The massive science 1965 fiction novel Dune by Frank Herbert represented a huge leap forward in fantasy literature and a repeated series of impossibilities for filmmakers who attempted to adapt it for the screen. On December 14, 1984, director David Lynch unveiled his cinematic vision of Dune to the world. Thirty years later, it remains a puzzle over which fans and detractors alike repeatedly return to marvel. Few movies blow minds more unequivocally.
For example, the above picture is Professor X overseeing a knife fight between Special Agent Dale Cooper and Sting.
Dune has already gotten plenty of attention this year, with a popular documentary chronicling a failed 1971 attempt to make the movie with Jodorowsky’s Dune. After that, Dune seemed doomed for a decade–that is, until movie mogul Dino DeLaurentiis’s right to film the material was about to run out.
In 1980, producer Mel Brooks hired avant-garde Eraserhead weirdo David Lynch to direct The Elephant Man, and the result was a masterpiece. George Lucas had even offered Return of the Jedi to Lynch. That’s when DeLaurentiis approached Lynch with a deal: in exchange for helming Dune, Lynch would get carte blanche to make any project he wanted. (That turned out to be Lynche’s surreal classic mystery Blue Velvet). The result may or may not be a masterpiece, but Dune is certainly…something.
David Lynch’s Dune took three years to film, cost a then-astronomical $40 million, and the first cut ran four hours (it was eventually trimmed to two-hours, seventeen minutes). Whereas Pink Floyd had once been on board to do a Dune soundtrack, this version’s songs are by the legendary rockers of—um, Toto.
Critics decried everything from the movie’s look to its length to its sheer impossibility to follow, and certain elements even garnered hysterical charges of homophobia. A line of Dune toys hit shelves for Christmas and hit cut-out bins by December 26–although they cost plenty now.
Lynch’s whole Dune endeavor is preposterously amazing, cosmically confusing, beautifully ugly, mesmerizingly unendurable, and an experience any true movie geek must have. The film is a cult classic and deservedly so. You might have to work to love it, but that’s one of the main reasons that, for thirty years ago as of today, Dune still captivates and infuriates. Here’s to 10,191 more….
