The long-awaited film version of Frank Herbert’s classic science fiction epic, Dune (1984), explodes on the screen with dazzling special effects, unforgettable images, and powerful performances.
The saga of intergalactic warrior Paul Atreides (Kyle MacLachlan) and his messianic rise to leadership features an all-star cast, including Jose Ferrer, Max Von Sydow, Oscar® winner Linda Hunt and rock legend, Sting.
Plot:
Dune is set in a far future, where warring noble houses are kept in line by a ruthless galactic emperor. As part of a Byzantine political intrigue, the noble duke Leto, head of House Atreides, is forced to move his household from their paradisiacal home planet of Caladan to the desert planet Arrakis, colloquially known as Dune. The climate on Dune is frighteningly hostile. Water is so scarce that whenever its inhabitants go outside, they must wear stillsuits, close-fitting garments that capture body moisture and recycle it for drinking.
The great enemy of House Atreides is House Harkonnen, a bunch of psychos who torture people for fun, and whose head, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, is so obese that he has to use little anti-gravity “suspensors” as he moves around. The Harkonnens used to control Dune, which despite its awful climate and grubby desert nomad people, has incalculable strategic significance: its great southern desert is the only place in the galaxy where a fantastically valuable commodity called “melange” or “spice” is mined. Spice is a drug whose many useful properties include the induction of a kind of enhanced space-time perception in pilots of interstellar spacecraft. Without it, the entire communication and transport system of the Imperium will collapse. It is highly addictive, and has the side effect of turning the eye of the user a deep blue. Spice mining is dangerous, not just because of sandstorms and nomad attacks, but because the noise attracts giant sandworms, behemoths many hundreds of metres in length that travel through the dunes like whales through the ocean.
This monumental Dino DeLaurentiis presentation is directed by David Lynch (The Elephant Man, Eraserhead), with photography by Academy Award® winner Freddie Francis, music by Grammy® winner Toto, and incredible monster creation by E.T.’s Carlo Rambaldi.
Fun Fact:
Frank Herbert, the author of Dune, was inspired by eating psilocybin mushrooms in the Oregon Dunes in Florence, Oregon in the early 1960’s. He wrote Dune from 1959-65.
What: Dune (1984) film screening
When: May 17 & 23, 2024
Where: State Theatre (233 S. State St, Ann Arbor)
Time: May 17th @ 9:30 p.m./ May 23rd @ 7:30 p.m.
Cost: $8.50 students/ $10.50 adults
Buy tix here
https://marquee-arts.org/event-page/?showingId=862383&eventId=862381
