Dune

by Christian McCrea

David Lynch's Dune (1984) is the film that science fiction-and the director's most ardent fans-can neither forgive nor forget. Frank Herbert's original 1965 novel built a meticulous universe of dark majesty and justice, as wild-eyed freedom fighters and relentless authoritarians all struggled for control of the desert planet Arrakis and its mystical, life-extending "spice." After several attempts to produce a film, Italian movie mogul Dino De Laurentiis and his producer daughter Raffaella would enlist David Lynch, whose Eraserhead (1977) and The Elephant Man (1980) had already marked him out as a visionary director. What emerges out of their strange, long process is a deeply unique vision of the distant future; an eclectic bazaar of wood-turned spaceship interiors, spitting tyrants, and dream montages. Lynch's film was "steeped in an ancient primordial nastiness that has nothing to do with the sci-fi film as we currently know it," as Village Voice critic J. Hoberman put it-only
with time becoming a cult classic. This book is the first long-form critical study of the film; it delves into the relationship with the novel, the rapidly changing context of early 1980s science fiction, and takes a close look at Lynch's attempt to breathe sincerity and mysticism into a blockbuster movie format that was shifting radically around him.

Genres: Nonfiction, Film

124 pages, Paperback

Published July 24, 2019

Reviews

[Andrew Bishop]

The best introduction to this complicated, maligned, wonderful film yet written. Key here is the not overlooking its contradictions but always alert to its strengths in a scrupulous analysis of the balance of art versus commerce. Dune is one of the best examples of that tension and McCrea weighs it all quite fairly while never stinting on what others besides Lynch were trying to do. Since he's disowned the film it's been treated all too dismissively - until this book which is a gift to its fans and skeptics alike.

[Tristan Damen]

The writer has a real passion for the subject that in turns creates a sense of momentum. For an academic text, this reads really well.