This time, we dive into the wild, weird, beautiful, and terrifying brain of David Lynch. This article originally ran in and has been updated. David Lynch is about mood. For over four decades, the American filmmaker has twisted the senses of his audiences, blurring whatever lines exist between reality and somewhere else.
It was just a feeling. There is goodness in blue skies and flowers, but another force β a wild pain and decay β also accompanies everything. Like with scientists: they start on the surface of something, and then they start delving.
They get down to the subatomic particles and their world is now very abstract. Every go-around, Lynch offers a divine experience, and as such, there are few filmmakers more deserving of a complete dissection. Paul Atreides, son of Duke Leto Atreides, leads his people, the Fremen, in a battle for control of the planet against the Harkonnens and the rulers who sent his father to the desolate Arrakis to be killed in the first place.
The Elephant Man: Dune flopped, in large part, because it was an adaptation that may be difficult to follow had you not read the source material. There are just so many characters, strangely vowel-ed words, and interweaving relationships to try to wrap your head around. In the midst of that very mire of confusion and conflict, though, stands the mighty Brad Dourif, everything about his actions, speech, and essence vibrantly clear.
As Piter De Vries, aide to the villainous, grotesque Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, Dourif gleefully and meticulously carves away at everything around him. And Dourif knows how to handle that kind of twisted subtlety, delivering pathos and massive scenery chewing in equal doses.
