The sleeper must awaken: inside the mind of Dune
2014; Elsevier BV; Volume: 1; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1016/s2215-0366(14)70368-2
ISSN2215-0374
Autores Tópico(s)Jungian Analytical Psychology
ResumoA scene in the film Dune (1984) has haunted me since I first saw it. Paul (Kyle MacLachlan) kneels before the bald-headed Reverend Mother (Siân Phillips), who presses an elaborate, jewelled needle to his throat. She's forcing him to take a test: Paul must put his hand in a box that makes him feel increasing pain. If he removes his hand, the Reverend Mother will kill him with the needle. As viewers we can see inside the box, and we watch as his hand is apparently cooked until the flesh drops off. As the Reverend Mother coolly explains, “A human can resist any pain. Our test is crisis and observation.” She sounds like a psychotherapist. Dune was not a success at the box office. Critics jeered its complexity and strangeness, but those elements—which at the time put off a general audience—are exactly what make the film linger in the memory. That, and its efforts to get deep into our heads. I was haunted by Dune long before I ever saw it. In January 1985, the British comics Eagle and 2000 AD gave away free sticker books to promote the film. Aged 8 years, I devoted my pocket money to completing mine, slowly piecing together an epic story centred round the galactic trade in a drug called melange and the spiritual and drug-induced awakening of a young noble, Paul Atreides, who becomes a revolutionary leader through the power of positive thought. Even at the time, it seemed an odd thing to sell to children. The merchandise also included soft toys of the giant sandworms that create melange, and an official Dune Coloring Book. Of course, the feeling that Dune wasn't entirely suitable for someone my age only made it more alluring. The scene of Paul's ordeal in Dune is taken almost line-by-line from Frank Herbert's bestselling novel of the same name, first published in 1965. In the book, the Reverend Mother further explains what's being tested: “You've heard of animals chewing off a leg to escape a trap? There's an animal kind of trick. A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind.” It's not just a question of mind over matter but of a greater perspective than immediate, personal gratification. Where did Herbert's interest in psychology come from? As a student in the 1930s, he studied some of Carl Jung's work on the collective unconsciousness and dabbled in experiments into extra-sensory perception, following the work of Joseph Banks Rhine. But in 1949, aged almost 30 years and struggling to make a career as a reporter, he moved to Santa Rosa, near San Francisco, USA. There he met psychologists Ralph and Irene Slattery who would have a huge impact on him. Irene had been a student of Jung's at the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, Switzerland, and let Herbert pore over her notes from those classes. She'd also seen Adolf Hitler speak in the 1930s and described him as “terribly dangerous…because of the way his people followed him…without questioning him, without thinking for themselves”. Under the Slatterys' influence, Herbert wove psychology into the science-fiction stories he was trying to sell. At the time, other science-fiction writers were exploring similar ground: Isaac Asimov's I, Robot (1950) framed previously published short stories as the recollections of “robopsychologist” Dr Susan Calvin, showing how examples of strange behaviour in robots could all be traced back to the robots' motivations—or the three rules with which they were programmed. Herbert used psychology to make his stories more credible and compelling. Irene Slattery explained to him that “when you see what motivates people, you will begin to see them walking around with their intestines hanging out”. He came to believe, too, that “the best writing…touched the unconscious”. Editors seemed to agree, and began to buy his work. In Herbert's first published science-fiction story, Looking for Someone (1952), the world turns out to be the creation of a hypnotist. His first novel, The Dragon in the Sea (1955), is about a psychologist sent undercover to investigate issues on a nuclear submarine during a future atomic war. Although he exposes a traitor, our hero concludes that the crew's problems are really down to the sea water outside the sub, which is chemically almost identical to amniotic fluid: “The breakdowns are a rejection of birth by men who have unconsciously retreated into the world of prebirth.” Psychological insight is also used to make Dune more compelling. According to Frank Herbert's son, Brian Herbert, the author used subliminal colour-coding: yellow “was employed to indicate danger. Thus, when the reader reads yellow, he knows viscerally that danger is imminent. He may not be conscious of the realization, but it is a tugging force that keeps him turning the pages.” The Slatterys' influence is clearly visible, too. Paul learns to speak with “the Voice”, which allows him to exert his will over others—just as Irene had seen with Hitler. Jung's belief in a collective unconsciousness produced by genetic memory can be seen in the genetically transferred memories of the Reverend Mother and her order. How people move is also important; when analysing patients, the Slatterys were interested in “mannerisms, which came to be called ‘body language’”. In Dune, hand movements are often as revealing as the words characters say or that we hear them think. Herbert did not follow any particular psychological school of thought. The Slatterys “preferred to select from the teachings of beliefs of many, including Jung, [Sigmund] Freud, Alfred Adler and others”. Likewise, Dune is a mishmash of different influences and ideas—not just psychology. It was inspired by efforts to stablilise the huge sand dunes in Florence, Oregon, USA; Herbert dedicated the book to the dry-land ecologists. The Reverend Mother's order is based on Herbert's Jesuit aunts whose teachings he'd suffered as a child, and “the Voice” owes as much to his experience as a speech writer for Republican candidates as it does to more psychologically grounded linguistic programming and SI Hayakawa's Language in Thought & Action. The 1984 film necessarily narrows the scope of the sprawling, 556-page book and focuses on the psychology. Director David Lynch—who also wrote the screenplay—was drawn to the story's meditations on consciousness: “the character of Paul: the sleeper who must awaken and become what he was supposed to become”. Throughout the film, we hear Paul's thoughts and share his dreams—we're with him as closely as we can be as he undergoes his psychic transformation. Paul's dreams are full of haunting images and symbols. Attempting to explain the uneasy quality of Lynch's films, filmmaker and writer Chris Rodley cites Freud: “‘The uncanny is uncanny because it is secretly all too familiar, which is why it is repressed.’ That is the essence of Lynch's cinema.” Lynch told Rodley, not just of Dune, that “film has a great way of giving shape to the subconscious”. But he was wary of looking for meaning in his work, saying in another interview that “it's better not to know so much about what things mean or how they might be interpreted or you'll be too afraid to let things keep happening. Psychology destroys the mystery, this kind of magic quality. It can be reduced to certain neuroses or certain things, and since it is now named and defined, it's lost its mystery and the potential for a vast, infinite experience.” He stopped participating in analysis when his psychiatrist admitted that it might interfere with his creativity. Surely, that leaves the analysis to us, the audience. That's part of why Dune lingers in our memories long afterward; it's left as a puzzle for us to work out. Rather than using psychology to explain consciousness, Lynch prefers techniques that allow him to explore and use the “magic quality” of the mind. He's a keen proponent of transcendental meditation. “It has given me effortless access to unlimited reserves of energy, creativity and happiness deep within”, he says on the website of the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace, founded in 2005. “This level of life is sometimes called ‘pure consciousness’—it is a treasury. And this level of life is deep within us all.” He doesn't sound very different from Paul in Dune. The journey into the uncanny mystery of consciousness in the film might have been more successful and less alienating if we solely followed Paul, but we hear the thoughts of many other characters, too. Lynch admitted to Rodley that this aspect wasn't all he'd wished: “Well, a lot of it was meant to be in the film but, like, 40% of it was added on to nail things that they thought people would not understand.” For all it was meant to add clarity, this deluge of information has the opposite effect. The film's problem is not complexity, but too much detail. That's a shame, as the book uses people's thoughts to give psychological insight: what characters really want and feel plays against their apparent desires. Most notably, we're told the identity of a traitor close to Paul long before the plot requires it. The effect is to ratchet up the suspense, but it also allows us to watch the other characters' doubts and suspicions more objectively. Those early scenes become a study of human behaviour. The film better matches the book in the moments of self-analysis, such as Paul's concern over his lack of grief for his dead father, or the Reverend Mother's self-revelation after she makes Paul undergo the pain test: “No woman child ever withstood that much. I must've wanted you to fail.” Frank Herbert didn't seem capable of doing the same. As Brian Herbert put it, “this man made efforts to psychoanalyse other people, but very often failed to perceive his own motivations.” In Brian's biography, his father is competitive and controlling, sometimes even violent. He banned his children from using the words “try” and “can't”, and severely punished them if they did. That need to control even applied to his final illness. “Dad knew that the power of the mind could defeat the ills of the body”, says Brian, just before detailing the pulmonary embolism that killed him. It's the belief, not the reality, that's important. “In his domain, the mind ruled supreme.” For a film so much about mental states, Lynch's recollections of making Dune are telling. “The closer I get to finishing a movie, the more I start projecting my fears onto it. Not only have I seen it over and over, I start seeing where I've made mistakes. I see my fears double-exposed with the images on screen. And it just keeps getting worse until I can't stand being in the editing room.” As well as repeating the word “insane” several times, he spoke of being “almost dead” and how “Dune took me off at the knees. Maybe a little higher.” And he said that, “to hear what people were saying about me after Dune could have completely destroyed my confidence and happiness, and you need to be happy to make stuff.” Surely Herbert would have agreed: it's all a question of positive thought. DuneWritten and directed by David Lynch, 1984 Churubusco Studios, Mexico City
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