Dune (Denis Villeneuve, 2021-4)

[Nasir007]

To suggest, as Nasir007 does, that Villaneuve's aesthetics are formulated––maybe consciously, maybe not––in reaction against the aesthetics of Marvel movies and similar blockbuster films doesn't sound unreasonable to me.

Eh, it does to me. To think that any self-respecting artist who's been given the opportunity and canvas Villeneuve has, would allow their vision to be molded in reaction to Marvel movies, unconsciously or not, is a bit much. Especially since his films have exhibited the same reflective quietude from the start, as with Enemy which came out around when the MCU was revving up. In fact, Villeneuve doesn't even strike me as a 'blockbuster director' as much as a director who's just been given a large budget. He hasn't grown into it and allowed it to shape and redefine him like it has a Christopher Nolan. You could cut his budgets in half and you'd probably get the same thing with less effects shots.

The idea that there's a reaction taking place to Marvel though isn't completely off; but I would wager it's happening with audiences and not Villeneuve. It's probable he has benefitted from superhero fatigue, or audiences wanting something deeper and more intellectual than Jurassic World.

The self-respecting artist in also in a business designed to make money.

Movies are not made in a bubble. Movies are pitched, greenlit, produced, marketed and released at a specific moment in time, you cannot ignore the reality you are releasing your product into. Of course, people are aware of MCU looming over the cinema landscape. Of course there is a reaction to it. Everyone from Scorsese to Admodovar is talking about it. They are talking about it because the MCU matters. The hold it has on the audience is undeniable. Just last year they put out the biggest movie of all time. It has been the dominant force in high earning cinema in the past decade worldwide.

So of course there is reaction to it from film-makers as well. WB's DC franchise post Nolan was explicitly a response to the MCU.

Influence is measured not just by the imitation of a subject but also by the reaction to it. And MCU is undoubtedly enormously influential that way. MCU has been stigmatized as a infatalized, productized, commercialized unhealthy cheeseburger of a movie product with bright colors, jokes and gags, fast action, peppy characters.

Movies are definitely being made as a reaction to that, to perhaps offer an alternative or counter programming or from a desire to be different and path breaking in your own way or to not be perceived as them, to have some measure or prestige and respectability.

[RIP Film]

Of course MCU has influence, in the same way any huge mass affects the gravity of smaller things. But in the case of Blade Runner 2049, it was probably more that the producers had no idea how to market or produce it so they simply gave a big budget to a visionary director, trying to recapture the lightning in the bottle of Ridley Scott in the 80s. And as I said, Villeneuve has been consistently quiet, 'boring', etc. so to say he or his producers are reacting in opposition to Marvel on purpose is practically moot.

Going back to your original point:

I think there is a perhaps maybe sort of an anti-marvel/anti-mayhem reaction in Hollywood in making blockbuster prestige cinema.

...Today's prestige blockbuster has to feature introverted depressed people, moping about in frames rather than any real energy. Stories about brooding and subtle discoveries than dramatic situations. Color palettes are faded. Design is muted. The life itself seems sapped out of these films.

I'm curious, how many other 'blockbusters' are doing this? Or was this diatribe just meant for Villeneuve?

[Magic Hate Ball]

That's a pretty widespread phenomenon. I can't pinpoint exactly when it started, but The Social Network was the first movie I remember having "that" look. Soft, almost plush dark tones that aren't crushed (often with the blacks lifted, so the deepest shadows are still lighter than "black" black) and low-key highlights with carefully managed color palettes that, again, don't go heavy in the highlights, which gives them a more muted feel. It's been the "look" for Netflix since the beginning with House of Cards, which was also via David Fincher, and it's been everywhere this past decade.

[flyonthewall2983]

Social Network also kicked off the "classic songs re-imagined for the trailer" trend

[therewillbeblus]

Totally worth it, one of the most affecting trailers ever

[The Pachyderminator]

Totally worth it, one of the most affecting trailers ever

I'm curious what works about it for you, because it looks dreadful to me. Chalamet sounds like he's half asleep and the visual design looks dull at best.

[domino harvey]

He’s talking about the Social Network’s trailer

[The Pachyderminator]

Of course. Yeah, that was a good trailer, even though "Creep" was overused in the decade since.

[movielocke]

the first film I remember noticing the modern anti-color palatte was "In the Valley of Elah" (at least that's in a contemporary setting) I remember it as being very blue and desaturated all over. might be totally wrong about that though.

[RIP Film]

That trailer did nothing for me. As someone who hasn’t read Dune, I don’t feel the slightest intrigue; and all the big name actors were a little distracting from that otherworldly feel I assume it’s supposed to have. To me this could just as easily be a netflix series, but hey it’s just a trailer.

[Persona]

Yeah, this trailer showed something that looks very slick and expensive but otherwise I felt nothing. Bombastic and stiff, a bad combo.

Maybe some of the visual ideas would have intrigued if we hadn't basically already seen them in Lynch's Dune.

[Roscoe]

Yeah, this trailer showed something that looks very slick and expensive but otherwise I felt nothing. Bombastic and stiff, a bad combo.

Maybe some of the visual ideas would have intrigued if we hadn't basically already seen them in Lynch's Dune.

That's interesting -- it seemed to me that the trailer might as well have been labelled NOT DAVID LYNCH'S DUNE NOT NOWAY NOT NOHOW, it's almost hysterically the Anti-Lynch Movie, the sleeker more streamlined design and the frankly more plausible design for the shields among other things. We'll see. Trailers being trailers, who knows how this will turn out. I'll cop to enjoying the Floyd, and found the sense of scale much more effective than in the Lynch. Carlo Rambaldi's sandworms only ever looked about a foot long, as opposed to the more far more apparently immense creatures here.

[The Curious Sofa]

I'd still much rather see a directors cut by Lynch rather than this (knowing it will probably never happen)

Someone did a comparison between the trailer and the 1984 version.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcZPZGq ... e=emb_logo

[domino harvey]

This stupid remix song has been stuck in my head for the last couple days and I don’t even know why. Please send help

[flyonthewall2983]

Should have just used the original version.

[aox]

or the actual original version.

[flyonthewall2983]

Just read that because of the trailer, the album has reached a new younger audience and it's streaming numbers have been very high since.

[domino harvey]

I mean, I assumed it just came in the mail packaged with one’s legal weed card

[knives]

What does Pink Floyd have to do with weed?

[domino harvey]

Are you doing a bit?

[Never Cursed]

It's a quite common easy joke/stereotype that many Pink Floyd fans (and from what I gather, the fans of a bunch of the other early prog acts) are stoners or users of psychedelics. The stereotype has hung around the band from their contemporary heyday to more modern, nostalgic appraisals of their fans. Certainly I noticed the way every tribute band concert or stadium hosting Roger Waters smelled when I went through that phase in middle school (a Pink Floyd phase, not a drug phase).

[knives]

Didn’t know the fan base had that reputation. I used to be super into them and was hardly brought up in interviews and the like.

[therewillbeblus]

In my experience, most concerts are like that. I used to tour with Phish and it’s not all that much different than shows without the stigma or stereotypes, other than the fashion and some personalities, so I put very little stock in the reputation of a diverse fan base. Enough bands I’ve been into have a psychedelic edge without Floyd coming out as particularly strong, though it definitely has that rep from Dark Side of the Rainbow at the very least.

[flyonthewall2983]

The first time I smoked, I was with two guys who wanted to raid my Floyd collection and put it on, where I actually would have preferred something like Spiritualized (whose music is almost all about drugs) or Miles Davis. The Floyd music was too deep into my psyche to enjoy it at that moment. I did have a moment a few years ago in my brother's car where suddenly the heartbeats that begin DSOTM started, and because of my *cough* state they sounded much faster than usual.

[beamish14]

"I didn't want to see Kung-fu on sand dunes"-David Lynch