Alejandro Jodorowsky
Filmmaker and Philosopher
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Book Presentation:
Alejandro Jodorowsky is a force of nature. At 90 years old he is still making films and is a cultural phenomenon who has influenced other artists as disparate as John Waters and Yoko Ono. Although his body of work has long been considered disjointed and random, William Egginton claims that Jodorowsky's writings, theatre work and mime, and his films, along with the therapeutic practice he calls psychomagic, can all be tied together to form the philosophical programme that underpins his films.
Incorporating surrealism and thinkers including Lacan, Kant, Hegel, and Žižek into his interpretation of Jodorowsky's work, Egginton shows how his diverse films are connected by interpretive practices with a fundamental similarity to Lacanian psychoanalysis. Using case studies of Jodorowsky's cult films, El Topo, Fando y Lis and Holy Mountain and more, this book provides a unique perspective on a filmmaker whose work has been notoriously difficult to analyse.
About the Author:
William Egginton is a philosopher and literary scholar at the Johns Hopkins University, where he is the inaugural director of the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute, holds the Andrew W. Mellon Chair in the Humanities, and chairs the department of German and Romance Languages and Literatures. He is the author, editor, or translator of more than a dozen books, including How the World Became a Stage (2003), Perversity and Ethics (2006), A Wrinkle in History (2007), The Philosopher's Desire (2007), The Theater of Truth (2010), In Defense of Religious Moderation (2011), and The Man Who Invented Fiction: How Cervantes Ushered In the Modern World (2016).
Press Reviews:
"Alejandro Jodorowsky: Filmmaker and Philosopher is a captivating exploration of Jodorowsky's work, and a vital read for those seeking a deeper understanding of the filmmaker's elusive concept of psychomagic. Egginton's analysis, premised on highlighting the parallel structures that exist between Jodorowsky's body of work and Lacanian psychoanalysis, has unlocked a register of criticism that will serve Jodorowsky scholars for years to come" ―Michael Newell Witte, Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History, University of San Diego, USA
See the publisher website: Bloomsbury Academic
See the complete filmography of Alejandro Jodorowsky on the website: IMDB ...
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