The Short Films of David Lynch...............alas
Last weekend I picked up a copy of The Short Films of David Lynch for about 10 bucks.
Is it the weirdest thing in my DVD collection? It's in the top 4. I actually think The Residents' Icky Flix is weirder and more interesting.
I used to love David Lynch.
Let me refrain.
I used to LOVE David Lynch.
I saw Eraserhead in 1984 at the 8th St. Playhouse at midnight at least 3 times that year. ANd I was a fan of it years before I had ever seen it. I miss midnight movies. I miss the Thalia, uptown. I miss smoking in that theater. I saw My Breakfast with Blassie there. Also, The Elephant Man along with The Grandmother, a short film by David Lynch. (Fred Blassie was in the theater when we saw Breakfast. I think we might have skipped class to see it.)
The Grandmother is on this DVD collection. It is, by far, the most interesting thing on it. Maybe the piece from Lumiere is as interesting. Grandmother is a disturbing 1/2 hour short. Lumiere is a 55 second piece shot in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Lumiere camera. Shot on that camera. It's disturbing and I WISH it was longer.
I cried in the theater in 1980 when I saw The Elephant Man for the 1st time.
I waited with baited breath for Dune. Ah....sublime disappointment of youth. (Side note, I was reading a Dune fanzine in the hall of an NYU building when a student, who shall remain nameless, mocked me and made me feel infinitessimal for owning it. This same student would end becoming an arch enemy of mine when were both members of the Sacred Fools Theater Company in Los Angeles, nearly 16 years later......bookends of life, man)
Blue Velvet was a vindication for all those years of being a fan.
Twin Peaks was the prize for "knowing Lynch first"!
One the Air I never watched.
Then it was all downhill. Wild at Heart felt like a mockery and a parody of Lynch's own style. Lost Highway was a snoozefest. Fire Walk with Me felt like a contractual Obligation. Mulholland Falls (?) I missed entirely. And The Straight Story felt like a Hallmark TV movie.
Lynch seems to have disappeared into the Internet and his subscription based website.
I miss him. But I think I really miss something else entirely.
There is something honest about the first few films on this DVD. I mean, the stuff is decidedly self conscious, pretentious, in a word, Lynchian. But, it is also brutal. Never once in the early films especially, does he take for granted the form he is working in. It isn't disposable. It isn't crafted to get a film deal. (One wonders, though, just how did that happen??????)
Lynch was responsible for my obsessive attempts at film "shock" back in film school. But I never took for granted the form I was working in. I also never for one moment, in retrospect, belonged there.
But I wonder if a David Lynch can exist today. Amidst all the "noise" of popular culture is there any room for any artist to but through? And do any of them want to? Could film "artists" cut through or do they just get swallowed up by Lucasfilm and Pixar?
Lynch's Eraserhead took 5 years to make.
Larry Bridges' "12" took 10.
With "You Tube" and "Ifilm" and "Instant Films" and "Atom Film", is there any chance for the medium?
Am I just rambling on, an old person missing his youth?
Nah, I was just disappointed by a DVD that I thought was helping me reclaim my salad days.
The same day I got the collected Star Trek: The Animated Series. I never imagined it would be any good, not even in retrospect. But, with cynical shows like "TV Funhouse" and "Wonder Showzen" (Which perpetuates my theory that MTV hates children, not that it's totally a bad thing, mind you), I can no longer look at those old cartoons without laughing. The bad jokes. The static animation......Funhouse, Showzen and Robot Chicken have so successfully skewered those cartoons in parody that they are impossible to watch now.
But, go see "Thank You For Smoking". Excellent parody. Highly cynical. Jason Reitman proves a better scenerist than his father. B+ (The ending is a letdown)
Is it the weirdest thing in my DVD collection? It's in the top 4. I actually think The Residents' Icky Flix is weirder and more interesting.
I used to love David Lynch.
Let me refrain.
I used to LOVE David Lynch.
I saw Eraserhead in 1984 at the 8th St. Playhouse at midnight at least 3 times that year. ANd I was a fan of it years before I had ever seen it. I miss midnight movies. I miss the Thalia, uptown. I miss smoking in that theater. I saw My Breakfast with Blassie there. Also, The Elephant Man along with The Grandmother, a short film by David Lynch. (Fred Blassie was in the theater when we saw Breakfast. I think we might have skipped class to see it.)
The Grandmother is on this DVD collection. It is, by far, the most interesting thing on it. Maybe the piece from Lumiere is as interesting. Grandmother is a disturbing 1/2 hour short. Lumiere is a 55 second piece shot in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Lumiere camera. Shot on that camera. It's disturbing and I WISH it was longer.
I cried in the theater in 1980 when I saw The Elephant Man for the 1st time.
I waited with baited breath for Dune. Ah....sublime disappointment of youth. (Side note, I was reading a Dune fanzine in the hall of an NYU building when a student, who shall remain nameless, mocked me and made me feel infinitessimal for owning it. This same student would end becoming an arch enemy of mine when were both members of the Sacred Fools Theater Company in Los Angeles, nearly 16 years later......bookends of life, man)
Blue Velvet was a vindication for all those years of being a fan.
Twin Peaks was the prize for "knowing Lynch first"!
One the Air I never watched.
Then it was all downhill. Wild at Heart felt like a mockery and a parody of Lynch's own style. Lost Highway was a snoozefest. Fire Walk with Me felt like a contractual Obligation. Mulholland Falls (?) I missed entirely. And The Straight Story felt like a Hallmark TV movie.
Lynch seems to have disappeared into the Internet and his subscription based website.
I miss him. But I think I really miss something else entirely.
There is something honest about the first few films on this DVD. I mean, the stuff is decidedly self conscious, pretentious, in a word, Lynchian. But, it is also brutal. Never once in the early films especially, does he take for granted the form he is working in. It isn't disposable. It isn't crafted to get a film deal. (One wonders, though, just how did that happen??????)
Lynch was responsible for my obsessive attempts at film "shock" back in film school. But I never took for granted the form I was working in. I also never for one moment, in retrospect, belonged there.
But I wonder if a David Lynch can exist today. Amidst all the "noise" of popular culture is there any room for any artist to but through? And do any of them want to? Could film "artists" cut through or do they just get swallowed up by Lucasfilm and Pixar?
Lynch's Eraserhead took 5 years to make.
Larry Bridges' "12" took 10.
With "You Tube" and "Ifilm" and "Instant Films" and "Atom Film", is there any chance for the medium?
Am I just rambling on, an old person missing his youth?
Nah, I was just disappointed by a DVD that I thought was helping me reclaim my salad days.
The same day I got the collected Star Trek: The Animated Series. I never imagined it would be any good, not even in retrospect. But, with cynical shows like "TV Funhouse" and "Wonder Showzen" (Which perpetuates my theory that MTV hates children, not that it's totally a bad thing, mind you), I can no longer look at those old cartoons without laughing. The bad jokes. The static animation......Funhouse, Showzen and Robot Chicken have so successfully skewered those cartoons in parody that they are impossible to watch now.
But, go see "Thank You For Smoking". Excellent parody. Highly cynical. Jason Reitman proves a better scenerist than his father. B+ (The ending is a letdown)
posted by Allen Lulu | 10:48 PM
3 Comments:
I would agree that Mr. Lynch's career has been mostly a disappointment, though I am a little less harsh about some of the work.
Wild At Heart had good parts, but it added up to a big piece of crap. Nice soundtrack, though. Parody of himself is the right term.
On The Air was very typical television. I could only stomach one. There was also a weekly documentary show he did at the time and I remember liking that, but I can't remember its name.
Lost Highway was like a bad USA movie. This preoccupation with film noir Americana was a bad move for him. And making Barretta creepy isn't any great feat, is it?
I liked The Straight Story, I have no problem with it whatsoever - it was a good movie, Hallmark or no.
I also like Mulholland Falls. I'm glad it didn't become a TV show and he tacked on the ending, that is what made it good. It wasn't perfect or necessarily deep, but it was well-executed.
I've downloaded some stuff that originated from DavidLynch.com that he charges subscriptions for. It looks interesting, but I've never had the patience to watch the stuff.
The big cheese, though, is Twin Peaks, a show that failed on so many levels and succeeded on so many others. It was, at heart, a genre show and as time wore on, it was the genre stuff that interested me - you could have cut any given episode down to a half hour and I would have been fine with it. The soap opera elements were pretty horrible when it first started and it continued to sink into embarrassment as the show went on. Some of the genre stuff became goofy, but that didn't bother me - some of it was still genuinely creepy in a TV sort of way.
As a follow up, I did like the movie - it concentrated on the stuff that interested me somewhat - that is, in regard to the FBI and weird phenomenon - but was in no way a satisfying capper to the series.
I have a theory that Lynch had control of the Cooper/Black Lodge storyline and kept a guiding hand on that - the rest, he let his writers roam free. That was why so much of it was crap.
The X Files sort of learned the correct lessons to be learned, but in the end, it didn't. There were the actual interesting episodes of that and then there were what Jana and I refer to as "the Mummy episodes" that had nothing to do with anything. Then after the third year, it began to repeat itself. We stopped at that point.
Lost, it seems, has learned the lessons of both of these shows - it remains very on plot and it is structured in such a way that any side story is made to relate to the central plot - if not directly, then thematically or as a way of expanding the characters.
But I digress from Lynch.
I remember I got hold of several of his undeveloped scripts at the time of his hottest days in the 90s and slowly, I began to start thinking of him as being weird for weird's sake. It all felt very ungenuine. He was surrounded by Hollywood hipsters who seemed to treat him like their little freaky friend - you could just imagine him at parties and someone saying "Hey, David, do something weird!"
In the end, perhaps he only had a few bits of brilliance in him. The triple whammy of Eraserhead, Elephant Man, and Blue Velvet are nothing to be sneezed at.Many have their peak and then it is gone and that's just the way it is - look at Woody Allen.
Perhaps I was being harsh, I dunno. I was not in the best mood.
I agree with you about two main points, though (actually all of them, but) Twin Peaks was definitely too many cooks and really just worked as a long movie with a disappointing ending. And the weirdness for weirdness sake.
It makes me wonder about Jennifer Lynch's movie, but not too much.
Lynch has that element about him that he was just weird enough to be "arty" but also Midwest enough to have a bad sense of humor and, really, just sort be a pretender to the throne of weirdness.
I felt the same about the X-files and the same about Lost. But, Lost has it's own little bailiwick. By constantly focusing on just one character's back story per episode they have the luxury of being protracted.
Now. How long can they last with that?
The hatch was a great buildup and this season has been incredibly strange. Sort of teetering on the brink of relevance and just piquing our interest enough. They better kill someone soon or watch more of the film strip or I'm gonna be joining Michael in the jungle.
Again, though, the beauty of this show is that they know the power of re-imagining themselves. I suppose it isn't a bad thing that Jeph Loeb and Damon Lindelof are comic fans and comic writers.
Wow. So, could it be that comic geeks are the true answer to the question of How can we reinvent tv? I guess so.
I don't begrudge David his Weird for Weird phase. I think, as a true emotional retard he would have to go through a geeky self image redux at some point. Why not while it was working for him and getting him some quality Rosselini tail?
One thing I forgot to mention about Lynch that I have always adored, was his loyalty. And his memory.
Catherine Coulson pops up on this DVD as the actress in The Amputee, which was just a test for AFI video stock. Catherine Coulson would pop up every once in a while in various projects, most notably as the Log Lady.
Then there is the weirdo casting. Like the male lead from West Side Story as the villain in TP. Or Dean Stockwell. He always seemed to be rescuing some actor from oblivion and, worse, insurance lapse. I imagine Lynch watching Warriors and liking David Patrick Kelly. And then having the temerity to remember him 12 years later and casting him in TP. (Ruby Reynor was David Patrick Kelly's girlfriend in the early 80's by the way).
And I agree about Woddy Allen. Or Coppola. Or Scorcese. Or The Rolling Stones. Or Elvis Costello. Or Queen. Or Picasso. Or John Irving. Or......
On a long enough timeline everyone dies and artists run out of originality. (unless they are the Coen Brothers, but I just think they get really high. A lot.)
And, in re: the triple Whammy: Dune came between Elephant Man and Blue Velvet. And, I have long heard there is a 5 hour original director's cut without that stupid narration but it has never appeared.....
Oh, no, I remembered that about Dune. . . I was just conveniently ignoring it!
I remember, though, reading Dune for a class at NYU thinking "Ah, ha! Finally I can see what Lynch couldn't pull off and really enjoy this!" Then I found I didn't much like the book for a lot of the same reasons that I didn't like the movie and I stopped reading it. Oh, well.
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