Dune (1984) Directed by David Lynch

 Dune (1984)

Directed by David Lynch

David Kieth Lynch was born on January 20th, 1946 in Missoula, Montana. He is an American artist, who’s painted, written, filmed, and played music. His father Donald was a scientist working for the US Department of Agriculture and his mother Sunny an English tutor. Because of his father's career, the family moved around a lot and David grew comfortable adjusting to changing circumstances. He had a fairly ideal childhood in his own words, incredibly Middle American with his younger brother and sister. He was never a gifted student (That actually surprises me. {By his own admission this is because of a lack of interest.  Not doing your homework will drop you at least a letter grade}) but always popular with other students and at first, was very interested in painting but dropped out of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston due to a lack of inspiration in 1965, he would travel to Europe but returned disappointed after 2 weeks. 

When he returned he enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, married a fellow student, and ended up fathering his first child. It's here that he gets into filmmaking via making short films that were very well received by fellow students and professors (Sometimes, you just need to find the right medium.). This led to him moving to Los Angeles and studying at the AF Conservatory, which he described as very chaotic (Shocking no one.). He created more short films including his 1977 work Eraserhead, which took a while to catch on but became very successful on the midnight film circuit. Midnight films were cheap genre films that were usually played in movie theaters around midnight, another example you might have heard of it is The Rocky Horror Picture Show (If you haven’t, what rock have you been hiding under? {Don’t be mean, not everyone has the same upbringing or culture as you} I will grant that, but there is a distinct bias in your readership toward people who would be exposed.). If you haven't heard of that film and you're vaccinated, don't look it up just find a showing and go watch it. Thank me later. 

This film got him Hollywood attention and in the 1980s, Lynch ended up directing three major films. The first of which, Elephant Man, is usually the most widely applauded and recognized, Blue Velvet, the third, is considered critically acclaimed, which is a fancy of saying critics loved it but it was only moderately commercially successful (There is at times a rather substantial disconnect between professional film critics and an audience that doesn’t smell its own farts.). Which is another way of saying it confused the hell out of mainstream audiences. Blue Velvet, however, led to Mr. Lynch creating Twin Peaks, a television show I won't go into because frankly, it would be its own review, if not its own review series (It is occultist, strange, and wonderful). Elephant Man led to George Lucas offering Lynch a chance to direct Return of the Jedi, which he turned down feeling that Jedi should reflect Lucas' vision, not Lynch's. Although part of me desperately wonders what level of madness Lynch could have wrought, given the infighting that happened in Jedi, I think Lynch made the right call (I think his version might have been better.) Instead, Lynch would direct what is considered his failure of a movie, the subject of our review today Dune. 

Lynch's Dune was actually the 4th attempt to bring the book to film. The novel had set the imagination of millions afire and Hollywood smelled gold. However, the sheer scope and depth of Dune make it incredibly hard to film (It does not lend itself to a visual medium on a structural level either, because so much of the worldbuilding is done through an internal monologue that gets recursive at times as characters analyze and counter-analyze each other.). I mean the 2021 film is over two hours long for just the first half of the book and they still left large parts out! The first attempt was in 1971 by film producer Arthur P Jacobs and it failed after 2 years due to a lack of funds. The legendary second attempt was in 1974 when a French consortium led by Jean-Paul Gibbon, who tapped Alejandro Jodorowsky to direct. Like Twin Peaks, really digging into this would be a whole other review in and of itself, but the attempt collapsed when the film ballooned into a 14-hour epic and many of the ideas that Jodorowsky came up with would find their way into The Incal and Metabaron comic series, The Incal itself would have some influence on the 5th element and the visual design team pulled together for this version of Dune ended up working on Alien. One tragic thing I'll note, this version would have had David Carradine as Duke Leto and Orson Welles as Baron Harkonnen. This combination was likely too epic for even the Almighty himself which may have been why it was doomed. Just tossing a theory out here. (Theory is legit.  Holy fuck I wish this had been made.  I will totally sit in a theater for 14 hours.{This review does not recommend sitting in a theater for 14 hours, the editor’s opinions do not reflect those of the review})

At this point, Dune was picked up by Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis, the man who produced 150 films from 1946 to 2007. Some of these films include films like Army of Darkness, Barbella, Conan the Barbarian, and Hannibal just to give you an idea. Mr. De Laurentiis's first attempt brought in Ridley Scott and Frank Herbert. Mr. Scott intended to split the book into 2 films using Herbert's script which would have been over 3 hours long. This fell apart when Mr. Scott's brother died of cancer, which ironically led to Mr. Scott filming Bladerunner (see my Bladerunner review for more there).  (This version too probably would have been absolutely magical.{See, I would jump around universes just for this stuff.  Showing up in an alternate universe where Scott’s brother never died so he made Dune instead of Bladerunner just to see what that changes}) 

At this point, they brought in Lynch. He hammered on the script producing seven different versions before getting something that everyone could agree on, originally he wanted to direct a pair of Dune movies but was argued down to 1. They filmed in Mexico, mostly due to a favorable exchange rate, with a budget of 40 million (198 million in today's dollars). This version of Dune required 80 separate sets to be built, 16 different sound stages, a crew of 1700, and over 20,000 extras. Two-hundred men alone were employed to clear a section of the Mexican desert of all animal and plant life down to the scorpions. It was plagued by failing electricity and other logistical problems, the crew was beset by numerous health problems because basic food shipments were held up for months and one location was found to be filled with hundreds of dead dogs (Jesus Fucking Christ. For all of this.). At times 15% of the crew was down with food poisoning. However, the filming was completed in 6 months. If you ask me that alone is a major accomplishment! (That is almost enough to make me believe in a vaguely sadistic god, who rewards his miserable subs. {The Safe Word is hallelujah})

Mr. Lynch turned in a rough cut of the film that was over 4 hours long, his own edit is reported to have been about three to three and a half hours long. The only person I can confirm who has seen this version is Frank Herbert himself, who loved that version and gave it his blessing (High praise.  It actually influenced the description of spacing guild navigators in the later books.). However, Universal and other executives demanded the movie be cut to two hours (Philistines.). To make that work, scenes of Princess Irulan explaining things were filmed and added to the movie. This upset Mr. Lynch but he has refused to return to the work. There was an extended version released but he had nothing to do with it. Dune bombed at the box office, being panned by critics for being confusing and dense. It made 30 million dollars but became a cult classic whose influence lingered in the twilight for decades (Likely a failure that can be directly blamed on the fucking executives.). 

So let's talk about the film itself. By now you should know the setup, humanity united in an empire, Dune the desert planet, the spice must flow. If not please read the last two reviews I've written. Lynch, unlike Dennis or the graphic novel I've reviewed, decided to pull back away from our family of doomed protagonists. Instead, focusing on the galactic context of what's going on. This is very clear in the opening scenes where the Emperor is confronted by the Spacing Guild and told in no uncertain terms that Paul Atreides must die. The movie also gives extra time to Baron Harkonnen and his nephews; the Baron played by Kenneth McMillan chews the scenery like a starving man attacking a 3-course dinner (Or, like the Baron himself devours dinner and the dignity of young boys.), and Sting playing Feyd Rautha is clearly having a great time grinning like a mad man and howling out death threats whenever he can (I WILL KILL HIM!). Patrick Stewart is also in the film as Gurney Halleck and turns in a great performance and I really wish they had given him more time on screen. 

The first hour of the film is actually fairly good and maintains a tense atmosphere but starts to feel increasingly rushed. Scenes are still cut from the book, one of them being my Smuggler's dinner party that no I am not letting go of, but it's mostly put together in a clear and understandable way. Although there are plot threads that are left dangling.  For example, when an assassination attempt on Paul almost gets the Freman head Housekeeper killed, only for Paul to save her life, she tells him there's a traitor in House Atreides, he responds to this by doing... Fuck All. The character of Duncan Idaho is drastically downplayed, which is a weird choice if you have any knowledge of the series. For that matter, Planetologist Kynes is sir not appearing in this version. I assume editing is to blame for much of this but still. By the time Paul joins the Fremen, we're in a full rush mode. 

At this point chunks of the movie are told by a voice-over and Paul's relationship with Chani is reduced to like 2 lines. While we're told that Paul leads a resistance movement with one goal, to choke off the gathering and exportation of the Spice and force the leadership of the galaxy to come to Dune where he can reach them. The Emperor and the Baron, both facing a loss of space travel and the end-of-civilization disaster that would cause, have no choice but to do so and bring all their armies with them. They are of course no match for Paul's Freman on their home turf and we're treated to a long set piece of Paul overrunning the Imperial-Harkonnen Army on worm-back and installing himself on the throne via main force and a knife fight with Sting. 

As an adaptation, one of the most obvious problems is the run time it's been crammed into. Important characters are shoved aside or cut entirely and relationships that are central to the story are given short shrift. A bigger problem for me is Lynch doing away with the theme of expanding human ability and potential by stepping away from our dependence on computers. The Atreides army isn't dangerous because of superior training in the film, but because of new technology involving sound-based weapons for example. Most of what the Mentats and Bene Gesserit can do is only hinted at and Paul's greatest abilities are left untouched. For that matter, the idea of Paul as a False Messiah is also abandoned in Lynch's Dune. Central to the idea of the story is the warning that charismatic leaders who present themselves as chosen ones are dangerous! In the book the prophecies were constructed by the Bene Gesserit as a means of social control, in this film they're presented as the real deal. Gone is Paul choosing to live up to the prophecies to use the Fremen for his own goals (Even if he is the Kwisatz Haderach and does actually go native, he is still playing to an imperialist script.). Instead, Paul is a standard Hollywood Chosen One Hero and I really think Universal is to blame for that. That's hard to prove though as Lynch has refused to discuss the film in any real depth. Because of this, I have to give Lynch's Dune a C- as an adaptation at best. 

As a stand-alone film, I honestly rate it higher. Granted it's a bit of a mess but it's a glorious mess. Dune is an ambitious project that failed not because of Lynch or the crew or the cast but because of the constraints of film at the time and executive meddling trying to force Dune into a mold it was never meant to fit into. That said, Mr. Lynch still gives us a half-alien civilization in a strange new world amid upheaval and change and lets us examine that. Mr. Lynch wasn't afraid to experiment and attempt to find new ways to communicate the story to the viewers and that also has a lot of value to me. I do think the plot is followable, the first time I saw the movie I hadn't read the book and I was able to follow it. In fact, this film is what inspired me to read the novel in the first place! I'm honestly glad to be in a place where something like David Lynch's Dune can exist, even if I prefer the 2021 Dune film. I'm giving David Lynch's Dune a C+ for the theater cut but go take a look yourself and decide. 

    Once again our thanks to our ever-wise patrons, who voted to allow this month-long look at Dune. If you'd like a vote on what gets reviewed or even just want to add books to the recommended pile, join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads for as little as a dollar a month!  Next week, we finally tackle the well spring from which all these efforts flowed, we look at the legendary novel itself.  Dune by Frank Herbert.  Until then, stay safe and keep reading! 

Red Text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders.