ZARDOZ @ 50

Celebrating its 50th anniversary today is the science fiction feature film classic, Zardoz, which was theatrically released on February 6th, 1974. Written, produced, and directed by John Boorman and starring Sean Connery and Charlotte Rampling, it's a dystopian vision of social engineering and privilege stratification taken to an extreme, where an immortal elite rule over tribes of savage brutes, denied a place at the table of plenty.

With John Boorman hot off the massive success of his last film, Deliverance, he was in a position to be somewhat self-indulgent with his next major project. Initially, he'd planned to attempt an adaptation of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings for United Artists, but that project didn't get too far into development before the studio sussed that the budget required to bring such an expansive work to the screen would need to be astronomical. That was enough for them to pull the plug, but Boorman was still of a mind that he wanted to create something set in a fantastical imaginary world, so he started developing his own story ideas.

Deciding he'd work within the science fiction genre, he determined that he wasn't interested in the usual "outer-space" tropes, but rather, he wanted to explore "inner-space" and the concepts around the premise of a far future civilization advancing too quickly for human intellectual and emotional sophistication to keep pace. He was looking to explore the social dissonance such a dynamic could create via the lens of extreme stratification. It was metaphysically ambitious territory, but also a landscape that would inevitably result in the film's creator overstepping his vision, pushing his narrative into the realms of pretension.

After developing the script, the project was first presented to Warner Bros, who immediately turned it down, but Twentieth Century Fox had been courting Boorman and were keen for a chance to work with him, so his agent used that disposition as leverage to strong-arm their representative into a "love it or leave it" deal, presenting him with the script and a couple of hours to read it, with the provision that he'd have to offer a deal on the spot or they'd walk. The exec emerged from reading the script looking bemused and lost, but reluctantly agreed Fox would bankroll the film.

Casting of the lead character of Zed had started out as a role tailor-made to suit the man who'd made Deliverance so memorable, with Burt Reynolds being offered the part, but he was unable to accept due to illness at the time, so an alternate had to be found. Sean Connery was coming off a run of highly successful James Bond films, but his departure from the franchise had left him typecast and unable to secure any major roles in its wake, so Boorman & Connery felt that this was a perfect opportunity to redefine Connery's screen presence, so he was signed on to the project.

Shooting of the film took place entirely on location in the Republic of Ireland, which while offering plenty of exceptional scenery, also offered a few cultural challenges. The region's religious conservatism meant that shooting nudity was often problematic, with female extras from the area reluctant to be seen topless. There were also bans on importing of firearms because of the IRA troubles, which threatened to shut down production as there were numerous requirements for weapons to be used in various scenes. Yet these issues were ultimately overcome and the film was shot between May and August of 1973.

A group of County Wicklow artisans were hired to create many of the film's futuristic costumes, which were designed by Boorman's first wife, Christel Kruse. She decided that, because the "Eternals'" lives were purely metaphysical and colourless, this should be incorporated into their costumes. As The "Brutals" were lower, more primitive beings, Christel decided that they would not care much about what they were wearing, only what was functional and comfortable. As stated in the magazine Dark Worlds Quarterly "functional" and "comfortable" costumes ended up meaning that the costumes were extremely revealing, "It is the costumes for the Brutal Exterminators, and Zed in particular, that raise the eyebrows, with thigh-high leather boots, crossed bandoleers and shorts that can only be described as 'skimpy', the Brutals, and Connery in particular, exude raw masculinity, particularly as they ride their steeds and fire their guns."

Upon its release, the film immediately suffered a tide of highly negative reviews, with critics nearly unanimous in their condemnation of its overly ambitious story and awkward dialogue. Nora Sayre of The New York Times wrote Zardoz "is science fiction that rarely succeeds in fulfilling its ambitious promises... Despite its pseudo-scientific gimmicks and a plethora of didactic dialogue, Zardoz is more confusing than exciting, even with a frenetic, shoot-em-up climax". Yet Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it two-and-a-half stars out of four and called it a "genuinely quirky movie, a trip into a future that seems ruled by perpetually stoned set decorators... The movie is an exercise in self-indulgence (if often an interesting one) by Boorman, who more or less had carte blanche to do a personal project after his immensely successful Deliverance". On the other hand, Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave it one star out of four and called it "a message movie all right, and the message is that social commentary in the cinema is best restrained inside of a carefully-crafted story, not trumpeted with character labels, special effects, and a dose of despair that celebrates the director's humanity while chastising the profligacy of the audience".

Audiences were just as savage against it during its theatrical run, with patrons from early shows actively warning those waiting outside for the next showing to flee from the theatre. It quickly dropped in box office receipts, leaving empty seats wherever it played, until it was quickly pulled from the screens, barely earning enough to cover its production costs. After the success of Deliverance, this was a shocking downturn for Boorman. Yet his efforts would eventually win him a cult following in later years.

As the home video and later DVD markets exploded, Zardoz would become recognized as one of the 1970s most bizarre and distinctive science fiction entries. Before the demarcation created by the release of Star Wars, with its attendant focus on superficial moralizing, action and spaceships, Zardoz was a quintessential example of the decade's penchant for deeply analytical extrapolations of humanity's future. It was a thought experiment, asking the audience to question the nature of mortality and our desire to circumvent its inevitability. It posed the question of what an eternal youth culture would do with itself when its constraints were effectively eliminated. Its answer was the depiction of a hedonistic, decadent, emotionally short-circuited society, lacking any sense of empathy or comprehension of the suffering happening outside its entitled bubble. Actually, not a bad prediction of the culture of today's mega-wealthy. It also presciently explored the concept of a society managed by an artificial intelligence and how that entity could distort and mutate a civilization's value systems.

Yet within its ambitions, there is also the reality that it was, inescapably, a failure on many levels, which make it a prime candidate for those looking to scratch the "so bad it's good" itch. Its grasp wholeheartedly exceeded its reach, with the results being often strained and pompous as it attempted to out intellectualize itself, like some awkward interpretive dancer. But that becomes part of its charm because there's a certain amount of credit that must be given to Boorman for having the courage to attempt the film in the first place. It's an admiration that can be given to a creator willing to push their work that far and risk such a spectacular face-plant after achieving so much success with their previous work. Needless to say, Zardoz wasn't the end of Boorman's career by any means, though it is certainly one of his most notable flops.

My personal experience with the movie goes back to seeing it on TV a couple of years after its theatrical release. I must admit that the sight of burly-bear Sean Connery, who was looking decidedly husker than in his Bond prime, bounding about the screen for most of the movie in little more than a tiny red loincloth, was not at all an unwelcome image for an adolescent gay boy like myself. My "spank bank" owes a double debt to Boorman, not only for this movie, but also for Ned Beaty in Deliverance. I am eternally grateful for both! But even at my young age, I could appreciate the ludicrous aspects of this, albeit also its higher aspirations. There are great, iconic moments here, intertwined with just as many scenes of the ludicrous, like some sort of overwrought performance art. For every face-palm you get something brilliant and thought provoking. All in, what's not to love, from the profound to the absurd? I've seen it many times since then and it never fails to entertain, on a variety of levels. It's most definitely a must-see for any fan of '70s science fiction, right up along side the likes of Logan's Run, Phase IV, Demon Seed, The Andromeda Strain and innumerable others that define the era's sense of introspection.