Dune’s Failure Taught David Lynch A Lesson

It should be said that despite Lynch’s hatred of it, his “Dune” has many passionate fans. Some audience like how strange and oblique it is. De Laurentiis may have tried to clear up the film’s plot, but “Dune” is still dizzying and difficult to follow … and some fans like it that way. It’s also amazingly textured and appealingly odd, featuring vast sci-fi visuals, weird creatures, and a gross, oily despot that stands as one of the best villains in the history of the genre. “Dune” has a slimy, tactile, emetic quality that a mainstream sci-fi hit like “Jedi” could only dream of.

But it was not Lynch’s vision. The studio wanted continuous re-cuts and then kept on chopping it up, even after Lynch had finished. There’s a notoriously long TV edit of “Dune” which Lynch hated so much, he had his name removed from it.

Lynch realized after the fact that he should have asked for final cut. Final cut is, in the modern era, rarer than ever. In 1983, it might have been possible, had the director pushed for it. Lynch recalled:

“I knew already one should have final cut before signing on to do a film. But for some reason, I thought everything would be okay, and I didn’t put final cut in my contract. And as it turned out, Dune wasn’t the film I wanted to make, because I didn’t have a final say. So that’s a lesson I knew even before, but now there’s no way. Why would anyone work for three years on something that wasn’t yours? Why? Why do that? Why? I died a death. And it was all my fault for not knowing to put that in the contract.” 

Lynch has had director’s cut on ever one of his films since.