Allen Greenfield

If you're a Dune fan, see the latest version, but don't expect the hyped-up 'faithful to the novel' version. It is, almost slavishly so, dressed up in truly spectacularly impressive cinematography and special effects (except the embarrassing alien mouse, same failure as the scify channel version). Being 'faithful to the novel' is a Cinema myth: film is film, and needs liberal adaptation to be credible. Purists don't get it. Lynch got it, and injected humor and serrealism, instead of emulation. The new version takes the points of Herbert's novel seriously, and, while the novels are classic SF, they are drenched in the sometimes quite dated passions of the 1960s. Villannuve takes a humorless and flat approach, and under the eye candy, has flat characters in a flat setting. I am no fan of Jihad, but Lynch made the motivation for Jihad real, the new Dune doesn't even address the passion, much less show it .

From the post-World War II "Gentlemen's Agreement" to HBO's excellent interpretation of Philip Roth's "The Plot Against America", fictional attempts to address Antisemitism in the United States have been few and far between, while the ample coverage of the Shoah in Europe --documentary and fictional-- has been rightly reprised often and sometimes very effectively. Like "The Man in the High Castle" based on the Philip K. Dick novel, this is an 'alternate' dystopian fiction' but the latter is probably the least autobiographical novel PKD ever wrote, whereas Roth's novel and the alternate Antisemitic America depicted in the HBO limited series, "The Plot Against America" is intensely autobiographical. The series is very successful in putting the viewer in this take on Roth's childhood, transformed into a fictional ominous alternate past. My only criticism is that Roth's ambiguous attitude towards his own Jewish heritage which is part and parcel of the corpus of his long career. manages to come through in the HBO adaptation. If the message is "it could happen here" it probably leans a bit heavily upon the personality flaws Roth sees in his fictionalized neighbors and family. Never blame the victims.