don@allegra.UUCP (D. Mitchell) (12/19/84)
I would like to know if there is really a 4-hour version of Dune. Is that just a rumor? I have certainly seen stills that were not in the movie (e.g. Shadout Mapes confronting Jessica with a crysknife). My main objection to the movie was that it was edited down to incoherence. (Why show Kynes being cast out when you are never told he is the secret leader of the Fremen?) If there is a 4 hour version, it is certain to appear in Greenwich Village and a few other pockets of civilization. (OK, that should have gone to net.gloat. Sorry.) I guess a lot of people are objecting to Lynch's overall vision of Dune. I think that is just conservatism. Lynch has an amazing imagination. So don't miss this movie because someone tells you it is too weird or because someone thinks there should be comedy relief (what an appalling suggestion for Dune!). If you read the interviews with Lynch, you will see that he has a lot of respect for the story (maybe more than it deserves). He has thought about what things would look like after an anti-automation revolution. And how does the corrupt and Byzantine politics of the time effect the imagery. Should we be shocked if Dune looks more like Satyricon than Starwars?
reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (12/22/84)
There probably is not a four hour version of "Dune", at least not in the same
sense that there is an original version of say, "Heaven's Gate" or "Once Upon A
Time in America". Most films shoot more
scenes than they use. The unused scenes are discarded because they do not work,
or because they do not fit in with the rest of the film, or because the film
is too long and they seemed the most
expendable. Longer doesn't necessarily mean better. "Dune" was pretty lugubrious
at two and a half hours; even if they
had the footage, it would probably be intolerable at four hours. Very likely,
Lynch, on his own initiative, cut out
sceenes to bring the running time down to reasonable length, and because they
were not important to his vision of the film, or perhaps even harmful (sometimes
scenes get shot because producers insist, even if the director has no intention
of using them, sometimes they just don't
work out). Since there seemed to be
little controversy about the cut of "Dune", a longer version probably won't
appear in theaters. If it's a big enough hit, it may show up on TV with cut
scenes restored, like "The Godfather" and "Superman".
I have no complaints whatsoever about how the film looked. All of my complaints
are about how the story was told. Lynch gets loads of brownie points for his
visual concepts, but we must remember that he was the director, not just the
production designer.
--
Peter Reiher
reiher@ucla-cs.arpa
{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher