Prototyping the Profound

The Mars Volta Movie that Must Be

“Do you recall its name?

As it suggested beck and call, this face and heel

Will drag your halo through the mud, ash of Pompeii

Erupted in a statue's dust, shrouded in veils

Because these handcuffs hurt too much

Still scalping this ticketless applause

And when they drag the lake, there's nothing left at all.”

Cicatriz ESP, De-Loused in the Comatorium, The Mars Volta

This concept rules: “Dérèglement de tous les sens” (“the derangement of all the senses”). Pioneered by the French Poet Arthur Rimbaud (who heavily influenced Bob Dylan’s zenith electric trilogy), dérèglement de tous les sens undermines the normal functioning of one’s senses to attain visions of the “unknown.” So how does one go from a steady state to a vision state? Like Rimbaud did with his poetry, the artist must subject himself to fasting and pain, imbibe alcohol and drugs, and even cultivate hallucination and madness to expand his consciousness. The artist must move outside of physiological and psychological comfort and surrender to the voice/vision of the output. It's a purposeful indulgence/sacrifice. As an audience we benefit from this sacrifice to experience this beauty. Thank you for your service Mr. Rimbaud: Here's 10% off at Lowe’s Home Improvement.

Rimbaud’s use of dérèglement de tous les sen was meant to transform him as a voyant (“seer”) to experience the l’inconnu (“the unknown”) by sacrificing his individual consciousness and subsequently allowing this essence to transmit its essence through his poetry and then to his fellow men, awakening them spiritually and leading them forward. In corporate resilience training, they talk about hunting for the “good stuff.” If you are sensing this sacrifice, chances are it might be great. Decent aesthetic heuristic.

I felt that decades ago listening to Mars Volta’s first album: De-Loused in the Comatorium. All of the surreal and beautiful imagery, eclectic music choices that represented and blended latin influence and post-hard core sensibilities, and high end talent (e..g Rick Rubin as producer and Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers on loan performing bass) captivated me then and still haunts me now.

For the uninitiated, Bixler-Zavala and Rodríguez-López based De-Loused on the life and death of Julio Venegas, a fellow artist from their native El Paso. De-Loused is a one hour concept album that “tells the tale of Cerpin Taxt, a man who enters a week-long coma after overdosing on a mixture of morphine and rat poison.” The story begins with a forlorn Cerpin overdosing on morphine coursing through his veins, a macabre inheritance from his deceased mother. This event sends him from the mundy world into the special world (i.e., the Comatorium).

IMG 1. Cerpin’s journey ain’t Luke Skywalker’s hero’s journey but this is helpful for context.

What follows is a psychological flaying in this new world that forces Cerpin to engage with everything buried in his unconsciousness. Explicitly and implicitly, Cerpin is forced to confront the same question that drives the Bard’s Hamlet: to be or not to be?

The tragedy is captivating. The imagery is imaginative. The mellifluous music balances a necessary dissonance with eternal, mathematical rhythm to keep your attention. It is a triumph.

But it deserves more. Could you imagine if a great director with the band members transformed this to a film. Well, what director? My instinct was pairing Omar Rodrigues-Lopez & Cedric Bixler-Zavala with Cedric Guierllmo del Toro. Let's (1) prototype this rough draft with ChatGPt, (2) start contacting producers for this thing, and (3) and then turn it over to Guillermo for his elevation:

This is goddamn beautiful. Guileerrmo and Mars Volta should complete this immediately if not sooner. Do you know anyone one or two hops away from the great director or the band? Message them now. Implore them to make this happen. Just ask yourself two questions:

When was the last time you truly lost yourself in music, literature, or art?

Don’t you want to experience that again? Let’s hit the phones and make it happen.