By KENNETH GEORGE GODWIN (BearManor Media; 2020)
See Also: THE DUNIVERSE AND ITS DISCONTENTS
This, the second of Kenneth George Godwin’s DAVID LYNCH FILES (following Godwin’s book on ERASERHEAD), focuses on Lynch’s 1984 filming of Frank Herbert’s science fiction classic DUNE. That film was of course one of the biggest cinematic follies of the eighties (if not of all time), and Godwin was handpicked by Lynch to document its Mexico City based shoot. The video footage created by Godwin and his partner Anatol Pacanowsky didn’t survive (having apparently been destroyed by Universal upon realizing that the film was not going to be the STAR WARS-level hit they were anticipating), but the diary entries Godwin kept throughout DUNE’S six month shoot did.
Those diaries are reproduced here, providing a concise day-by-day rendering of how this mega-production went wrong. Godwin’s was a but tiny part of a massive whole, but the travails he experienced showcase a mismanagement that started at the top and worked its way outward to the production’s farthest corners.
Those diaries are reproduced here, providing a concise day-by-day rendering of how this mega-production went wrong.
Godwin’s diaries begin with the sentence “Not a good day, I have to confess,” as before leaving Los Angeles he and Pacanowsky were subjected to a great deal of vagueness and miscommunication on the part of their corporate employers. Things got steadily worse after their arrival in Mexico, where Godwin had to contend with corrupt law enforcement, apathetic crew members, an intrusive publicity department—whose ranks included author/publicist Paul Sammon (of the SPLATTERPUNKS anthology and FUTURE NOIR: THE MAKING OF BLADE RUNNER), described as “a nuisance” and “pushy”—and ever-deepening tensions between himself and Pacanowsky.
Godwin is also quite frank about the problems that occurred higher up in the ranks. As the DUNE shoot wound on morale steadily plummeted, resulting in defecting crewmembers, substandard special effects and widespread fears that the finished film might wind up “incoherent” and “quite simply, dull” (both of which did indeed come to pass). The blame is placed on the “ineptitude” of producer Rafaella de Laurentiis and her father Dino (who “no one trusts”), although Lynch himself is also taken to task, for his “lack of a sense of reality,” with Godwin eventually admitting that “I’m beginning to find him a little horrifying beneath that gee-whiz façade.”
“Not a good day, I have to confess…”
Also featured are transcripts of many of the interviews Godwin conducted on the DUNE set. The best, and lengthiest, is with David Lynch, but there are also decent chats with actors Max von Sydow and Jürgen Prochnow, a funny Sting interview conducted for some reason by fellow cast member Sean Young, and a memorable sit down with a drunken Jack Nance (which yields up morsels like “DUNE. Oh, okay, okay. DUNE. DUUUNNNE. Ay, DUNE, yeah”).
…a memorable sit down with a drunken Jack Nance (which yields up morsels like “DUNE. Oh, okay, okay. DUNE. DUUUNNNE. Ay, DUNE, yeah”).
Prior to this book the only comprehensive behind the scenes resource available on DUNE was THE MAKING OF DUNE by Ed Naha, a studio-vetted puff piece that was apparently heavily informed by the since-destroyed video footage captured by Godwin and Pacanowsky (to make it seem as if Naha had actually been present for the shoot). Obviously Godwin’s is the preferable book, providing an unflinching glimpse of how such an ambitious and well-intentioned cinematic undertaking went as wrong as it did.
See Also: THE DUNIVERSE AND ITS DISCONTENTS