The sounds of Dune (2021)

Dir. Denis Villeneuve

Perhaps one of the biggest blockbusters in the past few years was Dune. Based on Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel, it has been widely called unfilmable, not for lack of trying though.Over several iterations of trying to film the movie, Denis Villeneuve finally got it right.

Winning 6 different Academy awards, mainly for the cinematography, the music and the sound, Dune won the hearts of the people. The sheer grandeur of the film in terms of the sights, the scenes and the sound is an experience that people rivaled to watching Star Wars for the first time on the big screen.

What makes Dune the cinematic masterpiece it is, is the music. The Legend Hans Zimmer, a German composer, known for Pirates of the Caribbean, Interstellar, Gladiator and the Lion King, proved why he was the best in the industry. (Pictured Below)

The otherworldly, ethereal music that accompanies the scenes in Dune is almost unheard of, with sounds of Indian bamboo flutes, Irish whistles and even the sound of metal scraping against each other. Somehow, the sound captures exactly what an intergalactic movie involving giant worms, scheming politicians, hallucinogenic spice and religious undertones should sound like. The main inspiration here was to make it sound as different from other Sci-Fi movies as possible. Science fiction movies and shows like Star Wars, 2001: A space odyssey, Alien and Star Trek often have European Orchestral or classical pieces like Stravinsky inspired music, with tonalities and beats to them. Zimmer wanted to deviate from it, and have irregular beats, make the music more alien, mysterious and unfamiliar, even hostile at times, much like how the environment on an unfamiliar desert planet would seem.

The sound for Dune is so unique in its own way that it required several instruments to be modified, and even an entirely new one to be constructed. However, the star of the show is the female voices, that emulate Celtic laments, South Indian percussions and throat singing.

The sound is what makes the movie what it is. In fact, the opening scene is not really even a scene, but rather a sound. The deep, baritone throat singing-esq voice of the Sardaukar, which sets the precedent for mysteriousness of the film to come.

Throughout the film, one thing that remains constant, are the sandy plains of the desert planet of Arrakis. Usually, deserts in movies are accompanied by sounds of wind and traditional middle-eastern music. To break away from that trope to create something more grounded in reality while still evoking the feeling of unfamiliarity is something that Mark Mangini, the Supervising Sound Director aimed for, by spending days in Death Valley, researching how sand sounds and interacts with various objects at different depths.

The throat singing of the Sardaukar, the mechanical whirring of the Ornithopters, the rhythmic pulse of the thumpers, the fluttering of the sand to signal a worm, the all-encompassing voices of the Bene Gesserit during Paul’s visions are all proof that even in sound, the devil is in the details, and in Dune, the details are executed to perfection.

Watch the video below to listen to one of the pieces from the Dune (2021) Soundtrack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0P6YDveLsM