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A Masterpiece in Disarray: David Lynch’s Dune. An Oral History. Hardcover – September 19, 2023
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LIMITED FIRST EDITION contains red foil gilded page edges and a black satin ribbon marker.
As featured in Pitchfork, Empire, MovieMaker, Nerdist, The Wall Street Journal, The A.V. Club, Mashable, Wired, Yahoo's "It List," IGN, SFX, The Wrap, Gizmodo and more!
“I see many things. I see plans within plans.”
Following his underground hit Eraserhead and critically acclaimed The Elephant Man, visionary filmmaker David Lynch set his sights on bringing Frank Herbert’s beloved sci-fi novel Dune to the screen. The project had already vexed directors such as Alejandro Jodorowsky (El Topo) and Ridley Scott (Alien). But by the early ‘80s Universal Pictures was prepared to give Lynch the keys to the kingdom – and the highest budget in the studio’s history at the time – so that he could lend his surrealistic chops to this sprawling story of feuding space dynasties. They would also hopefully be creating a “Star Wars for adults” franchise-starter.
As the hot young filmmaker commanded a cast with 42 major speaking parts as well as a crew of 1,700 (plus over 20,000 extras) on 80 sets built on 8 sound stages in Mexico, what happened next became as wild, complex, and full of intrigue as Herbert’s novel itself.
Film writer Max Evry goes behind the erratic ride of David Lynch’s Dune like never before, with a years-in-the-making oral history culled from a lineup of new interviews with the film’s stars (Kyle MacLachlan, Sean Young, Virginia Madsen, etc.), creatives, film executives, and insiders – not to mention Lynch himself.
David Lynch’s Dune initially left many filmgoers and reviewers scratching their heads, most dismissing the film upon its release. However, four decades and a big-budget remake later, Lynch’s Dune is finally poised to find its rightful place alongside the director’s other masterpieces such as Blue Velvet and Mullholland Drive.
Max Evry’s A Masterpiece in Disarray takes you back to 1984 with the deepest dive yet into the cult classic that is David Lynch’s Dune.
- Print length560 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publisher1984 Publishing
- Publication dateSeptember 19, 2023
- Dimensions6 x 2 x 9 inches
- ISBN-101948221292
- ISBN-13978-1948221290
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From the Publisher
Editorial Reviews
Review
"A treasure trove for Dune and David Lynch aficionados. Author Max Evry spoke with dozens of actors and production personnel, and their conversations cover every possible aspect of the creative process, leaving no sandworm unturned." – Library Journal (starred review)
"Max Evry's A Masterpiece in Disarray: David Lynch's Dune spills the spice from this cult fave." – Mashable
"The definitive guide to David Lynch's Dune movie, with a wealth of new interviews." – DuneNewsNet
"Making-of books are often not much more than glorified press notes, studio-sanctioned marketing beats that don’t come close to telling the real story of what happened behind the scenes. But every once in a while, a no-holds-barred account still surfaces. And that’s where the new book about David Lynch’s Dune comes in, which at 560 pages seemingly has the scoop on everything that went into making the infamous sci-fi spectacle." – IGN
"Five stars. This hefty volume looks at the film in granular detail… It’s hard to imagine a more definitive examination of such a singular and strange film." – SFX
"The (fittingly behemothian) oral history of David Lynch’s doomed 1984 Dune. It’s hugely enjoyable to sift through the sands of this comprehensive chronicle. 4/4 stars." – Empire
"This is a book to be cherished, and one that is likely the definitive account of the making of a poorly-treated film." – The Film Stage
"A Masterpiece in Disarray is the comprehensive account of David Lynch's Dune. Max Evry’s expansive oral history captures the film's chaotic production with commentary from key talent. Through their stories and the author's own appreciation for the film's quirks and eccentricities, Disarray makes the case for why we shouldn't fear 1984's Dune. After all, fear is the mind-killer." – Yahoo
"For aspiring filmmakers and casual fans alike, it’s a fascinating look at the chaos that often goes hand in hand with creative genius." – The A.V. Club
"Disarray is an accounting of one of the wildest boondoggles ever committed to celluloid. The finished product was a legendary mess of a picture that threatened to undermine the director’s career before it had achieved liftoff, but the behind-the-camera story is a pleasure to follow: Mr. Evry delivers the spoiled goods with aplomb." – The Wall Street Journal
"There are a slew of great new books about movies and television this fall, but there might not be a better looking book (or a more comprehensive one) than A Masterpiece in Disarray. This 560-page epic explores the creation of Lynch’s Dune from innumerable angles; it’s hard to imagine any fan wanting more than is contained in this very handsome hardcover." – Screen Crush
“Wonderfully detailed…extensive new interviews with principals and players, stuffed to the gills with facts and figures and tasty gossip.” – Kurt Loder (MTV, Rolling Stone)
Gift Guide Mentions: The Wall Street Journal, The Hollywood Reporter, The A.V Club, Gizmodo, /Film, The Film Stage, Screen Crush.
About the Author
Max Evry has been a film journalist since 2005, serving at various times as a writer, interviewer, graphic designer, podcaster, video creator, features editor and managing editor. Past media outlets have included Wired, MTV, /Film, and Fangoria. For home video companies Arrow, Kino Lorber, Indicator, and ViaVision he has provided audio commentaries as well as featurettes for classic and contemporary films including Flatliners, Blackhat, and best picture Oscar winner Marty.
Currently he resides in Brooklyn, New York with his wife, two daughters, and a pile of truly marvelous unsold screenplays. This is his first book.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
PROLOGUE
Years ago, while attending a press event for a hit film, I met its A-list director at an arranged dinner. This filmmaker had been briefly attached to a big-budget remake of Dune, so during a casual moment I waltzed up with my drink and asked him if he had seen the recent documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune, a semi-hot item in the geek community. He had neither seen nor heard of it. Nor did he seem to be aware that Alejandro Jodorowsky had ever planned on making Dune . . . and potentially didn’t know who Jodorowsky was. He mentioned how challenging Dune would be to execute in a commercial way and particularly noted that he never wanted his (now-scrapped) Dune to be “campy like the David Lynch version.”
“Campy.” The Fremen warrior deep within me declared a kind of passive-aggressive holy war on this man, no matter how many billions his movies had made. Of course, not every successful filmmaker is a cineaste, and a few might barely enjoy movies at all. But still, this dismissive word bothered me: “CAMPY.”
Not that I couldn’t see his point. Lynch’s 1984 adaptation of Frank Herbert’s vaunted novel is flawed. Very flawed. Some of the effects are sub-Asylum level by today’s standards, and the performances range from bizarre to laughably broad. That’s not even taking into account how fatally compressed much of the 412-page narrative is when filtered into a 2-hour-17-minute movie. Despite all this, I continue to take exception to blithely writing off Lynch’s vision as “camp.”
One element that director was right about is how challenging Herbert’s book is to adapt. Boy, oh boy, is it ever. Before Lynch came on board to make the picture for producer Dino De Laurentiis, it vexed both Jodorowsky and Ridley Scott. Tackling this film took three years of Lynch’s life and a crew of 1,700 building 80 sets on 8 sound stages. Upon release it bemused critics and befuddled audiences, resulting in a box office dud that even Lynch has worked to distance himself from.
Nevertheless, I firmly believe 1984’s Dune to be a landmark of science-fiction cinema. It’s the byproduct of a supremely avant-garde artist (Lynch) working in conjunction with Hollywood machinery (Universal Pictures) for huge financial stakes (a reported $40 million budget, over $100 million adjusted for inflation) to produce a deeply eccentric blockbuster. When seen through the lens of today’s tentpole films, whose four-quadrant aspirations render them hopelessly homogenous, Lynch’s Dune is a unique oddity, equal parts baroque and philistine.
There are incredible moments in the film adaptation of Dune that have stuck with me since I first saw it as a tween in pan-and-scan form on TV: the mutated Guild Navigator confronting the Emperor while floating in a murky terrarium, Paul with his hand in “the box,” Baron Harkonnen flying through the air while laughing maniacally, and Sting with a blade in his hand, wildly boasting “I will kill him!” Oh, and let’s not forget those sandworms, which through a blizzard of miniature sand particles manage to evoke a phallus and vagina dentata simultaneously. One could easily blow up, frame, and hang at least three dozen shots from this film in a museum, and have them mistaken for anything from a Rococo-era genre painting to a Francis Bacon nightmare.
Luckily, this book has allowed me to do a deep dive into a film that has obsessed me since childhood. Hopefully, it will give Dune the same thorough examination that more praised films from the same era like Blade Runner or Brazil have received in the past. While I’m equally in love with those films, they are complete and successful works that have stood the test of time (provided you watch the director cuts). Dune, on the other hand, draws me in more because it’s so blatantly imperfect. Missed cinematic opportunities are a dime a dozen, but rarely do they hew as close to pure brilliance as Lynch’s epic. So how did it come to be so botched? Was Lynch too inexperienced? Too unfamiliar with sci-fi terrain? Or was it studio meddling? Penny-pinching producers? Is Dune simply, to pull an old chestnut, “unfilmable?”
The word “unfilmable” is often a euphemism for “challenging,” “uncommercial,” or simply not viable within a two- to three-hour feature length. Over a decade after Lynch’s take, a 265-minute TV miniseries version, Frank Herbert’s Dune, was mounted for the Sci-Fi Channel to mixed results. As I write, we are in the midst of Denis Villeneuve’s mega-budget remake of Dune that will span two films, with the first already on home video earning Oscars and the second in post-production.
Until that new set of films proves it can stick the landing, we will always have the Lynch version to consider, or reconsider if you have already seen and dismissed it. This book will attempt to cast new light on a movie that has been misunderstood in almost every conceivable way, whether by audiences unfamiliar with the source material, or literature fans upset at the many changes and deletions. It will delve into some of the earlier attempted versions, the epic struggles ‘Lynch and Co.’ faced mounting such a largescale project in Mexico, the aftermath for all involved, the versions that came after, and finally some modern critical takes looking at the nearly four-decade-old Dune with fresh eyes.
Hopefully, you’ll come to see it with a new perspective as well, and the sleeper Dune fan within shall awaken. Even if you still can’t bring yourself to call Dune a great film, perhaps I can convert some of you from red-faced haters to faint-praising it as a “bold swing-and-a-miss” or “fascinating failure.” You might even start referring to it as a “secret masterpiece” awaiting discovery . . . just don’t call it “campy.”
—Max Evry
Product details
- Publisher : 1984 Publishing; Limited edition (September 19, 2023)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 560 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1948221292
- ISBN-13 : 978-1948221290
- Item Weight : 2.78 pounds
- Dimensions : 6 x 2 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #9,144 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1 in Individual Directors
- #8 in Science Fiction & Fantasy Movies
- #11 in Movie History & Criticism
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Max Evry has been a film journalist since 2005, serving at various times as a writer, interviewer, graphic designer, podcaster, video creator, features editor, and managing editor. Past media outlets have included MTV, /Film, IGN, and Fangoria. For home video companies Arrow, Kino Lorber, Indicator, and Via Vision he has provided Blu-ray audio commentaries as well as featurettes for classic and contemporary films including "Flatliners," "Blackhat," and Best Picture Oscar winner "Marty." As a designer, his cover for the book "Muppets in Moscow" was a finalist for an International Book Award.
He currently resides in Brooklyn, New York with his wife and two daughters.
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This oral history cobbles together interviews (both old and new) over the last 40 years giving a comprehensive look at the history of the production. The book itself is beautifully bound, with nice glossy picture sections.
While Lynch’s film was campy, had some visual effects that fail to deliver, it also has some startling imagery. Lynch managed to make as close to a personal science fiction epic as possible in the big budget arena. Lynch would retreat to more comfortable, personal films with the ones he did after this. Lynch himself has admitted that he has no feel for science fiction in the book. The production and themes did resonate with him and it’s evident that he cared deeply for the project with all the work that went into ot.
This exceptional book does a great job of collecting everything known about the production.
I'm only 30 pages in, but I'm loving every word and page of it.
Max Evry has captured every piece of interesting information about the 1984 DUNE movie.
It's both entertaining and informative. As you read you feel like a fly on the wall, and getting a front row seat at movie making history.
Whether you like the original DUNE movie or not, I love it for everything it is and was trying to be, you'll gain an insightful knowledge of great behind the scenes movie making.
The spice expands life, the spice expands consciousness, the spice is vital to space travel, and reading this book is a must for anyone who loves film.
Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2024
I'm only 30 pages in, but I'm loving every word and page of it.
Max Evry has captured every piece of interesting information about the 1984 DUNE movie.
It's both entertaining and informative. As you read you feel like a fly on the wall, and getting a front row seat at movie making history.
Whether you like the original DUNE movie or not, I love it for everything it is and was trying to be, you'll gain an insightful knowledge of great behind the scenes movie making.
The spice expands life, the spice expands consciousness, the spice is vital to space travel, and reading this book is a must for anyone who loves film.