Movie  1974
Zardoz      Back      Home
Zed: [about to Liberate Consuela] All that I am is gone.
Friend: We've all been used...
Arthur Frayn: ...and reused...
Friend: ...and abused...
Arthur Frayn: ...and amused!
Zed: Stay behind my aura!
The Tabernacle: Caution: You are approaching the periphery shield of Vortex Four. Caution: You are approaching the periphery shield of Vortex Four.
The Tabernacle: [Zed breaks the heart of the crystal] You have destroyed us. You are alone.
Zed: [to Consuela] Can you unknow what you know of me?

Zardoz: Zardoz is pleased.
Consuella: Penile erection was one of the many unsolved evolutionary mysteries surrounding sexuality. Every society had an elaborate subculture devoted to erotic stimulation. But nobody could quite determine how this...
[Consuella points to a diagram of a male penis and scrotum]
Consuella: becomes this.
[Consuella points to a diagram of an erect penis and scrotum]
Consuella: Of course, we all know the physical process involved, but not the link between stimulus and response. There seems to be a correlation with violence, with fear. Many hanged men died with an erection. You are all more or less aware of our intensive researches into this subject. Sexuality declined probably because we no longer needed to procreate. Eternals soon discovered that erection was impossible to achieve. And we are no longer victims of this violent, convulsive act which so debased women and betrayed men. This brutal
[Sean Connery]
Consuella: , like other primates living unselfconscious lives, is capable of spontaneous and reflexive erection. As part of May's studies of this creature, we're trying to find, once again, the link between erotic stimulation and erection. This experiment will measure autoerotic stimulation of the cortex, leading to erection.
Zed: [watching his memory-scan video of hunting down Brutals] I love to see them running. I love the moments of their deaths - when I am one with Zardoz.
Zardoz: The gun is good.
Exterminators: The gun is good.
Zardoz: The penis is evil. The penis shoots seeds, and makes new life, and poisons 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!
George Saden: I think what I think. I hate you all. I hate you all. I hate you all. Including me...
Consuella: [to Zed] I have hunted you so long, I have become you.
The Tabernacle: Vote, please. Vote, please.
Zed: What is it you want?
Friend: Sweet death. Oblivion.
Zed: For yourself, or for the whole Vortex?
Friend: For Everybody. An end to the human race. It has plagued this pretty planet for far too long.
Zed: You stink of despair. Fight back! Fight for death, if that's what you want.
Friend: I thought at first you were the one to help. But it's hopeless. All my powers have gone.
The Tabernacle: I cannot give information which may threaten my own security.
Consuella: The brutal is now in fourth hour of unconscious sleep. It's astonishing that Homo Sapiens spends so much time in this vulnerable condition, at the mercy of its enemies.
Zed: I want the truth.
May: You must give the truth, if you wish to receive it.
Zed: I'm ready.
May: It'll burn you!
Zed: Then burn me.
[first lines]
Arthur Frayn: I am Arthur Frayn, and I am Zardoz. I have lived 300 years, and long to die. But death is no longer possible, I am immortal. I present now my story - full of mystery and intrigue. Rich in irony, and most satirical. It is set deep within a possible future, so none of these events have yet occurred. But they may! Be warned, lest you end as I. In this tale I am a fake god by occupation, and a magician by inclination. Merlin is my hero! I am the puppet master. I manipulate many of the characters and events you will see. But I am invented too for your entertainment and amusement. And you, poor creatures, who conjured you out of the clay? Is God in showbusiness too?
The Tabernacle: Sleep was necessary for man when his waking and unconscious lives were separated. As Eternals achieved total consciousness, sleep became obsolete and Second Level meditation took its place.
May: Friend, I cannot sanction this violence and destruction.
Friend: It's too late, May. There's no going back.
May: Don't destroy the Vortex! Let us renew it. A better breed could prosper here. Given time...
Friend: Time? Wasn't eternity enough?
Zed: This place is against life. It must die.
May: I have my followers. Inseminate us all, and we'll teach you all we know. Give you all we have. Perhaps you can break the Tabernacle. Or be broken.
Friend: An end to eternity.
May: A higher form.
Zed: Revenge.
Arthur: It was I! I bred you! I led you!
Zed: And I have looked into the face of the force which put the idea in your head. You are bred and led yourself.
Description
Two societies, one intellectual (the Eternals) and the other physical (the Brutals) live side by side but never meet. Sean Connery is a Brutal out to shake things up.

Amazon.com
A bewigged Sean Connery is Zed, a savage "exterminator" commanded by the mysterious god Zardoz to eliminate Brutals, survivors of an unspecified worldwide catastrophe. Zed stows away inside Zardoz's enormous idol (a flying stone head) and is taken to the pastoral land of the Eternals, a matriarchal, quasi-medieval society that has achieved psychic abilities as well as immortality. Zed finds as much hope as disgust with the Eternals; their advancements have also robbed them of physical passion, turning their existence into a living death. Zed becomes the Eternals' unlikely messiah, but in order to save them--and himself--he must confront the truth behind Zardoz and his own identity inside the Tabernacle, the Eternals' omnipresent master computer.

A box office failure, John Boorman's Zardoz has developed a cult following among science fiction fans whose tastes run toward more cerebral fare, such as The Andromeda Strain and Phase IV. An entrancing if overly ambitious (by Boorman's own admission) film, Zardoz offers pointed commentary on class structure and religion inside its complex plot and head-movie visuals; its healthy doses of sex and violence will involve viewers even if the story machinations escape them. Beautifully photographed near Boorman's home in Ireland's Wicklow Mountains by Geoffrey Unsworth (2001), its production design is courtesy of longtime Boorman associate Anthony Pratt, who creates a believable society within the film's million-dollar budget. The letterboxed DVD presentation includes engaging commentary by Boorman, who discusses the special effects (all created in-camera) as well as working with a post-Bond Connery. --Paul Gaita