Original-Cin Chat: Dune Director Denis Villeneuve on Adapting the “Unadaptable”

By Karen Gordon

Leading up to the international release of his adaptation of Dune, Denis Villeneuve, one of the hottest directors on the planet right now, is thinking about the audience. “I want to make sure I will please the hardcore fans that love the book so much and also respect and honour the beauty and the poetry of the book.”

Denis Villeneuve directs Javier Bardem.

But he’s as worried about the way the film will be received by people who haven’t read the Frank Herbert classic as he is for those who are long-time fans. “I will say that one of the biggest challenges was that someone who knows nothing about the book will feel welcome and not get lost in this universe and will totally understand because it’s so complex. The story is simple. But the world that Herbert brought to life is complex and rich.”

The conversation with Villeneuve took place during the Toronto International Film Festival towards the end of a long day of interviews well in advance of the release of the film. I’m one of five on a Zoom call. Villeneuve, who arrived at TIFF following the world premiere of Dune at the Venice Film Festival —where it was received with a six-minute standing ovation — looks tired but is in good spirits. He’s been doing interviews all day but doesn’t short-change when it comes to answering our questions.

Dune is his third consecutive science fiction film after 2016’s Arrival (which earned him an Oscar nomination for best director) and 2017’s Blade Runner 2049. The French-Canadian director has become one of the hottest in Hollywood, with any number of projects open to him. But taking on the challenge of a Dune adaptation might be seen as an act of bravery.

The book has long been considered unfilmable. Director David Lynch has distanced himself from his 1984 adaptation and won’t talk about it. And of course, there’s the documentary Jodorowsky's Dune about film director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s failed try at adapting the novel.

As well, the book has legions of fans around the world who have been waiting for a Dune series that could give them the same joy as, say, Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, and have been waiting this release with a mix of excitement and trepidation. And COVID, which delayed the release by almost a year, has added to the anticipation.

So, what drew him to take on the risk of Dune? Villeneuve tends towards movies that have deeper themes and social significance and he found that in Dune. “Good science fiction means that it is necessarily a criticism of reality or at the least a mirror of reality.” Villeneuve feels that themes that Frank Herbert wove into the book, first published in 1965, are “more relevant to today’s world than it was when it was written in the beginning of the sixties.”

He continues: “The impact of colonialism is still totally relevant to today’s world. The over-exploitation of natural resources. The danger of blending politics and religion together… and more important, the environmental crisis. It’s something that Frank Herbert foresaw in the sixties.”

PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN

Villeneuve’s solution to the problems that seemed to stall other directors was to split the first book into two parts. “I could not bring everything in there because the movie would have been crushed under the weight of so much information.” He’s stripped the story back to focus on those large overarching themes, and focused on the connections between his lead characters.

In part one, the relationship focus is between Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and his father, Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac). He’s also emphasized the roles of the female characters. In this film, the relationship between Paul and his mother, Lady Jessica Atreides (Rebecca Ferguson) is strengthened. The film is narrated by Chani, played by Zendaya, who appears briefly in the film but whose presence —and the anticipation of how her character will affect Paul — hangs over the story.

Fathers and son. Mothers and son. Family, loyalty, deception, spirituality, rebellion. There are lots of themes that Villeneuve likes to work with. But risky choices in a risky project.

Will fans of the book approve of who gets screen time and who doesn’t? Plus, the studio would not guarantee that he’d get to make the second part. It’s waiting to see how the first one plays, before it green lights part two. But judging from reviews from the festivals, and overseas box office, the film is making fans happy.

You can read what Original-Cin’s Jim Slotek thinks HERE.

Risks aside, Dune confirms Villeneuve’s unique approach to science fiction films. He’s a meticulous filmmaker with a very distinct style, from the visuals, the colour palate, to the slow camera pans and atmospheric music scores that create a hypnotic, otherworldly mood.

Villeneuve credits his personal aesthetic to a genre of European graphic novels called Métal Hurlant and Pilote. One of his aunts rescued three boxes of graphic novels that a friend was going to toss and gave them to young Denis. It was a turning point.

“It was filled with insane imagination coming from great artists like (Philippe) Druillet, (Enki) Bilal, Moebius, Jean-Claude Mézières... so many of them. I was maybe eight or nine years old, and it was a total aesthetic shock for me.”

Villeneuve met two of them at a screening of one of his films in Paris, a meeting that brought him to tears. “The vision of those artists is still fuelling me today. They are at the very core of my sci-fi education, and I think they are the ones who influenced most of everybody in cinema. These guys were the visual pioneers of modern sci-fi and I owe them everything”

Where people will see the film is also on his mind. Villeneuve has been caught up in the debate about movies premiering simultaneously in theatres and on television via streaming, another COVID-induced change. He’s made it clear that Dune was made as a cinematic experience, meant to be seen in theatres and on the big screen. There’s a lot of talk about the era of the big theatre experience now being a thing of the past. Villeneuve isn’t buying it.

“I’m very optimistic about the theatrical cinema. It’s not being nostalgic. It’s at the very centre of what cinema is to receive a visual story in the most immersive way, being a group of human beings together that’s what the cinema is. There’s a lot of talk about the big theatre experience being over. As long as cinema will be with us there will be movies to show it.”

For now, it seems that audiences will be able to make the choice of how to see the film. How will they react? And will we get to see Dune, Part Two? That’s a story that will be told by the box office.