David Lynch - Classic or Dud

with its Aussie soap stars, Mulholland Drive is like a lost episode, at least outdoingFire walk with Me me in episodic tension or edge (but to be fair, what can be expeced from a prequel)

Mulholland Drive is a great film for Lynch, yanking him out of his US weirdo cult niche and projecting world class ideas onto the world stage. I fail to see how it could stand a chance at BAFTA with Princess Ann on the board however (Oscars and Globes out-of-th-qn i assume).

His outsiderness, and his adoption finally by Cannes, like a Roman Polanski.

Most certainly did -- his third film after Eraserhead and The Elephant Man.

Did anyone ever see that interview he did for scene by scene - i loved the bit where he's talking about "the eye of the duck" to describe the key scene in his films.

Also i highly recommend the book "Lynch on Lynch" - so much fun!

Umm. This movie is two years old. Why are we speculating on its award chances?

*waiting for backlash*

crosspost

Yeah, quite right. I read the book a year before the movie came out so my timing was perfect there...

although, N. has had my copy of the cinema one for nearly a year, now.

cremaster's opulent mythboredom reminded me a lot of dune

absolutely. it's funny how the production design seems to be the central concern of the film for much of its length, but unlike other well-appointed films, the design is actually so rich it actually sustains interest.

this movie redeems dino dilaurentis's reputation from all the europudding he's made. (well, this movie and "blue velvet.")

the last half hour is a mess, yes, but it's compelling for being so incomprehensible. the ending, if you haven't read the book, is just quizzical--all the more so for being so terrifically bombastic and theatrical.

FWWM, like Dune, does have a lot of extra footage still sitting there. As a fan of fractured, difficult art I'm not too bothered about seeing it restored. Pretty much all the series cast shot scenes.

Err, Lynch incidentally is brain-crushingly classic.

There's a much better book out there if you can find it at all -- The Making of Dune by Ed Naha. He was hired to essentially hang around on site during the entire length of filming and write a book about it all and did a fantastic job, I thought. While essentially uncritical about the final product itself, it actually doesn't talk about that so much as just the filming itself. Also laden with tons of photos.

Here's ten, in order of "classicness":

1. Mulholland Drive
2. Eraserhead
3. Blue Velvet
4. Wild at Heart
5. Elephant Man
6. Twin Peaks
7. The Straight Story
8. Dune
9. Fire Walk with Me
10. Lost Highway

1. Mulholland Drive
2. Blue Velvet
3. Eraserhead
4. Elephant Man
5. Lost Highway
6. Fire Walk with Me
7. Twin Peaks
8. Dune
9.The Straight Story

sorry, jaymc, my aside has troubled you, AND i used the wrong tense in one sentence!
and it revived a discussion, how about that ?
but huh ?, you haven't commented on Princess Anne and the BAFTAs, which was what i was getting at. Or anything else beyond the semantics of said paragraph. What do YOU THINK ?

I'm not sure I'll ever get round reading the book so could somebody please summarize what it adds to the movie?

David Lynch: Well, you know, nature can teach us a lot of things, and there's
something about, in painting, you're working within a certain shaped
canvas and there's many things that you, you know, one does
intuitively, to move the eye, you know, there's repetition of shape,
there's repetition of colour, but when you start looking at a duck,
you see your eye is moving in a certain way, and you see textures and
colours and shapes and you start wondering about a duck, what it can
teach us about, you know, any kind of abstract, you know, painting, or
proportions or even sequences, scenes, and it always is interesting
that the eye is in the perfect place - if you move it to the body, it
would get lost, if you move to the leg or the beak, it's two, kind of,
fast areas competing, even though the eye is the fastest, it's the
little jewel.

DL: Well, there's slow and fast. An empty room is a certain speed,
and a person standing there is another speed, and that proportion is,
you know, can be beautiful, if the room is a 2 and the person is a 7.
I think a person is around a 7; fire and electricity can go up to a 9,
for instance, or really intricately designed, you know, decorative
room is pretty disturbing, sometimes - it's too fast. But then if you
put something slow in it, it could work beautifully. A busy room and
a person, they fight each other. So...

MC: Is this to do with how fast our eye moves to scan it, to see
what's happening?

DL: It's a relationship thing, I think. Fast and slow areas.

MC: OK. What is the eye of the duck scene in Straight Story?

DL: I haven't thought about it. I have to think about it. I can't
just jump in and think, but I believe every film has the eye of the
duck scene. But, it can fool you. You know, which one it is - it
could be the scene we were talking about, I don't know.

MC: What's the eye of the duck scene in `Blue Velvet'?

DL: I used to know.

MC: Is it the `In Dreams' song.

DL: It's the eye of the duck, that's the eye of the duck, yes, yes.

[clip `in dreams']

MC: And what's the eye of the duck scene in Elephant Man?

DL: (laughs) I used to know.

MC: Is it the scene where he goes to the theatre? Near the end?

DL: No, I think, strangely, the eye of the duck scene is the ending.

- Lynch the American

http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/people/stam/suomi/stam/pics/duck_rabbit.gif

(x-post)

No, but maybe a little daffy.

"Lynch on Lynch" is one of the most entertaining books i have ever read.

lynch's nuanced use of the widescreen frame above all.... his knowing evocations of the heyday of 'scope and the accompanying emotional registers

still i think it's less than the sum of its parts somehow, i'm never too interested in rewatching the whole thing

that's a problem w/lynch

i am interested in the "business end" of motion picture filmmaking

er

oy!

Lynch invades an 'Empire'
Digital pic details a mystery

By ADAM DAWTREY
David Lynch is making a new movie with StudioCanal. In fact, he's already been shooting it under the radar for two years.

Titled "INLAND EMPIRE" (in capitals, though Lynch doesn't explain why), it stars Laura Dern, along with Justin Theroux, Harry Dean Stanton, Jeremy Irons and a host of others Lynch won't specify.

In fact, there's still very little the enigmatic Lynch is comfortable to reveal about the movie.

"It's about a woman in trouble, and it's a mystery, and that's about all I want to say about it," he comments diffidently.

The title refers to the bleak residential area on the edge of the desert near L.A. -- the antithesis of the tony locale of his last movie "Mulholland Drive."

Lynch has shot much of his latest film in Poland with local actors, after making friends with the organizers of the Camerimage festival in Lodz. He's now back shooting in and around Los Angeles.

Even at this relatively advanced stage of production, Lynch is cagey about when it will be finished. But it's understood that StudioCanal is aiming for a world preempreem at Cannes next year.

"Making a film is a beautiful mystery," Lynch says. "You go deep into the wood, and you don't want to come out of that wood, but the time is coming very soon when I will have to."

Lynch has financed the production to date from his own resources, with his wife and longtime artistic collaborator Mary Sweeney producing. The budget is unknown.

StudioCanal, which financed "Mulholland Drive""Mulholland Drive" and "The Straight Story," has come aboard "INLAND EMPIRE" to handle worldwide sales.

Digital convert

What Lynch will reveal -- and indeed, waxes lyrical about -- is the fact that he's shooting the movie on digital video.

"I started working in DV for my Web site, and I fell in love with the medium. It's unbelievable, the freedom and the incredible different possibilities it affords, in shooting and in post-production."

"For me, there's no way back to film. I'm done with it," Lynch says. "I love abstraction. Film is a beautiful medium, but it's very slow and you don't get a chance to try a lot of different things. With DV, you get those chances. And in post-production, if you can think it, you can do it."

DV has clearly given Lynch the freedom from having to clarify his intentions -- to financiers, or even to himself -- before he starts shooting.

"The explaining of things in words is always a huge problem," he confesses.

He characterizes the DV production process as a journey of "huge exploration" to discover what his film will be.

"I'm writing as I go," he says. "I believe in the unity of things. When you have one part, and then a second part that doesn't relate to that first part, it's very curious to find that they do relate after all. It's a most beautiful thing."

He also believes that it produces a different kind of performances from actors. "When you run out of film, you have to stop and reload, and during that time the heat sometimes goes off. But with this medium you can keep that heat, and it builds, and it's beautiful to see."

He says that Dern, in particular, has benefited from this freedom. "She's the most incredible actress. Some people get roles and do their thing, but some have a lot more inside and don't usually get the chance to show it."

As for the quality of the DV image, Lynch says, "It looks different. Some would say it looks bad. But it reminds me of early 35mm, that didn't have that tight grain. When you have a poor image, there's lots more room to dream."

"But I've done tests transferring DV to film, and there are all kinds of controls to dial in the look you want."

2) Skeptical about Lynch's fascination with DV. I really hope it looks good. Disappointed that he's abandoning film altogether.

3) I know it's Variety and all, but "world preempreem"? Gag.

I'm glad to see he's breaking into new territory!

Gotta love him.

1) very excited too, also wished/hoped this would be about a new film
2) very excited about this. i'd much rather see what lynch can do with this stuff than george freakin' lucas. also: collateral
3) wasn't sure if that was a cut&paste error but if not i love it

I was kinda worried about DV until I saw Collateral - in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing, format is increasingly becoming irrelevant.

worst one: peter greenaway who totally cheated!!

god, i love lynch.

This kind of blanket description annoys me.

Collateral had almost no noise and it would be hard to argue that it didn't look pretty close to 35mm film.

As well as incredibly legendary skate spots, a decent arts colony, and home of a one-time interesting music scene - Refrigerator, Nothing Painted Blue, Diskothi-Q and (file-them-in-the-Where-Are-They-Now?-Category) the Mountain Goats.

Alex took the words out of my mouth! Dancer in the Dark, as much as I like it story and music-wise, looks awful; I never wanted a movie to be in Cinescope so much.

i really adore him without thinking any of his films are exactly perfect or even my favorites. although the short film mentioned above and the final episode of twin peaks are pretty close to perfect.

amateurist have you seen the "pilot" version of mulholland drive ever?

just kidding. what was it like?

yes, my roommate ca. 2000 had it.

totally.

I still haven't seen all of twin peaks and I think I really need to.

Therefore, Lynch = classic so far.

xposts

http://s15.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2NS8O0JGU9TKG240R4ERQ14KVV

Also, has anyone noticed that the twins in the movie are "the Olsen twins"?

---

David Lynch live tonight from UC Irvine. Probably one of the smaller venues this tour has been at. (424 capacity). We're also hosting an overflow lecture hall next door with a live video feed of the event for those that can't get seats. For all of you out here worldwide, there's a live radio remote on KUCI.org

http://www.kuci.org/

supposedly also a video stream at

rtsp://128.195.138.185/dLynchlg.sdp

and a small version at
rtsp://128.195.138.184/dLynchsm.sdp

http://www.davidlynchfoundation.org

http://www.davidlynchtour.org

Having said that I liked Twin Peaks, mostly because it was funny.

xpost - yeah he's great in that. And in Adaptation.

i've thought of it as a david lynch airplane! movie, gags every 30 seconds. not all of them connect, but the ones that do are boffo. and since it's a lynch airplane!, it's also scary-weird, but that's just a different kind of gag. sherilynn fenn picking her brains out -- funny, disturbing or just icky? all of the above.

it's his Pop movie. i love it.

-- gypsy mothra (meetm...), March 16th, 2006.

otm

Room to Dream

Sez it's free, though -- and apparently there's Inland Empire behind the scenes footage on it.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=JLVH4BXlPc4&search=david%20lynch

YOU ARE WRONG WRONG WRONG

David Lynch's Middle East Peace Plan

An Airbus?

seriously guys, click on the correct video link and watch this. it is mindboggling.

lolz @ INXS ringtone - way to go douchebag

yes, the man is down for TM.
This is known.

his HAIR. IT'S FULL OF STARS.

amazing how a genius director can talk in such a shallow,banal ways about new age cliches that will of course bring peace to the world...

I am more just entranced by the way he stares into the crowd when INXS ringtone goes off. and his hair.

Guess who's back with a new film

like 20 years after her last one! i think boxing helena's faults are generally attributable to youth and inexperience (and casting Julian Sands)

David Lynch and Donovan, together at last

They already teamed up for a speaking tour earlier this year. I'm guessing this will be the first university to include the word "Invincible" in its name though (not including Invincible Iron Man Junior College).

i saw the donovan concert on pbs hosted by david lynch. it was SO BAD. mike love came out at the end and sang a song as crappy as a man could. i posted about it somewhere.

Mike Love is such a dick he named one of his kids Christian (his kids seem nice though)

I wonder what Lynch's eulogy will be like

I have yet to see Inland Empire all the way through but man do I dig it.

the last 15 minutes or so are really something else. I've watched it twice and its fantastic but a real undertaking.

Ok, this has to be a joke.

it is not - that's been out for a couple years at least

yeah, they were selling it at the IFC center when IE was playing. didn't actually buy any tho.

anyone care to recommend some movies by other directors I might like given I really like David Lynch?

Carnival Of Souls

The Tenant by Roman Polanski. It predates Lynch but has a very similar feel to his more surreal stuff, could even be that he was influenced by it.

i couldn't think of anything but Polanski is a good answer, actually. Repulsion, The Tennant and even Rosemary's Baby all have aspects in common with Lynch.

Maybe some of the Val Lewton films - The Seventh Victim for instance

Is Hitchcock too obvious?

Three Women

this.

also, if you can find it, "black moon" by louis malle. surreal psychosexual alice in wonderland stuff; includes at least one scene that i'm convinced was the basis for something in wild at heart.

Wizard of Oz duh

try these:

safe
audition
the spirit of the beehive
come and see
the holy mountain
persona
a tale of two sisters
choses secrètes

Woman in the Dunes

You might also enjoy movies by Julio Medem, especially The Red Squirrel and Tierra, as they're both surreal films about passions lurking beneath calm surfaces.

pauline kael nailed it in her blue velvet review: "Lynch might turn out to be the first populist surrealist - a Frank Capra of dream logic."

that was a random thought about lynch, apropos of nothing

werner herzog is probably also a good idea ... esp. even dwarfs started small.

OTM

I've never found the proper entry point for him, so I can't make recommendations, but: luis buñuel

Holy Mountain? I don't see that connection (unless yr thinking of the Dune angle)

their tones are totally diff but the wacky transgressive surrealism would appeal to a lynch fan methinks

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari & other German Expressionist films.

Last Year at Marienbad

Might be difficult to find, but worth it.

Criterion is releasing it this year.

Optimum released it in 2006 I believe.

Thanks for all these, just watching the Tenant now. I particularly like the way Lynch uses music if that makes a difference to recommendations.

ronan: here's a clip from herzog's even dwarfs started small, if you haven't seen it already (i also think herzog makes interesting use of music in his films). so i guess that if you like this, then you should rent this film:

a PETA film of the month favorite

I enjoyed The Tenant, though it was sort of less postmodern than maybe what I was looking for. I mean actually I'm sure lots of these films I will enjoy, but I get a huge kick out of Lynch using pop music or modern music in really weird contexts, or the kind of humorous weirdness of eg the woman dancing on the car in Blue Velvet.

I will keep checking out the above recommendations though.

Cronenberg always strikes me as Lynch's nearest point of comparison.

SCORPIO RISING by Kenneth Anger seems like the most obvious precursor to Lynch in terms of use of pop music, colour, occult iconography

^^^Yes absolutely
Kustom Kar Kommandos, Scorpio Rising, Rabbit Moon

, but I get a huge kick out of Lynch using pop music or modern music in really weird contexts

Have you seen much Dennis Potter?

LGarda: Bunuel

re: music yeah Potter is another good reference point, my personal favorite is "Lipstick on Your Collar" (feat. super-young Ewan MacGregor!) but the most Lynch-like is definitely the og Pennies from Heaven.

werner herzog is probably also a good idea ... esp. even dwarfs started small.

And "Kaspar Hauser", if you're a fan of "The Elephant Man"

I think maybe Blackeyes is Potter's most Lynchian, but not his best.

Potter wrote a screenplay adaptation of the DM Thomas novel The White Hotel for David Lynch in 1990, apparently.

I have a Potter boxset. Have seen about half of it.

i was going to suggest "syndromes and a century" but that's not particularly lynchian in the way that Ronan is geting at, it's pretty singular. the problem is that i can't think of anything that is lynchian in that way other than his own films.

^ this is sort of seals the deal on lynch's greatness for me (not that the door really needs sealing for me, but still). no matter who he may have been influenced by, and after decades of being remarkably successful and influential in the weirdo art movie game, there just aren't any other "lynch-like" movies out there. he stands alone.

this is a good parody, though:

miracle mile does that cheerful cardboard americana turning into utter nightmare thing from blue velvet pretty well.

the Anthony Edwards movie?

this is a good resource if you're looking for movie recommendations based on other movies you like: clerkdogs.com

I enjoyed The Tenant, though it was sort of less postmodern than maybe what I was looking for. I mean actually I'm sure lots of these films I will enjoy, but I get a huge kick out of Lynch using pop music or modern music in really weird contexts, or the kind of humorous weirdness of eg the woman dancing on the car in Blue Velvet.

most of the ones I listed are similar to lynch in that they're terrifying films but they aren't horror movies, they work on the axes of social fear and loathing, gothic absurdity, and transgressive behavior. their use of music is pretty standard except for safe, which has some ironic diagetic 80s tunes sprinkled throughout.

have you seen richard elfman's forbidden zone?

has anyone ever ever seen this film? and if so, is it even vaguely Lynchian? crispin glover was in wild at heart, after all.

no and I would like to. What Is It? I'd also love to see

The Shining strikes me as sharing a certain tone with Lynch's films. The bearsuit blowjob scene comes to mind.

Maybe Eyes Wide Shut too.

The Shining strikes me as sharing a certain tone with Lynch's films. The bearsuit blowjob scene comes to mind.

and that's quite deliberate -- if wikipedia is to be believed, stanley kubrick had the cast of the shining watch eraserhead in order to get them in the mood for what he was trying to accomplish with the shining.

Never knew that - thanks.

this has probably been posted many times before: Lynch's adert for Parisienne cigarettes

which totally of reminds me of fischi and weiss's der lauf der dinge:

fischli & Weiss *

movies that have been at the top of my to-see list for a long time for reasons not unrelated to their possible Lynchian-ness:

Tetsuo The Iron Man
The Reflecting Skin
Greaser's Palace
Night Dreams (nsfw googling as this is a porn film)
Liquid Sky (??? prolley not ???)

has anyone seen these? can they attest to the possible affinities to that which is Lynch-esque?

also:

Egoyan's The Adjuster REALLY freaked me out

you might do worse than ot check out certainanime titles. I'm thinking of FLCL and especially Revolutionary Girl Utena: The Movie which is fascinating in its nonlinearity...familiar with only the bare essentials of the original teen girls' anime series, but apparently the movie is related to the series the same way that Fire Walk With Me* is related to Twin Peaks...

*didn't FWIW top the box offices in Japan when it first came out?

the movie is related to the series the same way that Fire Walk With Me is related to Twin Peaks...

actually not true, the movie is not a prequel, but an alternate reality set-up with the lesbian overtones amped up and the themes all turned on their head...still good stuff though...

FWIW = FWWM of course

Lynch id the producer of the new Herzog movie:
My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1233219/

looks promising

also,more surprising, the Alejandro Jodorowsky comeback movie:
"king shot" with Nick Nolte,Asia Argento and Marilyn Manson,
now THAT i want to see!!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0892411/

"The story is to be set in a casino in the desert. The film involves gangsters, the discovery of a man as big as King Kong, and Marilyn Manson is said to portray a 300 year old pope. "

tetsuo is rad. no similarity to lynch other than that it's weird and super alienated - plus b&w like eraserhead & elepant mans

the reflecting skin is surreal & creepy coming of age thing, about the evil that lurks under the skin of the everday, so blue velvety, but not deeply so

greaser's palace is more like "zany" wokka-wokka american version of jodorowsky

night dreams is a new-wavey, very self-consciously surreal porn flick, but pretty cool for what it is. cafe flesh by the same crew might be better. they also made the erotic but non-pronographical dr. caligari. all are arty student film awkward, but also unique, campy and fun. probably closer to forbidden zone than to lynch (but nowhere near as relentlessly zany)

liquid sky is another new-wave artifakt, and by far the most low-budget flick on the list. none of these last three even remotely resemble lynch, but i love em all.

right on contenderizer. i thank you. :)

the adjuster is pretty much follows yr description of reflecting skin, except there are no scifi overtones that i can remember...also super-alienated...but with egoyan's trademark revealing style giving it the frame work...

(not saying you haven't seen it though...just for the record...)

i don't remember whether or not i've seen the adjuster. i think not. i think i've only seen family viewing and the sweet hereafter. maybe one more? anyway, i should go back and watch all the egoyan i missed. love the two i can remember. anyway, no sci-fi in the reflecting skin, either. tetsuo, liquid sky and night dreams are the sci-fi-ier ones.

the reflecting skin is surreal & creepy coming of age thing, about the evil that lurks under the skin of the everday, so blue velvety, but not deeply so

The Passion of Darkly Noon, Philip Ridley's second film also has Lynchian qualities, though the drama is more straightforward and there isn't as much humor. It's well worth the watch anyway, don't be scared by the fact that it co-stars Brendan Fraser.

oh, i thought some lady was like a vampire and there were weird guys riding around in limousines stealing children...who were also vampires...or something...for some reason i got the impression that the reflecting skin had a really dour donnie darko vibe to it...

i heard of the passion of darkly noon...that sounded really goo too...i think these movies are pretty unknown in the states...?

they aren't on dvd here

you can dl the reflecting skin from here:

http://www.cultrararevideos.com/forgottenflixr.html

thank you!

don't wanna ruin TRF for folks that haven't seen it, but it's not at all clear what "she" is. protagonist imagines that she and her boys are vampires...

what bunuel would be good to start with?

I don't see much connection between Buñuel and Lynch at all, besides some vague common theme of surrealism. Buñuel is much more playful and leftist/liberal than Lynch. Belle du Jour is the best one of his that I've seen, but it's also one of his less surreal movies.

Possible Worlds - I'd forgotten about this until this thread jogged ye olde memorybanks: A 2000 French-Canadian film featuring a pre-stardom Tilda Swinton I saw at a film festival years ago. If you dig the parallel realities/intersecting identity crises side of Lynch, this does a respectable job with similar themes.

Found via http://twitter.com/DAVID_LYNCH

that might be the coolest thing i've ever seen! good work Alba!

ASIAN MAN KILLED IN SEATTLE!!

^^^ no idea wtf i was on about with that last revive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKiIroiCvZ0

<3

Hahaha, that was amazing.

he is weirder than his movies are.
i love it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddp012WOO7A&feature=related

I think as a sort of rule, anytime you're at a bar with people, whenever one of them orders a heineken you should be obliged to yell "Heineken! what the fuck is that shit, Pabst Blue Ribbon!" and punch them in the stomach.

Here's to your fuck, Frank.

http://interviewproject.davidlynch.com

those short interviews of U.S small-town-locals are the most humanistic (along with The Straight Story) things he done, and one of his best projects in general imo.
great job.

ok, it's directed by his son - Austin, but still, it's great.like father , like son.

OK, does anyone here watch The Cleveland Show? This past Sunday's episode featured Lynch in an extended voice role as a bartender. When the character showed up, I was like, "Is that guy supposed to be David Lynch?" And the more he talked, I realized it really was him. Utterly weird. It's at Hulu if you want to see it.

Yeah, I watched that last night and had the exact same reaction. Bizarre.

saw blue velvet at a cinema last night with prob the worst audience possible - they just found pretty much everything about it totally hilarious.

there's a fair bit of comedy and as I said elsewhere it works really well as a satire of wholesome 50's Americana but to giggle throughout is coarse

at the Prince Charles? Have a bit of a love/hate relationship with that cinema..

I saw it coincidentally a couple of nights before his death was announced, on dvd. It was fabulous, of course.

giggling i can understand, sure, but not riotous laughing. i couldnt tell if it was film nerds showing how clever clever they were or just stupid people unable to treat it seriously. it was at the pcc yeah. i do like that cinema a lot, but sometimes you get some really fucking weird people there. eg - when i saw funny games one guy (maybe he was there last night too) just kept laughing at some of the most disturbing moments!

laughing at david lynch is not even on the same scale of inhumanity as eating at nandos

What about Chipotle? They opened one up on Charing Cross road recently, and embarrassing as it may be for myself, the food was awes for what is what.

*what it was.

i know nothing about chipotle

not tried that chipotle yet but i plan too soon
hopefully it wont be as bland as the mexian places in angel though

oh I went to one of those! just opposite the station. it wasn't BAD.

Thought it was better than Benito's Hat/El Burrito on Goodge, if you've been there.

My own barbecue slays Nando's anyday, but I do have a soft spot for the sauces on that counter.

Back to Lynch...I watched Twin Peaks s1 the other week. I mean it was good and certainly kooky but far from amazing....worlds worse than say Soprano/Wire/Mad Men class of 00s.

pfft.

david lynch's film in general can be VERY funny -- and yes, this includes blue velvet (and yes, even some of the more disturbing moments). if anything, this is one of the reasons why i've come to love lynch's films so much.

(whether it's reason for people to laugh HYSTERICALLY at anything, though, that's another matter.)

Tad! Sorry I didn't respond to your ILXmail; suffice to say I've gotten off my arse and have stuff in the pipeline now. Hope you're kicking on!

not a problem, acoleuthic :-) glad that you're doing what you're supposed to do ... i kid you sometimes, but you're good people!

now back to david lynch ...

which one should I see next if I've only seen BV and MD and regard both as titanic (esp latter)

definitely get eraserhead. which can be pretty funny too, if you look at it a particular way.

ok, I've heard I'd probably love that one too

Inland Empire is the one I really want to see though

^^I've got that, waiting for the perfect time to watch it though.

double-date imo

i hated that

though like most DL things i might like it more now

though watching BV on a big screen yesterday just made me think id still rather watch lynch direct a film thats made on er film rather than DV

Naomi Watts + Laura Elena Harring double-date

Definitely would've been amazing to watch Inland Empire at the bfi or somewhere with a rapt audience. In fact, I'm surprised they haven't done a Lynch retrospective season yet.

hahahaha you want me to corrupt my principles here dontcha

also what happens when they end up making out with each other

we make a DIY Mulholland Drive 2: North West London

Holloway Rd

actually i think IE might be better suited to watching at home on dvd
actually no, youtube is probably a better medium
watching it at the cinema i think is what made me hate it more

oh wait North West

Uxbridge Rd

Exactly, what is London's Mulholland Drive/Sunset Blvd? Haverstock Hill?

Either way, ILM is one of the most effective procrastination tools on planet Earth. :/

West Cross Way?

Holland Park Ave

^^^Ave can also be Latin for 'hai' and Average, DOUBLE MEANINGS, also Holland is in the initial title

let's do this, where are attractive lesbians, sinister cowboys and expert mimes

Only know NW + around my uni well, dude. There actually is a London in Literature module on my course but I liked the sound of Literary Linguistics more.

Holland Park def has a ring! Nandos is where the creepy man behind the car park lives.

Oh man that cowboy...what was his significance. do you think? Sent a chill up my spine when he appeared in that party sequence near the end.

yeah and where Naomi Watts really works (I always thought the barista in the opening 20 minutes and her either WERE the same actress, or should have been)

xp

Cowboy's significance? To deliver a fucking amazing speech, and to signify Classic Hollywood as a sort of ancient mafia, employing its own grandiose fixers to protect its fantastical domain?

and to signify Classic Hollywood as a sort of ancient mafia, employing its own grandiose fixers to protect its fantastical domain?

yeah this, film probably opens up and deepens some kind of resonance if you've lived or spent a lot of time in Hollywood. It is Wilder's Sunset Blvd's nightmare twin.

I wrote a lot about this interpretation of the film in the Mulholland Drive thread - it definitely is about the idea of 'the classic Hollywood movie' - showing the frail scaffolding of the concept and yet being one

am watching Youtubes of this guy's talks on Transcendental Meditation - is this shit as potent as he makes out?

SB is much worse though and delivers nowhere near the same mystical punch.

I'm interested though in films which present a similar vibe and setting to this, though. How about Robert Altman's Short Cuts?

xpost I'll seek out that thread. MD is definitely a film to savor and grow old with, but one of my own cinephile philosophies is that for every film you watch for a second or third time you could watch something new. Hah maybe that seems quite entry-level but I hate to be the guy who's seen MD 134 times.

I almost always find once is enough, for films. Maybe I'm weird.

Although to refute that, I love watching a real favourite film with a guest, for the dual motion of personally introducing them to something new, and enjoying the screening with them. I saw MD with my 17 year old brother recently and alas he hated it!

Anyway, gotta get to work. Your degree is good at the moment?

Although to refute that, I love watching a real favourite film with a guest, for the dual motion of personally introducing them to something new, and enjoying the screening with them.

yeah true, my best friend often rewatches a film with me present and I have been known to do the reverse. some of the greatest films I've seen...of course I'd see them again in different company. FEMALE COMPANY

My degree is OK, and I'm off to Dungeness for an interview tomorrow!

oooh with who? Or is it confidential? Hope to rack up some interviews this summer myself..

with a dude who runs a Bird Observatory there, and moonlights in a Top 40 indie-dance act

Sounds very good, post MA...I guess this is like the true beginning of adulthood.

lololol this IS my MA

post MA I don't have a fucking clue except that I'm starting a band

http://www.factmag.com/2010/11/29/david-lynch-releases-solo-electronic-single/

65 today. It helps to speak backwards Italian:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ4ai_W9BzI&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1&safe=active

I'll be showing the English, non-Simpsons version to my grade 6s today. After giving some background on the show, I always promise them that "this is going to completely freak you out." It never does, but it's always very dramatic when I announce that it will.

Happy Birthday David Lynch! :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atJuCtm6kgI

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/2790

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go98Oa10QR4

don't think there's been enough wtf in response to this

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/duran_duran_by_lynch.jpg

http://vimeo.com/21939919

These last couple of days I've been timing & color correcting deleted scenes from Blue Velvet. It's a beautiful trip down memory lane.

!!

http://www.badassdigest.com/2011/01/25/lost-blue-velvet-deleted-scenes-to-be-included-on-blu-ray

Man, that badassdigest link hints at an actual extended cut by the look of it. STOKED.

seriously doubt that happening, prolly just standard deleted scenes

We've been hearing about it for a long time, and now it's finally here: David Lynch's solo album of electronic pop. Here's the first thing you need to know about this album: It's called Crazy Clown Time.

http://pitchfork.com/news/43525-david-lynch-announces-his-debut-album-featuring-the-yeah-yeah-yeahs-karen-o/

He's also in the Pearl Jam documentary.

i like that song!

the David Lynch track from Return from Planet Dub:

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

he ripped off crispin glover!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH6b_lSQst0

surprised they dont steal from each other more often tbh

stop all this crap and make another movie.

^^^

I'm a bit nervous that Inland Empire will be his last one.

the world won't need film after crazy clown time drops

hey what happneed to my teenwolf!!

Just listened to "Catching the Big Fish", his audio book. He keeps talking about how awesome Transcendental Meditation, but of course not once does he actually explain how to do it. Well that's not entirely true, at one point he says he was introduced to it, some lady gave him a mantra, he sat down and started meditating on it and was instantly in a realm of bliss.

Does anyone know about TM? Seems to me like you have to have someone give you a special mantra, that not any mantra will do, but it has to be special and unique to the individual. I think this is one of the things the Beatles always thought was suspicious during their stay in the late 60s. Who can give you this mantra? Does it have to be a TM licensed guru?

mantras aren't necessary for meditation but it is kind of central to Lynch's specific discipline - you get your mantra from a guru, yeah

I think TM is not any different than just sitting there and listening to some nice music with your eyes closed for 15 minutes - he is crazy to start a corporation for people to meditate all day

Yeah but wouldn't a specific sound be able to match your unique vibration, or something like that? I could see the use in a personalized mantra, though yeah for transcendence obviously nothing is ultimately required.

It was created by Maharishi mahesh yogi or whatever who is seen as kind of a huckster? Just do regular meditation, it doesn't cost 10,0000 bucks.

I mean, the fact that they're asking fit so much money is enough for me to call bullshit.

^^^

Yeah but wouldn't a specific sound be able to match your unique vibration, or something like that?

well, it has to be a sound that you can personally can make and repeat. the repetition (and the mind-numbingness of repeating something endlessly) is part of how it works.

I'd like to get a hold of Lynch and teach him the REAL eternal truths of the universe

Yeah but wouldn't a specific sound be able to match your unique vibration, or something like that?

This presupposes that people have a "unique vibration," that a sound can "match" it, and that there's some benefit to matching that vibration. I'm with blank, it sounds like a way to separate Westerners with too much money from some of said money.

Just listening to the natural rhythm of the breath is probably the best technique, I'd guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vAICnFZA6I

Ok the other thread was open at the same time, so im posting this here. Tell David I caught a small fish.

I went to David Lynch and Donovan's TM tour a couple of years ago. One of the strangest, and ultimately hilarious, nights I've ever witnessed. Lynch was cool. His car pulled up just as I got to the Glasgow Film Theatre. He was very friendly, saying hello to everyone as his minders ushered him in. It was announced that he'd be giving an unprepared q & a session and we could ask whatever we wanted. So naturally plenty of people asked about what happened to Dale Cooper, if Ronnie Rocket would ever be made etc. 'Gee, I dunno' was his general answer, before he turned it round to talking about how great TM was. "BLISS!! SERENITY!!!" he kept repeating, spreading his arms in a breast stroke motion. It was rather ridiculous, but he still came across as a dude, albeit one who was trying to peddle the joys of TM. Now I recall, he did talk about having a mantra and how this brought "BLISS! JOY! SERENITY!".
After half an hour of this we got a ridiculous hour + of Donovan being cringingly awful.

haha, i was there too. bizarre night but amazing to see lynch in the flesh.

Shill or not, I don't doubt it is something that he uses in all his films for decades now.

Hope it's not true:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2011/aug/19/has-david-lynch-retired

I don't doubt that meditation aids his creative process. I'm just suspicious of any religion or cult that only offers enlightenment in return for wads of cash.

Why are celebs such suckers for religious/spiritual/self-help practices that demand lots of $$$? I'm with Telephoneface: Follow your breath! It's free.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GXGc4EobS8

whole thing is on NPR

More on the Blue Velvet reissue:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/nov/03/blue-velvet-flaming-nipple-deleted-scenes

Guardian is all over Lynch it seems. This is also a nice interview, about his music, inspiration, coffee and talking fish:

David Lynch: 'Sometimes the fish talks back to you'

This is where you can hear him talk about the album.
Still have to hear a single note. Also, I'm at episode 13 of my first Twin Peaks rerun since the series ran. Awesome! Totally forgot how very funny it all was. Back then I was mostly scared instead of amused, it seems :)

The album is surprisingly good.

Whoa thanks for the link Willem! Saving it for the dark night to listen to that! :)

The Blue Velvet reissue was released last month in belgium and the netherlands, I found out after this thread was revived. Just received the Blu-ray, and wow - that 51 minutes of lost footage is in high definition as well, and has a score and everything! (no subtitles though)

The Dutch Dune Blu-Ray really does say "Dino De Laurentiis presents a film by David Lunch" :

http://i39.tinypic.com/2lww47o.jpg

David has his own line of coffee: http://www.javadistribution.com/coffee/david-lynch-signature-cup-organic-coffee/

The album with Chrysta Bell is on Spotify.

He sure has a type.

66 today. As always, showed my students Cooper's dream.

Do your students enjoy your Culture Corner bits, or do they tolerate them with lols and eyerolling?

Sure does (x^2p)

Depends. Some stuff they're genuinely interested in--the Kennedy assassination, anything to do with the Beatles, Spielberg, etc. Things like the Jefferson Airplane, or Eisenhower, they're not much interested in. How interested I am has a lot to do it with sometimes; I don't think they'd normally be the least bit interested in Nixon or Scorsese, but I really make a big production out of it with them, and it carries over. For most of the Twin Peaks clip, they were giggling--with it, at it, who knows? I do know the 5 or 10 minutes I take up with this stuff is far and away the high point of the day for me. Teaching place value can be a bit of a comedown afterwards.

amazing sense of dread in this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbf8PMuphqo

yeah, great little film. shows more than anything else that he's always been very attuned to sound and music in generating his effects.

technically his first film is "six men getting sick," but that was part of an installation so...

is it just me or does he seem to have descended back into self-parody for most of his endeavors since inland empire?

make a movie again ffs

I have a feeling Lynch won't ever make another feature length film.

He should make a feature length animation.

I have a feeling Lynch won't ever make another feature length film.

i have heard this speculation several times now. why do you think he's done w film? i expect at least one more feature from him.

he's pretty old and doesn't seem to be actively working on any film projects, he appears to be focusing his energy on different types of art

coffee iirc

no one knew he he had been working on INLAND for years until a few months before it was released.

well, not "no one", obviously. i'm sure the actors and crew knew.

that's not true. i heard reports about it many months before it came out.

not that long before it was released at any rate.

really? I remember reading about lynch making a movie w/ jeremy irons and some other folks in inland empire (before the film had that name) and then spending a while wondering when it would come out.

I recall that the copy of Lynch on Lynch that I have mentions something about him being at work on IE.

A revised edition was published by Farrar Straus & Giroux on March 16, 2005 (ISBN 0-571-22018-5)

btw, for the uninitiated, that book is def worth seeking out.

dunno if this has been posted elsewhere, but here's basically an hour of deleted/lost/etc scenes from Blue Velvet (!)

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

so, these are different from the deleted scenes that showed up on the new bluray release I take it?

Sounds like it is basically the same batch of stuff

Altogether, 50 minutes of never-before-seen footage have been re-edited – supervised by Lynch – into an extra on a new DVD celebrating the film's 25th anniversary (available early next year in the UK).

from this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/nov/03/blue-velvet-flaming-nipple-deleted-scenes

On a B. K1te kick. Did this ever get linked upthread?

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news/remain-light-mulholland-dr-and-cosmogony-david-lynch

He’s singularly brave and direct in his approach to heightened emotion, which makes him a rare creature in a modern movie menagerie that generally prefers to peer into such areas through thickets of irony. His approach is stylised but not mocking, though his proclivity for searching for new tones through the contrast of disjunctive elements – say Deputy Andy’s crying fit on the discovery of Laura Palmer’s body in the Twin Peaks pilot (1990) – frequently lands somewhere hard to peg.

Well now I'm hungry

goin with the ears

friends made me a blue velvet cake for my birthday one year (with icing laura dern on top)

omg this was five years ago but it was still a VG halloween costume, i think:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v369/colinohara/58206629_05e51b13b9.jpg

“It’s a very depressing picture. With alternative cinema—any sort of cinema that isn’t mainstream—you’re fresh out of luck in terms of getting theatre space and having people come to see it. Even if I had a big idea, the world is different now. Unfortunately, my ideas are not what you’d call commercial, and money really drives the boat these days. So I don’t know what my future is. I don’t have a clue what I’m going to be able to do in the world of cinema.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/waxing-lyrical-david-lynch-on-his-new-passion--and-why-he-may-never-make-another-movie-8665457.html

i've been on a huge lynch kick recently. i'm certainly not a pro (haven't even seen inland empire or lost highway yet), but i'm putting together a 2013 david lynch summer series where we watch almost ALL of his work, chronologically, across 13 weeks. gathering together the tangent ephemera - the angriest dog in the world comic strip, essays, the Morricone-esque song by early 70s prog group Tractor that features about 2/3 of the way through The Grandmother - has been a treat! i'm trying to identify the most lynchian drink possible to serve up each night - PBR? certainly not heineken, that would be a faux pas.

Coffee

http://www.counterpointcafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/david-lynch-coffee-021.jpg

coffee's a great call but it's going to be 8pm on a weekday for most of these screenings. and decaf is...unacceptable.

Awesome fan vid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRFJNpAff_A&list=PLWL_UigKlz-nU4XObLsLNGK45wZrtaqup&index=1

PBR is prolly the way to go.

lol at the coffee commercial tribute.

if anyone else has links to anything lynch, post 'em here! before, in between, and after screenings i'm planning on showing things like commercials, music videos, etc.

I just read this Film Quarterly piece on The Straight Story and it, well, blew my mind. A completely different brilliant take...

Anthony Lane of The New Yorker dismissed The Straight Story as a "comic coda to Lost Highway." Although the film is clearly not comic at its heart, it does, like its predecessor, use one story to mask another, more sinister, one. Lost Highway's protagonist Fred represses all memory of having murdered his wife in a jealous rage; he only glimpses himself howling over her dismembered corpse on grainy videotape, and, in the film's second half, re-imagines his story as a pulpy film noir with himself as the unwitting dupe of his wife (reincarnated as a femme fatale)--instead of as the villain he truly is. (As he tells two detectives in the film's first half, "I like to remember things my own way.") Similarly, Alvin Straight never brings himself to tell the straight story of his own past; he tells, instead, incomplete and disguised versions of it to the strangers he meets, hears echoes of it in the stories they tell him, and sees distorted reenactments of it in one scene after another.

The real story of The Straight Story turns out not to be very straightforward at all, but involuted and hidden--buried, as in Lost Highway, within the ostensible narrative like a repressed memory. This movie is about how a mean drunk named Alvin Straight lost his daughter's children to the state because he let one of them get burned in a fire. This is the only way the film makes sense as a unified whole, as anything other than the meandering picaresque most reviewers thought it was. Alvin Straight is riding his mower with its wagon all those hundreds of miles along highway shoulders not on an errand of forgiveness, but as an ordeal of atonement. There is darkness here beneath the bright autumn colors, and evil concealed in Alvin's heart. There is the history of a family destroyed by alcoholism and abuse. There is fire and death.

Is this all really unexpected? The Straight Story is a David Lynch film, after all.

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

His great sitcom Rabbits, as seen in Inland Empire is a good choice.

love that FQ piece, alex. it's been so long since i saw the straight story (during its theatrical run) that i can't now remember whether or not that reading occurred to me. either way, it's fascinating and makes me want to watch the film again.

sorry, alex elvis

I haven't seen Rabbits yet (or Inland Empire!), but it's on my viewing schedule for night #11, along with Dumbland, Boat, Lady Blue Shanghai and I Touch a Red Button.

and thanks for the link to that Straight Story review E T! i've only seen it once, in high school in some lazy May afternoon class when the students no longer want to learn and the teacher no longer wants to teach. i had no idea who david lynch was and thought it was some nauseating family friendly disney shit. definitely can't wait to watch it again with a new angle.

love the one minute film Lynch made with a restored Lumiere camera

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

^ yeah, i remember that being the standout piece. just watched it again, still astounding. one shot!

Yeah wow

that's "Premonitions Following an Evil Deed", right?

i remember how pissed off i was at the greenaway one in that series, he used all sorts of cuts and post effects and stuff

Going to watch Straight Story again this week.

yeah that's definitely an interesting take and has made me keen to see it again. cheers for the link.

You definitely need to show his early animations. "Six People Getting Sick" and "The Alphabet". This is a good source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Short_Films_of_David_Lynch

Plus "The Cowboy and the Frenchman" is on it, which I remember was pretty funny.

I have my full list of viewings in a text file at home (god, i just realized i'm getting old because a teenager probably would have put it on google drive or something. my flesh...is decaying...my face...the wrinkles widen...*close-up of flame*), but the first night is going to be Six People Getting Sick, The Alphabet, The Grandmother, the Amputee, and then Eraserhead. I'm trying to straight-up chronological, as much as I can. Once it gets into the 90s and 2000s I'm going to have to be a little bit more selective, though. It's already at 13 nights, 2+ hours each, and that's with leaving out some things.

My main dilemma is whether to show the pilot ep. of Twin Peaks (American version), pilot episode (Intl. version that has the weird grafted on "ending"), or Fire Walk with Me.

I'm already planning on showing a few related clips (the coffee commercials, maybe the SNL sketch with Kyle MacLachlan and Phil Hartman doing a hilarious Leland), so showing both the pilot episode + Fire Walk with me would be overkill.

but but but you gotta! both the pilot and fwwm are essential documents, much more so than the related ephemera.

i don't know why i'm worrying about it anyway, by the 7th night of the series it's just going to be me, alone

I'm kinda leaning toward the Pilot only, and maybe just the American version. The thing is, both Fire Walk with Me and the intl. version of the pilot would reveal the Bob/Leland connection, and that might the entire show for people who haven't seen it yet.

fair enough. fwwm is probably my least favorite of lynch's feature length films, so if you gotta cut one...

Missing words in my posts, case log #2134:

forgot to include the word "ruin" between "might" and "the entire show"

so, i'm still working my way through his oeuvre, chronologically. last night was Hotel Room (1993), next week is Lost Highway.

Hotel Room. made for HBO, 3 episodes (the first two are 30 minutes, the last is 40). Lynch directed the first and last. Each episode takes place in the same hotel room (and the outside hallway), but with a different cast (except for the bellboy, who is the same age and has the same appearance even though the three episodes span 60 years of time). The middle episode has some random director that they brought in at the last minute, and it's not worth mentioning. the first is compelling in its own way and has a really nice performance from harry dean stanton.

but the third episode, "black out"...very much worth watching. it takes place in 1936, and crispin glover is just fantastic in it. he plays a husband from oklahoma that's shepherding his mentally disturbed wife in a trip to NYC to visit a doctor. they talk and talk. it's wonderful. check out the first episode if you have time, but if not, invest 40 minutes in this, it's worth it if you're a lynch fan (skip to 53:40 for the third episode):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CI_I6ewm-FY

and if you're concerned about the quality of the video/audio, the youtube clip is about as good as it gets. it was released on VHS only, never on DVD (at least in the US), and it's long out of print.

alicia witt is so fuckin good in that

This doc is pretty good (NB: I'm only 10 mins in):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td5u4gW0g54

that lumiere short is seriously one of the most impressive things he's done, and the best short in that "lumiere and company" film for sure. i also fondly recall the one by idrissa ouedraogo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bFITC5Kb5g

xpost

great doc! I hadn't seen that one before. It is interesting to see Lynch asked some difficult questions and get challenged on some of his answers.

is that the one where he talks about "the eye of the duck"?

I don't like wind on my collarbone.

xpost it is!

That eye of the duck stuff is amazing. Slow and fast rooms. "Maybe an empty room is 2. A person is a 7. Fire/electricity takes it up to 9..."

You guys, that is just standard TM talk... :-\

what's TM?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_Meditation

Does TM really talk about the eye of the duck?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tom6_ceTu9s

i imagine that's pretty much the level of discourse you're going to get at those TM conferences that david lynch frequents

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03d114j/The_Sound_of_Cinema_The_First_Time_with_David_Lynch/

nice show about sounds which influenced him as he grew up.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BnsD7gJIgAAMgyq.jpg

DL on Eraserhead and Philly

It was a film that was inspired by the city of Philadelphia, and it’s an industrial world. It’s a smokestack-industry world. It’s factory-worker homes tucked away out of time. It has a certain feel, and the sounds have to marry to that feel, and [sound editor] Alan Splet and I just would work until we got the thing to feel correct.

I went there a couple of years ago, and the city is completely different. It felt very normal to me, not like it was then. It was brighter and cleaner and it had graffiti. And graffiti has ruined the world....

It’s defaced the beauty of the architecture, and you can’t film anywhere without the patinas on the bricks on the buildings. It’s been ruined. It happened in all the places I already love, like factories and railroad lines and bridges. All these places have been so badly defaced.

http://www.vulture.com/2014/09/david-lynch-interview-eraserhead-midnight-movies.html

“Not that it should surprise anyone who’s seen how Lynch depicts ostensibly idyllic small-town America, but the director’s avowed love for his adoptive hometown is hardly reflected in his work.” In “Muted Golden Sunshine: David Lynch’s Los Angeles,” a piece for the Los Angeles Review of Books, Michael Nordine considers Lost Highway (1997), Mulholland Drive (2001) and Inland Empire (2006).

http://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/muted-golden-sunshine-david-lynchs-los-angeles#

i was surprised that thom andersen didn't address any of those films in his "Los Angeles Plays Itself"

there's definitely a current in lynch's work that rhymes with the whole Reaganite "morning in America" stuff even though surface readings of e.g. Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks would seem to indicate the opposite. but Lynch seems to consistently conflate poverty, filth, and moral rot in a way that could be read as reactionary.

poverty? really?

you don't think so?

I'm at a loss to recall any particular instance of some kind of classist snobbery in his work. In Twin Peaks the working class guys (Big Ed, Truman, Hawk, James) are the good guys. The Straight Story also has a certain dignity-of-the-working-class tone to it. IE, MD, and LH I would have a hard time identifying any of the central characters belonging to any specific economic strata (I guess Naomi Watts is obviously not as rich as Justin Theroux - but the latter is a clueless asshole whereas the former is deluded but more sympathetic). Dune is all about aristocracies until you get to the Fremen, who are obviously salt-of-the-earth types, and the ones responsible for redeeming the universe. Eraserhead is just about industrial wasteland in general, seems like everybody is poor and suffering in that movie unless there's some kindly rich character I'm forgetting.

the filth and moral rot seem to operate at all levels of society for him afaict.

Blue Velvet it seems like everybody is from the same middle class social strata, some people are just more psychotic than others lol

it's not as simple as classist snobbery. he's not a snob in that sense. there's a kind of middle-class, middle American distaste for both the rich and the poor. a sense of moral rot at both extremes, though it often seems more visceral when connected to poverty. i'm thinking of the trailer parks in twin peaks, much of the underworld that jeffrey encounters in blue velvet, the homeless guy in mulholland drive, some other stuff that i can't immediate bring to mind.

i think the veneration (?) of the working-class types is not inconsistent with a visceral disgust (i wouldn't exactly call it hatred) of the idle poor.

this was not an uncommon critique of lynch ca. twin peaks, btw. maybe it's off base, but it always seemed at least partially correct to me.

i think the veneration (?) of the working-class types is not inconsistent with a visceral disgust (i wouldn't exactly call it hatred) of the idle poor.

btw this is where "reagan democrats" and morning in america, etc. come in...

i was surprised that thom andersen didn't address any of those films in his "Los Angeles Plays Itself"

I went to a screening of Mulholland Drive last month, introduced by the author of this new book, The Architecture of David Lynch. He brought up the fact that Thom Anderson left Lynch out, and claimed Anderson had said it was because Lynch sees LA as a tourist, which didn't interest him.

i'm thinking of the trailer parks in twin peaks, much of the underworld that jeffrey encounters in blue velvet, the homeless guy in mulholland drive

I'd say almost all of these (w the exception of Blue Velvet) are balanced out by extremes of evil at the other end of the economic strata in the respective films/shows. Blue Velvet is weird, I dunno what signifiers indicate that any of the underworld types are poor. They're weird and creepy, but they aren't living in housing projects. I guess you could read a lot into the Heinekin/Pabst Blue Ribbon thing (a pair of signifiers which have oddly switched places since).

oh i think there are plenty of indications that frank's milieu, esp. the place where dorothy's son is being held, is on the wrong side of town, so to speak.

it's amazing how vividly i recall details of that film w/o having seen it for years, btw.

Here you go, re: Thom Andersen and Lynch:

It may say something that Mulholland Drive is a movie often cited by people who live outside of Los Angeles, but never by people who live here. Maybe it’s because Lynch’s vision of Los Angeles remains that of a tourist, although he has lived here for many years.

From Collateral Damage: Los Angeles Continues Playing Itself

Andersen's attitude seems to have softened since then, however:

I liked Inland Empire, my favorite David Lynch film … With Inland Empire what I had first regarded as arty in his work I began to realize was vulgar. I started to appreciate his films more after seeing that.

http://parallax-view.org/2011/03/24/screening-los-angeles-an-interview-with-thom-andersen/

thanks for that!!

i think andersen can be really dogmatic when it comes to films depicting L.A., as the first quote kind of indicates (cited in what? for what? by whom?)--i still like his essay film though.

i think even lynch would probably admit to seeing L.A. somewhat like a tourist. but that doesn't invalidate his vision! L.A. is, among other things, a major tourist destination.

Yeah, that was the attitude Richard Martin (the speaker) expressed: that it was all the better for it being an outsider's (Betty's) view.

i think maybe lost highway could be seen as more problematic, but lynch's films are so hermetic and strange that objecting to its view of los angeles seems sort of beside the point. i do think he's obviously admiring of aspects of L.A.'s built environment.

in twin peaks and blue velvet there's a sense of boundaries (moral boundaries linked to geographical ones)that are being invaded from outside or that one chooses to cross but in the l.a. films evil has a home everywhere; there's no sanctuary or innocence left to corrupt. imo.

I don't know how the compassion and openness of his Interview Project (http://interviewproject.davidlynch.com) can fit with or relate to the corruption of his film worlds, but it seems worth considering when making broad claims about his oeuvre.

i think what comes out in his films and what he's like normally are not necessarily the same thing

Mulholland Drive is a movie often cited by people who live outside of Los Angeles, but never by people who live here.

oh, come on.

yeah that's just pedantic nonsense

well TA takes Chinatown to task for warping history thru a '70s paranoiac prism, but i don't care.

i read that to the tune of "jimmy crack corn"

http://40.media.tumblr.com/8221cbe698d76f88dad257092bc95a14/tumblr_mi966nu4Os1qbyqfpo1_400.jpg

Dennis Lim has a book, “David Lynch: The Man from Another Place,” out November 3rd from Amazon Publishing.

Whether innate or cultivated or both, the picture of David Lynch the straight-arrow square is striking for the obvious contrast with the darkness and extremity of the work, its obsession with grotesquerie and depravity. In view of the work, in fact, Lynch’s mild-mannered calm can seem somewhat creepy. This is the contradiction — David Lynch the all-American weirdo — that defines how we think about him. Not for nothing did Mel Brooks call him “Jimmy Stewart from Mars” and David Foster Wallace describe his voice as “Jimmy Stewart on acid.”

That voice has become more caricatured over the years, even the subject of self-parody. Most of us know it from Lynch’s recurring cameo as the hard-of-hearing F.B.I. bureau chief Gordon Cole in “Twin Peaks,” whose foghorn delivery only slightly exaggerates Lynch’s speaking voice. So much about Lynch’s fraught relationship with language is summed up in that voice, in its unnervingly high volume and halting cadences. It’s clear from the 1979 footage — and from almost every interview he has done since — that words do not come easily to him. Both Lynch and his first wife, Peggy Reavey (née Lentz), have referred to his “pre-verbal” years, a phase that lasted into his early twenties, when he had a hard time stringing even more than a few words together. In his early short film, “The Alphabet,” verbal learning is a source of dread: a young girl is terrorized by the letters of the alphabet as she sleeps. The serial killer in “Twin Peaks” leaves lettered scraps of paper under the nails of his victims.

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/david-lynchs-elusive-language

Can't believe DFW used the old "x on acid" line.

i always think of david byrne repeatedly deadpanning it (x="60 minutes") in the stop making sense self-interview.

“If you’re going into the netherworld, you don’t want to go in with Chuck Heston.”

http://41.media.tumblr.com/5ef522318a02f64b3dc302a0437d6f42/tumblr_mhyf6btTso1rxjpzqo1_500.png

(not that welles wanted to)

I looked up the 1979 interview mentioned in that New Yorker article:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3WFOPWbG8I

A lot of interesting stuff here. Lynch is clearly himself, but didn't quite have the whole David Lynch shtick yet, so he comes off a bit more earnest. I like what he has to say about the comedy element in Eraserhead, it helps to make sense of the role comedy plays in many of his films. Also, I never knew that parts of Eraserhead were filmed in downtown LA.

Thanks Moodles.

more from the

...Lim book; on Mulholland Dr.

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/3776-lim-on-lynch-mulholland-dr

The jury, led by the actress and director Liv Ullmann, awarded the best director prize jointly to Lynch and Joel Coen (for The Man Who Wasn’t There).

lol um one of these things is not like the other

but didn't quite have the whole David Lynch shtick yet, so he comes off a bit more earnest

but isn't lynch's shtick precisely that he's earnest?

i mean the moments when the shtick slips is when he admits to irony or to commercial imperatives.

I guess what I mean is there is less of the wacky showman element in this early interview

roundup on the book

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-dennis-lim-on-david-lynch

dfw's symbol of the shtick moodles is talking about was

http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/1990/1101901001_400.jpg

(good fixed-in-time headlines there)

can't wait to read Lim's book.

Lim interview:

Lynch’s compound, which I was fortunate enough to visit when I was writing about Inland Empire, is set up like a place that’s really conducive to working. There’s a quote I use in the book from Isabella Rossellini about how he set everything up to optimize working conditions. He has his house, office, recording studio, and screening room. You see art on the walls. I’m sure there are meditation spaces. Right at the top of the property, he had this beautiful studio where he works. You can see that in the weather reports he used to do and the documentaries about him. He obviously hasn’t made a film in a long time, but he’s been extremely prolific. I was surprised when I went to the Philly exhibition how much he had produced in the last ten years — new paintings and all kinds of work.

http://flavorwire.com/546923/discovering-the-man-from-another-place-dennis-lim-on-his-book-about-david-lynchs-labyrinthine-works

i went to lim's talk at videology the other night, and bought the book. it's well-written (so far, i'm only a few chapters in) but kind of light on new information. i haven't really learned anything that i didn't know about him already from other biographies (Beautiful Dark and Lynch on Lynch). during Lim's talk someone asked him if he had interviewed him for the book, and he said that although he relied on 3 past interviews that he had done years ago, Lynch didn't want to be interviewed for this one. but i still need to finish the rest of the book, so maybe there's some new stuff. i'm especially interested in the post-Lost Highway period

i thought you might've gone to that!

i didn't think i would, but happened to be nearby anyway so i dropped in!

btw there's this dual series upcoming at Linc Ctr (if you're not travelin')

http://www.filmlinc.org/daily/lineup-for-lynchrivette-dual-retrospective-revealed/

Yep, i should be around for at least some of it! i haven't seen anything by rivette, so i'd be most interested in seeing what's regarded as one of his better films.

What I consider the lesser films of Lynch and Rivette... yikes. (Tho I haven't seen Wild at Heart in 25 years.)

Watching "The Straight Story" right now for the first time. It is really hitting the spot. Good mix of goofy small-town charm mixed w cosmic profundity.

Love the running joke about Wisconsin being a big party state.

Also appreciated the movie beginning w a nonsensically staged shot of someone sunbathing outside. Lynch really likes hanging on to images of corners and it always does something weird to my brain.

Wow, loved the ending.

The Straight Story is my favorite Lynch. Richard Farnsworth is so damn good.

It was really TM. A lot of shots of people reflecting on something and it fading into stars.

I liked Alvin's sense of humor. He realized he was out of his mind but he was going to do it anyways.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk8Y-XxaAog

First *rescreen* of Lost Highway in 18 years... The first 45 minutes are pretty good, don't like much else except the Loggia "safety manual" freakout. Similar territory he covered earlier (and later) better.

It'll never be a favorite but I like it a little better with each rewatch.

didn't remember all the nude Arquette

The sense of dread around the images on the videotape is really something and the "call me" scene at the party is singularly terrifying.

didn't remember all the nude Arquette
--skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius)

There's a bunch of her. Plus nude Nathalie Wood daughter too

Criterion Mulholland Drive has several great interviews with Lynch and crew, definitely worth checking out

He's 70 years old today.

I saw a couple of his early shorts on Hulu last weekend... The Grandmother def seems like a warmup for Eraserhead.

Filmed entirely in his house (some of which he painted entirely black) iirc

or filmed mostly in his house, rather. can't remember but i think there are some outside scenes as well

So Dolly Parton and Davids Lynch and Bowie were all born within days of one another??? What on earth was in the water back then, and can we bottle and distribute that shit?

I adore The Grandmother.

Bowie was born in '47, a year later, OL

Ahhhhhh. Thanks. I mistakenly thought his last birthday was his 70th.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CjPSzO5VAAAk37R.jpg

Um.

Now I'm picturing Lynch doing that late-period thing that other respected artists sometimes do where they get tired of toiling in relative obscurity and decide to just coast and cash in and direct Fast 9.

not sure how you got from point A to B there

That's like his Bret Ratner pic. Just before he got completely roided out but after he'd already been hooking up with supermodels and doing lots of blow for a while.

haha ok

he was just promoting these people fwiw: https://allianceofmoms.com/

promoting a password-protected Wordpress blog?

Yup

Saw Blue Velvet in a theater for the first time last night. Absolutely floored. Don't think I'd seen it in 10+ years. Fucking bowled me over completely, especially in a gorgeous + huge art deco theater. The opening sequence is one of my favorite pieces of film ever. Been thinking about this post all morning:

Are you sure the ending of Blue Velvet is happy? It always seemed important to me that the bird was fake, and that the acting in the last scene is even more stilted than normal. Something about how happiness is defined.
― Dan I., Tuesday, December 18, 2001 8:00 PM (14 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was really excited about INLAND EMPIRE at the time and the path Lynch might take with digital video- seems now is that he'll never make another film, just like John Waters. In a lot of ways, Blue Velvet was the movie that would've been the next step for John Waters but he got beaten to the punch by Lynch.

those are two directors with *very* different sensibilities

w/r/t all their other movies, sure. But Blue Velvet's early sixties Americana, perversion in a small town- that's quintessential Waters. And if he ever wanted to move beyond the campiness of Polyester, Blue Velvet is the movie he would've made. I can imagine Waters being pretty deflated when he saw it in 1986.

when has waters ever been interested in moving beyond camp? Beyond some surface similarities in their reference points (which were, tbf, all over the place at the time - the proliferation of "wow late-50s/early 60s America sure was fucking WEIRD" were all over the place at the time until finally drying up in the late 90s), Lynch and Waters have very different goals as filmmakers. Waters has never been interested in being serious, or evoking horror, or in fucking with narrative and audience expectations the way Lynch is.

I mean you can draw a through line from Blue Velvet and True Stories and Polyester and Edward Scissorhands to any number less successful movies, this exploration of middle America's inner weirdness was a cultural thing not at all specific to any of the filmmakers, all of whom made very different movies for very different reasons. it wasn't a competition.

I mean there were so many movies about this - Stand By Me, Parents, it's a long list

Wow, I was just thinking about Parents as I read the above couple posts, haven't thought about it in years!

Bob Balaban's lone horror film!

I was really excited about INLAND EMPIRE at the time and the path Lynch might take with digital video- seems now is that he'll never make another film, just like John Waters.

given that lynch just finished shooting an ~18hr film that if successful could raise his profile higher than it's been in a decade, I don't think it's unreasonable to hold out hope that he can get another theatrical picture made

You mean the new Twin Peaks? TV is one thing, I don't think it'll be much easier to get funding for a feature film or if he's even interested.

xposts Waters' wheelhouse is camp but I'm not convinced he never wanted to move beyond it and make something darker and more serious like Blue Velvet. Whether or not he had the capacity to, or even thought about it before Blue Velvet, it struck me as the film he should've made in the mid-80's. Strange to think there was such a long gap between Polyester in 81 and Hairspray in 88.

xxpost (aside) Not film but Balaban also had some involvement with Tales From the Darkside.

but I'm not convinced he never wanted to move beyond it and make something darker and more serious like Blue Velvet

Waters is not exactly a reclusive or secretive person, he's made no secret of his goals as a filmmaker and has written extensively about his films, their inspirations, and his sensibility. Like, entire books. I dunno why you would think this about him, it's something he has literally never expressed an interest in.

I'm thinking specifically of an interview in the New York Press years ago where it came up. He said he loved the film but was bummed and felt beaten to the punch by Lynch. Trying to find it online.

in a weird way, I feel like Waters' films are much more wholesome than David Lynch's

I mean, Pink Flamingos is basically just a disgusting movie about a loving family

this is great - Ebert gets it totally wrong, and suggests that Isabella Rossellini was used and abused by Lynch against her will. Siskel points out that she consented to the role, then Ebert says "well the film was shot in two halves, and she had no idea the other half was all campy comedy!" - as if she didn't read the entire script?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uehfL60EA4