David Lynch: A Dark And Troubling DUNE

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In 1984, when I had not yet seen ERASERHEAD or the short films of David Lynch, I called his adaptation of DUNE a disaster. Here in 2021, I think of Lynch as my favourite living film artist, and would call DUNE at least halfway brilliant. As an interpretation of Herbert's book, it fails, but as an individualistic vision that works better than ever on Blu Ray, it could almost have been ERASERHEAD 2: A DREAM OF DARK AND TROUBLING SPACE.

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Time and experience change perspective. Back then, I failed to recognize that many flaws in DUNE the movie were caused, perhaps inevitably, by the complications of DUNE the book, which is not so much an original work as a melange of previously-tested ideas in a newly-jumbled combination. Once the readers have accepted this mixture of Charles Harness, Cordwainer Smith, Middle Eastern history and Islamic culture, they often take pleasure not only in Herbert's blend, but in his trust that people will understand what he has in mind as the story unfolds.

Herbert does what he can to keep exposition to a minimum: he dumps most of his background information into his appendices, but he also relies on italicized thoughts from many different characters, along with points of view that leap from skull to skull within a scene. The result is a set of narrative techniques less than elegant on the page, and pretty much impossible to film. Lynch retains the spoken thoughts, drags exposition into full view, and ends up with moments that tell more than show -- not the best approach for a cinematic story.

Lynch is also forced to leave out chunks of the book, not only from the story itself (which often happens when books are adapted to the screen), but also, fatally, from Herbert's perspective on the rise and fall of Paul Muad'Dib. Herbert takes a dim view of political and religious heroes, a skepticism that Lynch never considers. By turning Paul into an actual messiah, Lynch not only distorts the book, he misses the point completely.

This failure back then remains a botch today: DUNE the film is not DUNE the book. It is, however, in its images, moods, and sounds, very much the creation of David Lynch. That a director-for-hire could have imposed this personal touch on a film so expensive and so theoretically impersonal would perhaps have been unexpected for anyone less confidently and stubbornly himself.

What we have, then, is a film by Lynch, but is it a good film? I would argue that it works well up until its halfway point; after Paul and his mother meet the desert Fremen, the pacing and focus fall apart as Lynch crams too much narrative within too small a running time. The lingering moods, the stately movements disappear; all that remain are scattered moments of nightmare imagery.

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Yet still, for all of its abandoned promise (and despite its ridiculous rainfall ending), DUNE the film has gained clarity over time: the clarity of context within the later work of its director. Readers of the book will find much to lament; viewers of David Lynch will find much to love.

The American Senate Recesses Without Having Passed Legislation To Protect Voting Rights

Trivia quiz: Name the American president between Trump 1 and Trump 2.

"Wait a minute. Was there a president between Trump 1 and 2?"

Yes. Who was it?

"Can you give me a hint?"

Joe....

"Manchin!"

That is CORRECT.

Against Ironic Disengagement

Human variety guarantees that no work of art can speak to every human being, and for this reason, I have no quarrel with anyone who engages honestly with something that I love, but cannot share my enthusiasm. As my brother would say, we are all wired differently.

What does anger me is ironic disengagement: the refusal to meet any work of art halfway. I disagree with anyone who comes to a story, a poem, a film, a piece of music, with a preconceived notion that this work does not deserve any full attention, that it can be picked apart from moment to moment without consideration of historical or aesthetic context, that it deserves to be mocked or dismissed right from the start.

I see nothing wrong with individual taste and thoughtful criticism; I see no reason to complain when a person likes This and This and This about something, but really hates That. I despise, instead, the trendy Youtube illness that never gives art the time and opportunity to do its work.

At the very least, we should pay attention for a while, to see what can be found.

Garry Kilworth, WITCHWATER COUNTRY

Cover by Tim Gill. Click for a better jpeg.

An easy book to read but a hard one to assess, Garry Kilworth's WITCHWATER COUNTRY (1986) deserves a long review that I cannot provide, because even though several days have gone by since I finished it, the book whispers to me within my skull. In its many details, it offers a paradox.

For one thing, the book is written with utter simplicity and clarity, with a narrative so straightforward that a child could read it, yet at the same time, the story is about the perplexity of not knowing: of not knowing your family secrets, of not knowing your own parents, of not knowing your place in a shifting hierarchy of childhood friends.

The story is also about not knowing what might come next. The book seems unplotted: as in life, things happen, often out of the blue, yet the book is also structured with a series of set-ups and pay-offs that make the unexpected events feel inevitable after they occur. Halfway through the book, I knew that something terrible would happen, and then it did, but not in ways I could have anticpated. Nor could I have anticipated the chapters that followed, in which anxiety gave way to a looming sadness.

Not knowing what might come next leads to the challenge of dealing with what does happen, and for the story's young protagonist, coping is frustrated by his inability to process fears and complexities as an adult could. Halfway through the story, abruptly and without warning, someone dies; an adult would confront grief and shocked surprise head-on, but the child protagonist has no understanding of how to do this, and so he falls back on childhood fears, on the dread of ghosts and witches. Later, his true feelings erupt in ways that are unexpected but all-too believable.

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In WITCHWATER COUNTRY, childhood is a time of not knowing, and the setting of the story matches the shifting, uncertain moods of the protagonist. The firm landscape gives way to tides that come and go; droughts give way to floods; rainstorms give way to fire. The setting changes constantly while never quite changing at all, and matches perfectly the fears and doubts of the hero.

If that sounds abstract, the story is not: as in the best writing by Kilworth, the book thrives on physical detail, on the moods and colours, fragrances and textures of a place and its history. You can walk through this book to see it and feel it, but Kilworth never holds your hand, never explains more than he has to. In the simplest of ways, he has written a complicated book, and the result is unsettling, uncertain, as vivid as a dream and as baffling as life.

The Ebb-Tide: Opening Paragraphs

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From 1894, THE EBB-TIDE, by Robert Louis Stevenson and his stepson Lloyd Osbourne, opens with a passage worth analysis.

The writing is firm and graceful; it relies on subtle repetitions of consonants and vowels ("carry activity and disseminate disease"; "memoirs of the music-hall"), and on parallel structures ("less pliable, less capable, less fortunate, and perhaps less base"). Physical details might be scarce ("palm-leaf verandahs"; "a single eye-glass"), and verbs could be stronger ("vegetate" and "sprawl" stand out), but from one clause to the next, the writing moves quickly. Notice, too, that the longer, more elaborately constructed sentences appear at the end of the paragraph, built on a solid foundation of shorter statements ("Some prosper, some vegetate.").

I wish more of the books I try to read could start like this, with writing for voice and ears.

Or Else

"My country, right or wrong"? No. "My country, right or else," with a storm-wind emphasis on else.