Visions of the Future: Dune (Dir David Lynch, 2h 15m, 1984)
David Lynch's Dune is a strange beast. Condemned now to stand in the shadow of Denis Villeneuve's two-(or more)-part 2021-2023 adaption, which now acts as the definitive cinematic version of Frank Herbert's 1965 novel. It's also something of an outlier to Lynch's filmography as a whole. This purveyor of the dark underbelly of Americana is not the first director that comes to mind when considering an epic science-fiction tale that matches technology and religion, mysticism and ambition, and especially not when they distil a several-hundred-page novel into a two hour movie, soundtracked by 80s rock stalwarts, Toto. Yet, Dune remains fascinating. despite its failure. Why? The year is 1981, and people have been trying to make a film of Dune for a decade; the novel has been a runaway success, but adapting it for the screen has been fraught with difficulties. This has included the death of the first owner of the rights, Arthur P Jacobs whilst a David Lean-headed adaptio
