A Beginning is a very delicate Time .....
I had seen and not much liked David Lynch's second Feature,
The Elephant Man (1980), before I had the chance to see
Eraserhead (1977), which I much preferred to his popular Hit.
The Grandmother (1970) and The Alphabet (1968)
were not yet widely free and available,
as they are now through Streams of Instant Gratification.
I flattered myself that I already knew a great deal about Movies,
and was well prepared for whatever I was about to see.
The Reviews (as they're called) were mostly unfriendly
and generally unkind, with a few humorous Exceptions.
The vociferous Followers of the lumbering Behemoth,
the Novel, were largely vituperative when faced with this Thing
that so clearly was not what they had imagined.
Several Times I was forced to wipe away the vitriolic,
if unintentional, Spittle that struck my Chin and Breast,
when faced with an offended Admirer of the Tome,
as I vainly tried to justify my enjoyment
of this mind-boggling Act of Sacrilege.
As Lynch himself had a very difficult Experience in making it,
and tends to underrate his best Efforts while overvaluing his least
(see Wild at Heart and share a groan with me at its Flaccidity,)
Dune has managed to attain a Level of Disrepute
only a few Masterpieces have survived intact.
The Dogs who run Universal Studios (and those who did)
perpetrated and continue to distribute a so-called Extended Cut,
which screws horribly with the continuity of the Story,
inserting Alternate Takes of Scenes without Color Correction,
Storyboards that should never have been seen again,
(outside of Books on the Mammoth's Making,)
and stodgy Narration, explaining everything
in a portentous and banal Manner.
Actually the List of Crimes that these Owners of the Film
have committed against it is virtually endless.
Yet the Movie is still out there, still there to be seen,
if one can see past all the Garbage accumulated around it.
Among those things one might notice is a rather pertinent Metaphor
for our Petroleum obsessed and possessed Society.
To put it plainly, I'm afraid that Giedi Prime,
at least as shown in Lynch's Film,
aptly represents the United States.
The Spice is the Oil, the Oil is the Spice!
A Beginning is a very delicate Thing ....
.... and an Ending can be pretty damn brutal.
