An epic tale reaches its thrilling conclusion in Director Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi adventure, Dune: Part Two.
Villeneuve’s film gives us the second half of his DGA Award-nominated interpretation of the story of Paul Atreides, the brilliant and gifted son of a noble family who finds his ultimate destiny on the most dangerous planet in the universe.
On March 25, after the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Villeneuve discussed the making of Dune: Part Two during a Q&A moderated by Director Steven Spielberg (The Fabelmans).
During the conversation, Villeneuve spoke about why he opted to primarily use wide shots and extreme close-ups in the film.
“It’s from the book. The book is a very interior book. When you read the book it’s dialogues, dialogues, and inner dialogues and you have access to all the inner strategy of the characters. I tried to convey that by creating a very strong intimacy with the characters and to be as close as possible to Paul as an emotional experience, as an intimate experience. Right at the start, one of the first decisions we made after the idea to shoot in IMAX was, I said to [DP] Greig Fraser, ‘I want to go extremes. I want the impact of the landscape on the soul.’ And so, I tried to play with those extremes like that to convey that.”
He also revealed how the film changed as it was being developed from script, to storyboards and back again.
“I storyboarded almost the entire movie. I wrote the screenplay and after that — probably the most important moment for me is to be alone with my storyboard artist and spend weeks and weeks, if not months, drawing the whole movie. That’s where the mise-en-scène is born. Then, I go and re-write the screenplay from the storyboards because there’s always a massive difference between them. When you go from the word to the image there’s a process where suddenly you face reality and limits, and new ideas are born.”
Villeneuve’s other directorial credits include the feature films, Blade Runner 2049, Sicario, Enemy, Prisoners, Maelstrom, Incendies and Story of Your Life. He was nominated for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film and the Academy Award for Best Achievement in Directing for his 2016 feature, Arrival and for his 2021 feature, Dune. Villeneuve has been a DGA member since 2012.