Denis Villeneuve and Hans Zimmer on Dune | NYFF59

[Music] evening all thank you very much for the warm welcome anyway thank you yeah thank you very much for coming i mean thank you very much for being an audience in a cinema it's nice right really great yeah it feels almost normal [Laughter] you said at the beginning denis that uh this movie was made to be seen like this it must be really special to have it oh no the opportunity yeah yeah yeah definitely it's just that i strongly believe that the that size of the screen is part of the language you know that is part of the cinematic language the way the movie was shot edited scored sound design everything was made to be experienced in a theater and that's why i'm so grateful to the gods of cinema to allow us to have this experience tonight so is our audience um i i know that when i watch the movie i don't read the blogs and everything so you have to forgive me but when i watch the movie and you get to the end and one of the last lines is this is just the beginning i think okay what's next you ask me i'm responsible the thing is that i said right at the start to the studio that uh i i i was strongly feeling that to give justice to the book two parts were necessary and then um but the deal i wanted to shoot two parts in this the two parts at the same time but that felt too expensive to uh and and and uh i will tell you the truth remember my last movie was not a big success here so you're always have that burden no but seriously the the the that was serious but seriously yeah i i would say that um it just felt right to do the first part if it raises enough enthusiasm then we were and that i i thought was a deal in terms of a good deal right i mean when you know you know you have to realize that i was waiting for decades to make this movie so to have the chance to just make the first part was already a massive privilege to me very good well let's so let's talk about the adaptation process tackling this book i understand that you read it as a teen for the first time um can you there's certainly been any number of films influenced or inspired by or adapted from this this legendary book um how did you tell me tell us what drew you to this story first of all and then how did you process as you were tackling this particular version um navigating all the all that's come before man the thing is that uh the book itself is is uh uh and aunt knows the book uh uh very well too it's like it's a multi-layered uh portrait of the 20th century that became just more relevant as time goes but went by i mean and and the challenge of the adaptation was that for the no the people who know the book it's a book that follows the thought process of several characters that uh it's a very paranoid book where everybody are trying to find strategies to survive and the idea and that's where ants came the khan's power is is the idea that i didn't want to have voice overs i didn't want to hear their thoughts so i rely on onto acting and onto ants [Music] uh no really honestly i mean um denis asked me very quietly one day um had i heard of a book called dune and i think my reaction scared him because i became very enthusiastic and i said and okay so this is the honest truth because you're saying about all the influences etc and you're talking about process um when i read it as a teenager 40 odd years ago i i made my own movie in my head and i never saw the david lynch movie and i never heard the turtle soundtrack and i never saw the television series or any of this because i wanted to keep this in my head but when the knee very quietly there was something in the there's something in the way he he said had i ever read the book that i knew he had made the same movie in his head that i was making in my head and um correct me if i'm wrong but i think part of our process was that um whenever we discussed things it somehow it was a full con conclusion that we felt the same way about certain things like for instance i mean one of the things which was incredibly important for us was that um the strength the underlying strength the foundation of this movie was the female the the female characters and the fear so the female voice in fact um she's here tonight laura cutler who's uh yes amazing where are you laura if you're but maybe you're left there she is please ah madame one of the extraordinary things that she did was she was fearless i mean there was there's commitment in every note you know and you know i mean those are the things that denis and i were hunting down right from the beginning the spiritual the the the female the and and i think part of what we had was it's just we we wanted to make this movie all our lives and all we had to do is sort of stand there and look out and people would come and join us in this quest and they were enormously amazing and excellent and here we are and you are the last part of this excellent journey yes we made it for you see i wanted sometimes uh we were talking about it with the one that there's a producer in the backstage daniela point we're talking with she was saying when we hear loire performance which is out of this world so powerful and it's so poetic and it brings so much uh a sacred quality and allerism to the the movie and a dimension of the passion of the business research passion there's something very you have to remember that was done during covet time so war was actually singing in their closet and for me that's that's that's a testimony of how great an artist can be i mean to represent the desert and all that bioware power and hidden under blankets and sorry i i i have that's the magic of snake i have the most beautiful photo of her sitting in her closet with her clothes hanging down on her head basically singing these amazing parts because yes i mean we it sounds like opera but it's the closet sorry only a true artist could do that well let me ask you so you both read the book as a teenager each of you and i wonder what um what struck you about it then and then when you went back to it so many years later for this what struck you the same or what struck you differently what did you see then and then what did you see now you're asking me aren't you my friend um the bus he throws me under um i can go first no no no but but but let's i i i will i will go i'll go um two things when i read it i was i don't know 16 17 18 something like this and it it served me well throughout life you know for instance the fierce the mind killer i mean it oh man i have stage fright ooh every time i every time i do a score every time i play something to somebody it's like sheer panic and anxiety i mean and somehow that book was was like like got me through some really terrible moments um and here comes the interesting thing so when denise said have you ever heard of a book called dune it took i was back at that place i was back in that place when i first read it and i and and i and i realized that um i had not aged somehow you know the story the story gave gave me a moment of timelessness um and i think that's you know it's a pretty provocative let's be honest it's a pretty provocative score you know it's like you know thank you denny for letting me do this and getting away with it you go your turn i will say that uh the the when i read it at first your answer was better than mine but i have to go so the the the it of course i i read it at 13 years old so i identify with paul and the idea that he was like this boy struggling with a massive burden on his shoulder familiarity genetic heritage uh religious heritage and then um him finding solace finding comfort into another culture and another in a foreign land that there was something very beautiful about those ideas that really grabbed me when i was young also i was uh kind of into biology and science at the time and i i the way herbert was inspired by ecosystems and the way he created all the those relationships between the living things i thought was very politic and very powerful at the time later on i think i was more drawn by the legislative sisters the idea that you can actually channel past voices and make something good out of it i mean at the time maybe i was starting to struggle with neurosis or the idea of struggling with the problem of your pa the past of your your genetic heritage there's something pretty powerful about this idea that i deeply loved so it's a book that uh when you read it as well as as you're all getting older but your answer was much better the idea that i heard recently a study that says that we are drawn we are attached to the song of our teenage years because at this very precise moment our brain are uh more um i can i said that in english prepare more more they absorb things that later on you get their brain becomes more lazy and that's why you're going to always back to nostalgic to towards your those songs you know that you heard that the create i'm wondering is the same thing with books and well probably but but you know i i love that you use the word nostalgic because um one of the really look just just one of the very strange things about science fiction or anything is name a science fiction movie that isn't inherently nostalgic you know they all are they're supposed to be about the future but in our hearts every time we watch them we feel we feel some some timelessness that we are drawn back to you know and i suppose that is our youth you know that moment that moment in time when you just when you first discovered dune um is is the moment you're fixing it technically you witnessed the snapshots of our teenage years absolutely yeah technically you're watching two very bad boys making movies let's um let's talk a little bit about you you talked about the making a movie for the big screen for the cinematic experience so let's let's just for a few minutes talk about some of the choices you made uh where you shot how you shot the decisions you made about the way you would uh shoot and the environment you would shoot with or without green screens these kinds of things help us understand some of the the creative decisions you made yeah i don't know but that i would say it's more uh a lack of i wish i was able to shoot in virtual environments my life will be so much easier i mean the idea that uh to bring a full film crew into the middle of the desert i mean yeah we were able to capture things and bring back things uh with the camera that would have never been sorry i'm being silly here but the idea is that i can't shoot virtually i need i'm very very old school i need real environments i read real sets i need to go in the deep desert i need to uh to inspire myself to inspire the mizan sign to inspire the actors and cinematographer a movie like this would have never been possible to be shut in into a on a backlot of course and but uh it uh the way we share it this idea that a boy will as he progressively go deeper into landscape will learn more about himself it's a very introspective introspective journey in relationship with the landscape that i wanted the actors to be inspired by that i wanted timothy to relive that process and and uh um it's something that i wanted it's the way the book was written inspired by nature and i wanted nature to be the main character of the film so that's what so thank you for that answer and let me ask a similar question to hans about the score and the music because i want to go a little deeper i was doing a little bit of research about how you i read that you were thinking about the wind and the sand creating instruments and using the human voice so can you help us understand these different elements the tools you used in collaboration well it actually started off yet another teenage thing and i want to be very very careful about that you really do not misunderstand me the first time i saw star wars was of course wow it was amazing and i loved i i i mean i i i'm such a fan of john williams's music in it but as a teenager there was that thought that came into my head going you know in a galaxy far far from here you um why am i hearing strings why am i hearing trumpets why am i hearing horns and i was thinking so if if we are set in this in in this in in this time in a different time in a different you know in a different space shouldn't we have different instruments shouldn't shouldn't our instruments have evolved so to answer half of your question half the question is yes we made it we build a lot of instruments i have a friend called jazz smith who is a great musician a great sculptor and a great welder thank god and he has an unholy relationship somehow with the boeing and lockheed company and gets all these metals so there's a lot of that that's the half the answer the other half of the answer of course is loa and lisa gerard and people like that who you know are absolutely phenomenal at at just being the the these fearless instruments and and and doing things you know be i'm asking things of them which are inhuman and beyond human and they just go and sit in that cupboard and do it and give us these gifts of beauty and grace and just enormous courage and great musicality and thank you we're reaching the last few minutes of our conversation um denis uh i want to get back to this question of the big screen in the cinematic experience because we've just spent the last two weeks gathering in this cinema and down the street watching movies together for the first time in a long time to be able to watch movies on the big screen and you said something you've been outspoken about the cinematic experience and i was so moved by something you you said i'm going to quote it to the audience i strongly believe in the future of cinema that the future of cinema will be on the big screen cinema on the big screen is more than a business it is an art form that brings people together but the thing is that i believe that uh it's part of the human experience to have communal experience to share to i mean we are we had been put on this planet all together we are stuck together and the thing is that uh seriously it's the idea that uh uh the thing that since the beginning of time that we are like uh want to gather together and share stories or music together or say we don't go to a rock concert alone i mean it's like the same there's something about sharing uh uh a movie as a group of human and and sharing that it's part of our at the very core of the human experience and i there's not a lot of those that are still with us today i i i strongly believe that and it's part of the language for me again when you shoot a movie for a screen of that size you don't shoot it for iphones you know it's like the it's a it's a the way you you shoot the the the data field the the way it's edited the with the the way we work with actors it's different and the same with music and the with the sound design i mean it was really made for uh it's not um for me it's about you know one of the great moment i had in my life was sitting in a theater like this watching lawrence of arabia and 70 millimeters you know it's like it's it's something i mean it's like you don't you're a different human being when you get out of the theater after it's like it's it's it's a it's transformative experience when you are other people well i mean what you're saying is that i mean the word experience i think is so important which is so different and um when when we were working on inception i kept thinking oh we're making a movie about shared dreaming and when i look at you and i look at you right now and and i was sitting amongst you i was i was having very much that experience that we were sharing the new stream you know we were we we were all one for a moment for a moment in time we got to be one humanity and i think that's part of the power of of films um the other part was when i started out you know it was transistor radios and i hated them i wanted big speakers and i still want big speakers and and and so why get up in the morning if you're if you're going to do something for something so small and the the thing i will see is that don't get me wrong i love streaming it saved my life during the pandemic i'm i'm it's a fantastic way to revisit past to to go through cinema history to revisit movies you loved that you saw this on a big screen i think it's it's a fantastic i love love i use it all the time but it's it's just that uh um i think that movies have to be born on the be born in the in the on the big screen and i'm afraid of the tribal tribe tribalization that the segmentation of culture when you have like the ulu tribe the apple tribe and say that it's like we are in times where we need to blend together and share and that everybody have access to this i strongly believe uh uh and i'm not just talking of course when i see this i'm aware that i'm talking in the position on a seat of someone who just made a hollywood blockbuster i mean not blockbuster i'm not i know but i'm saying i'm not sure i'm not i i don't know we don't know a potential no no but what i'm saying is what i'm saying is that someone who made a movie made by a studio that puts a lot of effort so people will see it but the the the i'm talking about all kinds of cinema say i'm coming from the art art uh world i know and and i hope that the the battle for me in the future will not be about uh movies like june it will be about art house that were already struggling before the pandemic with the yeah it's it's that that that is uh very crucial for me actually actually i mean look i come from the first movie i was involved we've all come from the outhouse cinema and somehow we are still in the area did you did you yeah let's talk about that no no no but but but it's the same thing it's it's it's always the same thing it's always the same thing you come in with with an idea which is the the only movies worth making are the ones for everybody at first is going that's impossible or you shouldn't be doing that or you know you know that's the worst idea i ever heard i mean and you fight for it and you fight for every bit of real estate and every frame and everything because you're passionate about it because you want you want to tell that story and you want to do this and look you guys in the eyes and say we did our best we really did our best and i hope i hope we reached you in some ways [Applause] want to say thank you to denis and to hans for spending this evening with us in this cinema together thank you thank you for coming [Music] you

Channel: Film at Lincoln Center

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Keywords: Film at Lincoln Center

Id: Ul7--N4iZH0

Length: 23min 43sec (1423 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 09 2021