bucky, which Tony had nearly forgotten in the last, heart-rending, weeks. The one with the wide, delighted, set-the-room-on-fire smile and dancing blue eyes and quick, loose-limbed gestures. The one who’d kissed Tony stupid and then admitted to being completely overwhelmed.

And damn, he looked fine in that suit. Tony wanted nothing more than to take Bucky out and show him off, then bring him home and peel him out of that suit. Slowly. With great attention to detail.

Pump the brakes, Stark, he told himself.

“Looking good, Mr. Stark,” Wanda said. She and Steve were playing a cut-throat game of Uno at the coffee table, both of them playing two separate hands like they were professional card-sharks. She was wearing pyjama pants with kittens on them and the new Vision tee, a gold diamond with a pair of cybernetic blue eyes just underneath; the album name they were going with was for the title track, “Didn’t See That Coming.” J and Pietro had started cutting some of the initial tracks yesterday.

Tony had, of course, grown up wearing suits and therefore carried himself much like he did any other day, with calm assurance. He gave Wanda a quick grin. “You’re the absolute height of fashion, yourself, there, kid.”

Wanda held up one hand, palm out, to shield Steve from the middle finger she flicked at Tony. Tony cackled, delighted. Wanda, he liked. She was unflappable, affectionate, and absolutely and brutally honest. Bucky had called her his Jiminy Cricket once. Even if Tony hadn’t liked her on his own, getting on Wanda’s good side was absolutely essential to keeping Bucky happy. Wanda made it easy to like her, though.

Wanda played a Skip, Reverse, Skip, Skip, and called Uno, then said, “Hey, the band wants to know if they can come over after rehearsal and chill. Is that okay?”

“Yes,” Tony said, “but no drinking if you’re going in the hot-tub or the pool, okay?”

Wanda rolled her eyes at him. “I’m not an idiot.”

Tony laughed. “Yeah, well, sometimes I am, so…”

“Steve,” Bucky said, waiting until his son turned all the way around, “you be good for your cousin, yeah? And pretend to eat a vegetable with dinner. Just humor me, okay?”

Steve pouted as if the idea of eating something that wasn’t chicken nuggets or hot dogs was the worst punishment ever. “Okay.” He got up and hugged his father, rumpling Bucky’s blue shirt. “Are you and Mr. Tony going on a date?”

“That’s the plan,” Bucky said. He scooped the kid up and kissed his cheek noisily. Steve made a disgusted face and wiped his face off with his sleeve. “God, you weigh a ton, kid. You’re gonna be all grown up before I know it.”

“Yeah?” Steve perked up. “When that happens, can I have your bike?”

“No, you may not,” Bucky said. “If you’re really good, though, I might let you tie your shoes all by yourself.”

“Goodie.” The seven-year-old’s sarcasm was point-on. “Can I brush my own teeth, too?”

“Don’t get too wild and crazy,” Bucky cautioned. He put Steve back on the floor and the boy ran off to finish the card game, crowing with triumph as he played two back-to-back Draw Fours. Wanda groaned and filled her hand with cards.

Tony offered his arm, a strange pain in his chest as he watched Bucky interact with his son. “Shall we go? Pepper will murder me if we miss our reservations.”

“Has she, ever, actually murdered anyone?” Bucky wondered aloud.

“That’s classified,” Tony said, deadpan. Bucky laughed, throwing his head back and his bangs fell into his face. Tony allowed himself the tiniest bit of hope that maybe, this time, the date wouldn’t end in complete disaster.

Tony had literally seen life and death decisions made with less deliberation than Bucky was exhibiting, choosing between the lamb rack and the coq au vin. Tony put his own menu aside to watch Bucky agonize, not being able to keep from smiling. He was reminding himself not to overwhelm the poor guy; he pinched off his first suggestion, which was to just get both. His second suggestion was that he get one, let Tony get the other, and they could share.

His next several impulses were worse, and continued to nag at him; Bucky made him want to spend money, not to impress, but because Bucky was so delighted and amazed by stuff Tony was so used to that it was both painful and intensely fun. For just a moment, Tony held the patronizing thought that this was why people had children -- to watch someone else experience a thing for the first time in some way that brought the joy back.

Tony started his little mental file; he always had one these days, ever since he’d totally fucked up with Pepper, forgetting her birthday and then bringing her strawberries (which she was allergic to, because damn it, he was a genius, but he could only remember strawberries, and not why they were connected). He’d learned his lesson, finally. If he paid attention, made the little details as important as math and science and engineering… that made a difference.

Or, so the theory went. Since he and Pepper had split, he hadn’t actually put the theory into practice. Consider this a field test, he told himself. From just dinner, he’d learned Bucky preferred beer to wine, and beach-drinks to beer, preferably with frozen fruit and a rim of sugar. (Note to self: dig out the blender) Also, that he thought calling french fries “pomme frites” was pretentious as hell, and that he would absolutely not eat the last piece of bread in the basket.

And that he was pretty. Tony had known that already, of course, but he couldn’t quite get over it, kept trying to be casual and failing miserably. So very pretty.

Bucky had noticed, of course, that Tony was watching him. He looked up at Tony from under those long lashes with eyes that were the color of stormclouds. Bucky worried at his lip with his teeth whenever he was thinking and sometimes when he was talking, he’d rest his pinkie against the corner of his lip, which was damn distracting.

Bucky also sat with his back to a wall and had the higher situational awareness that put Tony in mind of some of his more fervent bodyguards, especially the ones who’d been around when Tony was younger and went through what seemed like an absolute epidemic of being kidnapped and held for ransom. Apparently, a bunch of really third-rate bad guys had thought that Howard might be willing to part with some cash for his son back. Hadn’t worked out for them, very well. Tony’d gotten pretty good about escaping from restraints and picking locks and building bombs out of kitchen supplies. At least tonight, Tony hoped that high-alert wouldn’t be necessary for anything more than not having a mouthful of food when the waiter came over to ask if everything was to their satisfaction.

The other thing Tony learned was that Bucky had impossibly long legs and that he sprawled when he sat down, legs carelessly extended under the table. When Tony had kicked him under the table the first time, Tony had apologized and drawn his feet back. Usually playing footsie under the table wasn’t a thing for Tony; at his very tallest (with the inserts in his shoes) was about 5’7”, so there was ample space for Tony’s legs and just about anyone else’s. Bucky, however, had stretched out just a little further, hooked the toe of his shoe around the back of Tony’s ankle and dragged his foot forward a few inches, then pressed his calf against Tony’s.

That little point of contact, unseen and secret and affectionate, was doing things to Tony.

The only word that Tony could find to describe his mental situation was captivated. Or maybe smitten.

Balthazar’s was a popular place, and Tony was unsurprised when his attendance got some attention. A few tech-fans had come over to ask -- very nicely -- if they could get selfies with the man who’d invented their phones, and Tony was happy enough to oblige them.

And Bucky spotted Scarlett Johansson with her current husband, the advertising mogul, Romain Dauriac. He stared for a long time, almost bordering on rude, but not for the reasons Tony thought. “You know, Clint said so, but I didn’t quite believe him.” Bucky scrolled through his phone pictures and eventually came up with one of Clint with his wife, who did bear a startling resemblance to the actress, except Nat had red hair and ScarJo was usually blonde.

Dinner was good, and dessert was better. Bucky insisted on feeding Tony a few spoonfuls of his creme brulee, which was actually quite good, but the sharing was better. In the manner of social media and hashtags, Tony and Bucky were a trending topic on Twitter before they left the restaurant. Not shocking, but Tony texted Happy to come pick them up at the door. Even so, one of the rag-journalists grabbed Bucky’s arm before they could make a clean getaway.

Those stormcloud eyes went flat and angry at the touch, and Bucky shook the man’s hand off forcefully. No, bad, Tony thought. Do not assault the paparazzi. Not that Tony had room to talk, really, but still. Darcy would kill them both.

“Mr. Stark, Mr. Stark,” one of the gathered reporters yelled, “is it true that --”

“Oh, come on, now Matthew,” Tony said, giving the man his best press-grin, “you know that nothing anyone says about me is true.”

“Or everything is,” one of the other reporters shot back.

“Well, I’ll just leave that to you to figure out,” Tony responded, and shoved Bucky toward the car, hard, with the hand at the small of his back so it looked like an affectionate gesture. Once they were safely inside the back of Tony’s car, Happy at the wheel and on their way to the theater, Tony was able to take a breath and notice how badly Bucky was shaking.

“Hey, hey,” Tony said. “You all right?”

“I don’t…” Bucky took a few deep, shuddering breaths and raked his hands through his hair, messing it all up. “I don’t like to be touched when I’m not… when I don’t know the person.”

“Yeah,” Tony said. “They do that, sometimes. I expect we’ll end up going through another gauntlet on the way into the theater. Unless you want to skip that --”

“No, it’s fine,” Bucky said. He scraped his hair back again and returned it to the bun, somewhat less smooth and suave than it had been before, which just added to the appeal. “Just…”

“Did Darcy give you a prepped statement, in case anyone asks you questions?” Tony asked. He had a few fall-back lines of his own, although they’d been in place since long before Darcy had become his social-media maven.

Bucky actually chuckled and Tony relaxed against the back of the seat. “She tried,” he said, “but apparently, I am useless at delivering a prepared speech. I’ve been relegated to ‘no comment’ until she can get me lined up with an acting coach.”

They did manage to get into the theater without further incident, although someone with a telephoto lens and too much time on their hands had taken note of the messed up nature of Bucky’s hair after getting out of the car, and the angle of the shot prompted the glibly less-than-140-character post, “Where is Stark’s hand and why is Mr. Barnes smiling?”

When Tony leaned over before the curtain went up to show the tweet to Bucky, the poor guy went so red in the face that Tony had a hard time not laughing. And since they were right next to each other, when the lights went dim, Tony gave up on resisting his other impulse, and let his fingers rest on Bucky’s thigh for the entirety of the first act.

Author Note

brace yourself for three weeks worth of fluff (and smut) as their date takes three chapters. wow, I must have been in a really good mood when I wrote it! Enjoy!

as always, @tisfan

#winteriron #prompts #tony x bucky #tony stark #bucky barnes #tisfan #helping hands AU #tooth rotting fluff #dates

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