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
posted by phooky at 9:18 PM on October 15
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 [1 favorite]
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 [1 favorite]
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 [1 favorite]
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:55 AM on October 16 [1 favorite]
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 [4 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 [4 favorites]
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posted by Marky at 8:37 PM on October 15