David Lynch - Classic or Dud

(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