Dune 2: Denis Villeneuve’s Intimate Blockbuster
Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Dune 2's intimacy, Austin Butler's voice, IASTE's breaking point, Girls 3.0, The Anatomy of Anatomy of a Fall, and Daily Planet.
Let’s go!
AN INTIMATE BLOCKBUSTER
The miracle of Dune 2 is how tightly we’re focused on Timothée Chalamet’s journey.
In a film with megalithic sandworms, galactic colosseums, and hallucinogenic spice, the true driver of action is the weight of Chalamet’s messianic burden.
And that’s the beauty of the film, despite the large scale, it’s tightly focused–literally.
Director Denis Villeneuve, through a myriad of intimate close-ups of Chalamet, forges the thematic territory of the film.
Villeneuve explained:
“It’s always a lot of extremes. Landscapes and human faces. The human face is a landscape itself. A landscape changes according to the light. Every day it’s different. And it’s the same with the human face… Frank Herbert wanted the book to be a cautionary tale, a warning against charismatic religious leaders.”
Villeneuve continued:
“Chalamet has those very aristocratic features. You feel a strong intelligence in the eyes. And he looks very young onscreen, and I needed that youth, that candor, that vulnerability—that young man who was struggling with his identity, trying to find a spot.”
The emotional foil to Chalamet's vulnerability is his toughness.
I’ll reserve any spoilers, but the mid-point scene of Dune 2 shows the landmark identifier of a messiah, which catalyzes Chalamet's character flip.
In the vast expanse of Dune 2, it is the profound exploration of Timothée Chalamet's character—his messianic journey, etched in vulnerability and strength—that encapsulates the soul of this masterwork, elegantly directed by Denis Villeneuve.
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