Dune (1984)
Directed by David Lynch
***SPOILERS***
Dune’s
pre-production tale is probably more infamous than the actual film. Apjac
International optioned the film rights to the novel "Dune" in 1971, and the actual film wasn’t released until 1984. After shifting through
various directors, Apjac eventually sold the rights to Jean-Paul Gibon in 1974,
and he assigned Alejandro Jodorowsky to the director’s chair. Jodorowsky
planned to make a ten-hour event out of the film, featuring classic actors such
as Geraldine Chaplin and Alain Delon and other over-priced celebrities like Salvador
Dalí and Mick Jagger. Hell, Pink freakin’ Floyd was assigned to do the
soundtrack. Disagreements between Jodorowsky and his financer ended in the
rights being sold once again to Dino De Laurentiis. After shifting through
several directors once more, including Ridley Scott, De Laurentiis finally
landed on hiring David Lynch, as he was impressed with his direction in The Elephant Man. After edits and
re-edits and re-re-edits of the script, Lynch filmed Dune and finished with a three-hour cut that, well, was about an
hour too long for the producers. Whatever was cut out was replaced with blasé
narration and inner-monologues from the characters, resulting in the majestic narrative mess that has come to be known as David Lynch's Dune.
Unfortunately for Lynch, the original novel “Dune,” written
by Frank Herbert, had quite the following—and you don’t mess with science
fiction nerds’ favorite stories. Dune
was promptly—and perhaps deservedly—met with absolute contempt from most
Herbert purists, and was subsequently slammed by critics for its
incomprehensible story. Now here’s two ingredients that don’t go together well
for an honest critique: nerds with hard-ons for Herbert that will dismiss any
cinematic re-visioning, and mainstream critics with no gumption to read into
material. For while Lynch’s Dune is a
hodgepodge in terms of story, it owns all the characteristics that make a Lynch
film so Lynchian-ly original and magnificent. Except this time Lynch was in hyper-mode. Backed
with a $40 million budget and the most elaborately drawn sets Lynch has had made
available to him, Lynch made a film that both inconceivable and enthralling, making for an experience that aroused the senses more than the brain.
The gripping and disgusting imagery of Dune was more in-depth and forthright, but it was really nothing
new for a man who directed Eraserhead
and The Elephant Man beforehand. Eraserhead was chocked full of
uncomfortable images, such as when Henry (Jack Nance) cut into a piece of
chicken as blood spewed from between its thighs (a metaphor for taking a
woman’s virginity), or when he spliced open his alien baby, only for its inner organs to expand until they filled the room. And while the Elephant Man,
aka John Merrick (John Hurt), was a gut-lurching image himself, his place in The Elephant Man actually notes quite a
shift for Lynch. The grotesque appearance of John is meant to offset the kind
humanitarian underneath, challenging society to look beyond image for
acceptance. But every bubbling deformity and slobbering pile of gunk in Dune is meant to convey exactly as
intended on the surface, giving the characters, props, and settings their own
personalities that were perpetuated so blandly through the mangled script. So
while it wasn’t Lynch’s best (or most supported) screenplay, the resulting film
was actually a realized vision on Lynch’s part in relating the mood and
atmosphere of the story—a perfect combination of sci-fi wonder and Lynchian
imagery that would have been benefitted by an adept screenplay.
The film begins with a woman’s eyes fixated on the viewer,
and Lynch pulls back and reveals the woman's head floating in
space. As a quick add-on after the producers nixed Lynch’s running time, it
actually sets the mood quite well, as she fades in and out of the frame several
times, recalling a vision of space that’s as welcoming and mysterious as the
Man in the Planet from Eraserhead or
John’s mother in The Elephant Man. The
film then immediately transitions (after a lame epic title sequence, of course)
into the Duke’s chambers, and right away Herbert newcomers lose track of just
about everything. But the setting surrounding the Duke is quite delectable:
gold and green floods the walls and the Duke’s robe, and he’s soon accompanied
by a mysterious bald woman wearing black and gold. They’re confronted with
several men in black suits—that are actually way cooler than the Stormtroopers Star Wars (I know who I’m dressing up
as for Comic-Con)—who are accompanied by a giant black tank…that contains a
pretty disgusting tenant: an extravagantly detestable creature that makes the
alien baby from Eraserhead seem
pretty gosh darn cute! Oh, and he’s a lot more disgusting than, yes, you
guessed it, the similar looking beast from Star
Wars known as Jabba the Hut. Like a giant sponge that absorbed too much
bacon grease, this brownish-yellow blob floats in his tank and speaks to the Duke,
as Lynch focuses on its finer features. The spongy rows along its body resemble
a brain and its mouth resembles an unwelcoming vagina. And it’s not disgusting
for disgusting’s sake—this is a full-fledged depiction that’s meant to arouse
the senses and give personality to this evil creature, and it’s done in a way
that’s not as obvious as, say, the menacing breathing of Darth Vader. In this
elaborate set piece the alien feels out of place, but his alliance with the Duke
sets up a duality between the two that’s directly fueled by the audience’s
collective upset bowel movements.
Body parts are constantly referenced and focused upon
throughout Dune, such as when Paul
(Kyle MacLachlan) describes the Fremen’s eyes as “blue within blue,” creating an enigma surrounding the strange race
that allows Paul to reach his full potential. “You’ve got sharp eyes,” the pilot says Paul points out a giant
worm lurking beneath the sand. Sometimes its as simple as describing a process,
where Paul is told to breath in through the mouth and out through the nose as “perspiration passe(s) through the first
layer.” Paul can hear enemies coming from down the hall. He places his
hands inside a contraption as Lynch displays them amongst a fiery mess,
allowing the inner screaming monologue of Paul to actually hold weight beyond
relating the story at hand. The frame tightly wraps around his hands, just like
Lynch will continue to do throughout the film, as seen in the shot of the alien
creatures vagina-mouth, the tight shots of icily radiant blue eyes, the slobber
pouring from the Baron’s mouth onto a woman’s face, and long spacious scales on
the phallic worms roaming beneath the desert. Lynch’s focus on these extraneous
details isn’t the most sophisticated form of filmmaking, but the feelings
evoked from this absolute agitation of the viewer’s senses continually relates
the vicious mood of the scene and the personality of the characters, from hopeful
savior (Paul’s blue eyes) to grotesque villain (the Baron’s infinite repository
of saliva), Lynch actually gives more gusto to his characters than any
well-guided screenplay could accomplish. Combined with a misguided screenplay,
however, the message is certainly lost amongst many viewers.
Other times the blunt images of Dune represent the time period more than the characters, in
relation to how its inhabitants operate. When Paul and Gurney (Patrick Stewart)
engage in battle, only for absurd blocky force fields to surround their
bodies. There’s a strange inconceivableness to these proceedings, but it’s much
easier to poke fun at the zany nature of the fight than to recognize how
perfectly it fits into Lynch’s universe. The language and characters of Dune are, at times, incredibly
preposterous and eccentric, and upon viewing such a strange tussle, Dune begins to own a unique identity
alongside the opening exchange between the disgusting alien and the Duke. The
grossness of the villains; the incomprehensibleness of the fight—and let's not forget the grueling landscapes, with long stretches of brown that erupt with penis-worms, metal fish heads billowing the ever-present Lynch smoke in front of the Baron's headquarters, and the extravagant hallways and contraptions flooding royalty's homes. Each image in
Lynch’s arsenal is relating a feeling beyond “lame,” which is a word that only
describe the unfathomable story at hand.
And nothing evokes the senses more than an actual evocation
of the senses on film, as seen when Paul masters the use of “The Voice,” which
is, once a-fucking-gain, all too reminiscent of George Lucas’ “creation” of
“The Force.” But “The Voice” keeps in line so finely with Lynch’s complete
discipline in shaping a sense-arousing universe that it holds much more weight
in its use to win the war. Nothing is more telling of Paul’s eventual mastering
of “The Voice” than his own description, when he says:
“Some thoughts have a
sound, that being equivalent to a form. Through that sound’s emotion, you will
be able to paralyze nerves, shatter bones, set fires, suffocate an enemy, or
burst his organs.”
This is eerily reminiscent of what Lynch attempts to achieve
with Dune, choosing to disgust and entice
rather than educate—extracting a feeling rather than building drama. It also
recalls another quote from Paul’s father:
“Without change,
something sleeps inside us until awaken. It must awaken.”
Certainly Lynch wasn’t striving for conventional, and
whether or not viewers realize it, he surely awoke something inside us all with
Dune.
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