The Making Of Dune

by Ed Naha

With more than one hundred photographs, and interviews with Frank Herbert and members of the cast and crew, this book details the creation of an alien world in the Mexican desert

Genres: Nonfiction, Film

299 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

Reviews

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the scale of zero-to-crazy, I'm the guy who watches it each time it's on the cable schedule no matter what time it is, who owns three versions of Lynch's movie, who has a copy of The Dune Storybook, and who had saved the old copy of The Electric Company Magazine featuring the film until it was destroyed by enterprising rodents.

It is not a great film, but is a visually engaging one, with stunning set design and costuming and a chunky-clunky technology that reinforces how the future doesn't have to look like, and can be far stranger than, Star Trek.

So of course, this book. It picks up with Dino / Raffaella De Laurentiis obtaining the rights, which is the other half of Jodorowsky's Dune. Each work is a dismissive footnote to the other, which I find amusing. And it carries through to just before the general release of Dune in theaters, in December 1984, leaving the reader with a sense of joyful optimism. Raffaella De Laurentiis was transitioning to Conan the Destroyer while finishing postproduction, and despite the bizarre problems continuing to plague Dune, it seemed mostly in the bag. David Lynch, and this is total spit-take material, was noodling with the script of not one, but two sequels. Everyone interviewed admitted the difficulty of production but believed it a thoroughly worthwhile experience, both technically and personally. Everyone believed that it was going to totally kick ass, rocking moviegoers' worlds. The dedication page even reads, "for the ticket buyers".

Oh, if only the book's timetable had stretched a few more months, until after the disastrous one-star reviews, the box office disappointment, and Lynch distancing himself from the entire project. And, of course, the dogs-breakfast "extended edition".

But in all, this is not a profound work nor a particularly enlightening one, delving more into the conditions and procedure instead of the decisions and artistry. The conditions in an undersupplied, technologically-woebegone Mexican studio were astonishing, as were the few life-threatening accidents, but none of this is really insightful into the movie itself. There is little concept art included and little discussion of the transition from novel to movie. The title is literal: it is about the physical making, the construction, itself.

It is startling at how much effort went into everything. The local construction crews were incredibly serious about set design and props: floors were set with real tile and real wood. One brief scene of the Beast Rabban squashing a 'squood' rodent and drinking it--literally two seconds of film--was an all-day task.

Oh, and the organic worm stretchy goopy bits under the sandworm skin plating that Kyle/Paul jabs with a maker hook? Actually a mess of condoms. You're welcome.

[Michael Burnam-Fink · Rating 4 out of 5]

There has to be some long German word that describe the sensation of reading this book. It's like watching a trainwreck in slow motion, with optimistic spin by the conductor and passengers, while you know exactly how the metal is going to crumple and who's going to be impaled on a luggage rack.

As part of the PR for Dune, the production company arranged for reporter and scifi fan Ed Naha to hang around on set and interview the cast and crew. The idea was to convince true fans that was going to be a faithful adaptation. Don't worry guys, David Lynch is a visionary, Raffaella De Laurentiis is an organization genius, the cast and crew are dedicated professionals. And at a glance all of that is true. But behind the scenes, chaos reigned.

I've never worked on a movie, but I hear that they're stressful at the best of times. Mexico City, 1983 was not the best of times. The Churubusco Studies were huge but dilapidated. Power and phone lines worked intermittently. Film, paint, parts for special effects and costumes got held up in customs for weeks. The entire cast and crew came down with stomach bugs, respiratory ailments, and various forms of insanity. The $40 million movie was stretching over 3 hours, and David Lynch kept improvising new scenes. Kyle MacLachlan had never been in a movie before. Raffaella was trying to prove something to her dad.

And the filming itself. Jesus, the filming is indescribable. Artificial duststorms and choking clouds of smoke from tire fires to get the right effect. Extras passing out in their stillsuits and Sardukar uniforms. Costumes made out of 50 pounds of rope. Elaborate sets made out of solid wood, and then miniatures made out of wood, because that was what the Mexican crew knew how to work with. One sound-stage was set up as 150 foot artificial sand dune. Which made sense, because desert filming nearly killed an actor from heatstroke. The other major outdoor location was a dump that the crew had to clear before they could film, and then post guards on to keep the locals from throwing more trash there. Kyle MacLachlan went out to fight a training robot with the friendly advice "Don't get killed." And finally a warehouse full of vital models burnt down.

Somehow through it all, the cast and crew interviewed keep up their spirits. The most jarring part of this book is how convinced everybody is that Dune is going to be great, that it's going to replace Star Wars as the great science fiction movie. Instead we got... Well, personally I love Lynch's Dune. I know it is not a good movie or a good adaptation, but it might be a great one. The Making of Dune is a fascinating look behind the scenes of a massively flawed masterpiece, a great piece of Hollywood ephemera, and chock full of cool stories of great actors and the heyday of practical effects.

[Bryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This film was truly cursed.

Released as part of the hype machine before the Dune's release, this book succeeds as an on-the-set-behind-the-scenes report that will appeal to fans. That being said, if this book was supposed to portray the production in a positive light, well maybe Naha should not have received the other half of his fee. A chronicle of disaster, injury and disease, this production has rightly gone down as one of great train wrecks of cinema history. As the book exhibits, the responsibility for this lays with producer Raffaella De Laurentiis and her decision to cut costs by filming the entire production at Churubusco Studios in Mexico City. Though Churubusco was large enough for a film with the scope of Dune, technologically it was years behind Hollywood, and what Dune needed was vanguard technology of the day. Never mind the physical "practicalities" of filming a 100+ cast wearing full body black rubber suits in a scorching stretch of desert that was previously used as Mexico City's garbage dump. Far too little, far too late: someone tell Ms. De Laurentiis that California also has deserts.

I'm going layoff on critique of David Lynch's directorial vision, but just want to say that even the cast and crew during the production thought his approach to be off the mark. Many of the film's formal characteristics, i.e. the staid camera movement, stilted acting, grainy picture, which were fodder for hostile critics are explained by Naha as matters of necessity. I don't want to give too many details away because it will spoil the fun if the subject matter is pertinent to your interests. For what it is, the book is great. I was happy it didn't pretend to be an academic monograph like another on-the-set-report of one of my favorite films I've reviewed on here.

One dirty detail Naha had the good sense to censor was that the Sardaukar uniforms were made from used bodybags from the LA morgue. I wonder what the statute of limitations was before that nugget finally saw the light of day.

[Jeffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting anecdotes and information in this book, much of which makes re-watching David Lynch's classic Dune film take on new meanings. However, the book has a few flaws - first, of course, it only really covers principal photography and a little bit of the post production. More glaringly, the book tends to read like PR propaganda for the movie. Still, better than no making of Dune book.

[Kelly Lemieux · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the beginning of 1984, I was in junior high school, and I read some Hollywood news saying that a previously-unknown-to-me film director was making the most expensive movie in history up to that point in time, based on a dense novel by a previously-unknown-to-me sci-fi writer. Meet David Lynch and Frank Herbert. Both of these auteurs have since influenced my thought and my work, and a first taste of Brian Eno was also from this production, particularly the soundtrack. Naha's book told me all about this then-upcoming movie event, in torrid detail, and I have spent the 38 years since watching this cult turkey/worthwhile viewing experience. I remember reading about a stunt man who died during the making of the film in Mexico. David Lynch's Dune finally went into profit in 2014, 30 years after releasing.

[Graham · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great subject. Dull book.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reads like a summary of the actual 'making of' book.

[Duffy Laudick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the book. I wish they covered the soundtrack part of the film and sound effects as well as the voice overs.

[Christopher Heaney · Rating 1 out of 5]

A not very illuminating "inside" account of the making of the original, David Lynch-directed Dune film.

[Richard Bartholomew · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book about the making of a film that begins with a congratulatory foreword (styled as the "Introduction") by the producer's father is obviously going to be an "approved" account; the author may not have been under instruction to produce PR, but an embedded journalist always risks identification with the interests of his or her hosts at the expense of a critical perspective. Naha does recount various disasters and accidents that beset the production of the 1984 film of Dune at the "antiquated" Churubusco film studio in Mexico, but these are all challenges that are overcome with ingenuity and perseverance, and no dirty linen is washed in public – Dino De Laurentiis states that he "stayed in the background", although later sources suggest that not everyone remembers it that way. The last few chapters of the book are concerned with the film's post-production, but at the time of publication editing was still underway, meaning that there's no hint of how arguments over the final cut would sour the whole project and contribute to the film’s reputation as a critical failure.

Publication ahead of the film's release perhaps also explains why The Making of Dune has so little to say about David Lynch’s creative decisions as regards the script. We are shown lavish costumes, sets and spaceships, and there's an account of how one plot element (Paul's duel to the death Jamis) had to be jettisoned for reasons of pacing, but controversial changes and additions to the story are not referenced at all. Lynch had apparently scripted two sequels, but it is difficult to see how they would have worked given the massive divergence at the end of Dune, when Paul creates a rainstorm (welcomed by the Fremen despite the destruction of their entire way of life and economy). Why was Baron Harkonnen given not only a grotesque skin disease (criticised on the film’s release as a homophobic AIDS reference) but also a gratuitously mad doctor (played by Leonardo Cimino) who seems to have wondered in from an old Universal horror film? Sting carrying a shaved cat in a cage does get a mention and even a photograph, but no explanation. If Frank Herbert, who visited the set, had any misgivings, he either kept them to himself, or off the record. It seems he had a pragmatic attitude towards the book (reviewed here) that defines his reputation: "once it was published, I wasn't really aware of what was going on with the book, to be quite candid. I have this newspaperman's attitude about yesterday's news, you know? I've done that one, now let me do something else".

Instead, and despite Naha being himself a science-fiction creative, much of the interview material (Naha had access to most of the cast and crew) is concerned with the "nuts and bolts" of filmmaking and acting. The technical side of how various effects were achieved can be dull and even opaque in places, although Naha tries to liven things up with some humorous journalistic alliteration; in one typical backgrounder he writes that "Carlo Rambaldi is the man who designed and built the blood-thirsty finned fury in Orca, the Killer Whale, the barbaric bison in The White Buffalo and the colossal King Kong". The book's publishing schedule also means that there is no discussion of the soundtrack, which had still not been decided upon at the time.

The Making of Dune is heavily illustrated, albeit in black and white (which Lynch might perhaps have appreciated). One image, described as "a discarded design for a second stage guild navigator", is oddly reminiscent of John Hurt's makeup in Lynch's previous film, although he would have had to have called it The Aardvark Man.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thrilled to have found this book after so many years. I checked this out of the library so many times in the 90's, and rereading it when I bought it last week I was reminded how much fun it is, both from my persoanl history of Dune and knowing now how painful and torturous it was to make (and how much it flopped). There are so many interviews with people involved in the making of it and thousands of pictures (including a few that didnt make it into any version of the film) that its just fun to browse through a chapter or two and then come back to it. Producers, director, set designer, actors--all kinds of info about shooting in Mexico and David Lynch's milieu too. And everyone looks so young!!

[bluetyson]

isbn,original