david lynch is the kinda guy who says "film" and "television" and ne'er the twain shall meet so
― Its big ball chunky time (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Wednesday, 13 April 2022 00:03 (two years ago) link
doesn't seem like he is dissembling. was really looking forward to something new
― Dan S, Wednesday, 13 April 2022 02:39 (two years ago) link
hopped back into rewatch of TP The Return last night, episode 5, so so so good
― Ste, Thursday, 14 April 2022 11:48 (two years ago) link
I've been watching arguments about this tweet for a while now, so you should see it.
instructive comparison on "dark suburbia" might be david lynch vs thomas pynchon: for lynch the dark stuff is all incursions from some supernatural and/or criminal outside, for pynchon suburbs are basically little nazi factories— joolsd (@joolsd) April 15, 2022
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 18 April 2022 06:40 (two years ago) link
everyone is replying “this is a misreading of lynch” and they’re all right
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Monday, 18 April 2022 07:19 (two years ago) link
I was indifferent at first but it's been going for a while now so I'm gonna back it.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 18 April 2022 07:32 (two years ago) link
I know a ceiling fan that begs to differ
― gop on ya gingrich (wins), Monday, 18 April 2022 09:43 (two years ago) link
suburbs in the return a blasted wasteland full of isolated people in addicted trances an inch from gun violence iirc
― difficult listening hour, Monday, 18 April 2022 11:33 (two years ago) link
what he's sentimental about is "small towns", but still the rot is inside. (the only transmission project blue book ever receives is from the woods.) and the traditional reverse of the reactionary coin-- the corrupt city-- doesn't really appear either, not even in eraserhead (tho maybe on giedi prime): his vision of j. edgars from philadelphia is of knight-errants. (but still the rot is inside.)
― difficult listening hour, Monday, 18 April 2022 11:39 (two years ago) link
(well of course there's hollywood lol. he likes it tho.)
― difficult listening hour, Monday, 18 April 2022 11:43 (two years ago) link
Lol
yeah yeah suburban concupiscence allows the extra dimensional demons to enter your brain and force you to commit atrocities https://t.co/mYSV0eN2Ih— joolsd (@joolsd) April 17, 2022
― we only steal from the greatest books (PBKR), Monday, 18 April 2022 11:50 (two years ago) link
I'd say he also gets moist-eyed thinking of the rot.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 18 April 2022 11:50 (two years ago) link
I mean if he wants shots fired, why not just say Lynch is Mike Love with better aesthetics?
― we only steal from the greatest books (PBKR), Monday, 18 April 2022 11:52 (two years ago) link
better hair
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 18 April 2022 11:53 (two years ago) link
Reads more Freud.
― we only steal from the greatest books (PBKR), Monday, 18 April 2022 11:55 (two years ago) link
Wild that anyone could watch fwwm and take away that Leland is “forced to commit atrocities” lol
― gop on ya gingrich (wins), Monday, 18 April 2022 12:25 (two years ago) link
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNjZjNjIyYjgtMjc2ZS00MWY2LWFiZmItOTM3YzFlZDRkNTNkXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjUxMjc1OTM@._V1_.jpg
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 18 April 2022 12:26 (two years ago) link
It’s funny cause the idea that “dark suburbia” is lynch’s thing really only comes from blue velvet & twin peaks, & in the latter more developed work it couldn’t be clearer that the suburban middle class home is THE site of evil in this story even if you insist on being thuddingly literal about “supernatural entities” or w/e
― gop on ya gingrich (wins), Monday, 18 April 2022 12:38 (two years ago) link
I watched The Straight Story, on Disney+ (based on a recommendation in the Inland Empire thread). What a remarkable movie. Really glad I saw it (I really had a misconception of what it would be like)
After bringing up The Straight Story on that thread we watched it a couple of days ago. It had been a long time since I last saw it - I always liked it, but now I think it's a major work of his. I can't think of a better depiction of regret and forgiveness. It's not underrated; I've been underrating it.
― Elvis Telecom, Friday, 22 April 2022 20:30 (two years ago) link
My dad is a vietnam vet in his 70s and I finally made him watch the Straight Story. He watched all of it which means he must have liked it.
It holds up amazingly well.
― Cow_Art, Saturday, 23 April 2022 02:28 (two years ago) link
The scene in the bar where Straight reflects on his war experiences is arresting (especially b/c it kind of comes out of nowhere).Farnsworth and Spacek’s performances are terrific… I see the film won and/or was nominated for various awards (including an Oscar nom for Farnsworth), which were clearly well deserved. All I remember from the “discourse” at the time was — “David Lynch made a G-rated Disney film about a guy on a tractor! hurr hurr hurr”
― begrudgingly bound by duty of candor (morrisp), Saturday, 23 April 2022 23:21 (two years ago) link
Looks like Mary Sweeney had a lot to do with the film as well
― begrudgingly bound by duty of candor (morrisp), Saturday, 23 April 2022 23:24 (two years ago) link
In re Lynch and suburbia, his work doesn’t really have a lot of suburbia in it. As noted above, mostly small towns and cities, tho The Return does have that great Vegas subdivision. But if I’m parsing the original tweet right, it’s more saying that Lynch’s portrayal of evil doesn’t have a political agenda (or even political awareness), which I think is pretty much true. His villains and dark forces are rooted in more primal, individual desires and appetites. In that sense, settings aren’t that important, because those things are everywhere.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Sunday, 24 April 2022 11:57 (two years ago) link
i guess but also that tweet is trying to say that the supernatural incursions come from *outside* whatever environment or person he's depicting, which is basically the opposite of the truth, it's always from the inside
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Sunday, 24 April 2022 13:35 (two years ago) link
inland empire made me reflect on this further bc as with most lynch work it has nothing to do with suburbia but does i think contend with the environment of flagrant abuse and trauma that hollywood is just an inch below the surface, and depicts these cycles of abuse as a story that's being told and retold with different people in different positions
starting to think of fire walk with me, mulholland dr., and inland empire as a loose trilogy of films all about the same thing (with lost highway like an uneven sketch of the space between fwwm and md), only one of them taking place in suburbia
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Sunday, 24 April 2022 13:51 (two years ago) link
you can still argue that this is apolitical but idk i can easily shape it into something political through reading, like even identifying and observing the nature of "evil" through this prism can feel like an implicit critique of systems and all the jungian shadows that form when people try to align themselves with systems
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Sunday, 24 April 2022 13:55 (two years ago) link
lol I was totally conflating suburbia with “small towns” upthread wasn’t I (I think the point stands, neither are hugely a focus) Isn’t the actual inland empire part of the suburban sprawl around la (along with Pomona which also comes up)? I am v bad with this stuff (need to reread city of quartz but I will only forget it all again) but that seems potentially interesting ito placing the site of dread on the margins - but again not not politicalThere’s definitely some sort of class dimension in how many of the terrible uncanny figures in lynch code as poor & itinerant: drifter Bob, the hobo-like woodsmen, world of truck drivers, man behind the dumpster, the travelling circus in IE; but there are different ways to read this & the reductive takes don’t quite fit (many of the dreadful underworld figures are rich, many of the benevolent figures are poor (Shelly & the homeless ppl in IE spring to mind))
― gop on ya gingrich (wins), Sunday, 24 April 2022 14:28 (two years ago) link
I have to quibble a bit with the idea that it has nothing to do with suburbia. Once she has her mental break about an hour into the film, doesn't she find herself trapped in suburban limbo? Isn't that what On High In Blue Tommorrows is about, suburban trysts? And isn't the title of the film a reference to suburban Los Angeles?
Lol, in other words, wins otm
― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Sunday, 24 April 2022 14:31 (two years ago) link
hm yes i guess you’re right that is part of it
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Sunday, 24 April 2022 14:40 (two years ago) link
but this suburbia is also connected to like hollywood blvd and poland
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Sunday, 24 April 2022 14:41 (two years ago) link
one of many chords he’s playing
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Sunday, 24 April 2022 14:45 (two years ago) link
The actual IE is not suburban L.A.
― Hops: Mosaic, Citra, Simcoe (morrisp), Sunday, 24 April 2022 14:59 (two years ago) link
like even identifying and observing the nature of "evil" through this prism can feel like an implicit critique of systems and all the jungian shadows that form when people try to align themselves with systems
otm
the bad, or dangerous, or violent, or haunted, or maybe only transitional place in IE-- "the marketplace", the place where the "chemical factory" makes it so you can't "think straight"-- is a place in the mind, some kind of trauma castle (with its one-way doors and scenery flats and narrow alleys and opaque windows and dark stairwells and extreme closeups of porous material signaling shifts from one layer of perception to another while sitting on suburban carpet setting a small fire in the late afternoon, this is the lynch movie that most seems to take place in the brain, like a whole movie in the black lodge) but that's exactly why it also works as broader social critique, w palimpsestic resonance beyond-but-including hollywood/america/capitalism, instead of only being a movie about how glad lynch is that his career after dune found+followed a back alley.
― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 24 April 2022 18:27 (two years ago) link
Can you connect the dots? It’s also a broader social critique because…?
― Hops: Mosaic, Citra, Simcoe (morrisp), Sunday, 24 April 2022 18:42 (two years ago) link
...because people see many revealing things in Rorschach tests?
...because vague omens and portents have a way of portending whatever significant event the future eventually delivers?
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Sunday, 24 April 2022 18:49 (two years ago) link
Interesting thoughts. His view of systems of power is always conflicted, because on the one hand he has a lot of kind of classic "good guy" archetypes who are representatives of those systems — the FBI most obviously, but also Sandy's cop dad in Blue Velvet, e.g. — but then also those systems are often shown to be corrupt or corruptible. There are crooks in the police forces in Blue Velvet and The Return, and Dale Cooper himself obviously is corrupted by the Black Lodge. These don't feel like political critiques per se so much as acknowledgements of the corruptible nature of people. It's true that his grotesques are often poor people, but he's also fascinated by the decadence of the rich and powerful. (Lost Highway has a lot of that.)
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Sunday, 24 April 2022 18:54 (two years ago) link
It’s also a broader social critique because…?
because its anchor inside laura dern's skull is what allows it to drift around in space/time/class without getting lost, overlaying various kinds of trafficking atop one another as episodes in "the longest-running radio play in history"-- as brad notes:
the environment of flagrant abuse and trauma that hollywood is just an inch below the surface, and depicts these cycles of abuse as a story that's being told and retold with different people in different positions
― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 24 April 2022 19:00 (two years ago) link
people see many revealing things in Rorschach tests
tailored dresses are code for drugs. but did you notice what was pinned to it?
― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 24 April 2022 19:23 (two years ago) link
xp I’ve only seen Inland Empire once, and my thoughts on it were… fragmentary (they’re in the thread), but I guess I didn’t see H’wood as as a source of abuse or trauma in the movie… sort of the opposite, in fact.
― Hops: Mosaic, Citra, Simcoe (morrisp), Sunday, 24 April 2022 19:42 (two years ago) link
maybe i'm off course
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Sunday, 24 April 2022 19:46 (two years ago) link
I mean, what do I know… there’s obv a ton there(fwiw, I saw it as Dern’s actress character identifying so radically with abused/exploited characters, that her own identity was disrupted… to me it felt in the end like a highly “affirmative” movie about the power of art, or something less cheesy than that sounds, lol)
― Hops: Mosaic, Citra, Simcoe (morrisp), Sunday, 24 April 2022 19:47 (two years ago) link
(although not TOO much less cheesy; as it does end with that almost proudly corny dance party in the hotel lobby scene)
― Hops: Mosaic, Citra, Simcoe (morrisp), Sunday, 24 April 2022 20:02 (two years ago) link
that's def what it's about imo! hollywood is a place where art happens but it is also a violent and haunted place where the artistic impulse is threatened with exploitation/control/imprisonment. so are other cities; so is the mind. that the terrain of grace zabriskie's fable-- the marketplace; the alley; going out to play, pursued by your shadow-- is interior mental/spiritual terrain (faintly buddhist even) is exactly what makes it as mappable onto "old europe" as onto hollywood boulevard and suburban backyards.
― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 24 April 2022 20:03 (two years ago) link
"that's def what it's about" = "it's def a highly 'affirmative' movie about the power of art"
― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 24 April 2022 20:12 (two years ago) link
i'll admit btw that while hollywood boulevard and the suburban bungalow are both v vividly felt in this movie, "old europe" is p much just a gesture or symbol-- lynch is way out of his material universe in these scenes and you can tell. but they cast this (gendered!) creativity-and-domination struggle as something old and metamorphic, a struggle in the mind that's taken material form after material form.
― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 24 April 2022 20:41 (two years ago) link
For my current Twin Peaks rewatch, I’m starting with just the episodes of the original series directed by Lynch (which feels like an interesting way to get the heart of things). The first episode of S2 is so damn good… I think it rivals the pilot in terms of quality.
― Hops: Mosaic, Citra, Simcoe (morrisp), Wednesday, 27 April 2022 05:58 (two years ago) link
The Straight Story was his best-reviewed film since Blue Velvet fwiw.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 27 April 2022 09:30 (two years ago) link
I would sure hope so!
― Hops: Mosaic, Citra, Simcoe (morrisp), Wednesday, 27 April 2022 14:57 (two years ago) link
(I mean, I've done a 180 on FWWM, but it took years and some commitment... I'd like to revisit the other two at some point)
― Hops: Mosaic, Citra, Simcoe (morrisp), Wednesday, 27 April 2022 14:59 (two years ago) link
Lynch's reputation for most of the '90s was basically ...
https://external-preview.redd.it/5d2-ab4gqRdTQCSNRDuLjHrGYMgpx00WyHruoSz_cU8.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=7b6d1f472bdc9d0b93b91598cda33a9105c0b790
― Max Hamburgers (Eric H.), Wednesday, 27 April 2022 15:02 (two years ago) link