On David Lynch's Dune
The latest Acton Unwind special episode, ‘Spice, Spice Baby’, featuring my colleagues Eric Kohn, Daniel Baas, Dylan Pahman, and myself is now out! It was a great panel with a variety of perspectives on Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two.
Yesterday I wrote down a rabbit hole ‘On T.E. Lawrence and Dune’ that I wasn’t able to talk down on the podcast. I was, however, able to drag my overly gracious co-panelists into my longstanding project of rehabilitating David Lynch’s Dune.
Lynch is famously reluctant to discuss the film for which he did not have final cut. Fan Edits, particularly Spicedriver’s, have given the sometimes bewildering two-hour seventeen-minute theatrical release room to breathe by extending it to nearly three hours with scenes cut or simply never completed due to the constraints imposed on the theatrical release. It may not be Lynch’s original unadulterated vision, but it is superior to Villeneuve’s Dunes in too many ways to ignore:
Lynch’s Dune retains more of Frank Herbert’s original language. Herbert writes a lot of great dialoged which is delivered in a unique register. It pops, it’s memorable, and it immerses you in another world. Too often Villeneuve’s Dunes speak like the 2020s or USA Today. Many iconic lines (“the sleeper must awaken”) inexplicably never make it to the screen.
Lynch’s Dune retains more of the interior dialogue of the characters which is where the action is in Frank Herbert’s Dune. There is too much of this in Lynch’s theatrical cut and not enough of it in Villeneuve’s Dunes. Spicedriver’s fan edit gets it just right. Trying to externalize it all results in very different characters and a very different story. This is why even though Lynch and Villeneuve make changes in bringing the story to the screen Villeneuve’s Dunes feel more as if they are “inspired by” Herbert’s Dune rather than an adaptation of it.
Lynch’s Dune preserves the spirit and stories of characters like Alia Atreides, Thufir Hawat, Gurney Halleck, Wellington Yueh, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, Piter De Vries, and the Shadout Mapes in a way Villeneuve over the space of two movies neglects and needlessly truncates.
Brian Eno + Toto > Hans Zimmer
The conversation in ‘Spice, Spice Baby’ was loads of fun!
Give it a listen here.