Dune - An Invitation to Beauty

Once in a while, a film comes along that’s a truly beautiful work of art. The 2021 film Dune fits this bill as a “moving picture” – a well-crafted series of pictures that move along to tell a story. If you’re a beauty-lover, I highly recommend it. Even if you’re not a sci-fi, world-builder movie fan, I still urge you to see it as an exercise in art appreciation. I even recommend Dune’s official website as a beauty-bringing, heart-nourishing meal. Its gallery page testifies to the film’s beauty. The photos in it are simply moments when this well-crafted “moving picture” were stopped by a camera’s shutter to reveal the craftsmanship in a specific picture.

By “beautiful,” I mean “that which pleases the senses and mind.” So, I’m saying that Dune is a beautiful “artwork” because as “art” it accomplishes this “work” of beauty. The craftsmen and women who created Dune earned this rare accolade by their mastery with artistic elements like line, shape, form, color, space, texture, value, mark-making, and materials. (For brief descriptions of each of these elements, scroll to the bottom of this blog.) To truly appreciate Dune’s beauty, one only has to mindfully appreciate it through these elemental lenses. In many ways, this is what “art appreciation” really means.

When I first discovered Dune, I watched it five times in just a few days. Each time, I wore different aesthetic lenses. For example, it’s wonderful to watch this film through the shape-lens. Obviously, the various optical treatments of actual dunes are beautiful. But so is the treatment of other shape-aspects, like the design of body armor, cityscapes, machinery, landscapes, and more. The beauty-experience continues when viewing the film through the color-lens. The palette chosen for different worlds, the color-contrasts (like the Fremen population’s blue eyes set against their darker skin and wardrobe), the use of light and shadow, and the variations in hue and saturation are masterful.

This is one rare case where I actually agree with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for awarding a film. Dune earned six Oscars, including best cinematography, editing, score, visual effects, production design, and sound. See Wikipedia for the long list of other awards given rightly to those who created this beautiful work of art.

 So, pop some popcorn, settle in, and cue up Dune. You won’t be disappointed. Then, comment here with your own beauty-thoughts. Thanks. 

Skilled artists employ typically employ the following artistic elements to tell their stories:

1.      LINE: Marks moving in a space between two points, note movement, direction, thickness… 

2.      SHAPE: external form and contours, note size, texture, edges, curves, etc. 

3.      FORM: Three-dimensional objects (sculpture) with H,W,D, note size, texture, etc.

4.      COLOR: Hues, note hue, intensity, and value (light, dark, bright?)

5.      SPACE: Perspective (distance between and around) and proportion (size) between shapes and objects and how their relationship with the foreground or background is perceived.

6.      TEXTURE: The surface quality of the work, either real or implied.

7.      VALUE: Degree of perceivable lightness of tones within an image.

8.      MARK MAKING: The interaction between the artist and the materials they are using, note precision vs. messiness vs. violence vs. randomness, etc. of artist’s method

9.      MATERIALITY: The choice of materials used