After the 1984 Dune opened to a negative critical and commercial reception, David Lynch disowned the film. Lynch had just come off of the huge success of his previous film The Elephant Man, and Dune was his first large-budget Hollywood blockbuster. Feeling that his movie was a failure, Lynch distanced himself from it and famously refuses to be involved with re-releases. Despite the director's disdain for his work, however, Dune should not be viewed as a failure — and Lynch is wrong to disown it.
Although Dune is not generally as highly regarded as his more acclaimed films such as Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, and Mulholland Drive, it is still a noteworthy film that displays many of the same artistic virtues of Lynch’s oeuvre. Saddled with a huge budget and a crew of hundreds, Dune, based on the sci-fi novel by Frank Herbert, was a massive production with high expectations. Universal took post-production control of the film away from Lynch and re-edited his original three-hour version into a shorter two-hour and fifteen-minute studio cut. Not surprisingly, Lynch ultimately was not proud of Dune.
While it’s much more mainstream than Lynch’s other films, Dune is still a unique work of art even in its shortened studio cut — and the movie has a strong cult following because of it. On an aesthetic level, the set design and visual aspects of Dune are a wonder to behold. The grand and baroque interiors of the House Atreides’ royal residences are just as elaborate and eye-catching as the set design from The Lord of the Rings films, and Lynch’s depiction of space travel from the giant Guild Navigator is just as mystical and awe-inspiring as Agent Cooper’s hallucinatory mind travels to the Black and White Lodges from Twin Peaks: The Return. The depictions of the waking dreams of Dune’s hero Paul Atreides are equally beguiling, and at times resemble Lynch’s short experimental films. Indeed, throughout Dune the phrase “the sleeper awakens” is repeated, which foreshadows his future films which were attempts to replicate the logic of dreams.
The aspects of the film which caused Lynch to disown it are still there — the studio’s cutting of the film resulting in pacing problems and a rushed tone, some awkwardly staged battle sequences, and a condensed feeling to the film when it should feel as epic and spacious as the original Frank Herbert novel (it will be interesting to see if the Denis Villeneuve version of Dune will benefit from being split into two movies). Regardless, Dune is still a film that fits snugly into Lynch’s filmography: whether or not the director is happy with the finished product, it exists, it represents a significant transitory stage in his career, and it has its fans.
In the subsequent years since its release, Dune’s reputation has improved and it has become a cult classic that has a loyal fan base. Just recently, Arrow Video announced it will be releasing a new 4K restored version of Dune for home media release, which has pleased many of its online fans. Dune's star Kyle MacLachlan has praised the visual effects of the film as well. Ultimately, despite Lynch’s disavowal of the film and some of its ittedly flawed aspects due to studio interference, Dune is still a visually stunning sci-fi movie and beautifully surreal work of cinematic art which Lynch should be proud of.
