Thursday, September 11, 2008
Concept: Dune, the movie.
For my birthday my parents got me Dune, and it was the first time I'd seen this film in about eight years. I watched this film constantly in 7th grade, and it became one of my favorites of all time. In 8th grade I picked up the book by Frank Herbert, and wasn't as impressed by the book as by the film. Many friends told me that the series went downhill from there, but I am still intrigued by the rumors that have reached me about what happened to Paul Atreides.
Now I realize that I am in the minority here in two ways: that Dune is a good movie and that the movie Dune is better than the book. I won't make the claims that I have about Dead Man's Chest... that this film is underrated because it is supremely crafted in an uncommon medium. But I think it may be underrated nonetheless because we have a bias toward, for example, good acting and plot coherence over lavish setpieces and effective imagery. These things are each neutral on their own... in the case of Dune the latter grant relief to the former. The script might be neither as tight nor as accessible as we would like, but for me, the spectacle of the blue-eyed Fremen, a sand-worm on the attack, or Baron Harkonnen indulging his blood fetish (not present in the book) is enough to make a very dense and difficult experience into something quite enjoyable.
Which brings me to another point. I also like the shorter cut of Dune more than the extended edition and this ties into why I like the film more than the book. In Herbert's novel, Paul Atreides sojourn into the bad trip that is melange gradually dominates more and more of the book, until he is completely overcome with a messianic grandeur so saturated as to seem inhuman. The extended film cut attempts to preserve this plot arc. The shorter cut (while hardly economical) jettisons much of this in favor of the political arc of the story. Which is marginally more human and certainly more accessible.
It might be fairly observed that this is a bit of an artistic cop-out. On the one hand, I don't think that an adaptation can exist independent of its source material; otherwise it wouldn't be an adaptation. That being said, the transposition of an object from one medium to another, and all of the attendant issues, makes it self-evident that these should be considered different works of art. For that reason, it is fair if the film emphasizes what the novel does not. One might say that political themes can be more thoroughly and deeply engaged in a three hour film than an abstract philosophical construct (if you want to pose Star Wars as a counterexample, I have an answer to that). One might argue, though I would disagree, that films being a popular medium (as opposed to books) have a greater obligation to ease and accessibility. However, I definitely believe that this film mitigated the story in a way that was beneficial. It took a novel that had struck me as coldly intellectual and through flesh-and-blood and abridgment brought the story some distance toward the opportunity to access through sense and emotion. Far from depleting its mystical ruminations, it has provided the audience with a point of entry to them.
Dune is a flawed film, but its atmosphere and viscerality continue to inspire me. It is, much like Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho a work whose conspicuous flaws render equally conspicuous the risks it takes and its successful efforts to innovate and engage.
Labels: art, CONCEPT, esotericism, film, literature, science-fiction, syncretism
0 comments.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Body: Compelling Intangibles.
from my journal:
Last Thurs. 10/18... before Mark and I went to see Unkle I hopped from one Barnes and Noble to the next and it was like the past. That moment of darkness when fall has finally fallen thick and dense and dead. Tonight it is familiar too.
Then I was at work then various B&N, sky shadowed and heavy and I knew that the B&N on Union Square was the place to be (even if it didn't have the books I wanted) because the light as so bright. Elsewhere, light seemed to have a film in front of it making it dusty muffling and sepia toned.
[a sketch of this]
The right Barnes & Noble. The Place to Be.
And now tonight I'm at a coffee shop on A (before I go to Guerrilla Lit - I hope to be terrified). It is very dark dim. Just the tiniest chandelier candle lights above and candles on the tables. I sit alone – far back – black coffee – candle – RWC3: The Church in the Roman Empire – Village Voice – pencil. Spoon. The place is dark wood and orange Christmas light for Halloween. And it's gray and gimy and rain and moldering outside. Christ. I feel besieged like always, but now I feel it most strongly.
[two sketches, one of the room, one of my table and its accoutrements]
There is a tradition in all this. More than I will remember but at the front of it: the Hamlet reading at UT in the 3floor Theater directed by SMH where Judd was the Prince of rotten Denmark. Sometimes (rarely) at St. Thomas the Apostle. Then also at listening to Poison (a bit) by Laurie Anderson. The UT moment was potent. Another potent: Jr. High Drama Club. And the Nintendo Power rendering of FFII (so the beginning of 7th grade. So Drama Club. I do believe that it has to do with October/November... and also lots of umbral dark pitch black dark and beaten wood.
In 7th grade, Auditions at the Gym.
[sketch of this]
black ceiling
blue mesh net ->
volleyball ->
practicing ->
watching ->
auditioning ->
watching ->
black floor
Overheard here: "...and my body is deteriorating..." "no focus" "no focus" "only think, like, that I can initially connect to."
Two related things – strong for NYC. (I think) – have to figure out. It's dense. Hard.
1. from Cricket/ghoststories (clock, etc.)
[sketch of the below]
sewar grate
far overhead
This was the prison in NYC where a demihuman antediluvian was kept and he was so old that his emotions had all eroded and dissolved away. He was also deeply ambivalent about his captivity seemed a cathedral w. the grate cover above working like stained glass.
(Also: Watership Down)
2. from Flint: "The Flushing/Eastside. Bizarre.
3. from NYC? Or Europe? Out of time. More later.
Quick Schematic.
[sketch of this]
Neoclassical official
bldg.s and maybe a brick tenement or two
Italian-style
Romanesque.
Medici. Ominous.
Cold/Forbitting town square where the ghosts whistle by
Statue of
Death as a
Beautiful
Woman
Darby O'Gill and the Little People.
To Guerrilla Lit.
Then I was at work then various B&N, sky shadowed and heavy and I knew that the B&N on Union Square was the place to be (even if it didn't have the books I wanted) because the light as so bright. Elsewhere, light seemed to have a film in front of it making it dusty muffling and sepia toned.
[a sketch of this]
The right Barnes & Noble. The Place to Be.
And now tonight I'm at a coffee shop on A (before I go to Guerrilla Lit - I hope to be terrified). It is very dark dim. Just the tiniest chandelier candle lights above and candles on the tables. I sit alone – far back – black coffee – candle – RWC3: The Church in the Roman Empire – Village Voice – pencil. Spoon. The place is dark wood and orange Christmas light for Halloween. And it's gray and gimy and rain and moldering outside. Christ. I feel besieged like always, but now I feel it most strongly.
[two sketches, one of the room, one of my table and its accoutrements]
There is a tradition in all this. More than I will remember but at the front of it: the Hamlet reading at UT in the 3floor Theater directed by SMH where Judd was the Prince of rotten Denmark. Sometimes (rarely) at St. Thomas the Apostle. Then also at listening to Poison (a bit) by Laurie Anderson. The UT moment was potent. Another potent: Jr. High Drama Club. And the Nintendo Power rendering of FFII (so the beginning of 7th grade. So Drama Club. I do believe that it has to do with October/November... and also lots of umbral dark pitch black dark and beaten wood.
In 7th grade, Auditions at the Gym.
[sketch of this]
black ceiling
blue mesh net ->
volleyball ->
practicing ->
watching ->
auditioning ->
watching ->
black floor
Overheard here: "...and my body is deteriorating..." "no focus" "no focus" "only think, like, that I can initially connect to."
Two related things – strong for NYC. (I think) – have to figure out. It's dense. Hard.
1. from Cricket/ghoststories (clock, etc.)
[sketch of the below]
sewar grate
far overhead
This was the prison in NYC where a demihuman antediluvian was kept and he was so old that his emotions had all eroded and dissolved away. He was also deeply ambivalent about his captivity seemed a cathedral w. the grate cover above working like stained glass.
(Also: Watership Down)
2. from Flint: "The Flushing/Eastside. Bizarre.
3. from NYC? Or Europe? Out of time. More later.
Quick Schematic.
[sketch of this]
Neoclassical official
bldg.s and maybe a brick tenement or two
Italian-style
Romanesque.
Medici. Ominous.
Cold/Forbitting town square where the ghosts whistle by
Statue of
Death as a
Beautiful
Woman
Darby O'Gill and the Little People.
To Guerrilla Lit.
Labels: agnosticism, BODY, esotericism, hermeticism, religion, syncretism
0 comments.
