David Lynch Week: Dune (1984)

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DUNE IS TERRIBLE

by Christopher Cantwell

When I found out we were going to do David Lynch Week, I asked to write about Dune. I’d never seen the movie, didn’t know what it was about, and asked in the same way a guy might yell to his friends, “Hey, watch this!” moments before jumping off a cliff to his death. There was a nervous titillation to my self-imposed assignment—“I’ll write about Dune. Yeah!”

I watched this movie without any previous knowledge of what it was about. I knew David Lynch directed it, I knew it was based on the first of a series of books by Frank Herbert, and I watched the trailer on YouTube a few days before I put in the DVD. From the trailer, it seemed I might be in for an astounding sci-fi eyeball bleach. Gradually, my titillation turned to dread, and when I finally sat down to endure the two hour and 17 minutes of Dune (Lynch has thankfully not given his blessing nor name to the two hour and 57 minute “extended” cut) I was lucky it was pouring rain outside, or else I would’ve fled to anything more lively: Disneyland, a McDonald’s, a restroom at McDonald’s, anything that wasn’t Dune.

But I stayed on Arrakis, and I learned the Weirding Way. Am I happy about it? No. Am I proud? A little. I mean, let’s face it, you’re not going to watch Dune. You might accidentally see a piece of it on TV, but you’re never going to set aside the time to watch all of Dune. If you have done so in the past, you’re not going to again. And if you do for some reason, because perhaps Dune is one of your favorite movies, then you truly must be the Kwisatz Haderach. See what I did there?

Look, I’m sure the novels are wonderful. But even David Lynch doesn’t like Dune. He doesn’t talk about Dune. Of course, I didn’t learn about this until after I watched it. I spent the entire film searching for traces of Lynch. There are a few. There’s ubiquitous Lynchian alpha-metrosexual Kyle MacLachlan. There’s Dean Stockwell, playing creepy, like always. The disease-faced Baron Harkonnen even has traces of Dennis Hopper’s Frank Booth. But ultimately, this is film is not David Lynch. This film is primarily two other things.

My original title of this article was going to be “Dune is Gay and Boring,” but I didn’t want to equate Gay with Boring. I think the “Gay” parts of this movie are actually pretty interesting. Paul Atreides (MacLachlan) was supposed to be a girl, but was born a man. He is powerful enough to drink the poisonous Water of Life, whereas before, only women could do so. The Reverend Mother gives Paul a test in which he has to reach into her mysterious box and keep his hand inside, or else risk death. When he puts his hand in her box—a box which, I’m not joking, is on her lap—he experiences immense physical pain. But Paul is a special boy, and is able to withstand this uniquely female experience. Indeed, this kind of gender confusion is part of what enables him to become the prophesied super-human of the universe.

More power to him, I say. Paul continues to cultivate his multi-faceted interstellar sexuality by becoming the leader of the tribal and masculine Fremen, a name clearly meant to infer “Free Men.”

Paul is not the only example of this, as the Baron Harkonnen stands as the most outwardly homosexual part of the film. He loves to do something to Harkonnen slaves, the most prized of which exist as very pretty redheaded boys. Whatever he does to them results in their death and involves pulling out their slave Heart Plugs, but the faces of his comrades who watch his off-camera deeds seem to suggest an additional perversion. Oh, and this guy totally wants to fuck Sting. Did I mention Sting was in this movie? Sting portrays the prettiest and arguably best Harkonnen warrior. He’s not on-screen for long, but long enough to take his shirt (or Harkonnen armor) off and let the Baron drool all over him. Maybe I’m reading into it too much, but the Baron also laughs all the time and can fly a few feet off the ground.

And the sandworms look like gigantic killer penises that Paul Atreides tames to earn the respect of his lesser, purely heterosexual followers. Paul eventually discovers that the sand penises are made up of pure “mélange,” the coveted spice that makes space travel possible and elevates consciousness as well (read: gets you stoned out of your mind), thus making the penises some kind of magic universal truth. Kyle MacLachlan riding magic killer penises and sticking his hand in hairless women’s boxes! Count me in, right? I’d be first in line to see any movie where that was the elevator pitch.

But the sad thing is, Dune is also aggravatingly boring. Despite any cool gender blur or sci-fi wizardry, Dune drags on as if it were being recited by Stephen Hawking’s robot chair. Which is a bummer, too, because Patrick Stewart has a mullet in this. Stewart also gets to scream something about the Hand of God while holding a laser rifle and a pug dog, but sadly I could care less about any of it. There’s a few things to blame for this. First of all, the prophecy and legend of the film, that a super-human of the universe will emerge and free everyone, can be seen from a mile away. It doesn’t help that nobody shuts up about it. “It is the legend.” “It is the prophecy.” “Is he the one?” Variations of this are said every few minutes throughout the movie by a cast of characters that spans four planets and beyond. Virginia Madsen details the prophecy in her cosmic address that opens the film. MacLachlan has prescient dreams about it, and never stops whispering the word “spice” (which speaks to my previous point as well).

Can you guess who the super-human turns out to be? If you guessed Kyle MacLachlan, you’re a genius. I knew how the movie would end from the very beginning. Don’t forget that nearly every character in the film follows a line of dialogue with a line of inner voice over that I suppose is meant to mirror their thoughts at that moment. Their thoughts, like all thoughts, ring extremely on the nose.

A few other things just kind of stick out. Paul Atreides’ mother looks to be about a year older than him, if that, and just by glancing at a river, Paul can recognize it as a volume of “millions of decaliters.” What? What kind of asshole can recognize a decaliter instantly on sight? Nothing in Dune is of little consequence. Everything is extremely important and carries epic weight. I guess this is why no one has a sense of humor or adventure in the year 10191. I wonder what would happen if someone made a joke on one of the spice foundries. Would everyone die? The closest thing to a joke in the film is when the Baron and Sting tell one of Paul’s captured compatriots that in order to stay alive he needs to masturbate a shaved cat every day. At least, I think that’s what he has to do.

The movie does have some good quotable lines. The Sleeper must awaken. When you see the Baron, remember the Tooth. Jessica had successfully transmuted the poisonous Water of Life. Also, may I point out that Duke Leto is also the bad guy from Beverly Hills Cop II (he’s a hero in Dune but in BHCII, Axel tells us that “Max KILLS COPS FOR A LIVING!”—a line I couldn’t stop saying every time the Duke was on-screen). Max von Sydow pops up for about four seconds, then disappears. Patrick Stewart’s mullet.

So anyway, David Lynch. Yeah. You should probably watch Blue Velvet.

Christopher Cantwell is a writer and filmmaker living in Los Angeles. He tumbls here.