David Lynch - Classic or Dud

I know that Tim Lucas recorded the commentary track for the Kino Lorber release that Lynch nixed (on general principle - he just doesn't like 'em).

kino strike me as 'budget criterion'.

which isn't to say they haven't put out good things.

I'd say your impression is accurate on both counts.

A Deep Dive Over At The Criterion Forum

Lost Highway, more like Lost Opportunity

it's not his worst (that would be Wild at Heart) but Tuomas is right in that it's clearly a dry run for the shifting identities and inverted realities of Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire, Twin Peaks: The Return etc. But it contains a bunch of sequences that don't really work, and several of the stunt cameos (Marilyn Manson, but also Richard Pryor) take me out of the movie.

I think Lost Highway actually is his worst, but most people can probably come together and at least agree that the worst Lynch project featured the involvement of Barry Gifford (had actually literally forgotten that Hotel Room existed until this very moment).

yup, Gifford was a bad influence

Probably not I reckon

or at least a mismatch as far as collaborators go

one and a half of the hotel rooms are actually pretty good imo

No judgment inasmuch as I haven't seen them recently enough to judge, just recalling that they were another Gifford joint and among the less feted Lynch works.

yeah, i agree! i liked the crispin glover episode, and i like Wild at Heart too, but they're way down on my Lynch list

One of the many ways ppl read twin peaks s3 was as a kind of résumé, Lynch working in all these modes he’d worked in before, with bits that felt like eraserhead, dune, his paintings... what was maybe most surprising was that along with all his features and the two Lynch/frost series there was a decent bit of hotel room in the return’s dna

I think of the Gifford era as Lynch's 'try hard' period. He didn't seem to have as much faith in his otherwise-uncanny instincts. Which I think was best encapsulated for me when I finally saw the deleted scenes from Wild at Heart. In most other instances, material that doesn't make it into the final cut of a Lynch film feels like added texture, something of a piece with the greater whole but not particularly necessary. With respect to Wild at Heart, some of the excised scenes felt rather more integral and as if they'd been cut just to make the finished film seem WEEEEIRD. One of the rare instances where I feel like an expanded cut would make for a better film.

But I was mainly disagreeing that there was consensus about a Gifford project being his worst. A lot of people really don’t like dune or inland empire, and both wild at heart & lost highway are beloved

I watched Lost Highway for the first time a week or so back and liked it a lot, although as everybody mentions it has a lot of similarities to Mulholland Drive. I've only seen Blue Velvet (decades ago), Twin Peaks (original series), Fire Walk With Me, this, Straight Story, and Mulholland Drive. Although none of them near enough to one another for comparison purposes. What makes Lost Highway suck so bad, in so many people's eyes?

The only sequences that work in LH are the opening credits using Bowie's "I'm Deranged" and the wizardry editing of Bill Pullman's late night free jazz performance. Everything else is a rehash (Robert Blake doing Frank Booth), clearly the end of a method.

I agree w that

I wouldn't say it sucks (even the worst Lynch is better than the majority of extant things), rather that it just feels like thin soup to me. Most of his work is a deep well from which I can drink full over and over, but I just don't get much out of LH.

there are good moments and scenes throughout tbf. I love the scene w Robert Blake with the phone at the party, for example.

the end of one method but the beginning of another (Möbius strip timelines)

xp

David Foster Wallace's essay for Premiere on its making is the best thing it inspired.

the end of one method but the beginning of another (Möbius strip timelines)

― i will never make a typo ever again (Karl Malone)

Oh sure. The Straight Story was an unexpected, delightful return, more successfully "Lynchian" than LH. Then along came Mulholland Drive.

Robert Blake doing Frank Booth

... no i disagree with this

DFW essay is great. Also responsible for convincing me to reconsider the implications of the final shot of Blue Velvet.

Yeah do you mean loggia?

I was lukewarm on LH at the time but it'll be of interest longer than most movies from 1997. Seeing it projected on a huge screen took it to another level for me.

no, Blake as Mystery Man with his damn face paint.

Is like frank booth how

it's still not really remotely frank boothish imo, blake's performance is much more an otherworldly evil intruding on our universe kind of thing

No offense intended, but I don't understand arguments like "of interest longer than most moves from 1997" or "even the worst Lynch is better than the majority of extant things" when I can think of 10 superior movies released in 1997. It's an argument I hear in music discussion too tbh ("Even bad X is better than most Y.").

more of a composed faustian bob xp

Is like frank booth how

― shhh / let peaceful like things (wins)

Creepy Evil, albeit in LH Lynch smooshed Hopper's character and Dean Stockwell's.

No offense intended, but I don't understand arguments like "of interest longer than most moves from 1997" or "even the worst Lynch is better than the majority of extant things" when I can think of 10 superior movies released in 1997. It's an argument I hear in music discussion too tbh ("Even bad X is better than most Y.").

Hyperbole, though I myself use it in cases like Kiarostami, whose Taste of Cherry is one of those 1997 films in question.

Less an argument than an opinion. Like (by way of wholly arbitrary example) I'd rather rewatch Lost Highway than say the majority of films that have been nominated for Academy Awards. Others, I'm sure, feel differently.

Creepy Evil

If that’s all it is then a few dozen Lynch actors are “doing frank booth” (some of them are even similar to frank booth)

The seams show when it's done ineptly.

anyway even though i'm making these arguments i haven't seen lost highway in ten years lol. at one point i preferred it to mulholland dr. but i'm guessing this was a consequence of building it up so much in my head when it was out of print and all i had was the soundtrack

Mystery man is an early version of the cowboy from Mulholland dr and zabriskie in inland empire

oh I have several friends who agreed with your stance a decade ago too.

xpost

More legit Booth analogues would be (as noted) Loggia in LH, Red in The Return, Bobby Peru.

Uncanny confrontational interlocutor

Mystery man is an early version of the cowboy from Mulholland dr and zabriskie in inland empire

― shhh / let peaceful like things (wins), Wednesday, June 26, 2019 11:32 AM (thirty-two seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Was about to follow up with pretty much exactly this.

Booth isn’t spooky, he’s just a psycho

I can think of 10 superior movies released in 1997.

was curious about this and looked up American films released in '97 and there's a lot of garbage but also:

Starship Troopers
Boogie Nights
Deconstructing Harry
Jackie Brown

and while that's not 10, those are some heavy hitters that are all better than LH imo (I'm sure others here would throw in Amistad or Fifth Element or Good Will Hunting or a handful of others)

xp

Mystery man is an early version of the cowboy from Mulholland dr and zabriskie in inland empire

I agree

1997:

The Sweet Hereafter (Atom Egoyan)
Irma Vep (Olivier Assayas)
The Apostle (Robert Duvall)
Happy Together (Wong Kar-wai)
Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino)
Taste of Cherry (Abbas Kiarostami)
Grosse Pointe Blank (George Armitage)
The Wings of the Dove (Iain Softley)
The River (Tsai Ming-Liang)
Nil by Mouth (Gary Oldman)

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson), Hard Eight (Paul Thomas Anderson), L.A. Confidential (Curtis Hanson), The Daytrippers (Greg Mottola).

not a bad year by any stretch