Left Field Cinema

WARNING: Contains spoilers.

Frank Herbert’s Science Fiction epic first published in 1965, became tremendously popular for a novel of its genre and is considered by many (myself included) to be the greatest Science Fiction novel ever written and is frequently compared to The Lord of the Rings for its epic scale and detailed world. Set some twenty-thousand years in the future the universe is now a very different place with humans spread across different worlds with differing cultures, all of them are vying for the control of the Spice, which makes space travel possible, extends life and opens the mind. Herbert’s novel can be seen as an oil war metaphor, a Moses/Christ type story about one man becoming all he can be and eventually bringing rain to the desert world of Arrakisis (which sounds suspiciously like Iraq to me). I’ve read the book many years ago and it did indeed capture my imagination, as a young man of thirteen I didn’t entirely understand everything occurring in Herbert’s very detailed world but I understood enough to fall in love with the world and the characters as many others have. Herbert wrote five sequels to Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, and Chapter House Dune (although the later was only published a year after the release of the film) with six books with a huge cult following Dune made a potentially lucrative target for Hollywood. The rights for the book had been battled over through most of the 1970’s but eventually David Lynch would be the chosen man for the job (turning down the opportunity to direct Return of the Jedi in order to work on the film). Star Wars was a telling factor in Dune’s eventual inception, as around the success of the film came a tirade of imitators and cash-in vehicles. Every body wanted to find the next Star War – the Battlestar Galactica television series took much inspiration from the film, Star Trek: The Motion Picture was only made because of Star Wars as well (much to the annoyance of Trekers but Star Trek does owe a lot of it’s continuing existence to the success of Star Wars). Dune was another in a long list of Science Fiction epics to emerge at the time but Dune was easily the most high profile failure. Intending to turn the film into a franchise, this intent was never realised and Dune remains a stand alone film with no sequels or spin offs, it was both negatively received by critics, alienated many fans of the book and was a failure at the U.S. box office. Lynch backed away from the film and refuses to comment on it in any great detail to this day because making the film was such a painful and stifling experience for him, he blames himself for the films failure and stated that he began selling out when making the film. It was the first and last time that Lynch was given a significant budget to play with from Lynch’s perspective he’s probably pleased with that fact.

So what didn’t the critics like about the film when it was released? Critics like Roger Ebert, Gene Siskel, Janet Maslin, and Richard Corliss (all of whom are reputable American film critics) all chastised the film with scathing one-star reviews. The common complaint was that the film was structurally a mess, overly confusing, and made little to no sense. Corliss stated that “most sci-fi movies offer escape, a holiday from homework, but Dune is as difficult as a final exam. You have to cram for it.” This unifying complaint seems a tad perplexing to myself as I distinctly recall watching the film (before reading the novel) at the age of ten and found that the film made entire sense to me. Not only that but when I recently re-watched the film in preparation for this edition, I did so with my partner who had not seen the film before or read the book but followed the story perfectly and felt that the story was surprisingly clear throughout. So with that in mind let us examine the set-up and plot for Dune: the film begins with the Princess Irulan speaking directly to camera and explaining both the characters and the situation, she outlines the various sects and planets, The Haronnen’s, The Atreides, The Emporor, The planet Arrakis the source of the spice and the value it holds for everyone in the known universe. If this were not enough in the following scenes when we’re introduced to Paul Atreides (our hero as played by Kyle MacLachlan) he is working on a computer which outlines in even greater detail the relationships between the various houses; at this point we’ve gone into exposition over kill as information is now being repeated. When we switch locations it is always with the aid of a caption to tell us which planet we’re on and any time an additional element like the Bene Gesserit, the Kwisatz Haderach, the Water of Life or the Sardaukar are introduced they’re accompanied by additional exposition for the uninformed. Granted Herbert’s prose are a tad confusing especially in regards to the naming of unique elements of this universe. For instance Paul Atreides as no less than four names through the entire film and other people, places and objects often have more than one name, the planet Arrakis also being known as Dune as the title takes its name from, but these are exceptions where the proceedings are over complicated, the majority of the time everything remains simple enough to follow. The story can be condensed to a very simple level: house Atreides are invited to take over spice manufacturing for the Emperor, replacing their enemies the Harkonnens as they do. But it is a trap on the part of the Emperor who fears the Atreides leader Leto is becoming too powerful and popular and may over throw him. The Harkonnens return to Arrakis along with legions of the Emperor’s top soldiers; they over throw and wipe out the Atreides except for Leto’s son and wife, Paul and Jessica, who flee into the desert. Whilst in the desert the meet the Fremen, native warriors of Dune who take Paul as their leader, Paul trains them and drinks the water of life becoming a super human, he leads them in a revenge attack against the Emperor and the Baron Valdimir Harkonnen, he destroys his enemies, avenges his father and brings water to the desert. That’s it. That’s the story, it’s no more complex than any other revenge tale or Science Fiction odyssey, it’s no more complex than Star Wars for example. Of course there are additional subplots which pad out the experience, for example the over throwing of the Atredies at the end of the first act is only possible because of a traitor in their midst, Doctor Yueh who has set events in motion in order to get close enough to the Baron to assassinate him as revenge for the death of his wife; or that the Spacing Guild of navigators want Paul assassinated because they can foresee him posing them some danger in the near future; or Bene Gesserit’s fears that Paul will become the Kwisatz Haderach. But in all cases these subplots are either incidental to a full understanding of events or they become clearer as the film progresses.

This is Paul’s story, it follows the same arc as key biblical stories, as the 1999 science fiction film The Matrix did. In fact several sequences in Dune may remind audiences of The Matrix as the story arc for both protagonists are closely matched. So were all the critics in 1983 set-up with a preconceived opinion of the film because the studio kept putting back press screenings right up to the last minute, thus giving the impression that they were nervous about the film? Or were Science Fiction films simpler entities in the 1980’s? Was Dune genuinely too complex for their faculties? It’s hard to believe post-Lord of the Rings Trilogy that any film critic would admit to being lost in a Science Fiction or Fantasy film, but lost they claimed to be at the time so that is how history reads. Dune is easy to follow if you pay attention, listen and watch, nothing is left unexplained and even if you miss the occasional detail it is largely inconsequential as the story will still make sense without a full grasping of everyone’s motivations. It is true, there are a few words that Herbert made-up specifically for this fictional reality (in fact the book Dune even has a glossary of terms to better explain some of its more elliptical nouns). But within the context of a larger sentence constructed of words which are easily understood, the meaning of the single bespoke noun is rendered easy to understand. This translates to the larger canvas of the film itself, for every element of the film you’re uncertain about there are ten elements which you will be certain about. Dune lacks any murky middle ground that might readily confuse cinema audiences, the films heroes and villains are painfully obvious, the Harkonens are needlessly cruel and vicious, repulsive and display openly homosexual tendencies (perhaps the only true cinematic crime of Dune is its quite blatant homophobic streak. But even this is offset somewhat by the mildly homoerotic tendencies of the films heroes The Atreides who share loving embraces man to man and often touch each other as if they were lovers.) There were complaints at the time of release that the film was sexist and rather male dominated, women were either dutiful wives or wicked witches - nothing in between. This is also not entirely accurate as there are several prominent and powerful female Fremen characters as well as the woman in this universe having the power of the “voice” which allows them to control weak minded men, and only women have extra sensory perceptions a skill which gives them a clear advantage in this male dominated world; I’d argue that Dune is no more or less sexist than Star Wars or Star Trek for example (the latter is probably more sexist).

Dune also boasts an impressive cast and crew with the likes of Kyle Maclachlan, Brad Dourif, Linda Hunt, Jurgen Prochnow, Patrick Stewart, and the incredible Max von Sydow. As well as Lynch favourites, Dean Stockwell, Everett McGill, Jack Nance and of course Lynch himself. The only blemish on cast is the almost fatal casting of Sting as Feyd the young Harkonnen who wishes to kill Paul. Luckily Sting’s dialogue is reduced and the characters screen time is minimal when compared to the book which does render his hatred for Paul somewhat confusing. The music is composed by Toto and Brian Eno and for the most part has dated extremely well for an early 1980’s score with haunting character themes and rousing crescendos when appropriate, only the very occasional use of guitar is misjudged but these are rare occurrences for what is otherwise a fitting soundtrack.

The differing edits of Dune are also a matter of controversy, the long since rumoured six hour cut of Dune has been debunked given the length of the shooting script the longest it could possibly have been was four hours and even this is a stretch. The theatrical cut is 137 minutes in length, a common complaint is that the film is too short and needed more time to expand on characters and ideas - this is one of the few accurate complaints against Dune. Unfortunately the unauthorised extended cut is not much help in this regard, Lynch disapproved of the extended cut and the director is credited as Alan Smithee the film makers code for “I wash my hands of this film, someone else has control” and you can see why Lynch hated the extended cut so much with incomplete special effects and a pointless extended introduction to the backing of cartoon pictures rather than live action, the extra scenes add nothing which couldn’t have been spared. But what makes this worse is the censored action sequences, as a TV version the worst of the violence is cut from the film for presentation on prime time TV. It is a ludicrously botched job and if you have the opportunity to watch either version I urge you to only consider the theatrical cut.

Complaints were also made about the films visual effects (which in places are admittedly ropey) but as far as movie sins are concerned the standard of a films special effects are venial rather than moral. Often neglected in this area is how good some of the special effects are, the Navigators (one of the only true aliens in Dune), and when seated in their life pods they are very convincingly over worldly, communicating through telepathy and interpreters, there is a real sense of language and the difficulties in communicating. Another otherworldly beast is the sandworm on Dune, rather than just another space monster, the sandworm is of great importance to the story and the characters; giant beasts hundreds of metres long, devouring and destroying what they come-up against. When we first see the sandworm it is devouring a harvester of the Spice, we only see its incredibly large mouth appear and swallow what was there only moments before, hinting at the size of the beast that lies beneath. Their philology is well documented and their connection to the Spice is well conceived.

The design is also a praise worthy area of the film; the grotesque appearance of the Harkonens, the regal appearance of both the Emperor and the Atreides, the stillsuits the Fremen wear to conserve water, the body shields, the weirding modules, the gas masks the Sardaukar wear in ordinarily breathable atmosphere, the heart plugs the Harkonens install their victims with so that they can be killed in an instant, the bright blue eyes that the inhabitants of Dune gain once they’ve lived their long enough. So many unique and original ideas were present in both Herberts book and Lynch’s film, the world of Dune is like nothing that came before it, it boasts an impressive devotion to the sovereignty of the universe it operates within. It’s not Star Trek, it’s not Star Wars, it’s not Alien or Solaris, it’s not Blade Runner or Metropolis, it’s not any of the other Science Fiction films and franchises which have set the clichés for those that follow, Dune is instead it’s own film - it is one of a kind and should be cherished for that if for nothing else. Dune is aging well; the further we get from the initial reaction to this film the more audiences can see its worth. Dune is also growing in cultural significance, the current oil crisis in the world and the duplicitous nature of major governments across the world with their manipulation of Middle Eastern conflicts for the net gain of more oil can be seen reflected in Dune’s political manoeuvrings and questions. The Spice is life, it allows space travel, the spice is power, whoever controls the spice controls the universe. Doe any of this Sound familiar? Can the Fremen be read as the Afgans or Iraqis? The Emperor as The American Government, the Navigators as American business? The Harkonens as the American military? With these questions in mind Dune makes more interesting viewing than it ever has before. Science Fiction analogies can appear dated over time; Dune is thankfully become more potent by the day.

M.Dawson