Zardoz (1974)
October 15, 2024 7:58 PM - Subscribe
In the far future, a savage trained only to kill finds a way into the community of bored immortals that alone preserves humanity's achievements.
[CW: sexual abuse, mass murder]
The gun is good, the penis is evil. Any questions?
OK. I decided to write this up because there was a recent FF post about this thing which is apparently a sort of DIY MST3K thing that you can (or could) do. But no one had done a post for the original movie, which struck me as a darn dirty shame. So, I got a copy of the movie and sat down to watch it for the first time in over forty years. Then, I was about in my mid-teens and didn't retain an awful lot except a) the giant flying stone head thing; b) Sean Connery's ridiculous outfit (which eventually inspired the most 1970s of all superheroes); c) lotsa bare boobs (look, I was 16); and d) the end where everyone's going "kill me! kill me next!."
And... it's got maybe a bit more than that going for it. It's both an extremely seventies SF film, an extremely British class satire film, and an extremely John Boorman film. Boorman did this in between Deliverance, which is very different, and Excalibur, not so different--Zardoz could be seen as a sort of quasi-Arthurian mythology of the future. (Boorman also did the Exorcist sequel, apparently considered one of the worst films ever, and tried and failed to get a Lord of the Rings production off the ground.) Yes, Zed's mankini-with-bandoliers outfit is pretty ridonkulous and the utopian enclave is very early-season Star Trek TNG and we've all seen scruffies-vs-stuffies stories a zillion times (including in every iteration of Star Trek, I think), but I think that there's a certain knowingness to all this; it's really no surprise that a bunch of the stuffies (excuse me, "Eternals", and I really wonder if Boorman had read the Jack Kirby comic) want the status quo to end as well, and that the puppetmaster has strings of his own.
Anyway, there are some not-great aspects to it (see the CW above) and some of the social commentary is pretty hamfisted. But it's better than a lot of 70s SF (looking at you, Damnation Alley) and certainly quite different.
[CW: sexual abuse, mass murder]
The gun is good, the penis is evil. Any questions?
OK. I decided to write this up because there was a recent FF post about this thing which is apparently a sort of DIY MST3K thing that you can (or could) do. But no one had done a post for the original movie, which struck me as a darn dirty shame. So, I got a copy of the movie and sat down to watch it for the first time in over forty years. Then, I was about in my mid-teens and didn't retain an awful lot except a) the giant flying stone head thing; b) Sean Connery's ridiculous outfit (which eventually inspired the most 1970s of all superheroes); c) lotsa bare boobs (look, I was 16); and d) the end where everyone's going "kill me! kill me next!."
And... it's got maybe a bit more than that going for it. It's both an extremely seventies SF film, an extremely British class satire film, and an extremely John Boorman film. Boorman did this in between Deliverance, which is very different, and Excalibur, not so different--Zardoz could be seen as a sort of quasi-Arthurian mythology of the future. (Boorman also did the Exorcist sequel, apparently considered one of the worst films ever, and tried and failed to get a Lord of the Rings production off the ground.) Yes, Zed's mankini-with-bandoliers outfit is pretty ridonkulous and the utopian enclave is very early-season Star Trek TNG and we've all seen scruffies-vs-stuffies stories a zillion times (including in every iteration of Star Trek, I think), but I think that there's a certain knowingness to all this; it's really no surprise that a bunch of the stuffies (excuse me, "Eternals", and I really wonder if Boorman had read the Jack Kirby comic) want the status quo to end as well, and that the puppetmaster has strings of his own.
Anyway, there are some not-great aspects to it (see the CW above) and some of the social commentary is pretty hamfisted. But it's better than a lot of 70s SF (looking at you, Damnation Alley) and certainly quite different.
No comparison. Zardoz is amazing. There's more brilliant insanity in the first five minutes than most films can conjure up over the course of two hours. And Arthur Frayn's drawn-on facial hair still haunts my dreams. I'd never noticed how it structurally parallels Excalibur until just now, though! Time for a double rewatch.
posted by phooky at 9:18 PM on October 15, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by phooky at 9:18 PM on October 15, 2024 [1 favorite]
Zardoz is trippy and fun and embarrassing. The crystal computer is cool, it's what Apple wishes Siri was (but will never be). The Beethoven opening is awesome. Connery here basically plays himself again, which he does well. The idea of an immortal being punished by causing only half his body to age is terrifying. And those poor apathetics—the price of a utopian life!
So, I think I first saw Zardoz on A&E and all the weird penis talk etc. was edited out, and it made the film better for it. The ending of that film was: Zed, having fulfilled his messianic mission of destruction, has disappeared, and his thugs are riding around the ruins of the utopia searching for him, shouting "Zed?! Zed?!" Where is Zed? Roll credits. What an effing brilliant ending, so open-ended and fitting. I was entranced.
But of course, that wasn't the actual ending of the film. The ending of the film, which happened to show a baby nursing, was completely cut for the A&E version. Because…boob. They just…sigh…cut off the last several minutes of the movie. Well, again, I think perhaps it was a better film for it. I kind of wish I had that version to re-watch.
posted by jabah at 10:22 PM on October 15, 2024 [4 favorites]
So, I think I first saw Zardoz on A&E and all the weird penis talk etc. was edited out, and it made the film better for it. The ending of that film was: Zed, having fulfilled his messianic mission of destruction, has disappeared, and his thugs are riding around the ruins of the utopia searching for him, shouting "Zed?! Zed?!" Where is Zed? Roll credits. What an effing brilliant ending, so open-ended and fitting. I was entranced.
But of course, that wasn't the actual ending of the film. The ending of the film, which happened to show a baby nursing, was completely cut for the A&E version. Because…boob. They just…sigh…cut off the last several minutes of the movie. Well, again, I think perhaps it was a better film for it. I kind of wish I had that version to re-watch.
posted by jabah at 10:22 PM on October 15, 2024 [4 favorites]
I can see some of the similarities between Logan's Run and Zardoz; they're both scruffies vs. stuffies films, with the former having Dome City and controlling the population via enforced euthanasia (with a "Carrousel" supposedly giving people a chance to live longer, although it was fixed). I think that it was intended to be more serious; the book that it was based on was going on the premise that the Baby Boom would keep going on indefinitely and that therefore the young people would take over, although by the time the book was published the birth rate was already trending down in the US. It's also not clear why the Sandmen would chase after people who just wanted to leave Dome City, which was basically a carefree paradise.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:55 AM on October 16, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:55 AM on October 16, 2024 [2 favorites]
I've said it before and I'll say it again --
If you can get past the hippy-dippy aesthetics of the movie -- and Lord knows that's a big ask -- then Zardoz is just shockingly ahead of its time.
It's a movie about a world that's gone through a hard singularity with a few posthumans and reverted-to-primitive-stuff humans left. And the posthumans have ended up trapped by the AIs they created to keep them going, and the Cortes-style burning of the memory ships they did to themselves to lock them into it. In 1974!
Admittedly, the side of the movie that's about Frayn's plan to breed a schmizatz schmaderach out of the savage hordes drinks from the same well of 60s psychedelia nonsense that Dune drank from.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:50 AM on October 16, 2024 [11 favorites]
If you can get past the hippy-dippy aesthetics of the movie -- and Lord knows that's a big ask -- then Zardoz is just shockingly ahead of its time.
It's a movie about a world that's gone through a hard singularity with a few posthumans and reverted-to-primitive-stuff humans left. And the posthumans have ended up trapped by the AIs they created to keep them going, and the Cortes-style burning of the memory ships they did to themselves to lock them into it. In 1974!
Admittedly, the side of the movie that's about Frayn's plan to breed a schmizatz schmaderach out of the savage hordes drinks from the same well of 60s psychedelia nonsense that Dune drank from.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:50 AM on October 16, 2024 [11 favorites]
Probably the best of the "dude travels around a ruined world visiting scenes of vague social satire with added weird sex" big-concept sci-fi films of the 70s. Unlike most of those films, Zardoz is actually pretty well made.
I still have good memories of watching this with a friend of mine, especially the Wizard of Oz scene which I think is supposed to unlock the whole plot but just leaves the viewer more perplexed.
posted by AndrewStephens at 7:30 AM on October 16, 2024
I still have good memories of watching this with a friend of mine, especially the Wizard of Oz scene which I think is supposed to unlock the whole plot but just leaves the viewer more perplexed.
posted by AndrewStephens at 7:30 AM on October 16, 2024
While yes it is easy to be roadblocked by the dumb outfits and odd construction of the film, if you give it a chance I think there are a lot of interesting ideas going on in this film which make it a head and shoulders above lot of the more camp 70s sci-fi (as example say Gene Roddenberry's Planet Earth also from 1974, a failed pilot, which has a similar theme of "primitive" man finding himself in a future utopia he's only fit to be a sexual slave in and must destroy it to be free) . Boorman was trying to create something mythic - he might not have entirely succeeded but the film definitely does not (entirely) deserve the derision. Think about it this way, the film shares the same cinematographer as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Geoffrey Unsworth!
posted by Ashwagandha at 8:44 AM on October 16, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by Ashwagandha at 8:44 AM on October 16, 2024 [3 favorites]
This film is incredibly fun and incredibly zany, but I think you have to watch it late at night and a bit delirious.
posted by corb at 3:02 PM on October 16, 2024
posted by corb at 3:02 PM on October 16, 2024
Zardoz!
You will remember this movie if you watch it. If you let the ideas sink in, it can flip your wig
It s like Logan 's Run in that way, but Logan's Run...I dunno I like this better and I don't know why
posted by eustatic at 7:01 PM on October 16, 2024 [1 favorite]
You will remember this movie if you watch it. If you let the ideas sink in, it can flip your wig
It s like Logan 's Run in that way, but Logan's Run...I dunno I like this better and I don't know why
posted by eustatic at 7:01 PM on October 16, 2024 [1 favorite]
Charlotte Rampling > Jenny Agutter
Sean Connery > Michael York
John Boorman > Michael Anderson
therefore
Zardoz > Logan's Run
QED
posted by kokaku at 9:10 PM on October 16, 2024 [1 favorite]
Sean Connery > Michael York
John Boorman > Michael Anderson
therefore
Zardoz > Logan's Run
QED
posted by kokaku at 9:10 PM on October 16, 2024 [1 favorite]
The comparison feels impossible to me because the movies are so similar and so different.
"Logan's Run" is mainstream Hollywood, "Zardoz" is kind of an art movie.
It's let down by appallingly crappy model work, but some of the effects in "Logan's Run" are astounding: the Carousel wirework sequence, the practical futuristic guns that literally shot four flames out, the beautiful compositing of the ruins at the end.
The effects in Zardoz aren't much to write home about, but it's mindblowingly wacky in its ideas.
I can't choose!
posted by TheophileEscargot at 1:57 AM on October 17, 2024 [3 favorites]
"Logan's Run" is mainstream Hollywood, "Zardoz" is kind of an art movie.
It's let down by appallingly crappy model work, but some of the effects in "Logan's Run" are astounding: the Carousel wirework sequence, the practical futuristic guns that literally shot four flames out, the beautiful compositing of the ruins at the end.
The effects in Zardoz aren't much to write home about, but it's mindblowingly wacky in its ideas.
I can't choose!
posted by TheophileEscargot at 1:57 AM on October 17, 2024 [3 favorites]
Despite being contemporaries, Zardoz feels like it was made in 1970, and Logan's Run feels like it was made in 1980. How I love both of them!
posted by jabah at 4:20 AM on October 17, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by jabah at 4:20 AM on October 17, 2024 [4 favorites]
I need to watch this again, particularly if it mirrors Excalibur. One of my very favorite films. But to be honest, I even find a lot to unironically love in The Heretic, which in significant ways is a bad film even as it is a great film. Boorman is an enigma. Learning that Zack Snyder idolizes him was kind of the missing piece that explained his oeuvre to me, and also explained why that oeuvre simultaneously blows and fascinates. Boorman's is a dangerous species of genius for a mortal to emulate.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:59 AM on October 17, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:59 AM on October 17, 2024 [1 favorite]
I even find a lot to unironically love in The Heretic
Pazuzu, king of the evil spirits of the air, help me to find Kokumo.
Again like Zardoz and Excalibur, Boorman leans into the mythopoiesis in Exorcist 2. Even in his adaptation of The Hunter, (the first Parker novel by Richard Stark/Donald E. Westlake), Point Blank, there's a liminal way he tells the story that gives the film a very different quality then the fairly straightforward pulp it is based on. Boorman's Zardoz commentary has some interesting trivia.
posted by Ashwagandha at 8:11 AM on October 17, 2024 [4 favorites]
Pazuzu, king of the evil spirits of the air, help me to find Kokumo.
Again like Zardoz and Excalibur, Boorman leans into the mythopoiesis in Exorcist 2. Even in his adaptation of The Hunter, (the first Parker novel by Richard Stark/Donald E. Westlake), Point Blank, there's a liminal way he tells the story that gives the film a very different quality then the fairly straightforward pulp it is based on. Boorman's Zardoz commentary has some interesting trivia.
posted by Ashwagandha at 8:11 AM on October 17, 2024 [4 favorites]
Connery here basically plays himself again, which he does well.
He occasionally plays himself brilliantly.
posted by fairmettle at 2:26 AM on October 19, 2024
He occasionally plays himself brilliantly.
posted by fairmettle at 2:26 AM on October 19, 2024
I love a good science fantasy satire and this one is good.
I saw it in high school long ago, but I didn't really remember the plot and I had somehow even forgotten the origin of the title and had a flashback to the feeling of wanting to throw something at the screen.
I think I said, "More like John Boobman" at one point.
It's a bit art school and incredibly English. Friend is an extremely important character; I think I found him boring when I was young, and just annoying now. Both perhaps because he seems very close to an authorial voice. I think Zed is also kind of boring and I don't think Connery did a good job or was well cast tbh. All in all it probably is a little slow and drives some moments too much into the dirt.
I do love a 60s-70s dystopian / post apocalyptic film though, and so this movie doesn't have to work too hard to please me. There are lots of things about it I love, mostly covered above. The slow reveal of the mystery is very good. The way Rampling's character falls for Connery's character is kind of hilariously abrupt but idk it works.
posted by fleacircus at 1:16 AM on December 4, 2024 [1 favorite]
I saw it in high school long ago, but I didn't really remember the plot and I had somehow even forgotten the origin of the title and had a flashback to the feeling of wanting to throw something at the screen.
I think I said, "More like John Boobman" at one point.
It's a bit art school and incredibly English. Friend is an extremely important character; I think I found him boring when I was young, and just annoying now. Both perhaps because he seems very close to an authorial voice. I think Zed is also kind of boring and I don't think Connery did a good job or was well cast tbh. All in all it probably is a little slow and drives some moments too much into the dirt.
I do love a 60s-70s dystopian / post apocalyptic film though, and so this movie doesn't have to work too hard to please me. There are lots of things about it I love, mostly covered above. The slow reveal of the mystery is very good. The way Rampling's character falls for Connery's character is kind of hilariously abrupt but idk it works.
posted by fleacircus at 1:16 AM on December 4, 2024 [1 favorite]
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posted by Marky at 8:37 PM on October 15, 2024