- 15/05/2025
Waldenbooks tape interview with Frank Herbert and David Lynch about the upcoming 1984 Dune film then further Frank Herbert interview.
Copyright Disclaimer: under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.
Copyright Disclaimer: under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.
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FunTranscript
00:00We do nasty things to our leaders.
00:03We shoot them in the streets of Dallas and hang them on pieces of wood at Golgotha.
00:10We fondly say that in the United States we separate church and state.
00:15That's an asinine statement.
00:17I am a political animal, and I've really never left journalism.
00:21I'm writing about the current scene.
00:23The metaphors are there.
00:24Writing about the political ecology, the religious ecology, the social ecology, and the physical ecology of our world.
00:33And I think you do not separate any one part of this from the others.
00:37You don't separate mind and body and understand the human being.
00:40In this exclusive Walden Tapes special edition, we're proud to present author Frank Herbert and filmmaker David Lynch discussing the making of Dune, the motion picture.
01:02Following some insights into the filmmaking process and challenges faced by writer-director David Lynch,
01:09Walden Tapes spoke directly to Frank Herbert about beliefs, values, and his writing.
01:15Join us now for a truly unique experience with two magnificent artists of our time.
01:21Listen, learn, and enjoy.
01:23Walden Books is proud to have the opportunity to speak with author Frank Herbert and director David Lynch.
01:36David Lynch is not only the director of Dune, the motion picture, but also the author of the screenplay.
01:44And right beside me is Frank Herbert, the author of the book, and, of course, all of the subsequent books, which have become so immensely popular.
01:54The first question that I wanted to ask was of the filmmaker.
01:58Did you feel threatened by the fact that so many readers had had no doubt seen Dune so many times before they'll have the opportunity to come into the theater and see your Dune?
02:08What was the question?
02:09No, you've got to be either stupid or crazy, you know, to do something like this, and I live in fear 24 hours a day.
02:18So you're definitely cognizant of the stature.
02:22Yes, I say.
02:23Why don't you ask me the question, because I've seen the film.
02:26No, somebody has to do it, right, and someone had to do it.
02:29And I was, I, the day I finished reading the book, I met with Dino in his office, and I was so high from finishing the book, and so thrilled with, you know, what I'd read, I signed on.
02:47And I didn't really know it was going to be three and a half of this type of, you know, a year.
02:53But I'll let Frank, you know, tell you what he thinks.
02:57Well, Dino De Laurentiis came to you, or brought you to Dune, the project, before you were even really fully aware.
03:04I never read, I never even heard the word Dune.
03:07He thought it was June.
03:08I thought he said June.
03:10Well, I do want to ask Frank the question about the film, what he thinks of it.
03:16And that's kind of a loaded question, because Frank is a filmmaker himself, something I didn't know until today.
03:21So you're not working with someone who's not aware of your meaning.
03:24Documentaries, different things.
03:25You're aware of the process of the visual medium, and you're happy with the film.
03:31Well, I get asked a specific question a lot of times.
03:34If the settings, the scenes that I saw in David's film match my original imagination,
03:42the things that I projected my imagination, and I must tell you that some of them do, precisely.
03:48Some of them don't, and some of them are better.
03:55Which is what you would expect of artists such as David and Tony Masters.
04:02I'm delighted with that.
04:03I mean, why not take it and improve on it visually?
04:06As far as I'm concerned, the film is a visual feast.
04:08I would love to have some of the scenes as stills to frame and have around me.
04:16They're beautiful.
04:17So you feel there was a synergy between the two of you?
04:20The director, the screenwriter, and the actual creator of the concept?
04:27Synergy?
04:29You mean, the sum is more than the parts?
04:31That's right.
04:32That something better came out of the two of you working together?
04:37I think so.
04:40What was Frank's participation?
04:44I'm asking David this question.
04:45Well, I'm...
04:46In the process of the film.
04:47I signed on to do, you know, Dune.
04:52And so I always, when I was working on The Elephant Man,
04:56I worked with, you know, Christopher DeVore and Eric Berggman.
05:02And we tried to be true to the essence of, you know, The Elephant Man.
05:06And in Dune, I tried to be true to the essence of Frank's, you know, book.
05:11And which is not an easy thing.
05:13Because there's so many different lines and so many different little things swimming about.
05:18It's picking and choosing and condensing and, you know, all sorts of things.
05:23But, so Frank's contribution was, you know, the book and his support from day one all the way through to now.
05:31And he's always available, you know, for, you know, questions.
05:34And he's read almost every, you know, draft.
05:36I did seven drafts.
05:37And he's, you know, allowed me to, you know, do my thing.
05:44And his book is packed full with, you know, these what I call seed ideas.
05:51There's the big ideas, but there's so many little seed ideas.
05:54And those he let me, you know, sprout and run with.
06:00And that was the thrill for me because there are things in the movie that were sparked, you know, by Frank.
06:08But they were allowed to, you know, to grow out.
06:11And so, and I think it would be neat for people who have read the book.
06:15They'll see a difference, but it's true to the essence of Frank's ideas.
06:23The film begins as the book begins.
06:25And it ends essentially as the book ends.
06:30And I hear my dialogue all the way through it.
06:33Not just my dialogue, but there's lots of other dialogue.
06:36But I had the funny sensation in watching the rough cut, not exactly too rough recently,
06:43of some of the cuts, the things that are not in there,
06:48of feeling that they'd happened just offstage or we'd gone beyond them, but they'd happened,
06:57that we hadn't really lost them.
06:59There were only two scenes that I missed in the film, but I know why they were cut.
07:07They were pets of mine, and you shouldn't have any pets when you're doing a screen.
07:11No, they were pets of mine too.
07:13I know which scenes they are.
07:15But, you know, those are the things that, that's the trouble.
07:19The film right now is two hours and 20 minutes, and it rolls along gangbusters.
07:26But certain scenes that Frank and I both, you know, liked, I think would have, you know, stopped the film.
07:37Was this merely a stroke of luck that two artists from two different mediums,
07:44obviously two sensitive artists, didn't really experience any substantial difficulty in molding or contributing to the production of this film?
07:56Well, on my part, I consider it, you know, pretty lucky, yeah.
07:59Because you got the license you got.
08:01Did you expect the license that Frank gave you?
08:04Well, when I, I met Frank, you know, three and a half years ago, you know, when I first signed on.
08:09And I didn't know who or what I was going to be meeting.
08:14I'd seen his picture of this, you know, bearded, you know, guy on his books, right?
08:18Cool.
08:18Yeah, and so, but it's turned out to be like, well, Frank is an idea man, and they're the best kind of, you know, people in my book and around.
08:33And ideas are, everybody, you know, feeds off them, but very few people, you know, can catch them.
08:42And they're out there, but they're, you know, they're so elusive, and you have to, you know, you know, be kind of sneaky and sneak up on them and to capture them.
08:55And Frank captures these, you know, fantastic ideas, and I really, you know, respect that.
09:05Frank, you're obviously satisfied with the result.
09:09Yes, very much.
09:09You said so many times.
09:10But the funny thing happened.
09:11And Dino called me.
09:12I didn't know David from Adam's Off-Ox, and he called me, and he said that he had hired David Lynch to do the, to direct the film of Dune.
09:21And this was after a couple of, well, I think they would have been disasters, but then David knows why.
09:31So I said, David who?
09:34And he said, David Lynch.
09:36He said, Elephant Man.
09:39And I hadn't seen Elephant Man.
09:41So I went out and got a tape of it and played it on my video.
09:45And I had this funny gut sensation.
09:48We had the guy who could do it.
09:49When you're doing a film, you're, from the written word, you're translating into a different language.
09:56It's as though you were translating from English to Swahili.
09:58The visual language is a different language, and there was such subtlety and such beauty in the Elephant Man.
10:09I've seen it now about eight times, I think.
10:14And I get something new out of it each time, something peripheral or something right in the mainstream that was done visually as a visual metaphor.
10:24I've never told David this, but this is true.
10:30This is what happened to me.
10:31I had this gut sensation.
10:33I thought, we've got him.
10:34You know, the guy who can do it.
10:36I'm glad we're having this talk.
10:37David, did you, as a filmmaker, I think by anyone's estimation, Dune was written very visually.
10:45I mean, as a piece of literature, the visual description, just the visualization of it is very immediate.
10:52Did that help you in your translation to the screen?
10:54Well, like I said, well, if you, I, I really, in a way, forget a lot of the book now because there have been so many drafts of a screenplay in between.
11:04But some things, I, I, I really think in your mind, you think that Frank, you know, described things.
11:15But when you go searching, some things are described, of course.
11:18But a lot of things are left to, you know, your imagination, even in the book.
11:25And, um.
11:26That was deliberate, I might add.
11:27And you get a feeling, and then your mind takes over from there.
11:31And so, when, a lot of times, we'll go searching for descriptions of, of, of things.
11:36Um, they weren't there.
11:38Or, um, I realized that, um, I was picturing something, and I was, you know, falling in love with, you know, what I was picturing.
11:46And so, uh, you know, the, like I said, Frank allowed me to, you know, to go with, you know, my interpretation.
11:53And, and, uh, you know, how things looked.
11:57And, uh, because of that, you know, I was able to, uh, it was, it was, it was, my interpretation was one thing.
12:05And then I started working with Tony, and we went through two or three different, uh, steps into, uh, sort of the stratosphere of, you know, interpretation.
12:15And we got, uh, clicking on four really nifty, uh, different worlds and the look of each one.
12:23Um, so the motion picture is, is truly, uh, an entity under itself.
12:30Yeah.
12:30If you love the book, you'll love the motion picture even more because it's, it's, it takes on a new dimension.
12:35I, I, I can see how, um, everyone who reads the book is going to interpret it.
12:41And their interpretation is not mine.
12:42But I have to, you know, it has to go through, through me as a director.
12:46It's like, you know, uh, I always say like a filter and things pass through me and, and it's, it's not going to be other people's interpretation.
12:54Some people, like, uh, may love it.
12:58And some people say it, you know, it's not what they picture and they would be disappointed.
13:01You know, that's the way it is.
13:03Again, the, the book being so visual, some people, anyone who's read it has been there before.
13:09Exactly.
13:09Yeah.
13:10What about the tools that you had to employ as a filmmaker, especially a modern filmmaker in this day and age?
13:14What did you do?
13:16What did you have fun with?
13:18Well, every technique known to filmmaking has been used on this picture, except for stop motion, strangely enough, but every other kind of thing.
13:29And, uh, so I've learned a tremendous amount, uh, of, you know, technical things.
13:36We've built over, uh, about 80 sets in, uh, what amount of two, 16 sound stages down in Mexico.
13:42We've traveled all over the world, Raphael and I, uh, Raphael Adilarentis is a producer.
13:48Um, first looking for locations and finding, finally, uh, going to Mexico.
13:53Um, I've seen actors, you know, for this picture all over the world.
13:57And people in this film are from all over the world.
13:59The crew is from all over the world.
14:01At one point, there was 1,700 people on the crew.
14:07And that's, that's a huge amount of people.
14:10And sometimes I'd turn around on the set, there'd be 600 people, uh, they're not extras, you know, crew people or visitors or camera crews or whatever, uh, you know, on the set.
14:20So it's been a, uh, strange experience, but a huge, fantastic, uh, experience.
14:27What are some of the techniques?
14:28Go ahead.
14:29I want to add a little bit to this.
14:30A very strange thing happened at the rap party down in Mexico.
14:33Uh, at least a dozen of the actors and actresses who were in it came up to me and said individually, the, more or less the same thing, that they were sorry it was over, they had such a good time.
14:47So it wasn't necessarily a grueling experience that drove everyone insane.
14:54No, we were, we were, uh, really together.
14:56It was, it was a great experience.
14:57And we were in a, a foreign world.
14:59We were in, you know, uh, Mexico City, uh, uh, which is, I still, I will always feel the perfect place to make Dune because Dune is a, is a foreign world and four foreign worlds.
15:12And if I was making it in, uh, Arizona, it would be too normal, you know.
15:16So Mexico City was just the right atmosphere and right mood to kind of let your, just, it was to help your mind get out there, you know, into, um, Dune.
15:27There was a certain kind of rapport between the producer and director.
15:30Uh, we had our disagreements, but they weren't, they weren't major disagreements.
15:35They weren't shouting disagreements or anything like that.
15:37If you could explain your, your point, people listened to you.
15:41The only time that I objected to something that was going to be done, David and Raphael and everybody else listened to me and they didn't do the thing that I didn't want done.
15:48I can't remember what it was.
15:52They weren't going to kill off.
15:53Oh, yes, that's right.
15:54Yes, yeah.
15:54Yeah, it's the only thing I didn't get into.
15:55Yeah, right, exactly, yeah.
15:56Did he kill them off then?
15:57No.
15:58Yeah, they did.
15:59Oh, you wanted them killed them.
15:59In the proper way.
16:00In the proper way, yeah.
16:01So we'll see that when we go to the motion picture.
16:03You'll see an authentic scene that's from, from the book and, uh, uh, very poignant.
16:08Who's going to be killed?
16:10Let's don't tell them.
16:11So there are two more Dune projects, potential Dune projects already in the works.
16:18I've started writing on, on the script on Dune 2 and, um, it needs a lot more work and then I'll, I'll show it to Frank and, uh, see what he thinks.
16:29He'll be a tough audience, isn't he?
16:32Tougher than Hill.
16:33Now, you're, you didn't, it's, it's interesting that, that Frank didn't do the screenplays for Dune.
16:41Why did that happen?
16:42Well, I did a screenplay and it was awful.
16:46Uh, I never read Frank's script.
16:48I don't believe it was awful.
16:49I don't know, you know.
16:50It was too long.
16:51It lacked the proper visual metaphors.
16:53Um, I was too close to the book to be able to see it as a, as a film.
17:00David didn't have that problem.
17:02Uh, working on this film with David has taught me one great deal about
17:08taking the printed word, a screenplay, and making it into a film.
17:16Now I feel competent to do a screenplay.
17:18I don't know if I can do a screenplay of one of my own books, but, uh, well, yes, I can.
17:24I'm doing it.
17:25Good.
17:25So you have, you definitely learned from each other in this experience a great deal.
17:29I would say so, yeah.
17:30And that would, would make the next two pictures, I would think, something you'd look forward to.
17:34Oh, yeah, I look forward to, you know, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm a little bit, what we all are,
17:38we're a little bit doomed out right now.
17:40Mm-hmm.
17:40But, uh.
17:41Dune in, we say.
17:42Right.
17:42Three and a half years you've been on this project.
17:44That's right.
17:45Three and a half years.
17:46Yes, it's a long time, but the results are, from what everyone says, well worth the effort.
17:55What, and that leads me to the, to the last question I want to ask David, as a filmmaker,
17:59have you, have you thought of how the public's going to respond to this?
18:03In other words, as you've made the film, have you had a place in your mind where you've been,
18:07been contemplating what the response will be, how people will react to what you're doing?
18:11Well, I've thought about, um, a lot about the films that I've, you know,
18:16loved and what it was.
18:18It wasn't, uh, it was a, uh, an experience that I had while watching them that I couldn't
18:28get anywhere else.
18:29I never got it anywhere else, ever.
18:31And I would so gladly, you know, pay my five dollars to, you know, to have that experience.
18:38And it took me, the films that I loved, uh, took me to, uh, another place, even if it was
18:4320 years ago or present day, but another place and gave me an experience.
18:49And I think that's what I, that's what I hope Dune will, will do.
18:53And it's four different, you know, worlds and, and a, and a, and a trip, you know, through
19:01them that you can't experience, uh, anywhere else, ever.
19:06Thank you very much, David, for sharing your thoughts and some background on the film.
19:10Thanks a million.
19:11With Baldwin books.
19:13Frank Herbert, every question that could have ever been asked of you has probably been asked.
19:18Ask me a new one.
19:19But I'm going to, I'm going to go back to the beginning and maybe a little beyond to
19:27the real genesis of Dune and where it started for Frank Herbert, the author, not necessarily
19:34where it began as a project, as a book, but where it began for you, for Frank Herbert.
19:38Well, I'm a history buff and have been a history buff since I was quite young.
19:44And while reading history, I got the idea that we had not looked at the messianic impulse
19:56in human society from a point of view that I knew could be developed, reporting that this
20:09person came on the scene and these people followed and this is what happened.
20:13It was a, uh, uh, kind of a journalistic approach to it.
20:17I didn't mind the you are there approach, but what I wanted was something that showed the
20:23impact of a messiah on history as the creator of a power structure.
20:31Because inevitably, no matter how good the messiah, other people enter the scene.
20:37Other people are attracted to the power structure.
20:39I think that the idea of power corrupting, and absolute power corrupting absolutely, is
20:46not on the mark, does not hit it.
20:50I think what happens is that power attracts the corruptible.
20:56That's an interesting concept.
20:57In fact, that's almost the antithesis, the reverse of the process that's commonly accepted.
21:03I think this is why, uh, great power centers such as the Kremlin, uh, the Pentagon, uh, Kedosi, uh, Sandhurst
21:15become essentially, uh, cesspools, really.
21:19Because they get so many people there who are, what, power for the sake of power.
21:26And it's my estimation of it that a high percentage of these people are certifiable.
21:35You get real nuts.
21:36This is why you get people, for example, going to Guyana and drinking Kool-Aid.
21:40Because the errors of the leader are amplified by the number who follow without question.
21:46That was the beginning.
21:47I wanted to do a messiah story that explored this.
21:49The way that you perceived power structures at that time, and wanted to make a statement
21:54about it, is this, you mentioned just a moment ago, that a messiah can create or develop
21:59a power structure.
22:01It occurs around the messiah.
22:03That's what, I guess, uh, my question is.
22:06Does the messiah walk in, sometimes even inadvertently, to a culture or a society who has already built
22:14a power structure?
22:15Every messiah I've studied, every messiah I've studied in history was a reformer, and for
22:20good reason.
22:21Jesus wanted to reform the rabbinate.
22:26He had a, uh, a belief that, uh, it had become corrupted.
22:31The rabbinical movement had become corrupted.
22:35The same is true of Muhammad.
22:38He was a reformer.
22:41Zoroaster was a reformer.
22:46Each of these individuals obviously was charismatic.
22:51Charismatic leaders are dangerous because people don't question them.
22:56They see the obvious thing that the charismatic leader is saying, that this needs reforming.
23:06So they fall into line behind the charismatic leader.
23:10And, as I say, even if the charismatic leader is absolutely right and perfect in all of his
23:15judgments, eventually you get a power structure which accumulates like, uh, filings accumulating
23:23in a magnet, all around the polarized places in this power structure.
23:29So the power structure does evolve as a result of the messiah's activities.
23:35That's right.
23:36But not just the messiah's activities.
23:38It evolves because of the way people respond to a charismatic leader.
23:43So it's part of the forms of our society, isn't it?
23:46In the case of Jesus, you mentioned a moment ago, weren't the Hebrews waiting for a messiah
23:51long before?
23:52Oh, yes.
23:53The messianic, uh, myth was, was there, uh, preceded his arrival.
23:58In their history, yes.
23:59Of course, he never really, uh, exemplified the messiah as long as.
24:03Of course, there's some question whether he said, uh, he was the messiah.
24:07Uh, uh, the, uh, uh, Buddha was a reformer.
24:13You see, and, and Jesus was a reformer.
24:18Each, in each instance, you have an individual on the scene, a charismatic leader, who sees
24:24something that needs fixing.
24:27There's a repair job, necessarily.
24:29Something that's obvious to everyone.
24:30Yes, and, and a lot of people say, yes, you're absolutely right, Mr. Charismatic Leader.
24:35And we will follow you.
24:37There's a broad truth to anything that's said, so it's easy to follow.
24:40And then you get a movement going.
24:43Now, this is sequential.
24:45These things happen, uh.
24:46But they don't happen just because of the charismatic leader.
24:49They happen because the society picks up on it.
24:52But the society had created a need or a void for the charismatic leader before that individual
24:58arrived.
24:58Something, something had occurred in the society that the charismatic leader latches onto.
25:03Now, please turn the cassette over to continue.
25:08The stage is set.
25:09Yeah.
25:09Prior to the Messiah's arrival.
25:12That's right.
25:12Do society truly create the Messiahs from within?
25:16Oh, I think so.
25:17Mm-hmm.
25:17I think that the, that we kind of create a vortex into which the Messiah is sucked.
25:26People ask me if I'm starting a cult.
25:30And I really, I avoid that like the plague.
25:33I don't want to be a cult leader.
25:34I'm not your guru.
25:35You be your own guru.
25:38Is that why you shaved your beard?
25:39That's, this is the new Frank Herbert.
25:42We do nasty things to our leaders.
25:46We shoot them in the streets of Dallas and hang them on pieces of wood at Golgotha.
25:52And the whole structural form out of which charismatic leaders evolve, that's the thing that I was addressing.
26:01But the process starts, and you were referring a moment ago to what happens next.
26:06Yeah.
26:06The leader evolves, the leader emerges, and then things begin to happen.
26:12Well, remember that Dune, Doom, Messiah, and Children of Dune were one book in my head.
26:15Mm-hmm.
26:16And, Doom, Messiah was a pivotal book, which turns over the whole picture, changes your view of history.
26:27This is why a lot of people had trouble with it, you see.
26:30Because I had created a charismatic leader, you would follow Paul for all of the right reasons.
26:36He was honest, trustworthy, loyal to his people, up to the point of giving his life for them if they wanted it.
26:43And the response to him?
26:45The response to him was to follow him slavishly, to not question him.
26:51I think, for example, that John Kennedy was the most dangerous president we've had in recent years.
26:56Not because I think the man was evil, I think he was a great guy, and I would enjoy drinking with him and playing cards with him.
27:01But because people did not question him.
27:04So you are obviously a proponent of questioning authority.
27:07Oh, absolutely.
27:08Do you consider yourself an iconoclast?
27:10Indeed.
27:10With the relationship between the Messiah and the followers.
27:16Again, I want to go back to the process.
27:19It all begins well, and it all seems very good.
27:23Sweetness and light.
27:24And then something happens, or something begins to evolve.
27:27A new structure evolves, and people take it over.
27:30Other people get into the act.
27:32So they drain power away from the Messiah?
27:34Of course.
27:35After they...
27:36It is delegated.
27:39And how does that happen?
27:42It happens in this...
27:44Out of a structural force that is in the society.
27:48And I think one of the best examples we have of that in recent times, that we can look at with a certain degree of historical clarity,
27:55is what happened in the Soviet Union.
27:59The October Revolution had real evils to address.
28:07The Cyrus regime was one of the most evil regimes that this world has ever seen.
28:12The oppression was obvious?
28:13Yeah.
28:13Marx and the others came in, and filled that into that vortex, and took it over.
28:23Now, what has evolved out of that?
28:26They have evolved a bureaucratic aristocracy, which is almost a precise copy of the Tsarist regime.
28:36And this might have contributed to the fall of Nikita Khrushchev.
28:40If he was the last singular identity as a human being, that I recall, in the Soviet Union.
28:47Since then, the power has filtered down...
28:51It's diffused.
28:51...broadened and diffused.
28:53So that is the process that will take place in any similar situation?
28:58I think so.
28:58I think...
28:59Well, I don't think it's human nature.
29:01Well, human nature is involved in it, of course.
29:04But I think it is an essential part of the forms that people develop and call government.
29:11Which they create for themselves.
29:13Yeah.
29:14It's a kind of an evolutionary process, I believe, that has come out of tribal forms.
29:20A fugitory is a tribe.
29:23So we have this marvelous historical example.
29:26It's happened in our lifetimes, in the Soviet Union.
29:28We have seen them reconstitute the Tsarist regime.
29:34Without an individual on which to focus.
29:36Yeah.
29:36But all of the bureaucracy is there, you see.
29:39Even with some of the same names, same titles, I mean.
29:43So Paul, in Dune...
29:46...is caught in this kind of a vortex.
29:48Now, did Paul come to a society seeking that Messiah?
29:54He came to a society that was prepared to welcome a Messiah.
30:01So his reception was favorable.
30:05Oh, yes.
30:06And he was launched not only on his own initiative and ambition, if he had that...
30:14The necessities of his decision-making were obvious.
30:17And the society lifted him quite willingly to where he ended up.
30:22That's correct.
30:23But everything else that you created, you were described once, I know, as a world-maker.
30:29Let me rephrase that.
30:31Maybe a world-dreamer.
30:33You obviously had to create this world of Dune.
30:38It began with Paul.
30:39It began with this messianic impulse, the study, the interest that you had as an individual, as a writer.
30:46And then the rest.
30:48How did it grow outward from that?
30:50The first thing you have to do is to create the Messiah, the charismatic leader that people will follow for all of the correct reasons.
30:58They can justify everything they do to follow him, and you accept it as a reader.
31:05Then we have Dune Messiah, which is the evolution of the power structure.
31:10And how devolution begins to set in.
31:16And you get the cynicism arising.
31:19And you get a turnover of things that were good in Dune.
31:27Then now you get a different look at.
31:28You look at them from a different angle.
31:30Does the perspective change?
31:32Well, the perspective does change.
31:34The angle of view changes.
31:36Prescience, which figures so prominently in Dune.
31:39And I'm talking to a society which believes that prediction is a great thing.
31:46But if I were to give you an absolute prediction, John, of everything that's going to happen to you, from this moment to the moment of your death,
31:54your whole life would be instant replay and an utter bore.
31:59And yet that's your role.
32:01Yeah, but that's the thing people think they want.
32:03But what they really want is they want to know what U.S. Steel is going to do on the big board next week.
32:07And will she or won't she?
32:09And give me a couple of winners at Hialeah while you're at it, you see.
32:13But isn't this tremendous response that you've received from your writing based upon that eagerness,
32:22people wanting to know, people wanting a window to the future?
32:25Oh, yes.
32:26But you see, it's the future that is in question.
32:29The value of surprise gets thrown out the window if you believe in absolute prescience.
32:33Now, you've created a future.
32:35As we said, you're a world maker, a world dreamer.
32:39Why did you create Dune?
32:42Why that planet?
32:43Why such an arid, lifeless place?
32:47Well, it's a testing place, for one thing.
32:50And all of the great religions that we know about came out of the wilderness.
32:53Ah.
32:54So I created a kind of an amplified wilderness.
32:58How much of this, then, of your work, of your writing, of all the writing that you've done,
33:04the science fiction writing that you've done, how much of that is a reflection of you and your beliefs as you perceive this planet and our social structures?
33:17Well, I think we have to reform our social structures.
33:20I really do.
33:21And I have certain metaphors in the Dune books that I deliberately chose to shake people's view of the forms.
33:32For example, the worms.
33:35The worms are the monster, the mindless monster in the depths that guards the pearl of great price.
33:43It is the unconscious animal.
33:47It's the black bull of the corrida.
33:48It limits your options of how to deal with it.
33:52Yeah.
33:53It is the welling of violence that comes out of humankind.
34:02So when describing or creating a wilderness, then you're exposing elements.
34:09Again, I go to the phrase human nature.
34:11Elements of the human condition.
34:13I notice that it's very humanoid.
34:15The future remains very humanoid.
34:19I want a real people that you would identify with.
34:21And also that they respond in many ways in a very consistent fashion to what we experience now.
34:29There's a tremendous amount of conflict in your writing.
34:32Many things are resolved by conflict.
34:36Now, is that a prediction of the future or is that then, as you said, the metaphor, the reflection of the now?
34:41That's the way I read history.
34:42If you read history, isn't that the way human beings have done since we began chiseling our words in stone?
34:49And as it has been, then it will continue to be.
34:52Unless we change the forms.
34:55Now, I don't want to breed out or condition out of humankind the competitiveness.
35:04Because we're a universe which can throw surprises at us, despite our predictions.
35:11Despite our best predictions.
35:14And we have to be able to respond to this universe with all of our options open.
35:21We don't close off any options.
35:23If we can respond non-violently, that of course is preferable.
35:28But if all that's left to us is violence, then we dare not close off that option.
35:35You seem to be implying that we have the ability to change a legacy of the ages that we can actually attempt and perhaps succeed at something that mankind has failed to accomplish since the beginning of mankind.
35:53Do you really have that much faith in the resiliency, in the elasticity of the human form?
35:59Yes, I think we're the best equipped survival animal that this planet has ever produced.
36:05I don't depend just on rationality.
36:08I depend on the need to survive, on the urge to survive, on the desire to survive as a species.
36:21This is behind a lot of what I write.
36:24It pleases me to think that 20,000 years in the future, 20 million years in the future, there will be human beings around enjoying life the way I enjoy life.
36:38The World Without War Council.
36:41Ah, yes.
36:42As a member of the Collegium of the World Without War Council, I have bowed out of active participation, although not out of belief in that kind of work.
36:56I think that we can't address this problem of war unless we address our own bureaucratic tendencies, our tendencies to create a structure such as the World Without War Council,
37:16which then becomes much more interested in maintaining its own form, its own identity, the ongoing need for its services, rather than to create an organization.
37:29How does this dedication to peace manifest itself in your writing?
37:40Showing people some alternatives, showing them the consequences of violence, displaying alternative forms, showing them how the old patterns repeat themselves.
37:54You describe, well, you have many emperors in your writing.
38:01Now, as a reflection of the 20th century, for example, what do you see as the preferable leadership, a style of leadership, an evolution of leadership?
38:16Well, my own response, politically, is that I vote against anybody in office.
38:25I think that we've had the examples of how to deal with political power, and that is to give it very briefly.
38:36Why is it that, in your writing, when there are a thousand emperors, or when leadership is broken down and bisected and bisected, that you reference that, I think, as the Dark Ages?
38:50All I'm saying there, John, is that the aristocratic forms repeat themselves.
38:55Aristocracy is a repetitive structure in our world.
38:57More of a bad thing doesn't improve it.
38:59That's what I'm saying, yes.
39:02You talk about religion, and you take perspective on religion.
39:04Another power structure.
39:06Very much so.
39:08You also talk about the inside and the outside, about creating a need for your own leadership.
39:17Right.
39:17How is that manifested in our own society?
39:20We see organizations develop, which work unconsciously, for the most part, to maintain those conditions which require their services.
39:33And it's subconscious?
39:34I think mostly unconscious, yes.
39:36That all of these structures, these organizations, become much more career-oriented, much more oriented on maintaining the need for their own services and their own ongoing participation in power.
39:50Is it a natural process, for example, that bureaucracy begets bureaucracy?
39:55I think it's self-seeding, yes.
39:57And then how can that be broken?
40:00Or can it be broken of its own will?
40:02I think you need to break it by bringing the final judgment, the final determination on who holds power back into the hands of what we like to call the grassroots.
40:14I would like to see in the United States, for example, some real democracy.
40:18I would like to see review committees with enormous power, very short-term tenure, maybe one year, small budgets, and never able to serve again on such a committee.
40:34Only once in a lifetime.
40:36I would like to see such review committees called into action automatically, given certain conditions.
40:42Declaration of War, for example.
40:44At a local level, if a school board is going to spend, say, $200,000, automatically, a review committee, called into being.
40:53And called, at random, from the polls of the people who voted in the previous election, and given the power of life and death over what the school board wants to do, will they always act perfectly?
41:10No, they won't.
41:12But if they only have tenure for a year, then you can go at it again.
41:17And you will go at it having learned something from the actions of the previous review committee.
41:21Is this an extension of the existing set of checks and balances that we currently employ?
41:26It's another check and balance that I would like to reinstall into our democratic system.
41:31But much more localized.
41:33Oh, not only localized.
41:34I would like to have it at the local level, at the county level, at the state level, and at the federal level.
41:40In broad terms, are you supportive of diffusing a large, centralized power source?
41:48Oh, yes.
41:49In broad terms, I am.
41:51I think we need certain central powers, but I think we have to limit the tenure of whoever holds that power.
41:59And severely limit it, and so it's arbitrary.
42:01They can only...
42:03For example, I think that we ought to have one-term senators, and maybe two-term congressmen.
42:13And that we ought to have a one-term president, maybe give him six years.
42:20And that senators ought to be four years and one term.
42:24And congressmen, maybe two terms, two years.
42:27Wouldn't that much activity, coming and going in political office, create a volatile state of affairs for a society?
42:35I think that it would demand that the society keep its eye on what was happening.
42:41And that's what we don't have now.
42:44In Dune, going back to the book, going back to how that is reflected in your writing,
42:48you have, of course, the tribal entity, the Fremen, responding as a tribe, responding primitively.
43:02But quite sophisticatedly, too.
43:04What effect would your suggestions have on a society?
43:09It would obviously not tend to become more primitive and more basic in its decision-making.
43:14It would have to become much more enlightened, I would think.
43:17It would have to be much more aware of what's going on.
43:18I had a senior bureaucrat in the school system in the state of Washington when I expounded this idea to him.
43:25He said,
43:27You think some damned housewife could understand the complexities of what the school board has to do?
43:31And my response immediately is,
43:34Yes, you bet I think a housewife would understand them.
43:37She would understand these things out of necessity.
43:40I think if you throw the responsibility, the full responsibility, onto people, they rise to the occasion.
43:45Back to Frank Herbert as the writer.
43:49Obviously, very politically aware and tremendously sensitive to political and social issues.
43:55That was the basis then for Dune.
43:57Remember, before writing Dune,
44:00I was the speechwriter for a United States senator with two offices in Washington, D.C.
44:05I've been right on the inside of the apple.
44:08So I know what's going on back there.
44:10I am a political animal.
44:12And I've really never left journalism.
44:13I'm writing about the current scene.
44:15The metaphors are there.
44:17I'm writing about the political ecology,
44:19the religious ecology,
44:21the social ecology,
44:23and the physical ecology of our world.
44:25And I think you do not separate any one part of this from the others.
44:29You don't separate mind and body and understand the human being.
44:33And therefore, you don't separate any of these elements and understand what's going on in our world.
44:38We fondly say that in the United States we separate church and state.
44:44That's an asinine statement.
44:45There is nothing more emotional than religion.
44:50Nothing more emotionally demanding than religion.
44:53Because it is the promise of survival.
44:56You can't take that out of politics.
44:59You get heated emotions aroused.
45:03I am a political animal, and that's what I'm writing about.
45:06I'm writing about the economic ecology,
45:08the politics of all of these things that influence our lives.
45:13It's the response that you get to your writing.
45:17The way people mirror your writing back to you.
45:20Is it satisfactory?
45:21Oh, yes.
45:22People are thinking and asking interesting questions because of what I write.
45:25You're impacting, then, your readers the way you want to.
45:27Oh, yes.
45:28And you continue to.
45:30I hope so.
45:30And you have a new book in the spring called Chapter House Dune.
45:34That's right.
45:35Where is that going to be?
45:36It's the sixth Dune book.
45:38And it begins with a Bene Gesserit planet which is being converted into another Dune
45:46and goes from there.
45:50Thank you very much, Frank Herbert, for sharing your thoughts on Dune,
45:54your writings, and sharing your thoughts on our world with Walden Books.
46:00We wish you the best of luck with the motion picture Dune, soon to be released.
46:03And I look forward to Chapter House Dune.
46:10We hope you've enjoyed getting to know Frank Herbert a little more closely.
46:15Watch for Dune, the motion picture from Universal and Dino De Laurentiis.
46:21And enjoy all of Frank Herbert's books available in Walden Bookstores.
46:26We want to invite you to send us your comments and suggestions for other programs you'd like to hear.
46:32In return for writing us, we'll send you our latest catalog listing all of our materials.
46:40Send your comments to Listen and Learn, Post Office Box 1084, Stamford, Connecticut, 06904.
46:50Thanks for listening.
46:51We'd be happy to listen to you, too.
46:53Thank you for listening, sir.
47:12We'll see you next time.
47:14Bye-bye.
47:17Bye-bye.
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