Nope. That's not a fair description of David Lynch's adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel Dune. Technically, this movie is set far into the future wherein all the familiar religions of humankind have blended with and penetrated and mutated each other until they have taken on strange new forms while retaining familiar aspects of messianic prophecy, patriarchal structures of authority, and warlike fanaticism all too depressingly familiar to the people of Earth in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Frank Herbert's novel handles all this with obsessively detailed worldbuilding, and intricately plotted dynastic power struggles that imbues everything with profound moral ambiguity about the ethics of mind control, propaganda, religious indoctrination, and the use of militarized life-ending aggression on planetary scales. Herbert's novel is meant to get you to question the very idea of a charismatic, all-powerful hero figure. David Lynch tells a straightforward story of an aristocratic young man taming sandworms, becoming Space Jesus McRainmaker, etc.
Okay, maybe that isn't such an unfair description.
Re-watching Dune, a film that I enjoy, I couldn't help but laugh out loud at what a nakedly obvious power fantasy it is, totally drained of all the psychological nuance and outright horror of Herbert's novel. I guess you could say something similar about Star Wars, but not really. Sure, Luke Skywalker saves the day. But he does it by standing in solidarity with his friends against the genocidal Empire. Paul Muad'Dib crushes his enemies, tramples them underfoot, and even hears the lamentations of their Bene Gesserit high priestess. He's totally ruthless about it, too. Is this a David Lynch or a John Milius script?
My shit is totally re-scrambled on this one. How did the filmmaker who crafted such a glorious surrealistic nightmare as Eraserhead and the deeply compassionate The Elephant Man make a New Age version of a Rambo guerilla warfare stroke-off fantasy?
Do I still like this movie?
Does it matter whether or not I like it?
David Lynch has more or less disowned it. He had his name taken off the television re-edit version, and he doesn't even list it in the Selected Filmography in his memoir/intro to Transcendental Meditation guidebook Catching the Big Fish. Over the years, he has expressed deep dissatisfaction with the experience of making this movie, and some have laid the blame at the feet of interfering producers wanting a much simplified heroic space opera popcorn movie . . .
. . . but it really isn't much of a popcorn movie, either. Too weird. Too much freaky imagery. The action sequences don't really play like the typical macho power fantasy theatrics of 1980s action flicks, either. The music is heroic, the good guys win, but it emphasizes the big picture of clashing armies as opposed to the blood'n'guts of a proper shoot'em up.
Even the Space Jesus McRainmaker transformation isn't as appealing as it could have been. Paul Atreides' ascension to Qwisatz Haderach comes off as a spiritual transition that robs him of what little personality he had to begin with-it's too Zen to be any fun. This is maybe one area wherein the movie evokes a little bit of the messianic angst that made Herbert's novel so compelling. In the book, Paul Atreides is both participant in and spectator to his transformation into a messiah-a man and god in one-and he's ultimately haunted by what he has become, even as he puts on the stoical mask of a Great Leader. Lynch's version, despite it's occasional and surprisingly striking use of voice over, doesn't really let us in on Paul's inner life. Another missed opportunity.
In a way, Lynch's Dune could be to Herbert's original novel what Paul Verhoeven's film of Starship Troopers is to Robert Heinlein's book. Except it's all backwards. Herbert writes a novel that is meant to evoke deep skepticism about the ethics of power and those who wield it in the minds of readers. Lynch takes this narrative and decides to print the Legend of the Fearless Leader. Paul Verhoeven directed his film as a parody of the fascist militarism endorsed as a noble way of life in Heinlein's book. Verhoeven's film is clearly a satire. Lynch's film . . . does not come across that way. It's very serious, is totally lacking in humor, and could only be looked on as a satire if we were to consider it a propaganda film from within the universe of Dune. Which is another similarity with Verhoeven's Starship Troopers.
Maybe.
Diving into Dune '84 again, I am left more critical of it than I had hoped I would be-I wanted to cling to my nostalgia on this one. I really did!
Some of it holds up. The sets and costumes are all cleverly executed. The cast includes Kyle MachLachlan, Max von Sydow, Linda Hunt, Virginia Madsen, Jurgen Prochnow, Everett McGill, Patrick Stewart, Jack Nance, Dean Stockwell, Freddie Jones, Francesca Annis, Brad Dourif-a cast of dozens! My personal favorite is the formidable Sian Phillips who commands the screen with her fearsome incarnation of a Bene Gesserit high priestess. Unfortunately, there are too many characters, and not nearly enough screenplay. Too bad. It's a helluva gathering of master thespians.
The sandworms are quite a lot of fun to behold as they are executed via a mixture of puppets and miniatures. The grotesque Fourth Stage Guild Navigators are magnificently grotesque monster fetuses who use their psionic powers to fold space/time and achieve faster than light travel across the vastnesses of outer space. These hideous beings are the cyberpunk cousins of the subconscious monstrosities previously seen in Eraserhead.
The dialogue isn't terrible, just too clotted with jargon and denuded of context to really sing. Herbert's novel was all about the world-around context. Lynch's film is the Cliff's Notes version.
I like it a little less now. Maybe I understand why Lynch would distance himself from it. It was a big budget production for its time that bombed with audiences and critics. It could've been a career ending flop. It wasn't. Lynch went on to more critical successes with later works, if not overwhelming financial performance. Dune was the first and last time Lynch would attempt to direct a fantasy blockbuster flick. Ultimately, that has been for the best.
In a way, Lynch's Dune could be to Herbert's original novel what Paul Verhoeven's film of Starship Troopers is to Robert Heinlein's book. Except it's all backwards. Herbert writes a novel that is meant to evoke deep skepticism about the ethics of power and those who wield it in the minds of readers. Lynch takes this narrative and decides to print the Legend of the Fearless Leader. Paul Verhoeven directed his film as a parody of the fascist militarism endorsed as a noble way of life in Heinlein's book. Verhoeven's film is clearly a satire. Lynch's film . . . does not come across that way. It's very serious, is totally lacking in humor, and could only be looked on as a satire if we were to consider it a propaganda film from within the universe of Dune. Which is another similarity with Verhoeven's Starship Troopers.
Maybe.
Diving into Dune '84 again, I am left more critical of it than I had hoped I would be-I wanted to cling to my nostalgia on this one. I really did!
Some of it holds up. The sets and costumes are all cleverly executed. The cast includes Kyle MachLachlan, Max von Sydow, Linda Hunt, Virginia Madsen, Jurgen Prochnow, Everett McGill, Patrick Stewart, Jack Nance, Dean Stockwell, Freddie Jones, Francesca Annis, Brad Dourif-a cast of dozens! My personal favorite is the formidable Sian Phillips who commands the screen with her fearsome incarnation of a Bene Gesserit high priestess. Unfortunately, there are too many characters, and not nearly enough screenplay. Too bad. It's a helluva gathering of master thespians.
The sandworms are quite a lot of fun to behold as they are executed via a mixture of puppets and miniatures. The grotesque Fourth Stage Guild Navigators are magnificently grotesque monster fetuses who use their psionic powers to fold space/time and achieve faster than light travel across the vastnesses of outer space. These hideous beings are the cyberpunk cousins of the subconscious monstrosities previously seen in Eraserhead.
The dialogue isn't terrible, just too clotted with jargon and denuded of context to really sing. Herbert's novel was all about the world-around context. Lynch's film is the Cliff's Notes version.
I like it a little less now. Maybe I understand why Lynch would distance himself from it. It was a big budget production for its time that bombed with audiences and critics. It could've been a career ending flop. It wasn't. Lynch went on to more critical successes with later works, if not overwhelming financial performance. Dune was the first and last time Lynch would attempt to direct a fantasy blockbuster flick. Ultimately, that has been for the best.
NEXT: 2/19/18: Blue Velvet (1986)
