David Lynch calls ‘Dune’ his biggest career failure: “I died a death”
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(Credits: Vimeo Still)
Director David Lynch has reflected upon his career to date, singling out his 1984 movie, Dune, as the lowest moment of his professional life.
The latest comments from the acclaimed Twin Peaks creator isn’t the first time that he has shared his contempt for the film. Lynch’s problem with his take on Dune is down to the lack of control he had over the final product, despite being the director of the movie.
In his contract, Lynch signed away the right to administer the final cut of the movie, which meant the version of Dune which arrived on cinematic screens didn’t align with his creative vision. As he spent years of his life making the film, it’s still a bone of contempt for the director despite it being released 40 years ago.
In fact, his hatred of Dune has even stopped Lynch from watching the recent remake, helmed by Dennis Villeneuve. Speaking in an interview with Cahiers du Cinéma in 2021, Lynch remarked: “I will never watch it, and I don’t even want you to tell me about it, ever”.
In the same year, while speaking about the movie in a Q&A session, Lynch frankly admitted that he doesn’t “even like talking about Dune really”. He also shared his regret about signing the contract, a decision he labelled with the benefit of hindsight as “selling out”.
Now, during a conversation with NPR, Lynch voluntarily brought up the sore subject when probed about the biggest failure of his career. He openly admitted:”My film Dune. I knew already one should have final cut before signing on to do a film. But for some reason, I thought everything would be OK, and I didn’t put final cut in my contract.”
Lynch went on to say, not for the first time, that “Dune wasn’t the film I wanted to make, because I didn’t have a final say” after agreeing to the contractual stipulation.
Nevertheless, it made Lynch reassess Hollywood and the director vowed to not make the same error of judgement twice, adding, “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.”
Currently, Lynch is focussing on releasing his new album made in collaboration with Chrystabell, titled Cellophane Memories, set to arrive on August 2nd. The icon teased a mysterious project last month, before providing full details of the forthcoming LP on June 4th.
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