David Lynch - Classic or Dud

It's probably worth noting the posts in the cosmic horror thread where people cogently explain why they wouldn't conflate Lynch's worldview with e.g. Lovecraft's.

like, enjoying that line has nothing to do with the actual FBI and everything to do with the character's position in this fictional universe

xxp

Since when has the context of a line of dialogue ever mattered? Since never, that's when.

https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fmidwestcoastal.files.wordpress.com%2F2013%2F11%2Fdale-cooper-thumbs-up.png%3Fw%3D400%26h%3D550&f=1

the line in the article about Mike evoking otherness through his disability just seems wrong on many levels

Didn't he cut off his own arm to rid himself of BOB?

enjoying that line has nothing to do with the actual FBI and everything to do with the character's position in this fictional universe

YEAH THX I'M DUMB

christ i fucking hate this place sometimes

the FBI in Twin Peaks bears virtually no relationship to the actual irl FBI

wellllll, they have the same name...

sorta like the FBI in Mississippi Burning

I keep forgetting that David Lynch directed a Sparks video

I didn't know that! nuts

YEAH THX I'M DUMB

I think there's some Christian homily that applies here let's see if you can figure it out

I caught a lunch interview - think it was Charlie rose idk- yesterday from around the time of lost highway

Now I wanna watch more good lynch interviews. Any recommendations?

The documentary films the art life and lynch one and the quinoa video

It's not filmed, but Chris Rodley's series of interviews in Lynch on Lynch is essential reading.

Hmm the art life is available +#**around the place*#-+ y/n

Art Life is good

lynch one

you got me Shakey, i'm not a Christian anymore

Lapsed democrat

I keep forgetting that David Lynch directed a Sparks video

― streeps of range (wins), Thursday, August 31, 2017 2:04 PM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

WHAT

ikr

I haven't seen it

The director's identity seems to be in dispute, but you can draw yr own conclusions:

https://youtu.be/TH5USLpPa_0[

Sorry, that should be:

https://youtu.be/TH5USLpPa_0

@darragh - here are some sweet ones:

circa 1990, career overview, interviews Lynch & close associates, really really great
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On02Z42mznc

circa 2005-06, behind the scenes & making of Inland Empire. lots of stuff about process
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG0OzpEjUPU

Ah lovely, thanks!

yeah no...

‘I Predict’ came with a striking video that fell foul of the conservatism of MTV. Directed in the style of David Lynch by group friends, identical twins and occasional actors Doug and Steve Martin, it is crammed full of strangeness. Shot in a dimly lit bar outside LA, Ron, in drag, develops the bride theme from the album’s cover with Russell still wearing the cover’s wedding suit. And Ron is stripping. And Russell is watching. Something is clearly not right. With the attendant promotion and the video’s notoriety, ‘I Predict’ reached number 60 on the Billboard Hot 100. Sparks had finally achieved a US Top 100 single after a decade of trying.

Talent Is An Asset: The Story Of Sparks
Daryl Ealesa

Doug Martin
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0552220/

Steve Martin
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0553094/

Just posted this in the TP thread

https://youtu.be/nu6BUQUDjII

And I know lots of people can't stand Mark Cousins, but this has some good moments

https://youtu.be/MIlmdLPUdpg

xpost: The Martin twins from that same year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRbeBV5UEZU

My bad, I was taking as my source the Sparks biography by Dave Thompson, which I've been re-skimming in anticipation of seeing them later this month. Pretty big thing for a biographer to get wrong!

that article posted up above is pretty lame. talk about starting from a bad premise and cherry picking evidence.

i do think there is something to be said for critics vicariously using Lynch as a scapegoat to work out/indulge some inner kinks and moral shaming but this guy seems to miss that point entirely.

Other characters from the White Lodge are similarly tokenised—The Man from Another Place (Michael J. Anderson) has osteogenesis imperfecta and The Fireman’s (Carel Struycken) height is the result of acromegaly.

right and the correct thing to do would be not feature these actors at all so as not to be accused of tolkenism

you dont have to cherry pick shit! the only black ppl in the new tp (out of a cast of hundreds) are literally
- a hooker
- a jazz band
- ernie hudson

tbf it's only tolkenism if hobbits are involved

you can admit there are issues with representation without jumping to the dumb conclusion that David Lynch wants to enforce normality and everything weird in his movies is to be looked at with condescension.

For Lynch, such normalcy ultimately looks a lot like conservative, middle-class American life

as depicted where? Inland Empire? Mulholland Drive? Eraserhead? honestly wondering where this positive depiction of conservative middle class American life exists in Lynch's films. cos the author of this piece doesn't give any examples, he just gives counter examples of "weird stuff" and infers from there

i do think there is something to be said for critics vicariously using Lynch as a scapegoat to work out/indulge some inner kinks and moral shaming but this guy seems to miss that point entirely.

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Friday, 1 September 2017 00:18

Something to be said for scapegoating? That it sucks.

imo Lynch has grown more sympathetic towards the lower class in his work. Laura Dern having the transformative lighter experience with the street lady in Mulholland Drive. look at Harry Dean Stanton, trailer park manager in the new Twin Peaks, similarly witnessing death and eternal life. the family in the Straight Story is all but absent from that trashed house, only Jack Nane and Sissy Spacek living a debilitated and physically demanding life, yet they persevere. Eraserhead felt pretty working-class, it was created in that world of the factories of Philadelphia. the guy lived a life of working class trudgery living in a tiny space. was the Elephant Man a paragon of normal culture?

it is weird that he brings up Blue Velvet cos i thought the sensitive effeminate man was good as a stark contrast to the misogynist supreme Frank Booth. it made sense for this person and not Frank Booth to perform that wonderful lip sync karaoke to Roy Orbison. you couldn't have had Frank Booth doing this, he was a violent, horrible man, someone we had despised already for a good chunk of movie time. it is beyond hilarious to say that the guy miming to "In Dream" enforces normality.

this guy is technically a great writer but his ideas are shit.

darraghmac--in addition to the above seek out the Stories documentary on the Eraserhead DVD. Intimate, great Catherine Coulson content, and a beautiful evocation of a lost world.

imo representation only becomes an issue when the material or setting demands it - i.e. the Ghost in the Shell remake, that dumb Lone Ranger remake (?... the one with Johnny Depp), or the first season of Girls. although i will say it is strange that the original series had more black actors than The Return. as for Lynch's worldview... i'm not going to read that shit article, but... the guy grew up in Missoula. his childhood & experience that shaped his worldview was presumably mostly white. TP is set in the PNW, a very white area of the country. it makes sense that the series is populated predominantly by white people. this doesn't extend fully to The Return, which spends a lot of time in Las Vegas, but boy... really fishing for something that isn't there in that thesis, especially w/r/t to the rest of his work (adam otm xp) Everyone has already gone through how dumb the "Lynch loves conservative white America" angle is. Terrence Malick is a much more conservative director imo, to make a totally unrelated comparison...

the original series had more black actors than The Return

Say what?

Lots of employees at the Great Northern. I mean, it can't be much longer than the list posted upthread, but there are more more.

more more
ugh

tipsy, re history of Lynch critiques:

Certainly, there have been quite a few complaints over the years regarding Lynch’s gleeful representation of violence against women. Others have analysed Lynch’s problematic depictions of disability and race, yet these critiques have been largely apologetic.

I haven't read enough DL scholarship to confirm or deny that last...

author photo in this essay looks kinda like Max Headroom

clearly Lynch is a WASP Eagle Scout Woody Allen

(when they were both nominated for the best directing Oscar in '87 btw, Woody said Blue Velvet was the year's best film)

There is definitely a seed of truth in that article, but yeah, so many exceptions as to render it muddy enough to not be able to make any sorta full proof case for it.

I think it was in The Art Life he was talking about how for a while as a teenager he was running with a bad crew and things were bleak... his details were sparse... was where he gets some his concept of trouble or "evil". I picture him as Jeffrey Beaumont in the back of Frank's car.

Oh, I mangled that a bit. I was definitely that kid in the back seat of a car a few times as a teen, so maybe I'm projecting but probably not totally.