Cinema: The Fantasy Film as Final Exam

DUNE Directed and Written by David Lynch

Science fantasy is an act of subversion disguised as a fairy tale. In primal imagery and orotund cadences it sets the young imagination on a children's crusade against malevolent power. It describes a vicarious rite of passage through bloodshed and anarchy to heroic manhood; it upends the prevailing social order to establish a new moral equilibrium. For the generation of budding revolutionaries in the 1960s, Frank Herbert's Dune was a magical mystery trilogy that, along with The Lord of the Rings and the Gormenghast books, galvanized the...

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