Dune - notes on Frank Herbert's novel and Denis Villeneuve's adaptation

 

Dune

Frank Herbert, 1965

 

Fortuitously, Villeneuve’s first part of adapting Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’ finishes just at the point I had read up to in the book at that time (halfway). The novel has sat in my “to read” pile since I was a teenager smitten with science-fiction, and I have no idea why it has taken a lifetime to get around to reading it. Perhaps I was intimidated by its reputation as “difficult” and/or “dense”? Well, it is dense and uncompromising and the world-building is exemplary, the kind I already knew from Jack Vance; although Vance feels pulpier and Herbert more serious in intent. World building is the genre’s chief pleasure and super-power. It’s enthralling and its place as One Of The Best and Highly Influential is obvious and well earned. It is full to bursting with detail, characters, culture and political intrigue and themes without losing focus or reader.

            

Its themes are the grandest: the intersecting of politics and religion and economics, cultures and war and guilds and totalitarianisms, of mesiahs and their followers, etc. It is full of snippets of wisdom dispensed in fake memoirs and political and religions tomes. It is full of the mechanics of politics and schemes that often feel like the Machievelli’s ‘The Prince’, or Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’. For example: How you pay for military might? Make prison planets. And peppered with existential wisdom such as, “How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him.” Or, “the real universe is always one step beyond logic.” But the observations are full of intelligence rather than the platitudes that beset religious enlightenments.

 

‘Dune’ is heavily steeped in Middle Eastern culture – the precious spice = oil, for example – and has much commentary on colonialism and exploitation of resources. Yet whilst sympathetic and respectful of the Fremen natives, it’s a royal outsider that rallies and guides them. The gender politics are slippery too: women are concubines and witches, but they also seem to hold formidable behind-the-curtain power and connivance – they are certainly equal matches for the men, even in combat. The Bene Gesserit, for example, are a formidable sisterhood of female plotting and power committed to a breeding programme meant to result in the Kwisatz Haderach, a calculated Chosen One. Indeed, that they are apparently  "influenced by the tales of Maria Sabina and the sacred mushroom cults of Mexico" (says Wiki) shows the rich variety of inspiration that Herbert used. ‘Dune’ touches on too many bases, surely, to be accused of just one. It’s jammed packed full of weighty ideas and observations.

 

The guiding point is the apparent “Chosen One” status of Paul Atreides, the fifteen-year-old heir to the House of Atreides, trained in arcane ways by his mother and given to visions and reactions from others that he is Muab D’ib, a religious coming. ‘Dune’ certainly wasn’t the first, but one can see its popularity and influence as a seminal Chosen One narrative, even if others overlook its questioning intent. Paul himself is initially reluctant and disbelieving, although events soon bring out seemingly preternatural abilities. The Chosen One status drives him directly in conflict with his mother: he resents her for her part in putting him in that position, the Bene Gesseret breeding programme. By the finale of the novel in which Paul is given the chance to face down and outwit all his enemies and rivals, he is giddy with his omnipotence, even if the last melee is a close call highlighting his mortality. Yet this is tinged with Paul’s cynicism and self-awareness of his status as myth generator that defines his character. And as the fulcrum to several Chosen One legends, this self-awareness and cynicism culminates with his alternating whichever he needs to best his rivals (Paul Atreides, Muad’Dib, Kwisatz Haderach). Herbert may have been influenced by Arthurian mythology, but ‘Dune’ is not fascinated with Romantic Heroism of infallible protagonists. For Herbert, "Dune was aimed at this whole idea of the infallible leader because my view of history says that mistakes made by a leader (or made in a leader's name) are amplified by the numbers who follow without question.”*

 

It's a grand achievement, the mixture of hard and soft science-fiction, of convincing ecological and political realities mixed with futuristic fantasy consistently compelling and intelligent.

 

 

Dune

Director - Denis Villeneuve

Writers - Jon Spaihts (screenplay by), Denis Villeneuve (screenplay by), Eric Roth (screenplay by)

Stars - Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya

 

And a serious tone, somewhat humourless, is what Villeneuve brings, which seems to me thoroughly in keeping with the novel. This is in inevitable comparison with David Lynch’s madcap adaptation. As Mark Kermode notes, in Lynch’s version there is always a distraction, so you are never bored even as it is unravelling before your very consideration. It’s somewhat a highly enjoyable, compelling misfire where the art design and costumes and effects amaze even as the narrative flounders in seeking purchase. There’s a lot of amusement to watch it gleefully pummel onwards, almost-but-not so-bad-it’s- good. Arguably, the few notes of humour tried for in Villeneuve’s ‘Dune’ stick out like a sore thumb, but they are fleeting moments – and seemingly all deceptively crammed in the trailer, which is edited like a Marvel Universe teaser (Action! Quips!).

 

What I found satisfying in Villenueve’s‘Blade Runner 2049’ was the subversion of the “I’m The Chosen One” trope. That’s the very foundation of ‘Dune’,** a primary text for this trope indeed, but I heard a criticism on the Kermode & Mayo film show where someone found all the foreboding and premonitions tiresome, but that is at the crux of the narrative, for it’s all about Paul Atreides being foretold as M’uad Dib. But he is reluctant, not happy at being manipulated into this prophecy; he’s conscientious and he is angry at his mother’s apparent manipulations at making him The Chosen One.

 

One other major criticism is that he is a White Saviour, but the character of Paul is a little more complex than that, and certainly Herbert’s vision is more informed. ‘Dune’ is about colonialism, all the political power play and wrongful disregard of the natives for the sake of plundering the resources. Khaldoun Khelil*** is enlightening on the problems of representation in Villenueve’s adaptation, and certainly in a post-MCU casting world, the casting could/should have been cannier – and surely Iannucci’s ‘The Life and Times of David Copperfield’ showed up the shallowness and inadequacies of the mentality of general casting. Indeed, changing the character Dr Liet Kynes to a black woman (Sharon Duncan-Brewster) hints at greater diversity already being an option.

 

In terms of language, it eloquent in the manner we may associate with canonical classics, but unlike Lynch’s ‘Dune’ it’s not near-impenetrable. There’s long exposition narration to begin with, the kind that always raises puts me dubious, but luckily that is just a stumbling block to the story proper. The secret sign language between Jessica and Paul is a good visual innovation to convey the Bene Gesserit training that they share, which is all embodied in the novel’s prose. Similarly, it does away with voiceovers to replicate the novel’s articulation of thoughts, the kind of voiceover that Lynch used (which I actually liked, in retrospect).

 

Any fan of B I G spaceships will be in Heaven here as they rise from lakes, block out most of the screen as characters disembark, or even the ‘thopters resembling dragonflies. It’s a film with scope and scale with plenty of faultless CGI. There is of course wonderful set design, from the greenery of Caladan (a sequence more expansive than in the novel) to the spacious chambers, endless sand banks and tunnels of Arrakis. It’s perhaps not as shocking/suprising as that of Lynch’s version, but it perhaps feels more organic, more realistic. Surely many will feel like Jonathan Romney: 

 

 “Nowhere near as enjoyable as Villeneuve’s inspired Blade Runner 2049, Dune is an achievement for sure, but watching it is rather like having huge marble monoliths dropped on you for two and a half hours, to the resounding clang of a Hans Zimmer score.”

 

Timothée Chalamet is, of course, too old to match the fifteen-year-old Paul Atreides of the book, but there is a precociousness he exudes, a boyish maturity if you will that suits the character. Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica is surely more weepy than in the book, but like the rest of the star-studded cast, she knows how to play this kind of high theatre. Only Zendaya comes across as an ill-fit, coming too obviously from the American school of feisty female acting (but this may be unfair in the long-run).  

 

Lynch’s version is more fun, but Villeneuve wants to get close to the novel’s sombre tone, and this he does. And perhaps those who enjoy Lynch’s camp appeal may not enjoy Villeneuve’s sincerity and vice versa. And of course it’s twice the reward if you go for both, and there are plenty of us. Villeneuve’s style is of a restrained, underplayed tendency, not typical of the blockbuster style, more an approach associated with indie. So, whereas there is all the spectacle you could want, the dramatic conveyance will leave many cold (certainly, many didn’t engage with ‘Blade Runner 2049’s layers, thinking it lacked for story). And anyway, ‘Dune’ is not a warm story, but a tale of calculation and survival in an objective and manipulated design. There’s something battered about these characters rather than adventure action archetypes.

 

I came away from Villeneuve’s ‘Dune’ with a sensation that I had been wowed, and like his ‘Blade Runner’, that it would be on a second watch that I would truly and fully engage. And of course, this is only half the story.

 

·       *  Herbert, Frank (1985). "Introduction". Eye. ISBN 0-425-08398-5.

·     ** So to speak. One comment came about ‘Dune’ was that it was his response to Isaac Asimov’s ‘Foundation’ series.

· *** I owe thanks for this link to Derek Anthony Williams https://www.facebook.com/theneofuturist

Phase IV

Saul Bass, 1974, UK-USA

Screenplay – Mayo Simon

I was always convinced Adam Ant was inspired by this, Saul Bass’ only film, to write ‘Ants Invasion’. Even as a kid, I was sure this had to be the case. 

Watching the short film, ‘Bass on Titles’, it’s obvious how much an influence and pioneer Bass was. It’s no wonder his name is renowned in cinema, if for only contributing title sequences and ‘Psycho’s shower scene. Even in his short film ‘Quest’ (1984) – an adaption of one of Ray Bradbury’s futuristic stories fuelled by nostalgia for what we were – it is obvious that however dated and budget-restrained the effects are, Bass never lets it feel lacking, knows how to shoot and frame, and strikes up memorable visuals. (It has a nice Eighties feel – hair is quite bouffant in the future – and even a cameo from Noah Hathaway apparently on his way to ‘The Neverending Story’). Indeed, a recurring motif throughout Bass’ short films is the tiny human profile or silhouette against a gargantuan backdrop.

Which makes ‘Phase IV’, a screenplay by Mayo Simon about ant behaviour eventually overwhelming mankind, quite the logical extension. These are normal-sized ants altered and advanced by an electromagnet phenomenon from space; which means if you come for giant bugs, you’ll be disappointed – although the original promotion was full of the hyperbole associated with giant bug features (“The day the earth was turned into a cemetery! Ravenous invaders controlled by a terror out in space … commanded to annihilate the world!”). Bass’ films do agreeably posit an objective angle that man is exceedingly small in the grand scheme of things and always learning. Bass’ first short, ‘The Searching Eye’ (1964) has knowledge as an empty beach upon which a child searches and plays, which opens all kinds of cosmic reflections. His second, ‘Why Man Creates’ (1968) is like a kind of ‘Sesame Street’ for adults, trying to break down man’s passion for creativity, at first playful and then lapsing into pontification: the best sequence is the animated opener portraying the towering pile-up of mankind’s development. This existential rumination carries over from Bass’ short films to his feature, where humanity and the individual are dwarfed by forces and concepts much, much bigger, abstract, and existential.  

‘Phase IV’ is distinguished by its remarkable and up-close footage of these ants – Dick Bush’s cinematography is mesmerising (he did ‘Sorcerer’). As Douglas Buck writes: 

"Watching individual hive ants, through microphotography doing things you almost can’t believe you’re seeing, such as, for instance, carry a piece of the poisonous ‘yellow chemical’ rained down on them by the scientists (killing most of them) through their underground tunnels, one at a time (as each ant dies, another picks it up and carries it until it then dies from exposure, then the next and the next) all the way to the large queen, who ingests it, then gives birth to new evolutionary-progressed yellow chemical-resistant ants, is just one of the number of jaw-dropping scenes where it feels almost like the tiny little critters are giving performances."

The desert setting gives a dominant orange, sun-baked hue; the ants crawling out of corpses provides considerable squirm-inducing content and a foremost image for the film, although the monoliths are equally striking. The music is prog-rock with flying saucer synth. Yes, ‘2001: a space odyssey’ with ants, complete with monoliths, and even moreso with the original ending now available. It brings the malevolent cosmic to Earth in a way that is firstly deceptively mundane – like ‘The Midwhich Cuckoos’ or ‘Invasion of the Bodysnatchers’ – working on a scale that initially isn’t quite viewable to casual human observation, just some oddness. Ants. Even crop circles. And they all centre on the fear of being colonised by something superior and unknowable.

The voice-overs help to dive into the story straight away without

too much exposition. Some of this was apparently studio-imposed, but here it does not feel detrimental. Similarly, the archetypes of a slightly jaded young scientist (Michael Murphy) and the older slightly wayward scientist (Nigel Davenport) are quickly identifiable, so that we get to themes and concepts first rather than back-story, and it is these that predominate. It is the tale of how a couple of humans lose against the uprising of and colonisation by the evolution of ants. These are, mostly untypical of the genre, scientists out of their depth (which bears a little iconoclasm that I always favour). I disagree with Martyn Auty that “the ants get the works from the special effects department, and original ideas (so often a casualty in sci-fi cinema) take a back seat.” There’s an editing technique and use of juxtapositions, an overall tone that is akin to Nic Roeg where the associations the brain naturally makes from a gallery of random images creates heftier, intuitive meaning and interpretations. It is an observant, objective rather than subjective approach. These characters do not overcome the odds simply by force of humankind’s innate superiority. And yet, the ending is as transcendent as it is downbeat.

Studio demands meant the original trippier ending of a vision of the ants’ plans for humankind was cropped, but it’s been salvaged and available now. Before, it ended with Lesko (Murphy) narrating that the ants had shown them their future plans and we were to take his word for it, and leaving it to our imaginations did no harm, if it seemed a bit abrupt. But with this longer ending we too see that vision and it’s no disappointment. It’s like a montage of science-fiction novel covers. Overlapping imagery, surrealism; quick cuts: this longer finale slips into Bass’ montage style familiar from his credits work and short films. For example, there’s tiny people running through a mazes and across diant colours; and the sunset and sunrise imagery that is strong in ‘Phase IV’ is a recurring motif in his shorts (indeed, one is called ‘The Solar Film’ (1980)).

The reason why ‘Phase IV’ lingers is that is carries with it an eeriness, that uncanny quality that haunts, by evoking something like the cosmic uncanniness and unknowability that HP Lovecraft favoured as the centre of horror. It’s heady, pulpy and over-reaching in the best way of Seventies sci-fi.

Bass’s assured sense of the visual and of a slight obliqueness of narrative makes it a shame that he didn’t make further films as it’s likely he would have made more cult favourites.

This Island Earth

 Joseph Newman, 1955, USA

One of my fondest film-watching memories is when I was living at my grandparent’s house as a preteen and getting to watch the b-movie season playing over months and months on television. I was about eleven or twelve and I loved getting into my pyjamas and watching these films on a Sunday evening before bed. I saw so many of the black-and-white creature features this way; my personal education to the drive-in horror and science-fiction era, as if I had been born decades earlier. I know for sure that I saw “The Beast from 50,000 Fathoms” and “King Kong” and “It Came From Outer Space” that way, as well as “It! The Terror Beyond Space”, “Earth versus the Flying Saucers” and “This Island Earth”.

“This Island Earth” is kind of an honorary classic: it’s not a classic due to story and execution, for it has some of that workmanlike clunkiness and flatness of the era, but the whole is definitely greater than the parts. It looks and sounds like a tacky Fifties sci-fi, but it is much more if you play into it. It has decent and decidedly adult characters; it has a nice air of menace and mystery and a fascinatingly ambiguous relationship with its aliens. The aliens are the kind you are likely to meet in “Star Trek” – intelligent, humanoid and talky with over-sized foreheads so that they can seemingly pass for human, but they are more than typically two-dimensional. They are a threat in that they are a civilisation – from Metaluna –  on the brink of being wiped out by their enemies and both need Earth’s help whilst simultaneously plotting to colonise Earth. But they are desperate rather than cruel or megalomaniacal. The film’s classic status is surely down to the fact that it is quintessential Fifties-era pulp sci-fi and that’s a lot of fun and no bad thing. It also has a slow build-up that is rewarded with a fantastic if brief visit to Metaluna itself, a gorgeous cosmic vision with comic-book colours and mutants, one which rivals “Forbidden Planet”.

“This Island Earth” is full of green rays, flying saucers, manipulative but super-smart aliens, decidedly square-jawed scientists (Rex Reason) and equally unlikely science. It looks and acts like something from an “Astounding!” magazine cover, and that’s integral to its delight. The film worries about other cultures being smarter, more manipulative and colonialist, but trusts its American square-jaws and female vulnerability to get an Earthman through an extraterrestrial encounter. It is dated, but that doesn’t seem to do it any harm. It gets better and balmier as it goes on and has the good sense to throw in some alien mutants too to spice up things.

Yes: the mutants. These insectoid aliens gave me a nightmare that I have never forgotten. They were lumbering, soundless and – well, you can’t get much more alien than insects. They don’t have much screen time, although they are plastered all over the posters, but hey are unforgettable. I dreamt that I was on the spaceship standing inside the giant transparent tubes it had to condition people to different environments; my dream was paraphrasing the spaceship and a scene from the film. One of the mutants was going crazy on the flight deck, just as in the film, and I was stuck in the tube. The difference was that there was a gap at the bottom of the tubes so that feet, ankles and lower shins were horrible exposed. The alien came attacking the tubes and I was trapped inside and, eventually, it started to attack my feet at the gap at the base of the tube. I suspect I woke up during the attack. Oh yes, it was quite a nightmare and I’ve never forgotten it. For this reason, I have quite a soft spot for “This Island Earth”.

It remains a delightful slice of pulp hokum with an odd charm all its own. It doesn’t have the resonance and deep chills of, say, “Invasion of the Body-Snatchers”, but it is old school fun and possessed of enough intelligence and gorgeous alien scenery to more than hold its own.

Hard to be a God

Trudno byt bogom

Aleksei German, 2013, Russia

‘Hard to be a God’ falls somewhere between Tarkovsky and ‘Zardoz’. By which I mean it contains leanings towards brilliance, campness, pretentiousness, indulgence, uniqueness, something genuinely bonkers. The comparison with Tarkovesky isn’t a stretch at all since since ‘Stalker’ was based on the book ‘Roadside Picnic’ by the same authors, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky: ‘Hard to be a God’ is based upon their 1964 novel. And ‘Stalker’ provides a good example of the science fiction of  ‘Hard to be a God’ which is free of any visual clues that might obvious symbolise an otherworldly setting. There are no futuristic vistas, for example, no alien designs; just people saying and acting bizarre things(although you may note that the costume Don Rumata wears looks like the remains of a spacesuit). It was directed by Alexei German and completed by his son Alexei German Jnr upon his father’s death in 2013.

It’s a medieval science-fiction scenario, which you can’t say about too many films, in which a group of astronauts have landed on a planet that seems trapped in its Dark Ages, bent on killing anyone they deem intellectual. This is why people act like “The Fool” from a play, with added killing. These astronauts aren’t meant to interfere with the development of this society but, of course, they do and have. One, calling himself Don Rumata (Leonid Yarmolnik), is already bearing a “Godlike” status simply because he is more focused and alert in a land of violent idiots. This therefore makes him more successful in his violent outbursts even as he loses himself to the cacophony of squalor and craziness all around him as he tries to blend in. The fact that he has apparently gone so successfully native is another reason it may be hard to distinguish the sci-fi basis as he behaves much like those around him.

Disgust is one of its main attributes: every scene wallows in mud and liquids, people smearing themselves with gunk; a face can’t get a close-up without someone else touching it, or someone else picking its nose; it’s a wonder any skin appears clean in some way at all. And this is before the gore kicks in. Long takes nod towards not only to Tarkovsky but also Bela Tarr and Alexandr Sokoruv, but there is none of the stillness of Tsai Ming Liang. Each scene is bursting with people, filth and the surreal, through which the camera glides following a plot that almost comes to the surface. There is a war nbetween The Blacks and The Greys and Don Ramata is looking for someone…  Much dialogue bears non sequiturs and it quite likely that even as you are being dazzled by the madness onscreen you will moments where you will be thinking “What?”, “Why?”, “Who?”, “Really?” and “W.T.F.?”. It makes little concession to easy plotting, even if the story is simple when spelt out. But dazzling it is. The cast propel themselves into the muck with vigour in the manner of over-eager amateurs who think such wallowing is vibrant acting (and similarly, you can also say this of Di Caprio in ‘The Revenant’): but I don’t want to claim the acting is amateurish because that isn’t so. Merely that the gusto creates some of the aforementioned campness and indulgence, but it knows what it’s doing. Think then of the dense production design and affectations of Peter Greenaway mixed with the black-and-white austerity of ‘Embrace of the Serpent’.

But that is the meat of this, for the story takes secondary importance to the catalogue of grime and cruelty. It is a treatise on man’s penchant for stupidity and barbarism, even as it indulges in a feudal social structure. IMDB quotes a synopsis by Svetlana Karmalita for the Rome Film Festival that says,

This is not a film about cruelty, but about love. A love that was there, tangible, alive, and that resisted through the hardest of conditions.

But it is  about cruelty, surely, as to deny this is to ignore a central ingredient; and it is not so much about ‘love conquering in the worst of times’ as showing a context where affection doesn’t stand a chance. It is about bringing to life a crazed crowded scenario that you might find in classic, renowned paintings. It is about failure; it is about how religion and blind faith can facilitate malice and obstruct progress. It is about the failure of colonisation and where the native culture is too overbearing to be changed by one man, no matter a self-proclaimed God.