Culture news Without this horror classic, Dune 2 really wouldn’t have the same atmosphere! Denis Villeneuve is a big fan and he owes him a lot
“Dune, Part II” is undoubtedly one of the event films of this year, having offered a masterful atmosphere praised by many. Denis Villeneuve recently spoke about a very particular influence…
A bit of vampire in Dune 2
Released recently in cinemas, “Dune, second part” was able to offer memorable scenes carried by strong characters and a completely mastered production. The Harkonnens are the big bad guys, led by the formidable war general Feyd-Rautha, played by a transformed Austin Butler. This merciless character is also presented to us in a particular passage, on a distant planet and in a combat arena where the colorimetry is even completely washed out. If you’ve seen Dune 2, you can see very well what scene this is (normally).
It turns out that this moment, and more generally the Harkonnens in general, was largely influenced by… Nosferatu. In the book “The Art and Soul of Dune Part Two”, it is said in black and white that Denis Villeneuve told authors Tanya Lapointe and Stefanie Broos that they wanted these people and this passage to resemble “a crowd of Nosferatu” . Hence the rather sinister and vampiric appearance of its citizens.
Nosferatu, great classic of the Seventh Art
For the record, “Nosferatu the Vampire” is a silent feature film originally released in 1922, directed by the German Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau and freely adapted from the novel Dracula for which he did not have the rights (which will have incidentally leading to a trial for plagiarism). It retraces the misadventure of Thomas Hutter, a young notary who travels to Transylvania where he lands in the Castle of Nosferatu, a count and terrorizing vampire..
Even today, Neferatu is considered one of the founding pillars of horror cinema, a true subject of study and also a great representative of German expressionism. Brief, it’s cult and therefore greatly influenced Denis Villeneuve, who wanted to pay homage to it in his own way in Dune 2.
Incidentally, let’s remember that a remake of Nosferatu was released in 1979, but especially since another will arrive at the end of 2024. It is directed by Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse) and will rely on a nice cast: Bill Skarsgård, Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Willem Dafoe are planned to appear.
Buy Nosferatu on Blu-Ray
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