DUNE 2021 Denis Villeneuve Interview - Shanghai International Film Festival

let's try i will be with tanya here who will ask me some questions and hopefully it will be i hope a little bit interesting for you so we're in montreal right now you're working on dune and you've been working on dune remotely as everyone has what has been the impact of the pandemic on the process for you yes i'm working on a future film dune right now we were about to finish some shooting that the movie was like almost finished and as i was like it's a dune is a feature of him i'm working on right now has been made in a uh in a unusual way which means that we uh made that we didn't made the main shooting and then i edited that part of the movie and i was planning to go back to shoot some elements later because i wanted to readjust uh the movie with uh um i needed time and it's a luxury that i had so at the time i didn't know that it would be a pandemic but it's well it was like somewhere and and the uh virus hit uh north america as we were about to go back to to do those elements so the impact was that uh it crushed my schedule right now i i'll have to uh the the the we will it will be a a sprint to finish the move on time right now because um uh we were allowed to go back to shoot i'm going back to to choose those elements in a few weeks as we were supposed to shoot them earlier and it meant also that i had to finish some elements of the movie like vfx and the editing being in montreal as my crew stayed in los angeles and i would say that uh as a director there's a things that can be done remotely to deal with technology [Music] vfx all the the supervision supervision of vfx with some equipment is is kind of easy to do from afar that i felt comfortable to do but editing for me the big lesson of this is that uh i thought that it could it would be possible to edit a distance having my editor uh uh sharing uh uh both with computers uh being a far from one to the other and and but i realize how much editing is uh it's like playing music with someone and you need to be in the same room i mean there's something about the interaction human interaction the spontaneity um i'm uh uh the energy in the room uh uh i really missed not being in the same room with my editor right now but i'm saying as an artist to edit my movie not being in the same room as my my editor is very very painful and i also i will maybe uh one of the reason is that uh the editor is someone the that are being editing the movie is also a psychiatrist i mean he's the one who's dealing with my ict and my panic attack and my fears and and receive my joys and and it's like just i think that uh yeah it's uh in the future if ever something like that happen again uh definitely i will uh make sure that my editor is close to me yeah editing is a very important part of the filmmaking process for me maybe the most important it's at a time where you rewrite the movie in some ways meaning that when you make a movie you have of course the screenplay the shooting and the editing each of them you improve uh the story you and and but with editing there's something about the fact that you have all the alphabet in front of you all the words are defined you have all the images and um there you don't have to fight against sunlight or again winds are about an actor's headache it's like there okay you have all the elements and there's so much creativity it's amazing how you can transform things how you can uh create a fear joy tension uh in the editing room it's something that so that's why i think that uh i'm a little bit traumatized by uh this working a far away from my editor right now hosting you're also working with composer hans zimmer and he mentioned that the intimacy of creativity is also important because you're also working from a distance with him it's the same thing with the composer and the mirror which we are working together in the movies also suffering not that we are not because it's true it's like when you you you are listening to music or watching a singing you feel the body language you feel the energy of the person beside you you understand there's things that can't lie there's things that there's something uh that there's a um it's not just an intellectual process it's intuition it's like a perception of of uh you you can feel uh really uh uh uh our uh the movie the impact of the movie or the impact of the music when you are in the same room that's why it's so important for me when i i my um the is enough advanced when the movies is uh almost finished editing of the movies almost finished to show it to people to to a real audience and to sit with them it's very you learn so much doing this that doesn't lie you you see the the the strength you see the power of the movie you also see the weaknesses and you have to be humble and it's very painful for diego but you have to go through this process it tells you a lot of things and and and you cannot do that remotely but what has worked well remotely are visual effects yes uh the thing is that uh one of the key is because i'm working with a master uh paul lambert who has a very similar sensibility and uh the thing is that the vfx is a process it's not it's not like as much editing is like playing music together vfx is more a process where uh you you respond to something you're seeing and then you give instructions and then it comes back a week or two weeks later so it's like it's really a process where it's good to have a fresh mind it's good to have a distance because you need that distance in order to have a spontaneous reaction uh uh it's it's um so it that was a success you need the proper equipment but it uh it went uh pretty well so far i will say that the work we are doing on dune right now vfx wise uh i have the best crew in the world and i'm very proud it's something that cheered me up in a way we have uh i had uh meetings with my vfx crews in a daily basis yeah we have those meetings an hour of work every day by uh uh by internet and in it um where i was watching at home uh uh uh sharing with them uh the same images uh on the professional screens and it's um it was really a process that helped me to go through the the the pandemic seeing how the shots are evolving seeing all the the work that has been done uh by all those people that are spread a little bit everywhere in the world you know because all those vfx artists were like either in vancouver los angeles uh montreal or some some people in europe and it's like or in asia it's like everywhere and it's it's to see all the human efforts that are uh made from each other individual at home coming back to my home let's dive deeper into the world of dune into the adaptation of frank herbert's 1965 novel how did you end up helming the feature film and what did you think about the pressure and challenge that come with this project the thing is that uh i read june when i was like maybe 13 or 14 years old it's it's a book frankly that came i came in contact with the book by coincidence i remember the first time i saw the cover in the library at the time i was like i was a teenager that deeply loved reading book books i was reading a lot and i was always looking for new material and at the time i was starting to i was very good in science and i was starting to be uh more and more curious and more and more amazed by by uh by science fiction uh dune is a very very rich book so when having had that kind of sensibility i saw that very beautiful book cover about a man with blue eyes i i still have the book it's uh the original book and i i i remembered that oh i was it's something about book covers and and and uh i remember reading the the back of the book and it really uh strike me and and i i i am dive into the book and i devoured it i mean i was like i i read all the books of june it's a saga there are several books and the world the complexity the beauty the the the richness of the cultures the way it was described the the the adventure of a boy uh um leaving his world and having to uh adapt themselves to a new reality having to uh to adapt themselves to a new culture to uh have the humility to to embrace that new culture and to see the develop and and to survive to the those environments um i thought it was very moving at the time and uh there was also uh for a young boy i was like i thought it was the worst the book was saying about politics about the economy the the of the world are dealing with natural resources exploitation of natural resources destroying the environment and for me it was it's a it's a very complex powerful book that tells a universal story that is very strong simple and that approach very complex subjects that matter in the same times honestly it became my favorite book at the time i deeply loved it i was like totally i felt in love and and it stayed with me through the years and it stayed like a kind of uh something a whole dream i was saying to myself one day i would love to bring this to the screen as i started and at the time of course i started i became i started to make movies and i was making movies in canada with smaller budgets science fiction went out of reach but when i landed in hollywood and i started to make movies with bigger budgets um and uh people kept asking me what would you be your top dream project what what would you love to do and i kept saying i would love to do science fiction and the book my my goal was would be to make dune and uh by chance uh uh mary parent and kell boiter from legendary uh got the rights and the as as soon as they got the rights they they gave me a phone call it was probably the shortest meeting i had ever had in my life and we just said should we make tuned together and the answer was uh yes let's do it it's like i felt at the beginning that we had to share the same sensibility about the the book and what the story should be and uh it was a from the start it was like i was a very close relationship and a collaboration about this project that has been the biggest challenge in my life yeah since dune was so impactful the book did it have an influence on other movies that you've made over time i will say that [Music] it increased a desire to be in contact with the infinity of the desert the weep ball there's something about the desert where the impact of emptiness in the landscape the impact of silence brings it becomes a a more of an internal journey more of a subconscious journey so it means that as the character go deeper in the desert we are getting deeper and deeper inside him and that is something that is in the book and that is something that uh and through the book i i understood the impact of the landscape on the human soul and i tried in my previous past work my very first movie is about a man and a woman falling in love in the middle of the desert or in fact failing to fall in love in the in the middle of the desert it's it's not a coincidence it's all that is related to a desire to see that impact of the landscape on on humans uh the emotion that nature provokes inside us and and uh i think that uh you see that in in my first movie there's a bit of a dune in a sea to a movie that i shot in jordan uh my first feature film an adaptation of a movie uh uh of a play written by was jim awad it's it's a it's it's a movie that i uh i embrace a little bit of the desert there and as i was shooting a sans in jordan i remember because i had scouted across jordan it's a movie that is taking place in the some kind of move strange country in the middle east it's a country that doesn't exist but try to represent what should has been lebanon at a certain period of history without naming it so i'm almost all saying this it's it's it's um i've been through all jordan i discover all jordan and as i was seeing the desert over there i uh i remember saying to myself it's not good for hassanzi but it would be insanely beautiful for dune and one day if ever i do dune i will come back here and i did so it's it's a dune has been present in some ways in my in my work since uh a long time um let's talk about the process of casting and working with um with actors uh how do you go about the process of um of casting the particular quality you look for in an actor and if you could use dune as an example but also other movies casting is a very very difficult uh very stressful for me it's a moment where you will and very exciting in the same time is because there's a lot of tension because you need to incarnate a character uh that will uh bring the words and the life to a character more important that in a way you need to find muses you are you need to find people that will triggers are the ideas inside you people that will uh uh um trigger your your creativity uh and and it's uh so it's like uh it's it's a not an easy process uh for dune it was a [Music] kind of uh it was a long process but very interesting because what i deeply love is that most of my first choices agreed were available and and agreed to jump in the project because of the nature of the project because of dune you know that it is it's a saga as a is a kind of legend and people people were so it was not difficult to convince people to get on board uh timothy was my first choice at the beginning there was just one poetry dishonored right now for me and i had i there there was one name on the the list and i met mati and we both agreed spontaneously that we will work together it was not difficult to convince timothy the i choose timothy for several reasons uh first of all he's a is a phenomenal actor he's someone that has a lot of death someone that is very mature for his age because poetry is a whole soul in a young body and i needed timothy as that first of all he looks much younger than he is sometimes i look in the camera and he looks like 15 years old it's it's a it's a very impressive a young you he looks until he's maybe 23 or something so that was very useful because uh ad in the eyes something uh older and he's already uh uh there will be cheer for his was his ages that that contrast was very important also he has a features that for me as reminds me of the old school hollywood movie stars is a real movie star he has that insane charisma insane charisma you cannot you put timat in front of the camera it's just an explosion i mean it's like a the camera grabs it's easy uh uh super charismatic and and uh i needed that uh for paul paul is a young man that at one point will need to rise people to become a leader a carrier yeah yeah he needs the charisma of a leader and and material that he has that he in a way he doesn't mean i don't know if he maybe he knows it he's a rock star and and and i needed that kind of a charisma and i needed someone that will be able also to portray the different layers of paul now i could go to the all cast but it would take three hours because there's like the uh uh the chance on in this and this project to work with the phenomenal actors that uh uh were all casted for very specific reason like jason momoa i will try to go very quickly here but jason was someone that i choose for um his boy mean relationship with adventure and his elegance on screen and at the same time is is a is a a fantastic smile where where we see that in on camera and the wii he's like a ballet dancer when when he fights so he portrayed uh uh one of the best fighter in the galaxy so i needed that kind of of knight hood kind of of elegance and and and uh uh bravado and at the same time uh sense of humor so it's it's uh jason was a perfect hero for uh for the uh the chance to work with josh brolin who is an actor i've worked with in the past and i don't know why i'm starting to uh it would be very long so i work with with the george brown and i work with i wanted to work with josh bolland again as an inside actor i love he's a poet and he plays a girl and alec who is a a poet fighter and i knew that in a crunchy part and you josh as soon as he's done on screen you love him and even if his character would be grungy will be a bit rawed there's something i needed that we understand that is paul's best best friend and and yeah and i needed that kind of charisma too and as an actor that i want to work uh again and again because it's just a phenomenal actor i wanted to work with oscar isaac since a long time oscar fits totally the description of the duke little and is someone that has uh again one of the best actor working today so it was a for me and uh i was looking forward to have the chance to work with oscar and agreed to do the duke uh then there's like stephen anderson uh who plays a human computer okay in doom there's no more computers the humans are are uh decided to put the the machines aside and and instead work on their brains which i think we should do and the thing is that the the stuff i wanted an actor that uh will have a lot of intelligence in the eyes and at the same time would be like a teddy bear i wanted the spontaneity that we love stefano that we want to hug him when we see him on screen then uh to the the an actress that uh i choose spontaneously right away after timotheville says rebecca ferguson for many reasons rebecca again is a great artist but i needed her to i needed an actress that would be able to portray the different layers very complex character to play lady jessica uh so uh there's a charlotte trampling with the uh uh an accuracy i wanted to work with in a long time which is which is a legend for me stealing scarves skarsgard that i'm afraid of since the past 25 years that uh is one of my favorite actors too um that's my channel that's an old friend of mine i'm work and i want david to be part of all my movies because i just deeply love him and the wii creates characters and uh batista dave bautista same thing i work on with dave and on blade runner 2049 and i didn't thought of anybody else to play uh rabban the beast uh whose play dave is the sweetest human on earth but it's so frightening so i thought it would be perfect for the partings as an actor that they please moves me chang chen is an actor that i follow since the movies of one car war in in in the 90s is one of my favorite actors in the world and i saw him in many movies and always dm deeply moved by his naturalism and uh one of the best actors alive today how was it working with him and for with actors in general how do you give notes how do you direct them what is your process once you're on set but i think is that the the the the there's two things first the preparation is very important all the intellectual work for me needs to be done before shooting i love in a perfect world to make sure that the idea that everything is clear and the dialogues that uh the scenes are clear from an intellectual point of view that all those discussions uh needs to be made in prep so in as i'm doing the preparation of the movie having meetings with actors talking with them about the characters the logic the and to make changes i'm not afraid to make changes uh uh if i feel that an actor has a better idea in prep and about the dialogue stream dialogues to uh very often things are overwritten and it's normal because uh you have to convey these ideas on a screen on a page but when you see an actor uh just in his eyes sometimes things can be convey the way so it's it's it's a natural process that i do with actors then when these ar all the intellectual part is done when i'm on on set i try to really um focus on on the viscerality of the scene just being the emotions directing them through their emotional path and and not to be too cerebral because i feel that it's in the way of emotions and i feel that at the end of the day we are looking at a human being that evolves through a scene and the impact of that scene on this human uh most of the time from a personal point of view the ideas will be there because they had been installed in the scene by the but and the way i work is i try to [Music] give as much space as possible to the actor in some way i hope that in general i i first of all i lie i love to make sure as much as possible to work in locations that are real not like in real environments not as a cg environments because i strongly believe that it has an impact on the creative process and for actors to know that there's a door there there's a couch there that the color of the room the light the with the light interact if there's plants it's all things that will trigger the ideas in is in imagination it will it will create a tension inside him it will create a pressure or the opposite of freedom or something and then and me i'm there to observe to listen at the beginning when i on set an idea i need to be a good listener to listen to the actor to see what are his intuition sometimes they bring very bad ideas and i just discard and i go with sometimes they bring better ideas than mine and then i try to listen and tend to see a it's an equilibrium that i'm trying to reach uh some actors or actresses have i also have better intuitions it's normal it's slippery it's a process it's an inspiration you cannot it's not the science it's like something that uh you have to be sensitive to you have to i think a good director is a good listener and i think that uh once uh when i direct that i i the more i'm directing actors the more i feel that there's at the beginning there's a window of freedom that you have to allow because that's where um sometimes there's a very poetic idea that they can arrive on the day and that honestly i strongly believe in that yeah so i'm not talking about necessarily improvisation but i'm talking about space to create here um if we look at your career in a more general sense was there a filmmaker who had a pivotal influence on your filmmaking um and are these films that you oriented on yourself like are there films that were so influential that you sort of there's dozens of filmmakers that had an impact on me many filmmakers it's like any change to the course of my life i mean uh uh the one of the first filmmaker that i discovered that i still have a big impact on me today steven spielberg i discover why because i i was from a small village where most of these movies that were coming on the big screen were american movies and there was one there was something different about certain movies and i realized that there was a name attached to it and that that name meant that this movie would have certain quality that it would have been it will have a certain sensibility to it and and that that person has a job and that job was a director and his name was steven spielberg and i i realized uh i started to watch making of and understanding the strength the power of that job and and through spielberg one of my very first favorite movies was was a close encounter of the third canyon and in this movie there's a spielberg had a character that was portrayed by francois rifu who was a french director and i discovered a french new wave through uh aliens i mean the close encounter third kind of movie about aliens and then i just i'm discovering that french director that was part of the most one of the most important uh cinema movement in the film history french new wave francois truffaut i discovered francois 24 i discovered jean-luc the the from france foot there was a sensitivity about his movies this love for human beings there's something about love in france before one is a director that for me is someone that has a kind of the empathy that i deeply love and then uh from spielberg of course there's just is more i think still today is one of the best director alive and in film story is just a genius how we can design a scene and and and create a mission on with actors and the camera work is is is so clever so impressive it's still today um i revisit these movies uh uh very often there's like uh it's really uh very impressive then uh uh franco four i discovered gada with a director that is all about intelligence and playfulness and and provocation and this desire to provoke to be a provocateur it was i i was a young man i wanted to be arrogant i wanted to do so it was speaking to me very well then later as i discovered directors like that through time you know but i will say that the the two other directors that were massive influence on me were stanley kubrick for obvious reasons when i was describing cinema a level of precision purity and a balance between the emotions and and and the intelligence the the cinematic poetry of kubrick is by far somewhere in the sky and egmar bergman bergman for me was a [Music] massive massive massive massive aesthetic shock uh bergman for the way he was able to approach human soul the way he was able to to uh to [Music] get uh uh deep deep deep inside the the conscious of of humans and to dishonesty about uh humanity uh i think birmingham and then there's tons of others so i'm not talking about ridley's cut for me uh blade runner was a massive aesthetic shock and and i think that uh in french we said placing a plus plastician someone that has a able to create a visual world i think really scott is a probably the best uh with kubrick stan somewhere in another galaxy for me it's really very strong and then there's the stuns of the contemporary guys that i deeply admire right now um and i'm not talking about other french director like jacodia is one of my favorite directors working to the uh jagoslantimas uh christopher nolan i think is someone that is out of reach of someone that i feel is able to do things that very few directors are able to do to work on a level of [Music] size of projects that are uh and being able to keep his identity alive and and that i feel is a very very very i'm probably the biggest christopher millen fan on on the planet right now um tons of directors but there's one director that uh i will say that uh when i'm taking a camera it's always with me two directors in fact uh their name is pierre perro and michelle bro they are a french canadian from quebec directors documentary directors pierre perro and michelle bro made the documentaries in the 60s 60s and 70s in quebec that had a deep profound impact on me people will see the movie say that it has nothing to do with what i'm doing it's true i'm very far away from them but still today i feel uh humility in a relationship with nature a will to embrace nature and to try to bring poetry out of it and uh just there's a sensibility in their movie that i keep trying to stay in touch with that still today i'm working on a wood and i will say that pierre and michelle are still very close to me when i work even if i will know that they will hate what i'm saying right now because they didn't like hollywood movies at all they hate would and and i i i know that the the the i don't think they will like my movies but i deeply love them and they had a major influence on me do you remember the first time you had an image in your mind of a film that you wanted to make the birth of cinema in your mind yes but before saying that very often people are asking me which are the filmmakers that are at the most um a lot of impact on me and i always forget the real answer because cinematographers have a massive impact on me and uh uh i will name two uh uh that had uh andriy is a young uh uh at the time a young cinematographer that that i started to make movies with andre and i remember that his level of precision and the way he approached uh reality was had a huge impact on me and roger deakins so when if when i talk about filmmakers as directors i need to talk about also about roger deakins because dickens is a [Music] an artist that is really well known for his the way he's a master of light but for me is more than that yes he's the best with light and camera but he's also an insane storyteller and i learned i made three feature film with roger deakins and sometimes people are asking me why not why but what is pure ego narcissistic pleasure i just deeply love with roger because every single shot is a cinema lesson for me we have a we share strangely similar sensibility i say strangely because for me he's a master he's like a kind of a god and i i still think like that even if he's a close friend i still deeply admiring and [Music] but we we have something similar about the way we uh uh apparent and the way we approach reality and uh so it's very easy going process between us to do the camera work and to approach lighting and thing but at the same time i'm working with a master so i had the pleasure of being at school learning and and that's why i hope i will have the chance to work with him again because i'm i'm just i feel that i have so much things to learn about cinema and then working with roger is a massive biggest privilege i had in my life and actually roger deakin said um denis makes the kind of films that drew me into filmmaking in the first place when i was a kid how so there is sort of in that relationship feeds both of you it seems how has that collaboration changed over time from one movie to the next has there been a progression definitely that uh i will say the truth when i did my first feature film with roger had to honestly to kill the fan inside me i had to to to just uh embrace the idea that i will be his director and i will have to direct roger dick in this something that was add to uh the first days were really awkward i know it sounds uh but uh i'm not uh um uh easily impressed but in life but uh toward there are some directors that uh uh i'm shy in front of them and and and uh i was a bit uh too much impressed by roger and i had to and from that that work best uh from that first movie uh uh we became close friends and and uh after that the process was easier i i roger is someone that is a very um demanding thank you and and for other people and for himself he has to be roger deakins every single shot every shot for him needs to be like a tableau you know it needs to be perfect it needs to be perfect and that's at the pressure and that pressure sometimes is is uh something that can be difficult on himself and on his temper and and i was impressed by uh uh sometimes uh uh um his mood on the set now i'm totally used to it and i'm very comfortable with roger and and and uh i feel that uh the collaboration went uh i will see more deeper in deeper into the process of uh designing the last one we've made together a blade runner we designed the movie together i mean talking about the the language because i needed time and i was lacking time to do it alone and i asked roger to come to help me on blade runner 2049 to storyboard the entire movie together and it was by far to this day one of the most creative moments of my life to be in a hotel room with roger deakins and and storyboard artists and james and then to to create the the the the movie uh together it was like uh dreaming with someone else it was a beautiful privilege we just got through the movies more and more used to want to hear the other and and to the instinct and it became very uh we don't have to talk very often we just look at each other and we know what's it's like it's became like a uh very instinctive and uh pure uh relationship i would say let's go back to the birth of cinema in your mind that first image that you knew you wanted to make into a film i will say something to you my friends in china that i don't think i never revealed to uh because it's a bit embarrassing but the thing is is the truth is i think that i started to direct movies as a kid i was i had a lot of anxiety i was a kid that was dealing with a lot of fears and and and uh i was very afraid of the world and as i was going to sleep the only way i could sleep was to start to design stories in my mind and to start to create the world and to to uh uh go every night i remember clearly going through like episodes of movies that i was designing in my mind and i think it's really a birth of the that uh this idea that uh stories could help me to deal with my anxiety and my relationship with the world and started that childhood i think because very early on i was drawn to writing i thought i would write at the beginning i don't think i'm good enough for that but i i discovered the job of a director early on and i started to be more and more obsessed with this idea of telling stories with the camera not having the chance to have a camera at the time it was not a but our storyboard had a friend that was very good we were both he was drawing i was telling stories and we were creating worlds like that very early on and uh [Music] it's like a it was a way to uh trying to understand the world around me and to escape and sometimes probably and so yeah that's the way i started to make movies i think you have the ability in your movies by the way i apologize i would just say this with that friend nikola kazima when we were 12 or 13 years old or something like that we started to do storyboards for june i i was dreaming i was at the time i remember reading the book and we were started nicola was i still have those drawings of him drawing all that 3ds on the center worm and and uh we were already dreaming about that together when i was a kid there you as i was saying have the ability in your movies to create suspense in orchestrating the feeling of uncertainty and ambiguity in the audience's mind can you talk about the visual and audio methods that you adopt to achieve that including color palette production design sound cinematography editing the thing is that i bought tension it says sometimes when people ask me this this question to me and i always feel that it's very intuitive and and and uh the answer is always a little bit boring but i will try to be a a bit more generous this time it's i think that one of the key element for tension is that you need to bring in the screen and on the in the image something that is the audience will relate to uh from a subconscious point of view that an element that will bring reality can be light can be a plant it can be something that will make the shots feel that like in a dream there's something real there and light is very strong for that that's why i'm a strong believer in trying to bring as much that's why i loved roger so much as that is and and the the this idea of bringing as much nature in front of the camera as possible so your brain feels that's what you're about to see could be real then you need to induce in the audience mind that there's something that they don't see that is there and that thing your desire or you're afraid of but you have to bring in some ways it can be some clues sound or pressure with the camera movement that there's something there that is about to happen or not and then like a pot on the stove you will open and you will wait for the water to boil and there will be a moment where the water will be hot enough and will boil that you have to cut because that's where the tension is at maximum point and so for me it's about a relationship with nature time of course and the ability to create um attention to something that is not there it's really like a the poetic aspect of tension is is coming from the absence of something and i think again that the best music to express tension by far is silence and that i think that when you can achieve that it's very frightening uh at the end of your first feature film um which was it from 1998 the protagonist boards a flight from quebec to the u.s which today seems like a mirror of your filmmaking career because you started in quebec and then went on to make american movies how has your approach to filmmaking changed or has it changed over time because you have started making these american movies totally i think that first of all at the beginning i was more someone that was focused on the camera work i was like trying to control things too much i was right really like trying to first of all my first movie i was very arrogant trying to express myself to exist to create an identity which after two movies i reactively failed and i decided that i will take things from the other way around and try to not exist but to communicate something in in a way that um i will try to uh be more humble in relationship with the subject matter and just to be there for the the story instead of the story being there for me i don't want to say that otherwise and and just to put my ego in the right place and just make cinema for the love of cinema and not for trying to exist myself uh that would that was the biggest change i would say also that uh my relationship with actor changed a lot by the more i work with that at the beginning i was terrorized i think a lot of directors starting to work with actors sometimes it's normal it's a very strange species and it's very and and and uh i um the more i i work with actors the more i became became comfortable and like the more i i became a better director became trying to listen more and to be more became more in control with what i'm doing by embracing the idea that i don't have already the answer and to be able i i really i think i'm not bad now to be able to be comfortable not knowing the answers as a director you have to answer so to answer to hundreds of questions and i i i feel now that uh i can uh uh sit i i can i can be comfortable words are coming in french with them to forgive yourself forgive myself not to have the answers be kind to myself just relax and wait for the flower to grow even if there's 500 people waiting for you and the sun is going down and the fire is burning you have to wait for the flower to grow and be patient and it will come to uh it will open but you have to be patient and for that you have to get away get out of the you have to get out of the nct zone and then just to go back to creativity yeah so it's that those are the things i learned through the years and many things of course technically you know but in you prisoners um and zicario are your first american movies and then you transition to science fiction with arrival then blade runner 2049 and now dune most people think that this is a big change but in fact you often say that this was aligned with your your passion from your youth yeah it's a it's a good comment people are often saying to me how come you're in science fiction now you why are you getting there because i said i didn't went there i came back home i love science fiction it's my it was my dream to make science session at the start and i i think that in order to make good science fiction you have to to master a lot of elements and it's probably one of the for me that very tough uh form and and genre and and to be able to to do that i needed me to uh uh perfect enemies would see perfect my my tools in other general uh to be closer to reality in order to go deeper in the dream and and also i was able to do science fiction now because i have access to bigger budgets and also because i have enough experience now to be able to work with bigger crews to bigger vfx with complexity you know unless uh i would have never never been able to do dune as a first movie i would be dead right now yeah and you mentioned it earlier but for you it's important that these science fiction worlds are shot in real locations not in front of green screen and technology has rapidly evolved um how what is your relation with visual effects the thing is that the computers are very powerful tools very powerful they can break and create a lot of scope they can create the worlds of course it's like that we're not we were not able to do a long time ago but it's it's something that uh let's see that in the past the directors and the visual artists were masters masters and they were able to create things with a very complex techniques that are ten thousand times easier today with the computers so we definitely i would say we have much more flexibility now the danger of it is that uh uh personally i feel that at the end of the day the soul of a movie is the words and the actors and that uh in order to get the best out of it uh you need the actors to be inspired and to be inspired i think a certain amount of reality is needed and i don't personally when i had to do it sometimes when you look in and you work in a virtual environment is is very difficult because um it's not true that ideas will uh come out of the blue i'm someone i'm very old-fashioned i respond to light hitting a table i respond to to uh the position of a chair in in a room i respond to the actors walking toward a window and a certain having a certain position and the shoulders it's something that but for that you need a window you need something outside you need to it's like you need it you need food for the imagination for creativity and and when in front of your green screen it's it's a you need presence and and and [Music] that is so so it's something that i will uh always fight uh as a director to have as much reality as possible on dune we create those insane sets they were huge but we needed it for for us to to to think about it we have to create a world we have to create a new planet we have we need some food to be able to create that and i think that these environments those real environments were uh helpful so of course then uh computers can help us to extend those to make the world bigger to have things flying in the sky things like yes you can make it perfect after with the computer but the the at the core the the elements around the the actors need to be real as a filmmaker a film lover a cinema goer in your opinion what makes great cinema in other words what do you think are the most important components of a good movie poetry i think that at the end of the day the things that the audience why we are going to see movies is to be moved by the poetry of an image when you talk to people when you i if i mention the title of a movie in your mind there will come spontaneously few images those images have been imprinted for a reason there's something there that went deep inside you to touch you because those images have a profound meaning and they have that meaning is something that is orchestrated by uh the movement in front of the camera the light the design the the elements uh that create a meaning that is not tangible that is um uh invisible it's called poetry and that at the end of the day is beauty of cinema and as a filmmaker you try to create as much as as much moment like that as possible in a movie when yeah that's what i was saying and i wish you all the best for the rest of the year and hopefully i'll have the privilege to be with you one day in the same room cheers and thank you for listening you

Channel: Secrets of Dune

Views: 221,962

Rating: 4.9547148 out of 5

Keywords: dune, dune movie, dune 2020, timothee chalamet, dune film, dune 2020 cast, shanghai film festival, china, shanghai international film festival, denis villeneuve, dune 2021, dune2021

Id: JIdV7AWd3ns

Length: 54min 27sec (3267 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 01 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/CaptainKyloStark]

I love this interview for many reasons but especially 2 reasons:

1) Dune has always been in Denis Villenueve's mind while making his previous movies.

I always had this 'conspiracy theory' that there are elements of Dune in every movie he's made, especially Arrival (e.g. prescience) and Sicario (e.g. desert warfare). I was laughed at a few times in this sub for saying such a thing, and now Villeneuve himself confirms it on video right here. I have been a huge fan of Dune since before I heard of DV and he'd become my favorite director well before I even knew he'd do BR2049. I always felt a presence of Dune in his movies and was over the moon when he announced the project.

2) Denis Villenueve HAS read all 6 of the original books, not just the first.

Many people in this sub have incorrectly accused him of being some kind of Dune fake-fan or something because they think he's 'only read the first book so what does he know'. I know he's said it before elsewhere but I couldn't find it, so here it spells it out. The fact he has read the whole series makes me hopeful that he has planned the movie out (and hopefully the 2nd part) in such a way that tees up the rest of the story. The last Secrets of Dune video outlines how certain cast may return and how Jason Momoa's casting was very intentional.

[u/LEXX911]

I'm not just hype for Dune but I'm totally hype for Denis since he is a big fan of science fiction. We are in need of good science fiction movies.

[u/Asbestos-Friends]

This is great! Fascinating to hear about the production and how it’s coping during the pandemic.

Lots of cool info. And confirmed.. Villeneuve has read the entire series and is a true fan

This interview has me wondering if dune will even be allowed to play in China. Certainly they will be asked to edit out the usual stuff they always do: supernatural stuff, drug use and religious references... so most of Dune?

[u/GrapeGenocide]

Couldn't have asked a more perfect director for this book

[u/Fedora-Borealis]

I must not hype, hype is the mind-killer

[u/MrPeanut111]

If delaying the movie means making it the best thing he’s ever done, then by all means, delay it. Rushing is a film’s worst nightmare...

[u/garnetplume]

One thing I have always felt watching Denis’ movies is exactly how he put it: the poetry of an image. When I first heard of Arrival, my mind hadn’t connected the director’s name to his previous films. I absolutely loved Sicario and Prisoners for this very reason and was so very excited to watch more of his work and I guess since he was up-and-coming at the time his name didn’t quite click yet, or I had forgotten. I remember walking into the theater with my friend who INSISTED all week to see Arrival with him (who had already seen it and said it felt like Christopher Nolan with aliens but also its own thing, as he put it).

Now we disagreed on that point as we left the theater because the only thing that could possibly tie their work together is the nature of the score, lighting, and some story-building elements. Anyways, all his films truly DO have brilliantly poetic vibe. From the mis en scene and cinematography to the general aesthetics, and editing. His vision is strong like concrete but fluid as water.

Take the those extreme wide shots of Arrival or Blade Runner. When Amy Adams arrives in the valley and we see this ovular grey-black behemoth hovering so silently over the landscape, the military vehicles scurrying towards it like ants. Or when Ryan Gosling first flies over 2049 LA towards the PD and we see what the city has become. For me, in both of these scenes, a minutiae in the full scope of the film, I hear the poetry of our triviality and our demise as a species. In Arrival, its how small, confused and universally lost we are - Blade Runner: Look what we have done to ourselves, our planet, a near uninhabitable world.

I CAN’T wait for these small moments in Dune. I sometimes appreciate them more than anything else. These small moments are so important. Some call them establishing shots, but they are so much more. They are the spine of the film. Without seeing Arrakis without humans makes Arrakis pointless. How Denis chooses to execute things like this give such an impact. More impact even than the intro of the Bene Gesserit, to the plotting of the Baron. When we see our first obsidian-eyed Sardaukar. To the desert with Paul and Lady Jessica. Moments of no dialogue. No people. Just us and the desert, and and the score. Oh and Shai Hulud, of course.

His passion in this interview was quite a treat for me this morning.

[u/bunny-tleilax]

I’m suddenly on board with Teddy Bear Thufir

[u/hazychestnutz]

And in that moment...r/movies blew up