Browse: Home / Year Of The Month – Dune (1965)

Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login

The-SoluteLogo

A Film Site By Lovers of Film

Menu

Skip to content
  • Features
  • Reviews
  • Long Reviews
  • News
  • Articles and Opinions
  • Other Media
  • The Friday Article Roundup: The Truth is In Here
  • Lunch Links: Schwarzfahrer
  • Websites on the Internet: THE SOLUTE
  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray
  • Movie Gifts Holidays 2024

Year Of The Month – Dune (1965)

Posted By CM Crockford on December 18, 2020 in Features, Short Articles | Leave a response

Its hard not to compare Star Wars and Dune when reading the latter decades after their respective releases, as Lucas obviously knicked and filtered some of Frank Herbert’s ideas and storytelling through his own process. Wars has also completely permeated popular culture while Dune remains on the edges, an object that is just as grand and ambitious but is nowhere near as easy. Each shares similar goals, depicting alternate universes where mysticism and harder political realities tensely co-exist. Lucas and Herbert both recall Drunk Napoleon’s notion of artists creating good, pulpy work by throwing everything they think is cool or interesting into the mix. Lucas combines drag racing, Eastern philosophy Campbell, and Flash Gordon. Herbert uses ecology, drugs, Arabic culture, Messiahs, and geopolitics to tell his story.

But Lucas, for all the epic and religious elements of Star Wars, preferred to keep his protagonists quippy and flawed, bantering amid all the wonder of the galaxy. There’s no room in Dune for a scene like Luke and his friends bursting out in laughter and relief once the compactor stops.

Nothing in the tone of Dune has much room for wiseassery. What Herbert chose to focus on in tone and scale is graver and immersed in religious awe, and every critical juncture for the Hero is another moment in Paul’s journey towards the constant terror of tremendous Godhood – and the cost required to accomplish this destiny. Beloved commentator Miller wrote about Streets Of Fire that the text, instead of riffing on its own world-building or directly commenting on the tropes, treats the mythology with deadly sincerity. The characters here similarly have no distance from Spice or Paul Mua’dib or the falls of the houses – they are living completely in this narrative space.

A friend of mine gave me his copy of Dune and asked me to read it. The cover was rather mysterious and beautiful – shadowed figures lost amid the vast desert terrain, blue sky drowned out by enormous pillars. I knew the reputation and promised him that I’d read it. A few months later, battling the depression that loomed over his whole life, he would kill himself. I kept the dog-eared book on my shelf, vowing for years to plow through it someday, even if the thing did require a glossary. I finally immersed myself in the book after turning twenty-six.

I was soon struck by the earnestness of the thing, as well as how colossally real the myth of Paul felt, tinged with the glorious purpose of all epic stories, yet how adult the entire story is too. Paul’s Messianic status will lead directly to genocide, death, and war, and the real journey Paul takes is towards completely accepting his fate and everything that involves. I wondered if my friend felt a similar relentless pressure, if he understood something about the inescapability of things and the burden Paul carried, but its impossible to ask him that now.

I do know that the older I get the more I understand that kind of Recognition, that mythic acceptance of oneself and the evil we often commit, while Luke’s mostly uncomplicated heroism fades, year by year, into the places where childhood things go to stay. Dune, absurd as it is, has stuck with me, a story where great burdens and mystic transformation inhabit the same uneasy, endless spaces.

 

 

Posted in Features, Short Articles | Tagged 1965, Dune, Frank Herbert, genre, Hero's Journey, Novel, sci fi, Science Fiction, year of the month

About the Author

cmcrockford1@gmail.com'

CM Crockford

C.M. Crockford lives in Philadelphia. If you like anything he writes here, check out his Ko-fi (please): https://ko-fi.com/cmcrockford

  • Twitter
  • URL

Related Posts

Coors, the official beer of drinking in a little league dugout.Year of the Month: THE BAD NEWS BEARS→

Year of the Month: FALL (2022)→

Refried Beans: Taco Break→

No One Likes Chili Dogs That Much: Persia on GONE GIRL→

  • Comments
  • Popular
  • Most Recent
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleWonderful piece, Sam. It's made…
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleFellow heretic here. I've never…
  • n***********@gmail.com'
    Ruck Cohlchez on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEI wouldn't have called it…
  • j***********@gmail.com'
    Son of Griff on LIFE ITSELFGlad to hear back from…
  • n*********@gmail.com'
    Jake Gittes on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEThis is the single most…
  • “The End” of SAVAGES

    38403 views / Posted November 10, 2014
  • The Untalented Mr. Ripley: The Craft of Standup Comedy and the Non-Comedy of TOM MYERS

    30761 views / Posted June 26, 2018
  • What the fuck did I just watch? SPHERE

    30357 views / Posted March 19, 2015
  • Gordon with Mr. Looper

    Attention Must Be Paid: Will Lee

    27654 views / Posted January 7, 2023
  • Scenic Routes: SHOWGIRLS (1995)

    23372 views / Posted November 20, 2014
  • The truth is FAR out there.

    The Friday Article Roundup: The Truth is In Here

    December 6, 2024 / The Ploughman
  • This is a way lower res image than I will be allowed to get away with at the new site.

    Lunch Links: Schwarzfahrer

    December 5, 2024 / The Ploughman
  • Websites on the Internet: THE SOLUTE

    December 4, 2024 / ZoeZ
  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray

    December 3, 2024 / Greta Taylor
  • Movie Gifts Holidays 2024

    December 2, 2024 / The Ploughman

Last Tweets

    ©2014 - 2016 The-Solute | Hosted, Developed and Maintained by Bellingham WP LogoBellinghamWP.com.

    Menu

    • Home
    • Who We Are
    • About
    • Privacy
    • Contact Us
    • Login
    Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!