curated cinema: a previous trip to Arrakis
1984’s *Dune* leaves UK Mubi in 6 days; it’s streaming on Max in the US
As you probably know, Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of the 1965 science-fiction novel Dune is not the first attempt to bring author Frank Herbert’s sprawling saga to the big screen. David Lynch did it first, in 1984… and it was not a success, either critically or at the box office. But it’s fascinating to revisit Lynch’s Dune after Villeneuve’s films, for the strikingly different choices the filmmakers, both of whom also wrote their own scripts, made in telling the same tale.
Villeneuve takes nearly six hours across two films — Dune is now streaming, and Dune: Part Two is currently in cinemas globally — and still leaves out a massive thread of the story: the political and economic position of the Spacing Guild, the interstellar spice navigators who hold a monopoly on space travel. Lynch crams them in — his navigators are horrifically mutated posthumans — and, like every other aspect of the tale, they are tantalizing but underdeveloped. With a runtime of 136 minutes, characters are only briefly sketched and infodumps dominate the dialogue. Lynch’s Dune is rushed and disjointed… and yet Villeneuve’s movies, if you’ve seen them, help fill in some of the blanks.
Its many flaws aside, this is an ambitious film, and there’s a surrealistic, impressionistic beauty to Lynch’s vision. The FX are horribly dated, but the vibe of elegant, baroque steampunk remains a treat. And the cast is top-notch: Kyle MacLachlan is Paul Atreides, and the cast also features Patrick Stewart, Sean Young, Francesca Annis, Dean Stockwell, Virginia Madsen, Brad Dourif, Sting, and others.
US: stream on Max (via Prime); rent/buy on Prime and Apple TV
UK: stream on Mubi (via Prime) through March 24th; rent on BFI Player and Curzon Home Cinema; rent/buy on Prime and Apple TV
See Dune (1984) at Letterboxd for more viewing options.
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I remember really liking the movie at the time. I think that Kyle McLaughlin was a better choice for Paul actually.