Perhaps no character had a higher affect on the display in “Dune: Part Two” than the brutally terrifying Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, indelibly embodied by Austin Butler, who solely two years in the past was shaking his hips as Elvis Presley. Butler has deserted the guitar and dazzling fits for a hairless, chiseled physique and a piercing gaze: a menacing determine that the movie’s director, Denis Villeneuve, has rigorously measured.
“In the e book he’s a personality with loads of urge for food. An urge for food for all times, energy, lust and intercourse,” Villeneuve tells The Envelope. But Frank Herbert’s epic and imaginative sci-fi allegory wasn’t the one supply that formed the character. “I additionally needed to offer life to a psychopath. Someone who views different individuals as objects and acts with none worry. And somebody with a weak spot – sexuality – whose vulnerability we’d really feel. That’s one thing I do not assume is within the e book I introduced as a result of I needed to create extra dimension to the character.
Butler, Villeneuve and Dave Bautista on the set of “Dune: Part II”
(Niko Tavernise/Niko Tavernise)
Our first introduction to Feyd-Rautha takes place on her house planet Giedi Prime as she prepares to battle the final “three of House Atreides”, a particular birthday reward from her uncle, Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård). , who massacred the household of Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) to regain management over the spice fields of the planet Arrakis.
“Would you want some recent meat this night, my dears?” Feyd whispers to the servants round him, a nod to what’s to return. He runs his tongue alongside a freshly solid blade earlier than slitting the throat of one in all his pets and stabbing one other to check its sharpness. Carnivorous minions rush to suck the blood spilled under. It’s a show of absolute devilish delight on Feyd’s half, a part of a efficiency Butler quickly discovered, which, Villeneuve notes, included recreating Skarsgård’s accent for Baron as a “option to get into the Harkonnen household” and “create a sense of familiarity”. to Baron, who’s his mentor determine.
“When we have been doing make-up assessments, Austin was tremendously playful, keen to attempt issues,” Villeneuve says. “At one level, I related with this type of twitching face and animalistic expression of enjoyment that comes out of him and is uncontrollable as a result of he simply killed somebody. We performed with that kind of deviant habits as a result of it is not straightforward to empathize with a personality so removed from us.”
Austin Butler’s Feyd-Rautha is magnetic on display in “Dune: Part Two.”
(Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures/Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)
When Feyd enters a large area stuffed with a singing, blood-eager crowd, a brutalist symphony of visible aesthetics and aural tonality deepens the character’s evil. A sizzling, black solar shines overhead, blotting out all colour: stark photos photographed by cinematographer Greig Fraser with a digital camera modified to file infrared. There’s a mischievous bravado to Feyd as he tears aside the primary two enemies earlier than being examined by a 3rd, a second he fortunately invitations.
In creating the scene’s suspense, editor Joe Walker delineated the purpose at which the motion and roar of the group would peak. “We thought the wildest pleasure could be when Feyd took off his protect. And then we tried to discover a option to maintain a few of that in reserve to maintain constructing as much as the purpose the place he lastly kills Lanville (Roger Yuan).” The sound envelops the scene with a stability of crowd chaos and galvanizing soundtrack as Walker brings us nearer to the battle.
“The complete Harkonnen language is made up and Martin Kwok, who was our supervisor dialogue editor, went to city on that. They filmed the group doing completely different chants, so it turned very genuine,” says new recording mixer Ron Bartlett. “But then we multiplied that by a few hundred thousand individuals to fill that stadium,” he provides.
“The different factor, when he comes out he is like a rock star, so we pulled the viewers again and let the soundtrack actually accompany him,” notes rerecording mixer Doug Hemphill.
For composer Hans Zimmer, the strategy was to connect with the small print of the character and scene. “Part of my course of is to work carefully with the cinematographer, the manufacturing designer and the actors, so I do not write one thing that may throw the actors off their path or really feel flawed for that sequence within the infrared area. We have been all very cautious about that,” says Zimmer, who used supplies from Home Depot to change the devices used for the rating.
“The sound was crucial to me as a result of it’s a cultural manifestation of Harkonnen,” says Villeneuve. “But the viewers can be an vital character due to what Feyd turns into in entrance of them. It’s the delivery of the concept he might be a frontrunner.”
Developing Feyd’s weak spot for ladies, Villeneuve credit Butler’s capability to “go from aggressive, threatening habits to vulnerability in a matter of seconds. … It was one thing that actually struck me, so I’ve to offer loads of credit score to the actor right here who gave me these nuances that I needed on the display.
A scene between Austin Butler and Lea Seydoux was “the closest of something I minimize to melding performances, pictures, sound results and music right into a unified rhythm,” notes editor Joe Walker.
(Images by Niko Tavernise/Warner Bros.)
For the pivotal second when Feyd meets Lady Margot (Léa Seydoux) in a large hall, solely to power her into a close-by room and in the end impregnate her, the mesmerizing scene was an infusion of teamwork. “It’s the closest I’ve ever come to mixing performances, pictures, sound results and music right into a unified rhythm,” notes editor Walker. “And that was at all times my aim, to discover a very rhythmic option to make this type of symphony play.”
Seeing the character on display, Villeneuve says, “There was a presence within the eyes that was frankly very scary. When I see Austin I’m nonetheless not used to seeing him with hair. I nonetheless have nightmares.”
