Dune (1984) directed by David Lynch

Back in 1984, David Lynch made an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s science fiction classic Dune. It was a troubled production, and Lynch’s original version ran to three hours, which was then edited down to a two-hour film, resulting in a dense and awkward film being released in cinemas. Lynch would later distance himself from Dune. Given that a new adaptation has been released this year, directed by Denis Villeneuve (admittedly, Villeneuve’s Dune only covers the first half of the novel, while Lynch’s does the entire book), I thought it would be interesting to look back at Lynch’s Dune and see how well it holds up.

When I spoke to friends about the 1984 version, we all remembered the same few things: (i) it made no sense; (ii) it looked amazing; and (iii) the scene introducing the Baron Harkonnen was absolutely nightmarish (we also all remembered Sting wearing comical space-underpants, but the less said about that, the better).

First and foremost, it must be said that this film doesn’t really work. It looks incredible for its time, and the mechanical effects are truly inventive in many places, but it doesn’t hang together well at all. Frank Herbert’s novel is complex, and a huge amount of cutting down was inevitably going to be required to get the whole book into a two-hour film. However, that means there are two false starts, where characters fill the viewer in about the background and, once Dune properly begins, there’s a fair amount of people telling each other things for the benefit of the viewers. It was never going to be easy to compress the novel, and some important ideas would inevitably have to go, but it’s awkward. It doesn’t help that characters’ thoughts are often included as a whispered voice-over: a technique that I don’t mind, but which some viewers might find intrusive. I suspect that people who know the novel would find too much has been cut out, and people new to Dune would find it pretty confusing.

I liked a lot of the characterisation in Lynch’s Dune, especially House Atreides and its retainers. Kyle Maclachlan is fine as Paul, even if he looks closer to 25 than the 15 of the hero of the novel. Jurgen Prochnow and Francesca Annis are very convincing as Duke Leto and Lady Jessica, and Patrick Stewart, Dean Stockwell and Freddie Jones are decent as Gurney Halleck, Doctor Yueh and Thufir Hawat respectively. Everyone is credible but a bit grotesque, and Lynch’s House Atreides feels like a slightly more likable version of the Groan family from the Gormenghast novels.

Likewise, Sting (yes, him!) and Brad Dourif are suitably evil and crazy as Feud Rautha Harkonnen and Piter de Vries. Max von Sydow (Kynes, the imperial planetologist) and Sian Phillips (Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam) bring weight to their roles. Kenneth McMillan is grotesque and manic as the Baron Harkonnen, Duke Leto’s nemesis, and feels both dangerous and absurd.

A word here about the baron. He is something of a caricature: a crazed, gluttonous maniac. He seems to be gay (as per the novel), and there is a rather shocking scene where he kills a young servant in an unmistakeably sexual fashion. It’s surprisingly nasty, and I doubt that the only gay character in a story would be portrayed in such a way in a modern film.

I remember David Lynch’s Dune less as a coherent story and more as a set of striking images. The guild navigator—the shield-fighting—the baron—Arrakis and so on. Unfortunately, and perhaps inevitably given the structure of the novel, the second half is less visually striking as Paul wins the friendship of the native people of Arrakis and takes revenge on his enemies.

Ultimately, David Lynch’s Dune is a curio rather than a success. It failed at the box office and now, nearly forty years later, it still doesn’t quite work. I can’t imagine anyone who was unfamiliar with the book being able to make much sense of it. However, there is a lot to enjoy, and, in a way, I think it captures the hallucinatory weirdness of Herbert’s novel better than Villeneuve’s version. It’s not a great film by any means, but it contains some moments of real ingenuity and invention. As such, I find it very hard to give it an award. On a good day, it would get 6 out of 10 from me, but I suspect that many people would give it 5.

Overall, it’s a failure, but a heroic failure.

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