SWERVE YOUR ENTHUSIASM (16)

By: Nikhil Singh
August 23, 2021

One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of our favorite unfinished masterworks, legendary obscurities and cherished almost-weres.

JOURNEY TO IXTLAN (1976)

In 1976, Martin Scorsese originally intended to direct Jack Nicholson in Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. But after failing to acquire the rights, Scorsese instead turned his attention to the “unfilmable” Carlos Castaneda books, whose rights are held by Bruce Wagner. The result is the classic which we have come to know as Journey to Ixtlan. Here, at the height of his visual acuity, Scorsese’s mise-en-scènes of “modern sorcery,” filmed in the sun-stripped squares of Oaxaca, Mexico City, and the brutal magnificence of the Sonoran desert, capture the ethos of the entire decade.

It is interesting to note that Michael Crichton, the director of Coma and author of such blockbuster fiction as Jurassic Park, was once the original choice of director Nicolas Roeg for the lead in his opus The Man Who Fell to Earth. The seven-foot Crichton foreshadows all his fictions in his cold portrayal of the elusive Carlos Castaneda. Scripted by Wagner (whom Scorsese never even met! All negotiations were allegedly done through the publisher and a mysterious intermediary group called Cleargreen), the screenplay rapidly transcends the expected psychedelic overtones and grapples with a verité depiction of magical reality itself.

Shot in lush, panoramic naturalism under the photographic direction of a young Dante Spinotti, the film captures the timeless cycles of the desert expanse, in which its protagonist wrestles with magic and spiritual identity, under the mercurial tutelage of the feather-hatted Don Juan (played by a ruthless yet maniacally hilarious Donald Cammell). John Cassavetes creates a startling and terrifying character in Don Genaro, Don Juan’s sorcerer partner. Together, this duo reinvent a Jungian Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, rainbow-tripping their way through the wreckage of Sixties motifs, toward the Everyman-like future uncertainty of the Castaneda protagonist.

The nihilism of the piece is underscored by Louise Fletcher’s cameo as La Gorda. In her poignant monologue, after a fatal psychic defeat at the hands of Castaneda, she describes, without any emotion whatsoever, how she was forced to stalk her own son and seek his death in her quest for spiritual freedom. This brutal yet compelling pathology lies at the heart of a heartless era, a ’70s captured remorselessly by Scorsese. A decade which began with doves of peace and ended in uncompromising corporatisation.

The lush soundtrack by Robert Fripp carries these images, lending a bittersweet clarity to a postmodern quest for freedom. (Brian Eno plays guitar during the jaguar hunting scene.) The recent re-release of this classic masterpiece on Blu-ray is a worthy addition to any psychedelics-enhanced weekend.

***

MORE ENTHUSIASM at HILOBROW

SWERVE YOUR ENTHUSIASM (16)

Categories

Tags