JODOROWSKY

Each art has its own rules and different forms, nothing more. All art consists of the same content—a human being expressing himself. The difference is only in the form, the content is all the same. All of my work consists of works of initiation. It’s the complete opposite of Shakespeare.

INTERVIEWER

How do you mean?

JODOROWSKY

Take Hamlet, for example. Hamlet doesn’t change, and at the end, he dies like an idiot. Don Quixote de la Mancha continues being Don Quixote until the end of the book. In these books, there’s no development in the characters, no spiritual development. What’s the point of all these classics if a person cannot change? The universe is changing, the universe is expanding. Everything is constantly changing. So when a human being remains unchanged, like a rock, clinging to what he or she is throughout an entire lifetime, it’s a tragedy. A human being has to be fluid, changing, expanding, developing, and at any given moment, has to ask, Why am I suffering? Why does this bother me? Why am I searching for something? Why do I hate such and such thing? Why can’t I forgive and why can’t I liberate myself from this? All of my work is that, it’s the development of a character who slowly but surely expands, self-actualizes, and reaches a higher spiritual level. My characters obtain wisdom. To arrive at such wisdom is to arrive at the joy of living.

the Paris Review