JODOROWSKY
THE PENTHOUSE INTERVIEW
(from the JUNE 1973 issue)
Unlike
so many of the film makers of the past 20 years,
Alejandro
Jodorowsky came late to international prominence.
At
43, he is just beginning to be recognized as the man
whose
explosive and controversial creativity will probably make
him
one of the outstanding film directors of the next 10 years.
His
last film, El Topo, was hailed as "a monumental work of
filmic
art" and Jodorowsky was called "a man of passionate
erudation"
by the New York Times. Said Newsweek:
"His
surrealistic vision cannot be copied. It is nothing
if
not unique." On the other hand, Pauline Kael of the
New
Yorker found it a "horror circus" and a "head show",
while
Commonweal
dismissed it as "merely gross
and
pretentious". The Village Voice came closer.
"It's
humor attacks reality, creating a comedy that
provokes
laughter in order to overcome horror;
a
comedy that becomes a cult of salvation."
Jodorowsky
took the time to suffer and experience life
before
formulating what he would say on film. He worked
with
-- at the feet of it, if you will -- Marceau and Arrabal.
He
is often compared with Bunuel. He has been laboring
in
shadows. Liberation from the masters was a part of
the
theme of El Topo. It is a prominent part of The
Holy
Mountain, which should be having its American
premiere
at about the time you are reading this. (If
Jodorowsky
remains true to his track record the film will be
condemned
and censored in Mexico, where he produced
it
and where he now lives.) Holy Mountain is the story
of
how
a group of powerful and rich people came together
--
with one thief -- to seek the guidance of a master,
who
is played by Jodorowsky. The master isto lead themup
a
holy mountain in search of immortality and enlightenment.
But
Jodorowsky, an eclectic believer in the Asian systems
of
meditation, preches the emptying of the mind, so that
true
enlightenment within us may manifest itself.
Doesn't
sound too bizarre or gory? Well, in his films people bleed --
they
bleed all the time. And they bleed strange things: birds,
cherries,
green blood. Lots of people find such things upsetting.
In
the first scenes of El Topo a circular pool of blood is
discovered
and
a child is found impaled. Then we see 100 women, dressed
in
bridal white, lying raped and murdered. Inside a church
swing
the corpses of their 100 bridegrooms. Later, El Topo
(Jodorowsky)
castrates the colonel responsible for the atrocity.
When
El Topo's seven-year-old son (Jodorowsky's real son, Brontis)
attempts
to follow him, he kicks him in the mouth and tells him,
"Destroy
me. You no longer depend on anyone." In the end, El Topo
immolates
himself like a protesting Buddhist. For the scene,
Jodorowsky
covered a skeleton with beefsteak and set it afire.
Jodorowsky
says he is not seeking shock for shock's sake and you
rather
tend to believe him because, should he choose to make a
smooth
box-office shocker, he could probably do it better than anyone.
Instead
he continues to give birth to a riot of symbols in an
attempt
to "... speak to your unconcious from my unconcious."
In
El Topo for example, he took a legless man and an armless
man
and put them together to make "one John Wayne". They
hated
each other and fought incessantly. "That is how we are, no?"
asks
Jodorowsky. "That is symbolic. Our arms fighting our legs.
One
part of us always fighting against another. Such waste."
In
his private life he is just as apt to shake up people as he is
in
his films. He once approached a man he had never met and
demanded:
"Who are you? Why are you wearing those clothes?
You
know what I think you need? To be fucked in the ass."
Jodorowsky
is now married to a lady named Valerie. He has
three
sons (each by a different woman) all of whom live with him.
He
also has a daughter who lives in Germany with her mother.
He
was born in Iqueque, Chile, a town of 2,000 and moved to
Santiago
when he was 12. He later entered the university with
ideas
of becoming a doctor. But the lure of the theatre forced him
to
drop out after two years.He worked with marionettes and then
for
six years he was with Marcel Marceau, touring the world and
creating
mimes including The Mask and The Cage. Most
important
were
his collaborations with Arrabal, master of the Theatre of
Cruelty.
He then moved to Mexico City where he now lives.
Among
the talents which help support him are those of a comic-strip
artist.
His cartoons "Panic Fables" appear in Mexican newspapers
and
they are, of course, controversial. He has directed more than 100
plays,
including the works of Ionesco and Beckett, and he has done
four
films. His first picture, in Paris, was based on The
Transposed
Heads
by Thomas Mann. Later he directed his own version of Arrabal's
Fando
and Lis. It was entered in the 1968 Acapulco Film Festival
and
was roundly denounced as "corrosive and corrupting". Undaunted,
Jodorowsky
made El Topo. It sent the Mexican authorities reeling.
They
refused to sponsor it at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival.
He
works on shoestring budgest with anybody he feels can do a
job
for him. Cripples, prostitutes, rock musicians, retired public
officials.
Even real actors. Except for operating the camera,
Jodorowsky
does all the major creative work. In both El Topo
and
The Holy Mountain he produced, directed, wrote, scored,
costumed
and did the scenic design. And, of course, he played
the
starring roles. He is possibly the only producer in history
who
puts clauses in the contracts of his female players
guaranteeing
that the do no have to sleep with him.
Despite
his sometimes ferocious words and actions, he
is
a soft spoken, polite man who is an attentive listener.
His
sometimes strange grammar is due partly to Spanish
structures,
and partly to his unique way of expressing himself.
This
Penthouse interview was put together over a period of
almost
a year, by Rick Kleiner while on location for The Holy
Mountain,
but with contributions by Jules Siegel
and
Penthouse Interview Editor Richard Ballad.
PENTHOUSE
Many people call you a
madman. Are you?
JODOROWSKY
Sometimes I feel myself
absolutely mad. I say what am I
doing here? Because
I feel reality so unreal and myself
so strange. I have
a mind, a liver, a heart. Everything
I look and I feel is inside
myself. It's not reality. What I
am is enormous reaction.
It is not the thing. I am not the
feeling. I am what is
felt. The man who feels. Everything
is so subjective.
If someone says to me, I am mad, I say
yes, I am absolutely mad
like all the civilization and like
all the persons in this
planet. I think all the humanity now is
absolutely crazy and mad.
And some day when my essence
sees myself, how my ego
is crazy and mad, I laugh -- with
love and compassion. And
in the moment when you have the
enlightenment you start
to laugh. Because you see yourself,
how crazy and mad you
are. Then you feel compassion.
I have great pity
on myself because I am so mad and crazy.
PENTHOUSE
You have a volatile temper.
But how much
of it is real and how
much contrived?
JODOROWSKY
If you go to water ...
if the water runs and finds a stone
which impedes its flow,
the water attacks the stone and
moves it so that the stone
goes with the water to the ocean.
In every situation where
there is a stone I lose my temper
in order to move the stone.
I must make a fight in order
to get some reaction from
the other person, But it is only
in order to achieve that.
I never lose my temper when I
am with a person doing
another thing. Not doing my work.
PENTHOUSE
Some people can't accept
your efforts as sincere.
They don't understand
you and they ask, in effect,
"What's your game?"
JODOROWSKY
When I start to make art
I was a neurotic. In the university,
I have degrees in philosophy,
mathematics, and physics.
In the University of Santiago.
But I was so lazy --
I only like to see pictures,
and go to the movies,
see painting and read
poems. It was a great party.
But study was not.
In two days I prepare for all the
examens.
I have great qualifications and then I forget.
One day I say I want not
to study like this. I say "No".
I want to devote myself
to marionettes, to puppets.
And I start to make circus
puppets, and theatre puppets.
But always my ego was
there and I was trying to be
famous. You know
why? Because at the same time
I realize I was a mortal.
I will die. I hadn't any answer
to this problem.
So in my South American environment
I choose to become famous.
To make a work in order to
never die in history.
No? This was my first game.
Little by little, in Fando
and Lis, and then more in El Topo,
I start to accept death
completely, and I feel very good
about this.
I start El Topo absolutely closed. In the end
of El Topo, I am more
open to this human problem.
And then in this picture,
The
Holy Mountain, step by step.
I forget all the problems
of being famous, all the problems
of having money.
I forget everything, the only game I am
making now is to make
a picture. But to make a picture
absolutely involved with
my objective life now. For me, now,
there is no difference
between the picture and the life.
Also, for me the most
important thing is shooting
the picture, not the picture.
This is my game now.
It's a certain kind of
way to open yourself, to
progress, to be more near
the completely man.
PENTHOUSE
Can you tell us a little
of the sequence
of events in The Holy
Mountain?
JODOROWSKY
The movement of the picture
is from a fairy tale to the
realistic, no? The
theme is very simple. The master takes
nine other persons, who
make a solar system, and promises
to these persons immortality.
In all the traditions there is a
sacred holy mountain.
And on top of the mountain -- there
are always immortals,
Olympians. Then the master says:
"We need to steal from
them the secret of immortality.
Other persons put together
all their force in order to steal
money, to steal from a
bank. Why we do not put our forces
together to steal the
secret of immortality? The immortals
are wise persons, enlightened
persons. In order to fight with
them we need to become
wise and enlightened. And then we
need to travel and be
powerful in our wisdom to fight with the
immortals." We come
to the top of the mountain and ...
but no, I cannot tell
you what is in the picture.
But I finish it in a very
surprised way.
PENTHOUSE
You speak so much of symbols.
If we get too many
don't they become like
thumbs in our eyes?
JODOROWSKY
There are many ways to
speak. You can yell at a person
or you can speak very
sweet. Normally a picture speaks to
certain parts of the human
being. We make a distinction
among the athletic-muscular
part of the human being and
his sexual life, his mental
life and his emotional life.
I don't speak to any one
of these centers. I speak with
my unconcious to your
unconcious. It's another kind of
language. I am trying
to put the dreams into reality and
not trying to put reality
into dreams. When you sit with me
to see the picture what
I am doing is to put your symbols in
reality. Everyone
of us have in his unconcious symbols.
You have everything in
your mind. Man is not a creator.
But man is all the time
discovering. What I am trying to
do when I use symbols
is to awaken in your unconcious
some reaction. I
am very concious of what I am using
because symbols can be
very dangerous. When we use
normal language we can
defend ourselves because our
society is a linguistic
society, a semantic society. But
when you start to speak,
not with words, but only with
images, the people cannot
defend themselves. That is
why a picture like this
you hate or you love. You cannot
be indifferent.
In every scene I put animals. I went to
study the meaning of animals.
We have the meaning of
animals within ourselves
because we have collective
memory. When you
take for example the hippopotamus.
The hippo was a god for
the Egyptians. He is the weight
of the earth. When
I put in a hippopotamus I know
exactly how a person's
unconcious would feel.
PENTHOUSE
There was much talk about
violence in El Topo.
Is there a great deal
of bloodletting or
substitutes for bloodletting
in The Holy Mountain?
JODOROWSKY
Not so much.
PENTHOUSE
Tell us about the Arica
training classes
for the people in your
film?
JODOROWSKY
Ah, yes. I was searching
for masters because in my
picture I speak about
masters. And then I went to see
some Hindu yoga classic
masters -- gurus. Also I had two
years training with a
Zen master. And before we made this
picture I went with my
wife to a seven-days-without-sleep
training of this master.
When we finished this -- suffering a
lot -- we take for one
month the Arica training.
The Arica training has
some Hindu exercises, some
Japan exercises, some
Egyptian exercises. Very eclectic.
The secret of this training
is the mixture, also there
was a master there, the
creator of the training, and I
studied him in order to
play myself a master. With him
I feel a kind of initiation
and I feel like I'm playing
a real master, and not
a fairy-tale master.
PENTHOUSE
You have said that you
studied with a master until you
realized that you cannot
really learn from a master.
JODOROWSKY
Yes, the only thing a
master can teach is how to learn
about yourself.
There are no secrets. There are only
techniques to waken yourself.
There are some massage
techniques. There
are some breathing techniques, etc.
No? So then I give
to all the group in my picture one
month Arica training.
Another month, living together.
We don't go out to the
street. We sleep only four hours.
PENTHOUSE
Did it have an effect
on them?
JODOROWSKY
You live together for
four months, any kind of training
is useful. You learn
something and you change a lot.
You know De Bono, the
English writer? He wrote
Lateral Thinking.
I think he is a fantastic man.
He says a person will
give so much time to learn
how to play golf, but
not how to work his own mind.
They think they can already
do it, and the only thing
they need is to know some
secret. It's not like this.
When a group starts to
work together in any kind of
training it works for
the group. The training makes a
group. It brings
them together. We were like brothers.
You will see the picture.
PENTHOUSE
What happens to the concept
of the individual hero?
JODOROWSKY
In The Holy Mountain,
I decided to finish with
the invidivual hero because
I think it's an invention
of Hollywood. The
individual hero against the society.
I think of the collective
man. Man is humanity. In The
Holy Mountain I
take a collective hero. There are 12
persons. Ten of
them, they are the solar system. Two
more persons make the
zodiac. And then we go to the
complete adventure, like
a collective group. We are
searching not for our
inner faith. What we are
searching for is our inner
humanity. I can explain this
more clearly if I make
a comparison between Freud and
Jung. Freud was
searching for the individual conscience
and Jung was searching
for the collective unconcious.
I take a Jungian
position -- a Wilhelm Reich position.
Reich felt that
in order to give health to the individual
we must give health to
society.
PENTHOUSE
I'm sure we'd have to
qualify this in some way because
you, Alejandro Jodorowsky,
are certainly an individualist.
JODOROWSKY
I agree we are all individuals.
But all the secret teachings,
all the esoteric societies
are searching for is the objective
man and not the subjective
man. There was a time when
Proust and all kinds of
writers like Kafka -- and all kinds of
artists -- were searching
for subjective art. I am searching
for objective art.
When my subjectivity is put out, then I can
say, this was the search
of The Holy Mountain. Killing the
subjectivity. Finding
myself the complete or the universal man.
PENTHOUSE
You were allowing yourself
to become a vessel, a tool.
JODOROWSKY
Yes, like all the poets
and the mystics in the world. No?
You don't oppose the universal
will. You don't oppose
yourself. Let the
thing come and go out. No?
PENTHOUSE
One of the afflictions
of modern man is the feeling that he is
alone. How does
your idea of "the collective man" deal with this?
JODOROWSKY
When a man says, "I am
alone", it is because he does not know how
to be with himself.
When I speak of the collective man I am not
speaking of being with
more people. I am speaking of a man who
feels in himself the whole
of humanity. If you are an optimist
you can say, "the universe
is a construction". We can work for
the construction of the
universe, the construction of the human
being or we can attack
the universe and we can work to destroy
the human being.
When you take the position to work for the
universe you start to
work for yourself. In order to be a collective
man you must make a sacrifice.
Your life security, your family
security. The collective
man is the man working for humanity,
even alone. And
asking nothing. There are two kinds of prayer.
The prayer to ask for
something or the prayer to say "thank you"
for everything I am having.
This last prayer is that of the universal
man. The universal
man cannot feel guilty. The past is finished.
There is a moment when
you can say to your karma, "I love you.
All the mistakes I have
made were to reach this level. If I didn't
do what I needed to do
it is because I am not like what I am now.
I was learning, I was
fighting, I was making myself. I cannot feel
guilty. The only
thing I can do is to never repeat the same mistake.
If I repeat the same mistake
then I will be guilty." You must transform
yourself from the ill
man to the healty man. Because really we need to
cure our society's ills.
There are war, there are pollution, we are killing
the planet, so many have
nothing to eat. So we are like the samurai.
We win or we die.
Now I think is a fantastic moment for all of us
because now we are fighting
for our world, our life. Now is the
moment to be awake or
to die. We are not alone.
PENTHOUSE
How important is your
family compared to your films?
JODOROWSKY
I think everything you
do in life have the same importance. No?
The film exists.
And the family exists, on another level, in another
situation. I don't
know, maybe Valerie can answer this. The only
thing I want to give my
sons is happiness. Nothing more. The apple
tree doesn't want to give
happiness to the apples. He just makes
the apples. In the
family, I just make the family. In the film, I just
make a picture.
In the picture you must fight with so many problems
and with the family you
must not fight. It's only three, four or five
persons. Nothing
more. In the film there is 10000 person, 5000 persons.
Is more difficult.
But I think more difficult than to make a picture or make
a family is to make yourself.
This for me is the most difficult of anything
in life. To make
a battle with yourself. This is really terrible work, I don't
know, maybe because I
am an artist I have so many great egos, so many
mistakes, so many depression.
When I make the picture my nervous system
is so sensitive.
I am really ill of my nervous system. The actors come and
just act.
But, really, myself I am very ill in the night, every day thinking
what I will do creating
and inventing the situation and searching for what
object I want or what
I want to say, is a terrible thing. No? It's difficult to
win the battle with yourself
because in society we have a high percentage
of self-destruction ...
Thanatos. You have 50% of Eros (creation) and 50%
of Thanatos (destruction).
THis self-destruction is so strong in myself
I must fight every day
in order to have confidence in myself, not to be
critical of myself, only
to have the pleasure. I am looking all the time
how I am not awake, how
I am not enlightened, how in some part
I am a little boy.
When I read what Buddha was, what Zen monk was,
I feel so down I fight
with myself. I want to cry. What difficulties I have
to control myself with
other persons. Always fighting not to be affected
by the newspapers.
Every day the newspaper insults me. Every day
I have a new problem with
society. This is difficult, to be a real,
completely man.
So making a family with me is easier. To make
myself is terrible.
To do it with a family, is not so terrible.
PENTHOUSE
What kind of father are
you?
JODOROWSKY
Valerie can say what kind
of father I am,
what kind of husband I
am.
VALERIE
I don't know really if
he's a father. He spends very little time
with the children.
But the moments he spends with them,
he is completely 100%.
When he is filming he sees them
twice a week for 15 minutes,
a half-hour. And the children
really enjoy it.
Because he acts like a child with them.
He is not trying to be
the dominant father trying to teach
the children. He
reacts to what they need at the moment.
If there are certain questions,
Alejandro answers these questions.
JODOROWSKY
I finish with the idea
of father and mother. They call us
Alejandro and Valerie.
I finish with the authority. They
can dress themselves like
they want. They can choose the
schools that they want.
If they don't want to love their father,
then they don't love their
father. There are no fathers and
no mothers. No sons.
No daughters. It is humanity helping
humanity. Nothing
more. You need to give to the child the
opportunity to grow and
to be himself. I don't like the father
saying, "This is my
child". Why do we have an ego? It is
necessary to have an ego
-- it's like an egg. The eggshell
must be strong to make
a good bird. The ego must be very
strong in a child in order
later that same ego will make happiness.
VALERIE
If they don't agree with
what we do, we make a meeting and
they say exactly what
they don't agree. One day, I reacted very
nervous and I hit Axel.
He went to Alejandro and said I was
being unfair. At
the meeting we decided that he should hit me.
JODOROWSKY
I decided. Also
they can hit their father. Not
just their mother.
I am not a chauvinist male.
VALERIE
Axel is very interested
in the sexual situation.
JODOROWSKY
He have seven years.
He started very early at five years.
One of the books he likes
best is Sexual Positions. A couple of
young persons making all
the positions of love. One day he look
at this book and say,
"Look, I have an erection." I think it was
fantastic. He have
a curiosity about sex. I give him the material
he needed to know what
is sex. One day I am making love with
Valerie and Axel look
through the door. I realize he was looking.
I do nothing and suddenly
we say, "OK, Axel, why are you looking?
What will you know?"
We say for him to come inside the room
and we show him all the
positions. We did this, we did this,
we did this. What's
the mystery? We are naked all the time.
There are no problems.
When they have an erection, they
have an erection.
They aren't ashamed to have erections.
I make some joke with
Brontis about masturbation. And we
laugh. Because he
knows nothing is a sin. There are no
mysteries, there are no
sins. And then I sometimes tell
Brontis and Axel to go
out of the room because I will make
love to Valerie.
Then they go away. They understand,
I don't say a lie.
"Go to bed, etc." Reality is reality.
PENTHOUSE
Do you see more of the
children when you
are here in New York,
not shooting a film?
JODOROWSKY
I work here from ten o'clock
in the morning to eight o'clock
in the evening.
They are waiting for me and we spend
every day together from
eight o'clock until one o'clock in
the morning. I come to
New York and I always bring my
wife, my three children,
my cat, and I drag all my books,
hundreds and hundreds
of books. I travel with all
these people, all
these things. I travel like a gypsy.
PENTHOUSE
Wait. You once said
you destroyed all your
books. Were you
speaking figuratively?
JODOROWSKY
Yes, I spoke figuratively.
It's an old Japanese and Buddhist
tradition. When
you have enlightenment you destroy the
10000 books. But
you don't destroy them, physically.
People may say to you,
what can you find in a book?
I say, what can you find
in a flower? It is impossible to
find nothing in a flower.
And to me, books are flowers.
I find an enormous pleasure
in reading. Maybe I don't
need books to live.
But also I don't need flowers to live.
PENTHOUSE
Were you exposed to sex
at a young age?
JODOROWSKY
Yes. I lived in
a little town and when the sailors came
to town there were prostitutes
all over. I live a very
sexual childhood.
We started to masturbate ourselves
at four or five years.
All together. By seven or nine years
they make love with the
little prostitutes. One day a little
friend, eight years old,
came back with a bucket and there
was a male sex inside.
He was friend of the daughter of one
of the prostitutes.
The prostitutes had killed a sailor and cut
off his sex and he showed
us. It was very strange. We went to
the cemetery and made
a little grave and we buried the sex.
Also, one day we
found a great stone, an enormous stone,
floating in the sea.
The stone came floating in to the beach.
PENTHOUSE
A floating stone?
JODOROWSKY
Yes, and we could not
move this stone. No one believed us.
I was followed by a bee,
a golden bee. For three years,
every day, the golden
bee followed us.
PENTHOUSE
You said once that the
other kids persecuted
you because you were the
only white person.
JODOROWSKY
They persecuted me for
two reasons. I was white and
my sex had the form of
a mushroom. We masturbated
together and the sex of
the other boys was pointed.
PENTHOUSE
You were circumsized?
JODOROWSKY
Circumsized? I don't
know. Anyway, it was like a
mushroom and they didn't
like me. I had no friends.
I could not go out with
them to the prostititutes. I never
smoke marijuana with them.
I never violated the cats.
PENTHOUSE
The what ?
JODOROWSKY
The cats. They used
to violate cats and some female dogs.
I never could do this.
Also they like to drink dog milk.
They kill the little dogs
and then six of my friends drink
the mother's milk.
They got drunk. That was my childhood.
PENTHOUSE
In the book El Topo,
you talked about making love in the
sand and how the sand
gets into your sex and it's terrible.
JODOROWSKY
Yes?
PENTHOUSE
Well, why do it?
JODOROWSKY
Because you must make
love every place.
In a different place,
love is different.
I was searching for a
new place.
PENTHOUSE
Let's get back to the
ego. Are Americans hung
up on the ego? Will
the public schools ever
teach meditation, yoga,
the empty mind?
JODOROWSKY
I think yes. It
will happen because one day the young person
will be old. He
will be a master one day and will propose this.
Now I am speaking about
enlightenment, about levels, about
centers, and chakras.
For example, when I speak about chakras,
it is poetic. You
must create these centers in the body because
they are abstract.
In reality I have no flowers in my body.
I must invent this, make
poetry. The level of this exercise
is visualization.
In visualization you put in your head a letter.
Then you become the letter
with all your body. And if your
complete mind is a letter
then tomorrow you can be a tiger,
a man, an angel.
You can be plastic. This is why I like so much
the plastic man of the
"Fantastic Four" in Marvel Comics.
What's his name?
He is married to the Invisible Girl.
Plastic man and Invisible
Woman can be great pornography.
Plastic man fucking the
girl and then he make his penis very,
very, very thing and put
inside her vein, and the penis can go,
and go, and go from her
vein to her heart. He can ejaculate
in the center of his woman's
heart. Fantastic! Fantastic!
PENTHOUSE
You are a magnetic man.
You attract disciples.
Is it necessary to achieve?
Does it matter if you drop out?
JODOROWSKY
In order to be something,
you must do something. On this planet,
you must win your bread
with the sweat of your brow. What is
bread? Bread is
the complete man. You will have to work in
something. Anything.
Making shoes. Making pictures.
Making wonderful shit
sculptures. If you are young, you
will find a way.
You must find something to do. You have
found something to do,
you are making an interview.
Maybe you can make fantastic
interviews. If you discover
something to do and you
do it well, you are helping yourself,
you are helping humanity,
you are realizing yourself.
But doing nothing -- it
is impossible to do nothing unless you
rest in a bed and you
rest very well and don't move for 20 years.
PENTHOUSE
Are the people around
you so in awe of you that they neglect to
challenge you, even when
you are making conflicting statements?
JODOROWSKY
I don't care. I
am not trying to prove anything. I am trying to
have a beautiful moment
when a person comes to me. I want
the person to have a beautiful
moment. A peaceful moment.
To learn something.
To do something. But I am not trying
to prove any kind of doctrines.
I think the meaning of two
persons together is the
meaning of the tea ceremony.
There are two persons,
a person who has a house and the
visitor. The person
who has the house offers the most
beautiful house ... in
his way. If he has a poor house,
it is very clean, very
beautiful. He makes the tea the
best he can. He
shows a painting, the best he have.
The visitor take tea with
the most great pleasure.
And love the house.
And when they are together,
they forget the world.
They feel they are an eternity.
They drink the tea.
They aren't prisoners. They say
goodbye. They go
to another house. The experience is
finished. No?
It is a beautiful moment and nothing more.
PENTHOUSE
It has been said that
meditation can be a copout
to enable you to avoid
thinking about your problems.
JODOROWSKY
I have no problems.
Nobody has any problems.
PENTHOUSE
Even if they think they
do?
JODOROWSKY
Wait a moment. All
the universe is an enormous solution. If somebody
tells me he has a problem,
I try to show him he has no problem.
I don't try to tell
him he has no problem. I am not a guru.
I am not a master.
I am a moviemaker and nothing more.
But if someone comes up
with a problem, I try to show him.
PENTHOUSE
So he can use you as his
magic?
JODOROWSKY
Yes. A person who
is creative and never thinks of using anything.
Everything is using him.
I am very happy because everything
is using me. And
everything is using you. The complete galaxy
is using you. For
something. I don't know what. I don't know,
but maybe the trees are
used by the planet to take the sun
and make a kind of cookie.
And then you eat these sun cookies.
You call them fruits.
You are eating the sun. You are used as a radio.
PENTHOUSE
A receiving set?
JODOROWSKY
Yes.
PENTHOUSE
That is very poetic, but
through all the storm and stress
of making your movie you
never had a problem?
JODOROWSKY
I don't have any problems.
I can have difficulties. It can be very
hard to finish a picture
or do anything. I can be ill. But it is not a
problem. They are
normal things, part of the great solution.
I think illness has a
magic meaning. You need this illness to
complete something in
the future. You must not fight against this
illness. You must
take it like a friend and understand why you are ill.
PENTHOUSE
How can you do this?
JODOROWSKY
When you have an illness,
you must work in order to finish with
the illness. In this moment
you are separated from society and
your ego.
You need to concentrate and to create an anti-corps
against the bacteria.
When the illness is finished, after the
time of concentration,
you have more soul. You give to life a
wonderful meaning.
You taste health, like a fantastic water. You
know you had a problem,
but you finished it. Illness is a symptom of
weakness. When society
is weak, illness is born. It is very good for
society. And this
is the meaning of every war. Society needs to come to
the messiah, to be enlightened
and to have a collective soul. If society does
not work in this way,
war comes to demonstrate this symptom of weakness.
In order to finish with
war, society must be enlightened. I suffer so much.
All my life. With
all kinds of problems. I was full of problems. Till the day
I listen to the words
of Marcel Duchamp. "There are no solutions because
there are no problems."
I then understand. To understand the world as a
problem is only a human
activity. But the universe is an enormous solution.
PENTHOUSE
In the El Topo
book, you said the goal of all human action
is enlightenment.
Now you say this is not the goal.
JODOROWSKY
Now is not the time to
search enlightenment. Now is the time
to open my mouth.
If a poem comes, I say the poem. If a burp
comes, I make a burp.
I was searching for enlightenment like a
fool. The master,
the guru says: "You must have enlightenment,
you're sleeping."
And suddenly I finish with all the masters.
Why to have masters like
this?
PENTHOUSE
What was it that made
you understand this?
JODOROWSKY
You have a master, you
suffer. You suffer so much and you don't
understand. No?
And you want to have I don't know what ...
a honeymoon? But
suddenly you realize there is no honeymoon.
You have the enlightenment!
You have! You have! The
enlightenment from the
master is not yours. The master
must teach you to learn
of yourself. He can help you but
your life is yours.
There are no other possibilities.
PENTHOUSE
Then no one need acknowledge
a master?
JODOROWSKY
Our masters are the animals
and the children.
The children are so fantastic.
And what they do?
They play. Well,
we must play. Fantastic games.
The game of enlightenment.
The games to speak
to God. The games
to go all over the universe can
be so fantastic.
The astral travel can be a very
beautiful game.
Reincarnation -- what a game!!!
Reincarnate any kind of
thing. Fantastic!
The game to die.
The game to be married.
The game to have children.
The game to be ill.
The game to have a cancer.
The game to kill a person
in war. All games.
All our movement is a dream.
PENTHOUSE
How do we acquire the
attitude to permit
us to view life as a series
of games?
JODOROWSKY
Start with your body.
Be comfortable. The solution
is to have the courage
to see your ego; really like he is.
And to say -- Maya, Maya
(illusion, illusion) -- and put
away all your problems.
But you must know your
problems in order to put
away your problems.
Break the conditional
reflex. Kill the past, change
your name, modify your
movements. Clean your mind.
Clean your heart.
Clean your sex. Make an order in your
sex, your heart, your
mind. Be a new guy. Change all
your habits. I think
every one of us has in his unconscious
the idea of his own perfection.
This body is not my body
because I didn't do this
body. I recieved this body.
I received my life.
I didn't do my life. My life is not
really my life.
It is a gift. And this body comes with
universal wisdom.
The key to all the symbols is the
human body. It has
everything. Our unconscious is
infinitely wise.
He knows our perfection. We can be
perfect. We can
be the complete man. I think in this
civilization we are not
what we are. We are under all
our possibilities.
Under. But we are learning, like
children. I am very optimistic.
But this society gives
you a false feeling of
your body.
PENTHOUSE
How does society give
you a false feeling?
JODOROWSKY
Look at yourself when
you are face to face with a friend
or a woman, or your father
and you will feel your body
different in each case.
You feel your body in different
ways in accordance with
circumstances. In Africa, you
can be naked in the village.
Or a Hopi child sucking or
fucking his mother for
sexual power. Every society has
its conceptions of the
body. "The body is yours." Even
if you don't contruct
it. But never does society give you
the conception that your
body is a machine, a temporal
space ship, to help you
to make the travel from the finite
to the infinite.
Nobody teaches you that you don't have
an individual body.
I think this -- we have a social body.
If there is illness in
the world, I am ill. If there is murder
in the world, I am the
murderer. If there is a value in the
world, I have that value.
The Jews are waiting for a Messiah --
a God-man who will bring
justice to the world. But the real
Messiah is a day -- a
day when all humanity will have wisdom.
It will be the day of
the collective body and the unique soul.
PENTHOUSE
So you must lose the self-conceptions
imposed by society.
But how?
JODOROWSKY
It starts when you are
a child. Because they teach you
how to eat. Even
if they teach you how to eat freely,
they still give you self-conceptions.
Those searching for
enlightenment in the younger
generation are good persons
but they have enormous
egos. Your family, your school,
even your country gives
conceptions to you. And then
your head give you a conception
of you. And then comes
a moment, the right moment,
you must destroy your
self-conceptions because
they are like mind conceptions.
You are not really like
this. You must search for a way.
Each person needs some
kind of training-meditation.
But meditation is so difficult.
PENTHOUSE
What about the use of
drugs and alcohol?
JODOROWSKY
I never drink, I don't
take drugs. I am not against anything human
beings do to reach their
completeness. Drugs can help some experience.
But I am against
taking drugs to have fun. This kills your health.
PENTHOUSE
Is marijuana worse than
alcohol?
JODOROWSKY
The world changes from
alcohol to marijuana. That is
good. Marijuana
is better than alcohol. Magic is better
than reading. I don't
know what you read in the U.S.
Love stories? War
stories? Idiocies. Magic goes with marijuana.
It really prepares the
person to have real, new magic. The real
solution is man without
any kind of dependencies. The real conquest
of the complete man.
Now we are children playing games.
PENTHOUSE
Wait. A little while
ago, you said we should play games.
JODOROWSKY
Yes, we play games now.
But soon we must learn to dance.
The music of the solar
system is a dance. Life is not a
game, it's a dance.
The world was made for dancing.
PENTHOUSE
You spoke of playing games
like children ...
the game of cancer, the
game of war ...
JODOROWSKY
Yes. Playing games
now.
But we must learn to
dance. My three-year-old
son, Teo, I see him in bed.
He is sleeping.
He is in a complicated position
of meditation. A
natural Buddha position. The
child knows what we forget.
He was not playing.
No games. He was
dancing.
PENTHOUSE
This is like talking to
Marshall McLuhan.
Have you ever met McLuhan?
JODOROWSKY
No, but I would like to.
Would you like
to know some other people
I'd like to meet?
PENTHOUSE
Yes.
JODOROWSKY
I want to meet R.D. Laing
and Buckminster Fuller
and the poet Ginsberg
and Betty Middler.
PENTHOUSE
Who?
JODOROWSKY
Betty Middler. She
is a fantastic singer I see in New
York. Also
Alan Watts and Carlos Casteneda.
You know Casteneda?
Fantastic! His stories of Don Juan?
PENTHOUSE
One reviewer said he liked
Casteneda but he would
not be convinced there
really was a Don Juan
until he saw him on a
television talk show.
JODOROWSKY
But it does not matter
whether Don Juan exists or not. I think
we must read the books
like fantastic poetry. Read the books like
novels. I think
Don Juan, in a few years, will be classic literature.
PENTHOUSE
Could we get back to marijuana
again.
What about young people,
12 or 13 years old.
Should they use it?
JODOROWSKY
In the Jewish religion
at 13 one is a man. Why does our society
think a man of 13 is a
little kid? Because to the establishment
it is dangerous to give
the voting rights to 13-year-olds.
The state tries to retard
the growth of all its citizens.
Man has levels.
For his first seven years, man must
develop his body and feelings.
If not, he is retarded.
From seven to age 14 he
must develop his mind.
If not, he is mentally
retarded. And for the rest of
his life, he must make
his soul. Gurdjieff said clearly,
"We come into the world
with the seed of our soul.
But we must make it."
The growth of the soul is a real
instinct in man.
If society does not give man a possibility
to realize this instinct,
man is bored. If a man is bored,
he will take drugs.
At 13 it is very normal to take pot
because a kid starts to
be bored. I am never against
the symptom but always
the illness. To smoke pot is a
symptom. We must
stop thinking of marijuana as a
problem and start to think
of the development of the soul.
PENTHOUSE
Most of the people around
you appear to be
rather awed by you.
Do you ever long for a
gadfly? Your own
Alejandro Jodorowsky?
JODOROWSKY
But I have! I have.
I have fantastic conversations with
creative people.
With you I am having a fantastic conversation.
I am having a wonderful
time. A great show. A completely
human being here for my
own amusement. What a gift. No?
Putting our voice there
in the little machine. Fantastic.
The voice. What
an incredible thing. Do you realize what
the voice is? It
is the most subtle thing in the universe.
What you speak comes directly
from your nervous system.
Your brain. It is
the result of all your body. All your body
goes to your voice.
We are all enlightened, we are the
most beautiful beings
in the galaxy. Now we will be
something because we are
fantastic, we will create
fantastic works. We will
not re-create this world made
by suffering people.
All society was made by people who
were suffering because
they were not free. They had
religion, political parties,
morals. All these bool-sheets.
We can make such beautiful
cities.
A city can be a holy and
fantastic thing.
PENTHOUSE
Thank you, Mr. Jodorowsky.