http://www.brainsturbator.com/site/comments/alejandro_jodorowsky_we_salute_you/
I posted this up because Fortean Times just did an amazingly good interview with him:
http://www.forteantimes.com/features/interviews/532/alejandro_jodorowsky.html
Do you think ‘The Holy Mountain’, ‘El Topo’, ‘Fando y Lis’ – could have been made at all today? Is it even possible to make films like that anymore?
People say, ‘Ah, it was nice back in the day, because you could make films like this.’ But, actually, it was worse than today. Making Fando y Lis I almost got killed, really killed. The Mexican Minister of Defense called to threaten me, saying he wanted to kill me, I had to escape, they wanted to lynch me. It was not easy, but I did it. But if someone [like me] at 40 years old, 30 years old wants to do that, he will do something like that, but he needs to have enough courage and enough desire to make art as I have.
And do you see anybody doing this today?
It’s difficult because my friends who are big talents get destroyed by Hollywood. Guillermo del Toro, I like him because he’s the next generation, but I knew him before his recent success – he’s full of talent, but now he’s obliged to do Hollywood style, mediocre films. Or Sam Raimi – now he’s making Spiderman, you know? It’s a shame! And all the big directors in the Asian movement, of Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, their talents are absorbed into Hollywood. And even the story, for example, for the original The Infernal Affairs is fantastic, but the Hollywood remake, The Departed, it’s awful, just a display of big egos, no?
