Oscars 2022: Why ‘Dune’ Is Virtually Guaranteed to Win for Sound
Denis Villeneuve’s 2021 version of the sci-fi epic Dune has a lot going for it, so it’s no surprise it earned 10 nominations at the 2022 Academy Awards. The intergalactic hit has to be seen to be believed (just like Oscar Isaac’s beard in the film).
Among the 10 nominations is a nod for best picture. Dune faces stiff competition in that category, but it’s virtually guaranteed to win for sound. Here’s why.
Dune’s sound engineers have a history at the Oscars
The names Theo Green, Mark Mangini, Mac Ruth, Doug Hemphill, and Ron Bartlett might not be as recognizable as Timothée Chalamet, Oscar Isacc, Rebecca Ferguson, and Stellan Skarsgård, but they were just as instrumental in giving life to Villeneuve’s version of Dune.
That quintet shares the sound nomination at the 2022 Oscars, and all five of them have a history at the Academy Awards.
They have 25 Oscar nominations among them. All of them earned nominations for either sound editing or sound mixing in 2018 for Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049.
Mangini won for achievement in sound editing for Mad Max: Fury Road at the 2016 Oscars, and Hemphill took home a statuette in 1993 for The Last of the Mohicans.
That their work is well-known to the Academy doesn’t hurt, and neither does its penchant to honor big-budget blockbusters in the sound categories.
Mangini and Green took time to create a unique and immersive soundscape for Dune
Trips to Death Valley. Sprinkling the sand with Rice Krispies. Burying a hydrophone in the sand. Recording a dog gnashing its teeth. Green and Mangini went all out to create Dune’s unique soundscape, and Villeneuve wanted them to.
Villeneuve grew up with the novel and found total piece bringing it to the big screen. So he allowed his sound team time to create that world.
“I wanted Theo and Mark to have the proper time to investigate and explore and make mistakes,” Villeneuve told The New York Times, adding that rushing sound work on his earliest films “traumatized” him.
Even in the midst of a pandemic, when fewer people headed to theaters and opted for streaming viewing, Villeneuve emphasized creating realistic sound for a theater audience. “Sound is one of the tools that still makes the theatrical experience worth going for,” he told the Times.
Sci-fi and action movies perform well in technical categories
Artistic and thematically deep films seem to win the prestige awards at the Oscars. Yet there’s plenty of room for big-budget action movies to win some hardware. The sound category (formerly separated into sound editing and sound mixing categories) tends to spotlight those films.
Gravity, Dunkirk, Arrival, 1917, Mad Max: Fury Road, and Ford v Ferrari are some recent winners in sound categories. Go back further, and you’ll see films like Skyfall, The Hurt Locker, Inception, The Dark Knight, The Bourne Ultimatum, King Kong, and the final two installments of The Lord of the Rings trilogy earn Oscars for sound. Dune has a solid chance to follow in their footsteps.
In short, action movies rule the roost in the sound category, and as Showbiz Cheat Sheet noted in our review, Dune deserves to be seen in the loudest theater possible. That’s how Villeneuve wants it, and Green, Mangini, Bartlett, Hemphill, and Ruth worked hard to make it happen.
