Zardoz is a 1974
science fictionScience fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...
/
fantasy filmFantasy films are films with fantastic themes, usually involving magic, supernatural events, make-believe creatures, or exotic fantasy worlds. The genre is considered to be distinct from science fiction film and horror film, although the genres do overlap...
written, produced, and directed by
John BoormanJohn Boorman is a British filmmaker who is a long time resident of Ireland and is best known for his feature films such as Point Blank, Deliverance, Zardoz, Excalibur, The Emerald Forest, Hope and Glory, The General and The Tailor of Panama.-Early life:Boorman was born in Shepperton, Surrey,...
. It stars
Sean ConnerySir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...
,
Charlotte RamplingCharlotte Rampling, OBE is an English actress. Her career spans four decades in English-language as well as French and Italian cinema.- Early life :...
, and
Sara KestelmanSara Kestelman is an English actress. She is perhaps best known for her role as Lady Frances Brandon, Lady Jane Grey's mother, in Lady Jane.-Biography:...
.
Zardoz was Connery's second post-
James BondJames Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
role (after
The OffenceThe Offence is a 1972 drama film, based upon the acclaimed 1968 stage play This Story of Yours by John Hopkins, directed by Sidney Lumet under the working title Something Like the Truth. It stars Sean Connery as police detective Johnson, who kills Kenneth Baxter , a suspected child molester, while...
). The film was shot by cinematographer
Geoffrey UnsworthGeoffrey Unsworth OBE, BSC was a British cinematographer who worked on nearly 90 feature films spanning over more than 40 years....
on a budget of US$1 million.
Zardoz is a 1974
science fictionScience fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...
/
fantasy filmFantasy films are films with fantastic themes, usually involving magic, supernatural events, make-believe creatures, or exotic fantasy worlds. The genre is considered to be distinct from science fiction film and horror film, although the genres do overlap...
written, produced, and directed by
John BoormanJohn Boorman is a British filmmaker who is a long time resident of Ireland and is best known for his feature films such as Point Blank, Deliverance, Zardoz, Excalibur, The Emerald Forest, Hope and Glory, The General and The Tailor of Panama.-Early life:Boorman was born in Shepperton, Surrey,...
. It stars
Sean ConnerySir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...
,
Charlotte RamplingCharlotte Rampling, OBE is an English actress. Her career spans four decades in English-language as well as French and Italian cinema.- Early life :...
, and
Sara KestelmanSara Kestelman is an English actress. She is perhaps best known for her role as Lady Frances Brandon, Lady Jane Grey's mother, in Lady Jane.-Biography:...
.
Zardoz was Connery's second post-
James BondJames Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
role (after
The OffenceThe Offence is a 1972 drama film, based upon the acclaimed 1968 stage play This Story of Yours by John Hopkins, directed by Sidney Lumet under the working title Something Like the Truth. It stars Sean Connery as police detective Johnson, who kills Kenneth Baxter , a suspected child molester, while...
). The film was shot by cinematographer
Geoffrey UnsworthGeoffrey Unsworth OBE, BSC was a British cinematographer who worked on nearly 90 feature films spanning over more than 40 years....
on a budget of US$1 million.
Plot
In the year AD 2293, a post-apocalyptic
EarthEarth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
is inhabited mostly by the Brutals, who are ruled by the Eternals. Eternals use other Brutals, called Exterminators, as the Chosen warrior class. The Exterminators worship the god Zardoz, a huge, flying, hollow stone head. Zardoz teaches:
- The gun
A gun is a muzzle or breech-loaded projectile-firing weapon. There are various definitions depending on the nation and branch of service. A "gun" may be distinguished from other firearms in being a crew-served weapon such as a howitzer or mortar, as opposed to a small arm like a rifle or pistol,...
is good. The penisThe penis is a biological feature of male animals including both vertebrates and invertebrates...
is evil. The penis shoots seedsThe term sperm is derived from the Greek word sperma and refers to the male reproductive cells. In the types of sexual reproduction known as anisogamy and oogamy, there is a marked difference in the size of the gametes with the smaller one being termed the "male" or sperm cell...
, and makes new life to poison the Earth with a plague of men, as once it was, but the gun shoots death, and purifies the Earth of the filth of brutals. Go forth ... and kill!
The Zardoz god head supplies the Exterminators with weapons, while the Exterminators supply it with grain. Zed (
Sean ConnerySir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...
), an Exterminator, secrets himself within Zardoz for an initially unknown purpose. He shoots and apparently kills its pilot, Arthur Frayn (
Niall BuggyNiall Buggy is an Irish actor who has worked extensively on the stage and screen in Ireland, the UK and the US. Some of his more well known roles include the lead in Brian Friel's, Uncle Vanya, for which he won an Irish Theatre Award and an Olivier Award for Dead Funny...
), who has already identified himself as an Eternal in the story's prologue. The stone head containing Zed returns to the Vortex, a secluded community of civilized beings, protected all around by an invisible force-field, where the
immortalImmortality is the ability to live forever. It is unknown whether human physical immortality is an achievable condition. Biological forms have inherent limitations which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering...
Eternals lead a pleasant but ultimately stifling existence.
Arriving in the Vortex, Zed meets two young, attractive female Eternals — Consuella (
Charlotte RamplingCharlotte Rampling, OBE is an English actress. Her career spans four decades in English-language as well as French and Italian cinema.- Early life :...
) and May (
Sara KestelmanSara Kestelman is an English actress. She is perhaps best known for her role as Lady Frances Brandon, Lady Jane Grey's mother, in Lady Jane.-Biography:...
). Overcoming him with
psychicA psychic is a person who professes an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception , or is said by others to have such abilities. It is also used to describe theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot...
powers, they make him a prisoner and menial worker within their community. Consuella wants Zed destroyed immediately; others, led by May and a subversive Eternal named Friend (
John AldertonJohn Alderton is an English actor who is best known for his roles in Upstairs, Downstairs, Thomas & Sarah and Please Sir!. Alderton has often starred alongside his wife, Pauline Collins.-Early life:...
), insist on keeping him alive for further study.
In time, Zed learns the nature of the Vortex. The Eternals are overseen and protected from death by the Tabernacle, an
artificial intelligenceArtificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
. Given their limitless lifespan, the Eternals have grown bored and corrupt. The needlessness of procreation has rendered the men impotent and meditation has replaced sleep. Others fall into
catatoniaCatatonia is a state of neurogenic motor immobility, and behavioral abnormality manifested by stupor. It was first described in 1874: Die Katatonie oder das Spannungsirresein ....
, forming the social stratum the Eternals have named the "Apathetics". The Eternals spend their days stewarding mankind's vast knowledge, baking special bread for themselves from the grain deliveries and participating in communal
navel gazingOmphaloskepsis is contemplation of one's navel as an aid to meditation.The word comes from Greek omphalos + skepsis...
rituals. To give time and life more meaning the Vortex developed complex social rules whose violators are punished with artificial aging. The most extreme offenders are condemned to permanent old age and the status of "Renegades". But any Eternals who somehow manage to die, usually through some fatal accident, are almost immediately reborn into another healthy, synthetically reproduced body that is identical to the one they just lost.
Zed is less brutal and far more intelligent than the Eternals think he is. Genetic analysis reveals he is the ultimate result of long-running
eugenicsEugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
experiments devised by Arthur Frayn — the Zardoz god — who controlled the outlands with the Exterminators, thus coercing the Brutals to supply the Vortices with grain. Zardoz's aim was to breed a superman who would penetrate the Vortex and save mankind from its hopelessly stagnant status quo. The women's analysis of Zed's mental images earlier had revealed that in the ruins of the old world Arthur Frayn first encouraged Zed to learn to read before then leading him to the book
The Wonderful Wizard of OzThe Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children's novel written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. Originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900, it has since been reprinted numerous times, most often under the name The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of...
. Zed finally understands the origin of the name
Zardoz — Wi
zard of
Oz — bringing him to a true awareness of Zardoz as a skillful manipulator rather than an actual
deityA deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....
. He becomes infuriated with this realization and decides to plumb the deepest depths of this enormous mystery.
As Zed divines the nature of the Vortex and its problems the Eternals use him to fight their internecine quarrels. Led by Consuella the Eternals decide to kill Zed and to age Friend. Zed escapes and, aided by May and Friend, absorbs all the Eternals' knowledge, including that of the Vortex's origin, in order to destroy the Tabernacle. Zed helps the Exterminators invade the Vortex and kill most of the Eternals — who welcome death as a release from their eternal but boring existence. Some few Eternals do escape the Vortex's destruction, heading out to radically new lives as fellow mortal beings among the Brutals.
Zardoz ends in a wordless sequence of images accompanied by
BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
's
Seventh SymphonyLudwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92, in 1811, was the seventh of his nine symphonies. He worked on it while staying in the Bohemian spa town of Teplice in the hope of improving his health. It was completed in 1812, and was dedicated to Count Moritz von Fries.At its debut,...
. Zed and Consuella, dressed in matching green suits, fall in love, then sit next to each other in the cave-like stone head and age in
time-lapseTime-lapse photography is a cinematography technique whereby the frequency at which film frames are captured is much lower than that which will be used to play the sequence back. When replayed at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus lapsing...
. A baby boy appears, matures and leaves his parents. The couple eventually decompose into skeletons and finally nothing remains in the space but painted handprints on the wall and Zed's ancient, rusted revolver.
Cast
- Sean Connery
Sir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...
as Zed
- Charlotte Rampling
Charlotte Rampling, OBE is an English actress. Her career spans four decades in English-language as well as French and Italian cinema.- Early life :...
as Consuella
- Sara Kestelman
Sara Kestelman is an English actress. She is perhaps best known for her role as Lady Frances Brandon, Lady Jane Grey's mother, in Lady Jane.-Biography:...
as May
- John Alderton
John Alderton is an English actor who is best known for his roles in Upstairs, Downstairs, Thomas & Sarah and Please Sir!. Alderton has often starred alongside his wife, Pauline Collins.-Early life:...
as Friend
- Sally Anne Newton as Avalow
- Niall Buggy
Niall Buggy is an Irish actor who has worked extensively on the stage and screen in Ireland, the UK and the US. Some of his more well known roles include the lead in Brian Friel's, Uncle Vanya, for which he won an Irish Theatre Award and an Olivier Award for Dead Funny...
as Arthur Frayn / Zardoz
- Bosco Hogan
Bosco Hogan is an Irish actor of stage, screen and television.He is best known as Dr. Michael Ryan on Ballykissangel. He appeared in a minor role as convicted felon George Saden in John Boorman's film Zardoz , but his first major film role was as Stephen Dedalus in the 1977 Joseph Strick film...
as George Saden
- Jessica Swift as Apathetic
- Reginald Jarman as voice of Death
Reception
Nora Sayre, in a February 7, 1974 review for
The New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, called
Zardoz a melodrama that is a "good deal less effective than its special visual effects" ... a film "more confusing than exciting even with a frenetic, shoot-em-up climax."
Jay CocksJay Cocks is a film critic and motion picture screenwriter.He is a graduate of Kenyon College. He was a critic for Time, Newsweek, and Rolling Stone, among other magazines, before moving into film writing....
of
TimeTime is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
called the film "visually bounteous", with "bright intervals of self-deprecatory humor that lighten the occasional pomposity of the material."
Roger EbertRoger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
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."
Decades later,
Channel 4Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
called it "Boorman's finest film" and a "wonderfully eccentric and visually exciting sci-fi quest" that "deserves reappraisal."
As of October 2011,
Zardoz has a rating of 44% on the review aggregation website
Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
.
The film suffered from negative "word-of-mouth" publicity. The chief example of this is on the second weekend of release, those who had seen the first showing told the people waiting for the next showing their unpleasant reactions. As a result, the potential second-showing viewers vacated the lines and went home. This was related in a 1981 issue of
StarlogStarlog was a monthly science-fiction film magazine published by Starlog Group Inc. The magazine was created by publishers Kerry O'Quinn and Norman Jacobs. O'Quinn was the magazine's editor while Jacobs ran the business side of things, dealing with typesetters, engravers and printers. They got...
magazine detailing the making of
Zardoz.