Spice of life
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Dune
Dir Denis Villeneuve, US 2021 On general release
The anticipation for French Canadian producer-director’s Denis Villeneuve’s Dune has been huge. I am delighted to say the film does not disappoint.
Frank Herbert’s widely-acclaimed novel of 1965 is a history of the future of mankind spanning several millennia, set out in six novels (see pp34-41). While ignored by the sentinels of highbrow literature, the series left an important and extensive cultural legacy, influencing countless films, games and stories up to the present. However, expectations for the 1984 film version by Alejandro Jodorowsky and David Lynch were dashed by the chaos of a production in which little of Jodorowsky’s promised vision survived.
Richard Rubinstein, who had owned the ultimate rights since 1996, licensed the use of its Lynch assets for use in TV versions of (2000) and (2003) – which won favourable reviews and even awards, but are difficult to find and largely forgotten.
