The Cinematheque

“David Lynch’s oddball adaptation remains a fascination [and] deserves a second chance … Lynch’s approach to the galactic is the rare sci-fi specimen that feels as alien as its subjects.”

Charles Bramesco, The Guardian

After The Elephant Man proved David Lynch could calibrate his outré sensibilities into Oscar-nominated prestige, producer Dino De Laurentiis came calling with a project long mired in development limbo—a film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s ​“unfilmable” Dune. Lynch, seduced by the novel’s invention of alien worlds and motif of the sleeper who must awaken, took the job and then lost himself in a three-year, mega-budget sci-fi production rife with compromise and kneecapped by a Universal-controlled final cut. Its failure is legendary, as is its status as an inflection point in a career that, from here out, would never again relinquish vision to studio demand. The years have been forgiving to Dune: its grotesqueries, industrial-steampunk aesthetic, handcrafted effects, and introduction of Kyle MacLachlan—not to mention a host of other Lynch players, many of whom would reassemble for Twin Peaks—now present as fascinating and at times stridently brilliant artifacts in the evolution of Lynch.