ReFocus: The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky

Examines the film practice of the Chilean-French filmmaker and artist Alejandro Jodorowsky The first scholarly collection dedicated to the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky Offers theoretical interpretations from the fields of cinema studies, art history, Latin American studies, gender studies, comparative literature, disability studies, and sound studies, from leading scholars in the field Includes both textual and contextual analysis of Jodorowsky‘s entire filmography 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.