Dune (1984) I didn’t have final cut on. It’s the only film I’ve made where I didn’t have, I didn’t technically have final cut on The Elephant Man (1980) but Mel Brooks gave it to me, and on Dune (1984) the film, I started selling out even in the script phase knowing I didn’t have final cut, and I sold out, so it was a slow dying- the-death and a terrible terrible experience. I don’t know how it happened, I trusted that it would work out but it was very naive and, the wrong move. In those days the maximum length they figured I could have is two hours and seventeen minutes, and that’s what the film is, so they wouldn’t lose a screening a day, so once again it’s money talking and not for the film at all and so it was like compacted and it hurt it, it hurt it. There is no other version. There’s more stuff, but even that is putrefied.
Month: January 2017
Died Today (January 21st): Cecil B. DeMille (1881–1959)
It was a theory that died very hard that the public would not stand for anyone dressed in clothes of another period… I got around this objection by staging what we call a vision. The poor working girl was dreaming of love and reading “Tristan and Isolde”. The scene faded out, and scenes were depicted on the screen that the girl was supposed to be reading… Thus a bit of costume picture was put over on the man who bought the picture for his theater, and there was no protest from the public.
WILDsound Festival 