Zardoz 1974 Movie T-SHIRT

Zardoz is a 1974 Irish-American science fantasy film written, produced, and directed by John Boorman and starring Sean Connery and Charlotte Rampling. The film depicts a post apocalyptic world (which Boorman says, in the audio commentary, is matriarchal) where barbarians (the “Brutals”) worship a stone god called “Zardoz”, who has the power to grant either death or eternal life, and who – in the opening scene – declares: “The gun is good! The penis is evil!”. In this future dystopia, while the Brutals live in a wasteland, their overlords (the “Eternals”) luxuriate in the Vortex, apparently as self-satisfied as landed gentry. The Eternals created Zardoz to control the Brutals, inciting them to mass murder. However, Zed (Sean Connery) refuses to accept the status quo and his place among the oppressed, embarking on a journey that explores the theme of genetic engineering and exposes the devastating truth about the corrupt society he lives in.

It has since been the subject of re-appraisal and become a cult classic, recognised as “one of the wildest, most ambitious films of the 1970s. The LA Times concluded that Boorman achieved his vision to a degree, and that “for fans of wild science fiction, the film is a trippy examination of what happens when intellect overpowers humanity and humans taste immortality”. In creating the bizarre imagery and visual pyrotechnics, Boorman says in the commentary that “there was no lab work. No process. Everything was done on the spot”, using shadow lenses, projections, mirrors and other techniques.