By One of the most acclaimed directors working today, “Dune” director Denis Villeneuve is known for his often stunning and incredibly cinematic shot compositions.
He’s also a champion of the movie-going experience, a man who understands the importance of big-screen visuals and that film in itself is primarily a visual storytelling medium.
In a recent interview with The Times of London, he took to task the Hollywood industry’s approach to film these days, saying that “movies have been corrupted by television”.
He explains that films should be more ambitious and experimental, and primarily driven by the visuals. In fact, he’d do a film dialogue free if he could:
“Frankly, I hate dialogue. Dialogue is for theatre and television. I don’t remember movies because of a good line, I remember movies because of a strong image. I’m not interested in dialogue at all. Pure image and sound, that is the power of cinema, but it is something not obvious when you watch movies today. Movies have been corrupted by television.
In a perfect world, I’d make a compelling movie that doesn’t feel like an experiment but does not have a single word in it either … People would leave the cinema and say, ‘Wait, there was no dialogue?’ But they won’t feel the lack.”
Whilst he may be down on the industry, he’s not down on younger audiences it seems. Talking about the decision to split his adaptation of the first “Dune” novel into two parts, he says younger audiences today are “craving meaningful content” and have no issue with longer films:
“I trust the audience … This story’s too dense. I would never make Dune as one movie. This was the only way I could succeed. Also, think of Oppenheimer … It is a three-hour, rated-R movie about nuclear physics that is mostly talking. But the public was young — that was the movie of the year by far for my kids. There is a trend. The youth love to watch long movies because if they pay, they want to see something substantial. They are craving meaningful content.”
Villeneuve will eventually get around to doing a “Dune Messiah” adaptation if Warner Bros. Pictures wants one, and says “there is absolutely a desire to have a third one, but I don’t want to rush it.”
“Dune: Part Two” opens in cinemas everywhere this Friday.
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