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By
WAYNE KLEIN
Evidently fear of a long
movie was the mindkiller for Universal and Dino De
Laurentiis when it came to releasing David Lynch's
"Dune" to theaters. Lynch managed to trim down his
epic film to 2 hours and 17 minutes compressing
Frank Herbert's marvelous, complex convoluted and
massive novel into a single movie experience.
There was lots of footage that ended up on the
cutting room floor some of it deservedly so some
not.
"Dune" takes the various messiah myths and
combines them with the political intrigue of
Elizabethian England propelling them into the year
10,151. Spice a combination of a narcotic and
health additive is the currancy of the future. He
who controls the spice controls the world. There's
only one place it can be found--on the planet
Arakis also known as Dune because it is a massive
desert from pole to pole. Spice harvesting can be
a dangerous business due to the giant sand worms
that dominate the planet. They are somehow tied
into the spice but no one quite knows how or why.
The Emperor of the Known Universe (José Ferrer)
owns the company that hunts for and processing
spice. He has one of the royal houses run the
company for him. When he suspects that Count Leto
Atreides (Jürgen Prochnow) plans to overthrow him,
he kicks out Leto's rival Baron Harkonnen (Kenneth
McMillan) from Dune. He uses reduced spice
production as his excuse but, in the process,
creates a sham feud between them. The Emperor has
agreed to let Harkonnen take out Atreides on Dune
using the royal troops without his intervention so
that it appears to be based strictly on their
blood feud and rivalry. In turn Harkonnen will
earn the Emperor's favor. When a member of the
Spacing Guild a Navigator (these formerly human
creatures use the spice to help them "fold" space,
i.e., move from one point to another without
traveling) is able to "see" the future because of
his spice intake he demands that if the Emperor
goes through with his plan he must have Paul (Kyle
McLachlan in his first role) Leto's son killed.
The boy has been trained in the ways of the Bene
Gesserit an ancient order of women famed for their
mental and physical abilities. These abilities
allow him to manipulate others to do their
bidding, have great fighting skills and catch
glimpses of the future with the aid of the spice.
The order has been trying to breed a Kwisatz
Haderach or superhuman with the abilities to see
the future. The Bene Gesserit want to control this
superhuman to control the empire. It turns out
Paul has these abilities inherited from his mother
Jessica (Francesca Annis). If all of this sounds
like "Star Wars" that's because George Lucas
borrowed many of the concepts from Herbert's novel
using them in a moe superficial way. Paul fits
just in with the messiah myth that the Fremen the
people of Dune believe in. He is able to rally
them to support his cause even as the Baron cuts
down House Atraides in a blood bath.
What we get here is the "Ultimate" edition of the
film so far. Lynch's original vision and on the
flipside of this DVD18 the "Extended Version" that
played on the Sci-Fi Channel. Both are presented
in anamorphic widescreen (the extended edition for
the first time). Both look good although there's
lots of dirt and debris that could easily have
been cleaned up by Universal. Instead they
essentially used the same transfer as before for
the theatrical version of the film. Colors are
solid throughout for both versions. Sound is
extremely good with a 5.1 mix for the first time
on the extended version of the film. At three
hours there is a certain about of repetition of
plot points (which is why some scenes were cut).
It's a pity Lynch wasn't involved in the editing
as he would have, no doubt, had a plan for
reediting this material into a cohesive superior
film.
As it is both versions of the film are flawed;
Lynch's version comes across as a "Cliff's Notes"
version of the novel hitting all the important
highlights but missing the opportunity to develop
depth for the characters. Lynch tries to off set
this with brief interior monologues and thoughts
presented in voiceovers. Usually voiceovers in
films are a bad sign--it indicates that the
director's film lacks clarity or it spells out
what should be clear to the audience from
inference. That's true some of the time here and
sometimes it's just plain awkward--we don't know
these characters well enough to hear their
thoughts without chuckling at how ponderous and
pretentious they are. Lynch's grandiose almost
operatic style informs everything from the larger
than life acting (particularly that of Jose
Ferrier as the Emperor) to the excessive but
attractive production design by Anthony Masters.
The extended version is pedantic in nature at
times trying to "teach" us about these other
worlds and their conflicts without letting the
information flow out of the story itself. The
opening narration using production drawings to
illustrate the background and plot points results
in overkill--we get too much information much of
it repeated elsewhere in the movie. It's the type
of material you'd see in a less than average TV
movie designed for people with IQ's just above
zero on a thermometer. Many of the sequences are
unfinished lacking the complete sound effects that
Lynch uses elsewhere. While there aren't any
gaping holes in visual effects, etc. that would
betray that these sequences weren't intended for
the movie they have a rough hewn quality not
evident in the rest of the film. Combing the best
sequences from both would have resulted in a
superior film as it is we have films that are less
than the sum of their parts.
We get the following extras: deleted scenes with
an introduction by producer Raffaella De
Laurentiis. She disspells the myth that Lynch had
a four hour version of the film ready to go and
that it's floating around there somewhere.
Certainly there was a rough cut but it wasn't
anywhere near a finished condition. No doubt it
would have cost a lot to remix, redub (bringing
back the actors) finish the effects (this was
before CGI)and rescore. So what we have here is a
compromise with both versions. We also four
excellent featurettes with plenty of clips,
behind-the-scenes footage of Lynch shooting the
movie. Lynch doesn't appear in any of the new
featurettes nor does he provided a commentary as
he clearly wasn't happy with the release of the
extended version on DVD. The featurettes contain
interviews with the visual effects supervisors
discussing their work on the models, miniatures
and the designers discussing the challenge of
creating the costumes and the different "worlds"
some of which Lynch had strong concepts about.
The extended version for those who haven't seen it
also includes a narrative that gives too much
information although it duplicates part of the
narration that Virginia Madsen does for the
theatrical cut as Princess Irulan. The collectable
tin case looks extemely good but if you buy this
at retail shake them; I discovered a whole bunch
where the discs were floating around loose inside.
There's also a one sheet which gives the chapters,
definitions (similar to the definition sheet given
out in some theaters for the premiere)of the
phrases and words used throughout the film and
also a list of the extras.
Personally, I prefer Lynch's vision flaws and all
because the "Extended Edition" (put together by
the studio without Lynch's involvement which is
why the direction is credited to the ubiquitous
"Alan Smithee" and the screenplay (also written by
Lynch) to "Judas Booth." The extended edition has
some moments that were lost that Lynch could have
integrated into a new "Director's Cut" of the film
if Univeral and Lynch could have come to agreement
and it would have made Lynch's film, arguably, a
better one but that didn't happen. |
