Sean Connery in 1973 Film Zardoz
John Boorman Directs Science Fiction's Wizard of Oz movie
Nov 20, 2008
L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz has been adapted for many movies, television shows and cartoons, but few have been as bizarre as Zardoz. John Boorman, director of the Best Picture nominee Deliverance said he wrote Zardoz after wondering how California’s hippie communes might evolve if the rest of civilization fell away.
Zed and the Eternals
In 2293, Zed (Sean Connery) is one of the Exterminators, barbarians given the “gift of the gun” by the flying stone head Zardoz in order to wipe out the other Brutals. When the idol flies down to drop off some guns, Zed stows away on board before it flies off. Zed discovers a man named Freyn controlling the idol and kills him.
Zardoz carries Zed through a force-field to the city of the Eternals, listless immortals who live simple lives despite their advanced technology. Here he meets Consuella (Charlotte Rampling) who is drawn to him even though she's repulsed by his passion. Zed learns the Eternals assigned Freyn to control the Brutals, and that Freyn lied about the methods he used.
The Man Behind the Curtain
The Tabernacle supercomputer keeps the Eternals from aging or dying, but Zed discovers that many of them hate their unchanging lives. Renegades who challenge the system are aged into immortal senility; Apathetics are catatonic from boredom; the other Eternals are too bored to have sex.
In flashback, we learn that Freyn taught Zed to read, the showed him a copy of The Wizard of Oz to teach him that Zard-Oz, like Baum's Wizard, was a phony. Zed stowed away to find "the man behind the curtain," which was part of Freyn's plan to shatter the stifling dullness of Eternal society.
Zed destroys the Tabernacle and the city’s force-field, then escapes with Consuella as the Exterminators swarm in to wipe out the now-mortal Eternals. In the epilogue, Zed and Consuella raise a child, age and die as the cycle of life is restored.
Sean Connery
Boorman had originally offered the role of Zed to one of his Deliverance stars, Burt Reynolds, who had to drop out because of illness. Boorman offered the film to Connery, who liked ti so much he agreed to either give up or cut his usual salary (different movie histories disagree) in return for a share of the profits. That made it possible for Boorman to make Zardoz for only $1 million.
Zardoz flops
The visuals on Zardoz were impressive for such a low-budget, pre-CGI film, but the aimless, often confusing story and what one critic called its “gloriously pretentious” stye turned off audiences. It only grossed $1.5 million in America. One movie history suggested Zardoz’ problem was timing: Too late for sixties art films, too early for the science fiction boom triggered by Star Wars.
Nevertheless, Zardoz is easily the best known of several science-fiction versions of Oz.
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