ReFocus: The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky
Published on 31. May 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
240 pages
978-1-3995-0595-6 (ISBN)
Description
Known as the father of the "midnight cult movie" and co-founder of the avant-garde Panic movement in France, Alejandro Jodorowsky Prullansky defies all basic categorization. He is known as a provocateur, a performance artist, a visionary filmmaker, a controversial playwright, a philosopher, and a tarot reader, among other disparate classifications. These varied dimensions of artist and filmmaker converge seamlessly into his practice. He is recognized by audiences as a creator of controversial and mesmerizing films characterized by visual delirium, the injection of radical politics and mystical philosophy, and a post-surrealist aesthetics.?
ReFocus: The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky pursues an interdisciplinary approach to analyze and contextualize Jodorowsky's films according to a variety of conceptual modalities: from occult and mystical orientations, to the political and decolonial aspects of his major films. This collection examines the formative metaphysical elaborations involved in Jodorowsky's earliest films, his pioneering of a truly unique independent film practice in Mexico, and his emergence and development as a visionary international filmmaker.
ReFocus: The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky pursues an interdisciplinary approach to analyze and contextualize Jodorowsky's films according to a variety of conceptual modalities: from occult and mystical orientations, to the political and decolonial aspects of his major films. This collection examines the formative metaphysical elaborations involved in Jodorowsky's earliest films, his pioneering of a truly unique independent film practice in Mexico, and his emergence and development as a visionary international filmmaker.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Illustrations
26 black and white illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 155 mm
Width: 234 mm
Thickness: 16 mm
Weight
378 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-3995-0595-6 (9781399505956)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Michael Newell Witte is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of San Diego. His research explores neo-avant-garde art and theory, dissident and ethnographic surrealism, and global contemporary art and film. He is the editor of ReFocus: The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky (2023) and co-author of the exhibition catalogue Todo esta perdido: Juan Jose Gurrola (2023).
Content
1. Introduction: The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky - Michael Newell Witte
2. Two Tales of Transposed Heads: "La Cravate" and "Org" - Jesse Lerner
3. The Panic and/or Freak Aesthetic - Jorge Ayala Blanco (trans. Amy Sara Carroll)
4. One of Us: Corpo-Reality and the Disabled Body in the Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky - Peter Sloane
5. Prophets and Sinners in the 1970s Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky - Naomi Lindstrom
6. H. P. Blavatsky and Alejandro Jodorowsky: The Influence of the Russian Orthodox Church and Theosophy on Psychomagic in El Topo and The Holy Mountain - Peter Scott Lederer
7. Dionysus Resuscitated: Alejandro Jodorowsky and the Aesthetics of Intoxication - Florian Zappe
8. The Music in The Holy Mountain: A Jodorowskian Sound Machine - Daniel Escoto
9. Outlaw Artists and Esoteric Media: International Copyright and Alejandro Jodorowsky's Illicit Media Practice - Andrew Ventimiglia
10. Resistance in Alejandro Jodorowsky's Santa Sangre - Alessandra Santos
11. Inherit and Repair: Self-erasure and Allegoric Montage in Jodorowsky's The Caste of Metabarons - Francisco Javier Fresneda-Casado
12. Alejandro Jodorowksy, The Unmade, and The Sons of El Topo - Matthew Melia
13. Jodorowsky, Psychomagic, and Subjective Destitution - William Egginton
14. Talmudist & Kabbalist Practices in Alejandro Jodorowsky's Psychomagic, a Healing Art - Henri-Simon Blanc-Hoang
2. Two Tales of Transposed Heads: "La Cravate" and "Org" - Jesse Lerner
3. The Panic and/or Freak Aesthetic - Jorge Ayala Blanco (trans. Amy Sara Carroll)
4. One of Us: Corpo-Reality and the Disabled Body in the Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky - Peter Sloane
5. Prophets and Sinners in the 1970s Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky - Naomi Lindstrom
6. H. P. Blavatsky and Alejandro Jodorowsky: The Influence of the Russian Orthodox Church and Theosophy on Psychomagic in El Topo and The Holy Mountain - Peter Scott Lederer
7. Dionysus Resuscitated: Alejandro Jodorowsky and the Aesthetics of Intoxication - Florian Zappe
8. The Music in The Holy Mountain: A Jodorowskian Sound Machine - Daniel Escoto
9. Outlaw Artists and Esoteric Media: International Copyright and Alejandro Jodorowsky's Illicit Media Practice - Andrew Ventimiglia
10. Resistance in Alejandro Jodorowsky's Santa Sangre - Alessandra Santos
11. Inherit and Repair: Self-erasure and Allegoric Montage in Jodorowsky's The Caste of Metabarons - Francisco Javier Fresneda-Casado
12. Alejandro Jodorowksy, The Unmade, and The Sons of El Topo - Matthew Melia
13. Jodorowsky, Psychomagic, and Subjective Destitution - William Egginton
14. Talmudist & Kabbalist Practices in Alejandro Jodorowsky's Psychomagic, a Healing Art - Henri-Simon Blanc-Hoang