Dune (Denis Villeneuve, 2021-4)

[feihong]

The thing I can never shake is that, knowing that the Jodorowsky film could have been, no other approach to this subject matter seems to be enough. I only want to see Brontis as Paul, along with Mick Jagger and Orson Welles and Salvador Dali. I want to hear Magma playing in the Harkonnen scenes, and I want the House of Atreides to wear the peacock–like, brilliantly–colored designs Moebius devised for them. There was, it seemed to me, a biggness of inspiration and imagination in Jodorowsky's idea for the movie, and it seems like the bigness that gets delivered in other Dune projects is more in the scale of sets and costumes. In addition, the mysticism in the book would have been enhanced by Jodorowsky's own ideas of how to render it. I think the mysticism gets played down in the Lynch version, and I can't imagine Villeneuve will be florid or expressive in this regard.

My favorite thing from the Lynch movie, which will no doubt be removed this time around, is the ongoing, stream-of-consciousness inner monologues we hear from every character––long before The Thin Red Line, here was a pretty cool sample of how to do that. By cool, of course, I mean off-the-wall, and unaware of its own effect. There are times when the Lynch movie gets ridiculous for me, and it's when we're hearing the inside of everyone's heads. Cut to Paul Atreides: "the spice...the worms...the guild...the desert...Arakis..." Cut to Lady Jessica: "...Is he THE ONE???" Dizzying, and really funny. I doubt Villeneuve will agree, though, and I'm sure it won't be in the movie.

[Finch]

Yeah. I loved Arrival but both the tone of that and of Blade Runner 2049 would suggest that the new Dune is going to be SERIOUS and GRAVE (like a Christopher Nolan film, urgh) and all reverential to Herbert. Of course, all conjecture at the moment. He could surprise us all.

Thanks for reminding me that Allen actually named a character Gatsby Welles ( ).

[Ferocious Detritus]

Those Vanity Fair pics suggest this will be the IKEA of SF films.

B o o o o o o o o r i n g

[feihong]

I appreciated the story in Arrival, but I have this increasing personal hatred for the ways modern cinematographers shoot in low–light situations. Not until last week, when I saw Kiyoshi Kurosawa's new film, Until the Ends of the Earth, had I seen a low–light scene which I thought was really appropriate and well–rendered. So on a visual level I'm afraid Arrival exasperates me. As for Sicario, I found it frustrating and stupid––Emily Blunt's cop seemed unbelievably naive. When I was watching Blade Runner 2049, I just kept wishing they could take all this money and talent poured into this sequel and make a movie of another Philip K. Dick book, instead. They could have made a potentially really cool version of Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. Or some other, original sci–fi property, like Perdido Street Station. It just underlined for me that I never cared or even tried to imagine what happened to Rick Deckard after Blade Runner ended. That story was completely over.

It's true that Dune doesn't seem to have been done much justice so far on film or television. But I don't have a lot of confidence in this new venture making up for that neglect. The thing that made Herbert's book interesting was the wonky but compelling visual ideas and associations with the era in which he was writing. The visionary aspect of the book was the only part that wasn't overcooked and overbearing, to me. I think even by the 80s it was too late to make this movie a hippie ecology film, or a story about a ruling class hoarding resources; and I think Hollywood was never going to want to make it a movie shot from the inside of a Jihad. So I think all they're left with are the visual components, stripped of their intended meanings. So they'll have spaceships, and palaces, and fancy clothes, and martial arts fighting, and sand worms. It looks from the promo images like they'll have a kind of a luxury–resort–brochure or Sephora–inspired desert poshlust as the aesthetic. There will probably even be some cool narrative developments, because Villeneuve isn't against such stuff. And it may be surprisingly good. But I think that's the least likely outcome of all this.

[knives]

This podcast is the first time Dune has sounded interesting to me. It covers the influence of Islam's history and terminology on the books which is just catnip for me.

[Nasir007]

I appreciated the story in Arrival, but I have this increasing personal hatred for the ways modern cinematographers shoot in low–light situations. Not until last week, when I saw Kiyoshi Kurosawa's new film, Until the Ends of the Earth, had I seen a low–light scene which I thought was really appropriate and well–rendered. So on a visual level I'm afraid Arrival exasperates me. As for Sicario, I found it frustrating and stupid––Emily Blunt's cop seemed unbelievably naive. When I was watching Blade Runner 2049, I just kept wishing they could take all this money and talent poured into this sequel and make a movie of another Philip K. Dick book, instead. They could have made a potentially really cool version of Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. Or some other, original sci–fi property, like Perdido Street Station. It just underlined for me that I never cared or even tried to imagine what happened to Rick Deckard after Blade Runner ended. That story was completely over.

It's true that Dune doesn't seem to have been done much justice so far on film or television. But I don't have a lot of confidence in this new venture making up for that neglect. The thing that made Herbert's book interesting was the wonky but compelling visual ideas and associations with the era in which he was writing. The visionary aspect of the book was the only part that wasn't overcooked and overbearing, to me. I think even by the 80s it was too late to make this movie a hippie ecology film, or a story about a ruling class hoarding resources; and I think Hollywood was never going to want to make it a movie shot from the inside of a Jihad. So I think all they're left with are the visual components, stripped of their intended meanings. So they'll have spaceships, and palaces, and fancy clothes, and martial arts fighting, and sand worms. It looks from the promo images like they'll have a kind of a luxury–resort–brochure or Sephora–inspired desert poshlust as the aesthetic. There will probably even be some cool narrative developments, because Villeneuve isn't against such stuff. And it may be surprisingly good. But I think that's the least likely outcome of all this.

Great post again. I think Blade Runner 2049 was breathtakingly boring and entirely disposable. It has literally one single interesting narrative idea and even that I think did not merit a 2 hr 40 min runtime.

Arrival had some interesting ideas but I felt was rather badly directed or directed with little imagination. I think it could have done with some Spielbergian energy and drive. It seems prestige in Hollywood blockbuster cinema equates with draining a story of intrigue or interest and presenting it with bloodlessly on screen.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

One of the great what-ifs in recent film history has to be what Bong Joon-ho would've done with Arrival—he was offered the job and was keen to do it, but he felt the script had been too "regularized" and wanted to do a page-one rewrite. The producers claimed there wasn't enough time for that on account of the actors' schedules and Bong passed.

[RIP Film]

Great post again. I think Blade Runner 2049 was breathtakingly boring and entirely disposable. It has literally one single interesting narrative idea and even that I think did not merit a 2 hr 40 min runtime.

Arrival had some interesting ideas but I felt was rather badly directed or directed with little imagination. I think it could have done with some Spielbergian energy and drive. It seems prestige in Hollywood blockbuster cinema equates with draining a story of intrigue or interest and presenting it with bloodlessly on screen.

I somewhat agree and it's probably not an uncommon attitude toward his work. I think the problem with Villeneuve is he's too literary. Take Blade Runner, the original was almost poem-like, everything exaggerated, vivid colors, sentiments on life, death, love. Then 2049 comes along and it feels like your reading a novel, it takes that world literally and everything is grey and sepia. There's a good script underneath but the themes never leap off the page in cinematic fashion. I don't feel affected when I leave the theater, it's only after analysis that I appreciate his work-- and even then I'm not sure if I'm just appreciating the script. I tend to remember his films in parts, vignettes, and never as cohesive visual works.

I'll still take Villeneuve over most any Hollywood director, but I do feel he needs to grow as a filmmaker.

[domino harvey]

Great post again. I think Blade Runner 2049 was breathtakingly boring and entirely disposable. It has literally one single interesting narrative idea and even that I think did not merit a 2 hr 40 min runtime.

Arrival had some interesting ideas but I felt was rather badly directed or directed with little imagination. I think it could have done with some Spielbergian energy and drive. It seems prestige in Hollywood blockbuster cinema equates with draining a story of intrigue or interest and presenting it with bloodlessly on screen.

Do you develop these hot takes that completely fail to read the room under strict laboratory conditions?

[Nasir007]

Great post again. I think Blade Runner 2049 was breathtakingly boring and entirely disposable. It has literally one single interesting narrative idea and even that I think did not merit a 2 hr 40 min runtime.

Arrival had some interesting ideas but I felt was rather badly directed or directed with little imagination. I think it could have done with some Spielbergian energy and drive. It seems prestige in Hollywood blockbuster cinema equates with draining a story of intrigue or interest and presenting it with bloodlessly on screen.

I somewhat agree and it's probably not an uncommon attitude toward his work. I think the problem with Villeneuve is he's too literary. Take Blade Runner, the original was almost poem-like, everything exaggerated, vivid colors, sentiments on life, death, love. Then 2049 comes along and it feels like your reading a novel, it takes that world literally and everything is grey and sepia. There's a good script underneath but the themes never leap off the page in cinematic fashion. I don't feel affected when I leave the theater, it's only after analysis that I appreciate his work-- and even then I'm not sure if I'm just appreciating the script. I tend to remember his films in parts, vignettes, and never as cohesive visual works.

I'll still take Villeneuve over most any Hollywood director, but I do feel he needs to grow as a filmmaker.

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

What I think it lacks is that old verve, capturing of several forces at play, of masses of people moving through the frame, events unfolding, dramatic situations. All these are concepts of the old fashioned prestige cinema - valuable assets all.

Sadly, these got adopted into the standard blockbuster template and thus got cheaned a bit.

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.

And I think this is a mistake. The solution is not to surrender the old fashioned tropes to blockbuster trash but to salvage and reclaim them. Do it well and show how its done. Who will ever make a prestige blockbuster like Raiders again? Modern directors might find it too frivolous for their tastes.

There is little wit or cleverness either in the visuals or the staging of many of these prestige modern blockbusters. There is enormous sophistication to be had in the staging of well choreographed sequences with complex action and movement.

Villeneuve has fallen prey to the ongoing movement too. I would be in favor of breaking out of the straightjacket and showing some cinematic vigor.

[therewillbeblus]

What a wildly generalized interpretation blanketing all modern blockbusters into polarized black-and-white categories. How am I not surprised that you are asking to remove characters that empathize with audience maladies through emotional validation, in favor of thin characterization. At this point your struggle to meet films on any emotional level has become an expected brand, but there's something delusionally fallacious about how you seem to see heroes being vulnerable and contemplating relatable human problems as "introverted" and "depressed," not to mention using pathologized phrasing to define people by your sharp (and confusingly pejorative) terms, and then follow up by championing sophistication. I think many board members, myself included, agree that repurposing old tropes to embrace those tones can be welcome and effective in our modern age, but plenty of films have done this lately while also being emotionally intelligent. The two aren't mutually exclusive and frequently coexist, for cinema is not as restrictive as some folks' imaginations.

[tenia]

It's also quite wrong to think most prestige blockbusters nowadays are about broody moping heroes since these are mostly the MCU movies, Fast and Furious and Mission Impossible franchises. Actually, only some of the DCEU movies (but not all, and especially not the most recent) and the James Bond movies would fit this category.

Not that the livelier more colorful movies are automatically better thanks to this.

[feihong]

characters that empathize with audience maladies through emotional validation

It took me a long time to unpack this formulation in my mind. Is there perhaps a particular example of what you are talking about, a character I could think about and understand this better?

I don't think it's entirely wrong of Nasir007 to draw a distinction between the Villeneuve films and more mainstream blockbuster films––which is something I think Nasir007 is trying to do. Villaneuve movies definitely have a different set of aesthetics to, say Errol Flynn's Robin Hood, or Cleopatra, or Raiders of the Lost Ark. I don't know exactly how to articulate it, but there is a kind of deliberate stilling of the image, removing extraneous elements in the compositions, and a kind of purposeful quietude in the performances and in the rhythms of the editing that you don't see too much in big budget Hollywood filmmaking. 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.

[therewillbeblus]

I honestly just meant most movies that don't have characters moving through action without emotion, which I think is the new norm outside of just Marvel. The film in my mind was Super 8, which isn't the best example since there are plenty of more singular-hero action films out there that balance these traits, but that film was a call-back to the "old fashioned prestige cinema" and also deals with loss, resentment, shame, etc. and that's just me thinking about the adults who fit the condescending profile Nasir put forth, since it applies to the kids too. I don't disagree with the argument you are outlining about a worthy conversation existing that contrasts Villeneuve v Marvel, but I took Nasir's statement to be rigidly projective and disparaging to films where protagonists emote, which is how it still reads clearly to me. Inception might be a better example, but even looking through "blockbusters from the 21st century" on google, an entire group that his statement seems to be targeting as a whole, it seems like many have meditative moments on what's in front of us and also larger fun action (and of course we could venture into how Toy Story's series and all the Pixar movies really are good examples of how blockbuster films can do both, and they didn't start this blueprint). When I read, "Today's prestige blockbuster has to feature introverted depressed people, moping about in frames rather than any real energy" there's something offensively unfair and simplified about that declaration that "real" energy has to be bombastic, and can't coexist with more micro-focused contemplations. I find the specific discussion reasonable, but what I don't find reasonable are blanket statements about entire broad categories that suggest that emotionally-involving protagonists are just depressed and moping and that their energy, that plenty of audiences connect with, isn't real.

[RIP Film]

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.

[Never Cursed]

Trailer, featuring an odd song to be given the "trailer remix" rendition

[flyonthewall2983]

It feels more appropriate and slightly ironic to me

[domino harvey]

I just saw Charlotte Rampling doing this same act in Babylon AD!

[The Curious Sofa]

That ululating Pink Floyd cover is such a horror that I find it hard to concentrate on the trailer itself.

The designs look tasteful and bland. I have never read the novel so all I have to compare it to is the Lynch movie, especially as this replays some of the same scenes. The baroque art direction and the Elizabethan costumes of the Lynch film looked far more interesting. I also wasn't a huge fan of the art direction for Blade Runner 2049.

[domino harvey]

I guess I hadn't been paying attention but did they film both parts back to back? If not, surely we're only getting the rest of the first novel's adaptation if this does good business, which in COVID-land seems sketch

[Never Cursed]

Per Villeneuve the sequel hasn't been officially greenlit, but Warners agreed to make it when they signed him as director

[Vincejansenist]

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.

Not here to psychologize Villaneuve who I've never spoken with, but I think the prevalence of the aesthetics that Nasir007 has articulated is well observed. Regardless of whether Vallaneuve's attempts are successful executions of misguided ideas or noble ideas that fall short in execution, I think the lack of blood, color, eros, in many of these films is telling about this current time. Arrival's Malickean knock-off flashbacks

SpoilerShow

or flash forwards, rather

were quite a tell about the lack of interest or capability to grapple with emotions/family/death/life in a resonant way. Oscar Isaac's one moment in this trailer is almost shocking in contrast to the rest of the performances.

[flyonthewall2983]

Per Villeneuve the sequel hasn't been officially greenlit, but Warners agreed to make it when they signed him as director

This business about an HBO spinoff is giving me flashbacks to when Ron Howard tried to adapt The Dark Tower into a franchise and a TV series at the same time, but just wound up saying fuck it and chose to film one movie that hardly anyone remembers now.

[domino harvey]

Ron Howard didn't direct the eventual film, though

[Magic Hate Ball]

He did produce it.