It has been 40 years since the great David Lynch made the film Dunethe acclaimed work of Frank Herbert and we couldn't stop celebrating it.
Attempts to transfer to the big screen Dune, the successful novel written by Frank Herbert in 1965, began in the early seventies and quickly entered a 'hell' of film projects that failed to get off the ground. One of the most specific occurred in 1973, when the rights were acquired by a French consortium with producer Jean-Paul Gibon at the helm and director Alejandro Jodorowsky eager to take the film on his shoulder.
The music of Pink Floyd, the special effects of Dan O'Bannon, the designs of HR Giger and Jean Giraud, the performances of Salvador Dalí, Orson Welles, Mick Jagger, Udo Kier, David Carradine and Gloria Swanson, among others, were some of the ideas that the Chilean director brought to the table but was unable to bring to fruition due to lack of a corresponding budget, although his vision seems to have had a certain impact on many science fiction films of the time.
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The beginning
At the end of 1976, Dino De Laurentiis obtained the rights to the novel and commissioned Herbert himself to write a script, which ended up being a 175-page manuscript… equivalent to three hours on screen. In 1979 Ridley Scott joined the direction and tried to separate the film into two parts, but as the pre-production processes were very slow, he decided to abandon the project to dedicate himself fully to the making of blade runner (1982):
“I realized that it was going to consume a lot of my time, at least two and a half years. I didn't have enough strength to face it, largely because my older brother had just died suddenly while I was preparing De Laurentiis' film. “That scared me a lot,” recalls the director, without knowing what he was saving himself from.
By 1981 the rights were about to expire, so Dino renegotiated the terms with Herbert, adding options for sequels. David Lynch's work in The elephant Man (The Elephant Man1980) attracted the attention of Raffaella De Laurentiis, who gave him the opportunity to direct and write the script, despite not having any experience in the science fiction genre or even having read the novel.
Finally, on March 30, 1983, filming began Dune (Dune1984) in several cities in Mexico, including locations in Ciudad de Juárez and some 80 different sets built in 16 studios with the help of a technical team of 1,700 people and a budget of 40 million dollars.
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Lynch and Duna
Lynch managed to adapt the first of the novels in the series and incorporate several elements from its sequels. He brought together a large group of actors, among whom were newcomer Kyle MacLachlan – who would become his favorite performer –, Francesca Annis, Brad Dourif, José Ferrer, Linda Hunt, Virginia Madsen, Kenneth McMillan, Patrick Stewart, Sting and Max von Sydow; He added the soundtrack by Toto and Brian Eno, and the creature design courtesy of maestro Carlo Rambaldi. Even so, the process was a true hell for everyone involved, from the filming conditions to the discomfort of the costumes.
Dune It hit theaters in the United States in December 1984 and became a true failure with critics and audiences. According to Lynch, the only black mark in his career, so much so that he flatly refuses to talk about the details of the production and, much less, collaborate with a special edition in physical format:
“Duna is the only film I made that I didn't have control over the final cut. I knew from the beginning that I wouldn't have it, so giving in was a terrible experience. I thought it was going to work anyway, but I was very naive, it was a bad move. At that time, the maximum duration they would allow me was two hours and seventeen minutes, and that was the total length of the tape, so it was compacted to fit the standards of the time. The money spoke, but not for the benefit of the film.”
Forty years later, Dune: Part Two (Dune: Part Two) is a resounding event; the second installment of the 'trilogy' planned by Denis Villeneuve, as well as the longest with 165 minutes of footage. “It's a real disaster. An incomprehensible, unstructured and meaningless excursion into the murky confines of one of the most confusing scripts of all time,” wrote Roger Ebert about Lynch's film, for us, a true cult classic.
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Some curious facts
- – 200 people had to clear five kilometers of the Mexican desert by hand for filming.
- – They say that Lynch rejected Return of the Jedi (Return of the Jedi, 1983) to direct this film.
- – Dune is the first film to show a computer-generated human form: shields.
- – The tendons that are seen when Paul manages to hook the worm were made from condoms.
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