As you wring your hand free from a commemorative popcorn bucket ahead of Denis Villeneuve’s fully realized Dune: Part Two, remember what you’re about to witness — or watch again for the sixth or seventh time — isn’t our first cinematic journey to Arrakis. (Though it’s likely the most successful.)
Before the SyFy Channel’s miniseries or David Lynch’s personally regrettable adaptation, the earliest pitch for a Dune movie belonged to one of avant-garde cinema’s most quintessential icons. Jodorowsky’s Dune is a documentary that doesn’t cover what was, but would could’ve been. And by extension, a demonstration of art’s power even when it doesn’t reach its complete vision.
Let’s take a brief look beneath the sand to find what laid the path for the spectacular epic we celebrate today.
Charting the Dunes
Alejandro Jodorowsky was simultaneously the most ideal and outlandish filmmaker to adapt Dune. In fact, the closest contemporary to the film Jodorowsky wanted to make was Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Between The Holy Mountain and El Topo, the director seemed destined to open minds with a conceptually jarring space opera.
“For me, movies are an art, more than an industry,” Jodorowsky explains before revealing a massive text filled with his concepts.
While Star Wars was still gestating, Jodorowsky’s abrasive and committed approach garnered the attention of the likes of Orson Welles, Dan O’Bannon, and Mick Jagger. In almost no time, his adaption saw substantial creative support — including from Salvador Dalí and H.R. Giger. (After Dune fell through, O’Bannon and Giger would collaborate on Ridley Scott’s Alien.)
In terms of artistic representation, Jodorowsky’s Dune seemed to be drowning in talent. Yet, even supernovas don’t burn forever, and this unprecedented adaptation smoldered almost as quickly as it was proposed. Why?
A Vision Ahead of Its Time
Conceptually, Jodorowsky’s take wasn’t ambiguous. Many recalled that a script would’ve been superficial, given he could recite and explain every scene with prophetic clarity. At the same time, the director was unflinching with what Dune would entail.
It featured a Harkonnen metropolis of skeletal skyscrapers and flesh-eating palaces designed by Giger. It would’ve opened with an interstellar long take spanning massive space battles before finally ending on a single vial of spice mélange. Finally, Jodorowsky’s Dune would’ve ended with Paul’s death, only for his spirit to fill the remaining characters and trigger a planet-hopping journey of peace and spiritual awakening.
Yes, this version of Dune seemed to capture the spirit of a sci-fi blockbuster before that was deeply considered. Films like Dark Star and Flash Gordon were still confined to — or at least cleverly dodging — pressures to make something believable for as cheaply as possible. Rarely would that spark artistic freedom. Instead, it triggers a compromise that would tragically sink Jodorowsky’s dream.
His Own Worst Enemy
If anything, Jodorowsky wasn’t derailed from a lack of confidence. Nor was he unclear about what Dune would be or mean. What kept him from entering production was the same bane that’s limited seemingly brilliant ideas for, well, ever: Budget.
Jodorowsky’s Dune would have very easily commanded the highest budget and runtime of any film of that year, let alone the 70s. His proposal asked for $15 million (roughly $86 million adjusted for today’s inflation) and a runtime that could’ve easily broken four hours. But perhaps even more insulting than the budget, was the most hopeful studio’s request to cut the film down to 90 minutes.
Presumably, certain producers feared audiences wouldn’t have patience for the sprawling epic, let alone the capacity to process what they would experience. Jodorowsky, to his detriment and credit, wouldn’t budge on minimizing his vision to satisfy risk-averse — but also realistic — expectations.
“This system makes us slaves,” Jodorowsky explains. “Without dignity. Without depth. With a devil in our pocket. This money. This shit. This nothing! Movies have heart. Have mind. Have power. Have ambition. I wanted to do something like that. Why not?
A comparable experience that saw Lynch disavow his Dune would keep Jodorowsky from truly starting. Maybe for the better, given his unused concepts would eventually find life in the comics The Incal, The Technopriests, and The White Lama.
Remaining Committed to the Art
Jodorowsky’s Dune reminds us that art, unlike commerce, is rarely fruitful. It’s beautiful and fulfilling, true, but no great work was ever founded on how much money it might make.
We can etherize ourselves to the point that “good enough” by way of test audiences, egregious fan service, and recuts informed by market research qualifies as profound. But in this rare case, one of the greatest pieces of art may be one we never truly experience.
“You want to make the most fantastic art out of a movie?” Jodorowsky asks. “Try. If you fail, it’s not important. We need to try.”
