David Lynch - Classic or Dud

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.”

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(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