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For the first episode of 'Esquire Talks', Dune: Part Two director Denis Villeneuve opened up about the five films that inspired his much-anticipated sci-fi sequel – and there was an unexpected inclusion on the list.
First came David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962), chosen for the sheer scale of its ambition and role in the genesis of Frank Herbert’s Dune novels. Then Villeneuve spoke about the spiritual parallels between Dune: Part Two and Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), before geeking out on Katsuhiro Otomo’s cyberpunk anime Akira (1988). The fourth film came as a surprise: Ingmar Bergman’s Persona (1966), in appreciation of its stylistic approach to dreams and visions. But nobody could have prepared us for his final choice: Wile E. Cayote and the Road Runner.
To be specific, he was referring to the 1952 short Beep, Beep, directed by Chuck Jones. “You always make your movie in reaction to the last one you made, and it was the first chance I had to revisit a world,” he said of the Dune sequel. “When you watch your movie, you’re not interested in your success but you focus on your failures.”
By Villeneuve’s reckoning, the first instalment in the franchise had failed to achieve the right rhythm. “I needed an electroshock. I remember saying to Joe Walker (the film’s editor), you must not cut the movie like it was Part One or Lawrence of Arabia, we have to go Road Runner.
“You have to think about Chuck Jones. Beep, Beep is one of my favourite cartoons of all-time, and it is truly the idea of efficiency. It’s not about humour, it’s about the incredible efficiency; the perfect cinematic IQ, with very precise ideas and a way of delivery things that is superbly cinematic, that I absolutely adore. It was like a hand grenade that I put in my brain.
"I said, 'I’m going full Road Runner with Part Two', which makes absolutely no sense. I didn’t reveal that to my crew apart from Joe Walker, but that was one of the main influences. For me, the way I wrote and approached mise en scène was just to change my way of doing things, evolve and break something inside myself. And for that, Chuck Jones was the way to do it."
You can catch Dune: Part Two in cinemas from 1 March
