"She's filled with secrets."
Logging machinery sharpens its own teeth as the music of mystery plays.
An endless parade of actor names blink on to the screen-how many people are in this show? What kind of a name is 'Ontkean?' Is that the name of a murderer?
A sad and beautiful woman puts on makeup in front of a mirror only to turn towards the camera just so-as though she were suddenly aware of the camera, and now cheating out to the audience to reveal an eerily powdered face.
A fisherman kisses his hand and touches his wife's ear before going out to the shore to discover a woman's corpse wrapped in plastic.
The police show up to take pictures of the corpse, make a preliminary identification, and a tall, goofy looking cop weeps openly despite the admonitions of his superior to handle his business. Apparently, this policeman weeps at the sight of the fallen.
The cops try to keep a lid on the news of the identity of the murdered young woman, carefully regulating the dissemination of the information to the immediate family . . .
. . . but soon enough the word gets out: Laura Palmer has died. And the specter of grief prowls the community of Twin Peaks bringing shock and tears to many who learn of Laura's death. Apparently, this young woman was well regarded in her home town. She was popular, beautiful, smart, the golden child.
Of course, this is all revealed to be partially a facade of perfectionism covering soul-deep misery, uncertainty, and a fear of secret, all-consuming evil, but this first episode concentrates on the ripples of grief and heartbreak emanating in all directions from the carefully wrapped corpse of Laura, what her death means symbolically to those who knew her or knew of her. Her death is a small town version of the murder of JFK: a catalyst for bringing to the surface deep-seated conflicts that go beyond the mere mechanics of murder-of an aggressor taking the life of their victim-and into the realm of metaphysical conspiracy.
When an admired person is senselessly killed, we struggle to make sense of why such a person had to die and in such a pointless, brutal fashion. Surely there must be some larger significance than the anger and entitlement of the perpetrator triumphing over the life of the victim. A lone asshole with a gun-Lee Harvey Oswald-murdered an American president, and we, as a nation, have never been able to live that down. How can one miserable piece of shit strike so deep into the heart of the nation all on his own? Surely there must be some far-flung conspiracy, some allegorical significance?
But in America, lone pieces of shit with guns strike deep into the national heart all the time, usually by slaughtering scores of unarmed children attending public schools. Sane gun control would pretty much end these crimes, but American society is infected with an irrational belief in a kind of interpersonal militarism that mandates that each person is all alone and must provide for their own security at all times by becoming a soldier in the army of one ready to shoot anyone who poses a threat at all times . . . but I digress.
Twin Peaks is a fictional construct, and so it is, by design, full of secrets, constructed to be rich with internally logical allegory and symbolism, and, yes, Laura Palmer's death is not just another sad and sickening outcome of America's longstanding culture of violence toward women-indeed, she will be revealed to be at the nexus of a vast metaphysical struggle worthy of George Lucas and J.R.R. Tolkien.
But in this first episode, we have yet to rocket off into the realms of high Lynchian weirdness. We are essentially presented with a realistic, if quirky, police procedural involving a joint FBI-Twin Peaks PD investigation into Laura Palmer's murder. The large cast of characters-all those names popping up in the opening credits-exist to give various layers of depth to the story, to allow a nuanced, meandering exploration of the ripple effects of grief, and to provide a wide array of possible suspects within the mainline murder mystery plot.
This pilot episode runs about ninety-three minutes, and almost plays as a self-contained feature-length film, save for its cliffhanger ending, and abundance of characters and clues which have yet to be satisfactorily paid off by episode's end. The pilot assembles a large cast, and establishes a distinctive look and tone with simple, direct filmmaking. It isn't nearly as weird as the episodes to come-this is the David Lynch that would go on to make The Straight Story, not so much the Lynch of Wild At Heart, Lost Highway, Mulholland Dr., or Inland Empire.
But the weirdness is coming.
In fact, there's another version of this pilot-a misbegotten twin that leaned hard into the desire for tidy endings in order to secure a release as a stand alone movie for European television . . .
NEXT: 2/26/18: Twin Peaks Pilot: Alternate International Version (1990)
Friday, February 23, 2018
Thursday, February 22, 2018
The Lynch Meditations -9
I first watched some out of order episodes of Twin Peaks on cable TV when I was a teenager. I didn't quite know what the hell was going on, but I got the drift. I tracked down Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me on VHS, watched it, loved it, and realized I had to see the rest of the series.
You might already be aware of this . . . but Fire Walk With Me basically gives away the entire mystery of Twin Peaks. It's also a grotesque and confusing piece of cinema. I loved every minute of it.
I finally ordered the VHS collection of Twin Peaks right as I was graduating high school. It featured every episode-except the pilot-recorded in glorious Extended Play (EP) format. The quality was shit, but not unwatchable. I had to tape the pilot, which was unavailable on VHS for some reason at that time, off of cable. Later, I dubbed a rental copy VHS release of the international version of the pilot episode, and so I had, on a variety of shitty VHS tapes, a piecemeal Twin Peaks Perfect Collection.
As much as I rag on the VHS format-because it fucking sucks-I could not stop watching Twin Peaks once I got started-even watching crummy EP picture and sound quality. At that time, it was my first experience watching a long-form TV show from beginning to end. I hadn't even watched an anime series from beginning to end at that point. I couldn't get enough. I even liked all the Second Season shit with the boring dude on the motorcycle. That's how good this show was: it transcended the scuzziness of the VHS format to fire a beam of art directly into the center of my brain mass.
Some years later, I tried re-watching Twin Peaks on DVD, and I couldn't even get all the way through the pilot. Not because I disliked it, but more because my memories of the show were already so vivid. I didn't need to re-burn 'em into my brain. Now, I've watched Fire Walk With Me a number of times, because it remains a mystery to me, and also, probably, because I'm a twisted fuck . . . but I'll get to Fire Walk With Me down the road . . . but Twin Peaks has always stayed with me since the VHS viewings. That's how good this show is-it gets you the first time, doesn't need a second shot at your heart.
So . . . I don't think I'm going to re-watch the whole series. I don't have the time. My disdain for TV has only grown over the years, although I keep hearing that it's some kind of a New Golden Age. Are we still in that New Golden Age? There's been some good shit, for sure: The Wire, The Big O, most of Breaking Bad, a good chunk of The Sopranos, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Transformers Prime, the PBS Frontline Documentaries . . . so I buy the New Golden Age rhetoric. Why not? You gotta stay positive in dark times. But TV . . . is just so tedious to me in general. I guess I got old and cranky. I can't even really complain about the commercials, now, that shit's purely optional. But I'm still aware of the passing of time, the growing shortness of my potential lifespan as I sit watching something passively, body going to seed, eyesight fading, ass cheeks gathering bulk, gut creeping over my belt-line, once beautiful mane of hair giving way to bald spots . . . hey, may as well sit down, watch some old TV all over again. Fuck it.
So . . . a compromise.
I'm only going to watch the episodes of Twin Peaks directed by David Lynch. I'll skip the others.
We'll see how that works . . .
You might already be aware of this . . . but Fire Walk With Me basically gives away the entire mystery of Twin Peaks. It's also a grotesque and confusing piece of cinema. I loved every minute of it.
I finally ordered the VHS collection of Twin Peaks right as I was graduating high school. It featured every episode-except the pilot-recorded in glorious Extended Play (EP) format. The quality was shit, but not unwatchable. I had to tape the pilot, which was unavailable on VHS for some reason at that time, off of cable. Later, I dubbed a rental copy VHS release of the international version of the pilot episode, and so I had, on a variety of shitty VHS tapes, a piecemeal Twin Peaks Perfect Collection.
As much as I rag on the VHS format-because it fucking sucks-I could not stop watching Twin Peaks once I got started-even watching crummy EP picture and sound quality. At that time, it was my first experience watching a long-form TV show from beginning to end. I hadn't even watched an anime series from beginning to end at that point. I couldn't get enough. I even liked all the Second Season shit with the boring dude on the motorcycle. That's how good this show was: it transcended the scuzziness of the VHS format to fire a beam of art directly into the center of my brain mass.
Some years later, I tried re-watching Twin Peaks on DVD, and I couldn't even get all the way through the pilot. Not because I disliked it, but more because my memories of the show were already so vivid. I didn't need to re-burn 'em into my brain. Now, I've watched Fire Walk With Me a number of times, because it remains a mystery to me, and also, probably, because I'm a twisted fuck . . . but I'll get to Fire Walk With Me down the road . . . but Twin Peaks has always stayed with me since the VHS viewings. That's how good this show is-it gets you the first time, doesn't need a second shot at your heart.
So . . . I don't think I'm going to re-watch the whole series. I don't have the time. My disdain for TV has only grown over the years, although I keep hearing that it's some kind of a New Golden Age. Are we still in that New Golden Age? There's been some good shit, for sure: The Wire, The Big O, most of Breaking Bad, a good chunk of The Sopranos, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Transformers Prime, the PBS Frontline Documentaries . . . so I buy the New Golden Age rhetoric. Why not? You gotta stay positive in dark times. But TV . . . is just so tedious to me in general. I guess I got old and cranky. I can't even really complain about the commercials, now, that shit's purely optional. But I'm still aware of the passing of time, the growing shortness of my potential lifespan as I sit watching something passively, body going to seed, eyesight fading, ass cheeks gathering bulk, gut creeping over my belt-line, once beautiful mane of hair giving way to bald spots . . . hey, may as well sit down, watch some old TV all over again. Fuck it.
So . . . a compromise.
I'm only going to watch the episodes of Twin Peaks directed by David Lynch. I'll skip the others.
We'll see how that works . . .
Monday, February 19, 2018
The Lynch Meditations 8: Blue Velvet (1986)
It holds up.
I don't want to spoil too much with this one. If you haven't seen Blue Velvet go watch it. It is a tightly assembled mystery that is surreal without totally departing reality for parts unknown.
If you have seen Blue Velvet, I'll try not to bore you with what has already been said many times over about this film. So let me see if I can say something that hasn't been said about it before . . . I might not be up to the task . . .
I'm a big fan of point-and-click mystery adventure games: Shadowgate, Deja Vu, Uninvited, King's Quest, Nightshade Part 1: The Claws of Sutekh, Snatcher, Grim Fandango, the Gabriel Knight series, the Tex Murphy series, the Phoenix Wright series, and pretty much everything put out by Wadjet Eye Games. These are games where you drag a cursor around the screen, looking for some kind of response from the program, looking for any kind of a clue. You might need to interrogate people by choosing dialogue prompts, being careful not to say the wrong thing which could potentially shut down a conversation prematurely. Usually these games take place in a series of rooms and passages, where each section must be thoroughly investigated and solved before you unlock more rooms, and more passages, that are, ultimately, all connected in some unexpected, labyrinthine fashion by game's end.
Point-and-click games are sometimes notorious for the difficulty of their "moon logic" puzzles-conundrums whose solutions are so arbitrary and obscure that they could only possibly make sense in the hermetically sealed, hyper-postmodern reality of a video game. Sometimes, though, these moon logic puzzles transcend to a level of surreal brilliance which delights, but just as often they make you want to throw your monitor through a window. The best point-and-click adventures create an internal logic that subtly challenges you to engage with the mystery on its own terms, giving you enough clues and worldbuilding contextualization so that you have a fighting chance to reach the end state of the game with a sense of earned achievement.
Blue Velvet creates a near-perfect point-and-click adventure scenario with its own internally consistent reality that seems rooted in our world, but departs from it in key moments to give us a bit of a jolt at just the right moments. We even have a video game cypher of a protagonist (perfectly played by Kyle MacLachlan as a twin-souled square and voyeuristic freak all in one) who allows us to enter into the world with just enough perception to suss out a mystery worth diving into, but lacking that extra bit of common sense which would send a normal person running the fuck home. Visually, we are presented with a series of images and objects that lead us further into the heart of mystery: a severed human ear; a propeller hat; a blue velvet robe; angry and agonized and ecstatic faces distorted in dreams; human forms moving from the background of shadows into the foreground of light; an apartment and a living room presented as though each were a proscenium stage; a work light used as a microphone . . . we are encouraged to think in terms of a show presented before our eyes and how exactly that show has been put together.
The video game cypher takes time out of the adventure to assemble his thoughts and experiences in montage, drawing conclusions that advance the program closer to the end state.
Meanwhile, Angelo Badalamenti's lush score seems to emanate from a dimension of refined film noir that blurs the lines between cinema and reality. After my latest viewing, I am now convinced that the world of Blue Velvet was born from Badalamenti's mysterious score, as opposed to being a film created by a cast and crew of hundreds of people as you would expect from most movies.
Much like in a point-and-click mystery adventure, our protagonist doesn't notice all there is to notice until he is deep into things. When he first goes to a nightspot called the Slow Club, he is mesmerized by a sad and beautiful torch singer. Later, after he's been through some shit, he goes back to the Slow Club, is once again mesmerized by the sad and beautiful torch singer . . . but now he sees someone else in the audience. Someone who was probably there the first time, but our protagonist had no reason to notice this person as distinct from the other anonymous customers in the crowd. I imagine a New Game+ version of these sequences where you can play through it, again, and have a different outcome.
But Blue Velvet isn't a video game. It's a movie. It flows in one direction, coming to one conclusion every single time, and it will never change.
Unless, of course, David Lynch decides to go back into it with computer graphics technology and add in copious amounts of bantha poodoo, digitally enhanced explosions, and maybe an extra rock for Kyle MacLachlan to hide behind inside that closet . . . this would be so fucked-up and absurd I kind of want to see it happen.
But I get drawn into this one every time I watch it. Maybe it's a great movie. Maybe I'm just a great sucker.
NEXT: 2/23/18: Twin Peaks Pilot Episode (1990)
I don't want to spoil too much with this one. If you haven't seen Blue Velvet go watch it. It is a tightly assembled mystery that is surreal without totally departing reality for parts unknown.
If you have seen Blue Velvet, I'll try not to bore you with what has already been said many times over about this film. So let me see if I can say something that hasn't been said about it before . . . I might not be up to the task . . .
I'm a big fan of point-and-click mystery adventure games: Shadowgate, Deja Vu, Uninvited, King's Quest, Nightshade Part 1: The Claws of Sutekh, Snatcher, Grim Fandango, the Gabriel Knight series, the Tex Murphy series, the Phoenix Wright series, and pretty much everything put out by Wadjet Eye Games. These are games where you drag a cursor around the screen, looking for some kind of response from the program, looking for any kind of a clue. You might need to interrogate people by choosing dialogue prompts, being careful not to say the wrong thing which could potentially shut down a conversation prematurely. Usually these games take place in a series of rooms and passages, where each section must be thoroughly investigated and solved before you unlock more rooms, and more passages, that are, ultimately, all connected in some unexpected, labyrinthine fashion by game's end.
Point-and-click games are sometimes notorious for the difficulty of their "moon logic" puzzles-conundrums whose solutions are so arbitrary and obscure that they could only possibly make sense in the hermetically sealed, hyper-postmodern reality of a video game. Sometimes, though, these moon logic puzzles transcend to a level of surreal brilliance which delights, but just as often they make you want to throw your monitor through a window. The best point-and-click adventures create an internal logic that subtly challenges you to engage with the mystery on its own terms, giving you enough clues and worldbuilding contextualization so that you have a fighting chance to reach the end state of the game with a sense of earned achievement.
Blue Velvet creates a near-perfect point-and-click adventure scenario with its own internally consistent reality that seems rooted in our world, but departs from it in key moments to give us a bit of a jolt at just the right moments. We even have a video game cypher of a protagonist (perfectly played by Kyle MacLachlan as a twin-souled square and voyeuristic freak all in one) who allows us to enter into the world with just enough perception to suss out a mystery worth diving into, but lacking that extra bit of common sense which would send a normal person running the fuck home. Visually, we are presented with a series of images and objects that lead us further into the heart of mystery: a severed human ear; a propeller hat; a blue velvet robe; angry and agonized and ecstatic faces distorted in dreams; human forms moving from the background of shadows into the foreground of light; an apartment and a living room presented as though each were a proscenium stage; a work light used as a microphone . . . we are encouraged to think in terms of a show presented before our eyes and how exactly that show has been put together.
The video game cypher takes time out of the adventure to assemble his thoughts and experiences in montage, drawing conclusions that advance the program closer to the end state.
Meanwhile, Angelo Badalamenti's lush score seems to emanate from a dimension of refined film noir that blurs the lines between cinema and reality. After my latest viewing, I am now convinced that the world of Blue Velvet was born from Badalamenti's mysterious score, as opposed to being a film created by a cast and crew of hundreds of people as you would expect from most movies.
Much like in a point-and-click mystery adventure, our protagonist doesn't notice all there is to notice until he is deep into things. When he first goes to a nightspot called the Slow Club, he is mesmerized by a sad and beautiful torch singer. Later, after he's been through some shit, he goes back to the Slow Club, is once again mesmerized by the sad and beautiful torch singer . . . but now he sees someone else in the audience. Someone who was probably there the first time, but our protagonist had no reason to notice this person as distinct from the other anonymous customers in the crowd. I imagine a New Game+ version of these sequences where you can play through it, again, and have a different outcome.
But Blue Velvet isn't a video game. It's a movie. It flows in one direction, coming to one conclusion every single time, and it will never change.
Unless, of course, David Lynch decides to go back into it with computer graphics technology and add in copious amounts of bantha poodoo, digitally enhanced explosions, and maybe an extra rock for Kyle MacLachlan to hide behind inside that closet . . . this would be so fucked-up and absurd I kind of want to see it happen.
But I get drawn into this one every time I watch it. Maybe it's a great movie. Maybe I'm just a great sucker.
NEXT: 2/23/18: Twin Peaks Pilot Episode (1990)
Sunday, February 18, 2018
The Lynch Meditations -8
David Lynch once told Roger Ebert in an interview that when he and his brother were children they saw a naked, crying woman walking down the street, and that he wept at the sight. In retrospect, it seems that this woman was most likely trying to escape horrific abuse at the hands of her husband or boyfriend. But Lynch, as a child, was confused by this sight, and so this incident worked its way into his filmmaking.
David Lynch's experience seemed to form the basis of one of the most disturbing scenes in his film Blue Velvet-a movie which was created in part to explore the mysteries of human cruelty and the secrecy which society imposes to cover up such abuses.
Blue Velvet is another example of Classic Lynch, one of his best films . . . I think. I haven't watched it all the way through in quite some time. I'm guessing it will hold up better than Dune did for me . . . but we'll see.
I remember quite fondly the first time I got to watch it in its proper aspect ratio on a decent sized TV at a friend's apartment. So much better than watching the shitty pan and scan VHS. I have absolutely no nostalgia for that format.
So here we go . . .
David Lynch's experience seemed to form the basis of one of the most disturbing scenes in his film Blue Velvet-a movie which was created in part to explore the mysteries of human cruelty and the secrecy which society imposes to cover up such abuses.
Blue Velvet is another example of Classic Lynch, one of his best films . . . I think. I haven't watched it all the way through in quite some time. I'm guessing it will hold up better than Dune did for me . . . but we'll see.
I remember quite fondly the first time I got to watch it in its proper aspect ratio on a decent sized TV at a friend's apartment. So much better than watching the shitty pan and scan VHS. I have absolutely no nostalgia for that format.
So here we go . . .
Monday, January 29, 2018
The Lynch Meditations 7: Dune (1984)
An aristocratic young man goes on an interplanetary adventure, tames giant sandworms, and becomes Space Jesus McRainmaker all in a little over two hours.
Re-watching Dune, a film that I enjoy, I couldn't help but laugh out loud at what a nakedly obvious power fantasy it is, totally drained of all the psychological nuance and outright horror of Herbert's novel. I guess you could say something similar about Star Wars, but not really. Sure, Luke Skywalker saves the day. But he does it by standing in solidarity with his friends against the genocidal Empire. Paul Muad'Dib crushes his enemies, tramples them underfoot, and even hears the lamentations of their Bene Gesserit high priestess. He's totally ruthless about it, too. Is this a David Lynch or a John Milius script?
NEXT: 2/19/18: Blue Velvet (1986)
Nope. That's not a fair description of David Lynch's adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel Dune. Technically, this movie is set far into the future wherein all the familiar religions of humankind have blended with and penetrated and mutated each other until they have taken on strange new forms while retaining familiar aspects of messianic prophecy, patriarchal structures of authority, and warlike fanaticism all too depressingly familiar to the people of Earth in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Frank Herbert's novel handles all this with obsessively detailed worldbuilding, and intricately plotted dynastic power struggles that imbues everything with profound moral ambiguity about the ethics of mind control, propaganda, religious indoctrination, and the use of militarized life-ending aggression on planetary scales. Herbert's novel is meant to get you to question the very idea of a charismatic, all-powerful hero figure. David Lynch tells a straightforward story of an aristocratic young man taming sandworms, becoming Space Jesus McRainmaker, etc.
Okay, maybe that isn't such an unfair description.
Re-watching Dune, a film that I enjoy, I couldn't help but laugh out loud at what a nakedly obvious power fantasy it is, totally drained of all the psychological nuance and outright horror of Herbert's novel. I guess you could say something similar about Star Wars, but not really. Sure, Luke Skywalker saves the day. But he does it by standing in solidarity with his friends against the genocidal Empire. Paul Muad'Dib crushes his enemies, tramples them underfoot, and even hears the lamentations of their Bene Gesserit high priestess. He's totally ruthless about it, too. Is this a David Lynch or a John Milius script?
My shit is totally re-scrambled on this one. How did the filmmaker who crafted such a glorious surrealistic nightmare as Eraserhead and the deeply compassionate The Elephant Man make a New Age version of a Rambo guerilla warfare stroke-off fantasy?
Do I still like this movie?
Does it matter whether or not I like it?
David Lynch has more or less disowned it. He had his name taken off the television re-edit version, and he doesn't even list it in the Selected Filmography in his memoir/intro to Transcendental Meditation guidebook Catching the Big Fish. Over the years, he has expressed deep dissatisfaction with the experience of making this movie, and some have laid the blame at the feet of interfering producers wanting a much simplified heroic space opera popcorn movie . . .
. . . but it really isn't much of a popcorn movie, either. Too weird. Too much freaky imagery. The action sequences don't really play like the typical macho power fantasy theatrics of 1980s action flicks, either. The music is heroic, the good guys win, but it emphasizes the big picture of clashing armies as opposed to the blood'n'guts of a proper shoot'em up.
Even the Space Jesus McRainmaker transformation isn't as appealing as it could have been. Paul Atreides' ascension to Qwisatz Haderach comes off as a spiritual transition that robs him of what little personality he had to begin with-it's too Zen to be any fun. This is maybe one area wherein the movie evokes a little bit of the messianic angst that made Herbert's novel so compelling. In the book, Paul Atreides is both participant in and spectator to his transformation into a messiah-a man and god in one-and he's ultimately haunted by what he has become, even as he puts on the stoical mask of a Great Leader. Lynch's version, despite it's occasional and surprisingly striking use of voice over, doesn't really let us in on Paul's inner life. Another missed opportunity.
In a way, Lynch's Dune could be to Herbert's original novel what Paul Verhoeven's film of Starship Troopers is to Robert Heinlein's book. Except it's all backwards. Herbert writes a novel that is meant to evoke deep skepticism about the ethics of power and those who wield it in the minds of readers. Lynch takes this narrative and decides to print the Legend of the Fearless Leader. Paul Verhoeven directed his film as a parody of the fascist militarism endorsed as a noble way of life in Heinlein's book. Verhoeven's film is clearly a satire. Lynch's film . . . does not come across that way. It's very serious, is totally lacking in humor, and could only be looked on as a satire if we were to consider it a propaganda film from within the universe of Dune. Which is another similarity with Verhoeven's Starship Troopers.
Maybe.
Diving into Dune '84 again, I am left more critical of it than I had hoped I would be-I wanted to cling to my nostalgia on this one. I really did!
Some of it holds up. The sets and costumes are all cleverly executed. The cast includes Kyle MachLachlan, Max von Sydow, Linda Hunt, Virginia Madsen, Jurgen Prochnow, Everett McGill, Patrick Stewart, Jack Nance, Dean Stockwell, Freddie Jones, Francesca Annis, Brad Dourif-a cast of dozens! My personal favorite is the formidable Sian Phillips who commands the screen with her fearsome incarnation of a Bene Gesserit high priestess. Unfortunately, there are too many characters, and not nearly enough screenplay. Too bad. It's a helluva gathering of master thespians.
The sandworms are quite a lot of fun to behold as they are executed via a mixture of puppets and miniatures. The grotesque Fourth Stage Guild Navigators are magnificently grotesque monster fetuses who use their psionic powers to fold space/time and achieve faster than light travel across the vastnesses of outer space. These hideous beings are the cyberpunk cousins of the subconscious monstrosities previously seen in Eraserhead.
The dialogue isn't terrible, just too clotted with jargon and denuded of context to really sing. Herbert's novel was all about the world-around context. Lynch's film is the Cliff's Notes version.
I like it a little less now. Maybe I understand why Lynch would distance himself from it. It was a big budget production for its time that bombed with audiences and critics. It could've been a career ending flop. It wasn't. Lynch went on to more critical successes with later works, if not overwhelming financial performance. Dune was the first and last time Lynch would attempt to direct a fantasy blockbuster flick. Ultimately, that has been for the best.
In a way, Lynch's Dune could be to Herbert's original novel what Paul Verhoeven's film of Starship Troopers is to Robert Heinlein's book. Except it's all backwards. Herbert writes a novel that is meant to evoke deep skepticism about the ethics of power and those who wield it in the minds of readers. Lynch takes this narrative and decides to print the Legend of the Fearless Leader. Paul Verhoeven directed his film as a parody of the fascist militarism endorsed as a noble way of life in Heinlein's book. Verhoeven's film is clearly a satire. Lynch's film . . . does not come across that way. It's very serious, is totally lacking in humor, and could only be looked on as a satire if we were to consider it a propaganda film from within the universe of Dune. Which is another similarity with Verhoeven's Starship Troopers.
Maybe.
Diving into Dune '84 again, I am left more critical of it than I had hoped I would be-I wanted to cling to my nostalgia on this one. I really did!
Some of it holds up. The sets and costumes are all cleverly executed. The cast includes Kyle MachLachlan, Max von Sydow, Linda Hunt, Virginia Madsen, Jurgen Prochnow, Everett McGill, Patrick Stewart, Jack Nance, Dean Stockwell, Freddie Jones, Francesca Annis, Brad Dourif-a cast of dozens! My personal favorite is the formidable Sian Phillips who commands the screen with her fearsome incarnation of a Bene Gesserit high priestess. Unfortunately, there are too many characters, and not nearly enough screenplay. Too bad. It's a helluva gathering of master thespians.
The sandworms are quite a lot of fun to behold as they are executed via a mixture of puppets and miniatures. The grotesque Fourth Stage Guild Navigators are magnificently grotesque monster fetuses who use their psionic powers to fold space/time and achieve faster than light travel across the vastnesses of outer space. These hideous beings are the cyberpunk cousins of the subconscious monstrosities previously seen in Eraserhead.
The dialogue isn't terrible, just too clotted with jargon and denuded of context to really sing. Herbert's novel was all about the world-around context. Lynch's film is the Cliff's Notes version.
I like it a little less now. Maybe I understand why Lynch would distance himself from it. It was a big budget production for its time that bombed with audiences and critics. It could've been a career ending flop. It wasn't. Lynch went on to more critical successes with later works, if not overwhelming financial performance. Dune was the first and last time Lynch would attempt to direct a fantasy blockbuster flick. Ultimately, that has been for the best.
NEXT: 2/19/18: Blue Velvet (1986)
Saturday, January 27, 2018
The Lynch Meditations -7
Dune might be my personal favorite David Lynch film. I've watched it many times over the years. It is a fascinating, flawed, crazy ambitious mess that suggests new and intriguing ways of doing science fiction and fantasy cinema. It uses voice overs in a subtle fashion somewhat reminiscent of how they are used in a couple of those Lone Wolf and Cub movies. It goes to some wild places in its depictions of mutated far future human societies. The music, sound design, set design, visual effects, and costumes all make a cohesive whole even if the script falls a bit short.
My main criticism would be that it waters down the moral ambiguity of Frank Herbert's novel. The book is a conspiracy thriller told from the perspectives of warring conspiracies. It has a mood and tone which reminds me of The Godfather and The Godfather part II, or that episode of The X-Files depicting the Cigarette Smoking Man's backstory. I get a similar vibe playing the original Syndicate PC game or the Illuminati New World Order trading card game, which are both games that simulate what it's like to mastermind global organized criminal and terrorist operations using mind control, propaganda, and brute force. Lynch's film comes nowhere near this darkness opting instead to have the House Atreides be the super good guys and the House Harkonnen be the super bad guys with no real shades of gray between them. It's a missed opportunity.
But as a work of visual invention Dune is spectacular. And it has a vastly overqualified cast who don't get nearly enough to do, but a few moments stand out here and there. The script includes many memorable scenes, but one cannot help but feel that much has been neglected, leaving out key logical steps in the story, and gutting vital character development. In some respects, Lynch's Dune is a great unfinished symphony similar to Alejandro Jodorowsky's meticulously designed and plotted adaptation of the same source material. When I first got into this film I was playing immersive role playing video games like Final Fantasy VII, Suikoden, Phantasy Star IV, Chrono Trigger, EarthBound, and Final Fantasy VI, which were full of long stretches of gameplay punctuated by non-interactive cut scenes of high literary quality giving these games a cinematic feel. Lynch's Dune sort of reminds me of a highlights reel of evocative cut scenes without the gameplay. The throughline of the story is there, but the substance is severely diminished. Even the extended three hour version assembled for broadcast television doesn't quite overcome these shortcomings, but is a fascinating alternate cut all the same.
Dune is my personal favorite, but I can understand why many people don't care for it. Objectively, I would say that Mulholland Dr. is Lynch's singular cinematic masterpiece, the Official No. 1. But Dune is my favorite misbegotten freak baby. I love it for both its flaws and its flashes of brilliance.
My main criticism would be that it waters down the moral ambiguity of Frank Herbert's novel. The book is a conspiracy thriller told from the perspectives of warring conspiracies. It has a mood and tone which reminds me of The Godfather and The Godfather part II, or that episode of The X-Files depicting the Cigarette Smoking Man's backstory. I get a similar vibe playing the original Syndicate PC game or the Illuminati New World Order trading card game, which are both games that simulate what it's like to mastermind global organized criminal and terrorist operations using mind control, propaganda, and brute force. Lynch's film comes nowhere near this darkness opting instead to have the House Atreides be the super good guys and the House Harkonnen be the super bad guys with no real shades of gray between them. It's a missed opportunity.
But as a work of visual invention Dune is spectacular. And it has a vastly overqualified cast who don't get nearly enough to do, but a few moments stand out here and there. The script includes many memorable scenes, but one cannot help but feel that much has been neglected, leaving out key logical steps in the story, and gutting vital character development. In some respects, Lynch's Dune is a great unfinished symphony similar to Alejandro Jodorowsky's meticulously designed and plotted adaptation of the same source material. When I first got into this film I was playing immersive role playing video games like Final Fantasy VII, Suikoden, Phantasy Star IV, Chrono Trigger, EarthBound, and Final Fantasy VI, which were full of long stretches of gameplay punctuated by non-interactive cut scenes of high literary quality giving these games a cinematic feel. Lynch's Dune sort of reminds me of a highlights reel of evocative cut scenes without the gameplay. The throughline of the story is there, but the substance is severely diminished. Even the extended three hour version assembled for broadcast television doesn't quite overcome these shortcomings, but is a fascinating alternate cut all the same.
Dune is my personal favorite, but I can understand why many people don't care for it. Objectively, I would say that Mulholland Dr. is Lynch's singular cinematic masterpiece, the Official No. 1. But Dune is my favorite misbegotten freak baby. I love it for both its flaws and its flashes of brilliance.
Monday, January 22, 2018
The Lynch Meditations 6: The Elephant Man (1980)
London, 1870s:
We begin inside a dream, a nightmare of stampeding elephants. We are inside the head of an unfortunate man who has been presented as the deformed son of a woman trampled by an elephant when she was four months pregnant by an unscrupulous freak show ringmaster. This story is, of course, nonsense concocted by the ringmaster, and the unfortunate man no doubt knows this story to be false, and yet he still dreams of elephants. You're told you're one thing for so long you may not start to believe it, exactly, but that's pretty much all you've got. And no matter how ridiculous, no matter how degrading, because that story is coming from the one person your survival depends upon, the one person who shows you some kind of attention, you internalize it, get used to it, grow into the role you've been assigned. This unfortunate man is John Merrick, the Elephant Man.
The Elephant Man-a man with hideous congenital deformities-is exploited for use in a freak show until he is rescued by a humane surgeon who studies this deformed man to increase his own prestige within the scientific medical community. But one form of exploitation is not equivalent to another. One is sheer brutality to make a buck, the other is tempered with compassion, mercy, and the hope that greater understanding of the Elephant Man's condition will benefit all humankind.
The surgeon-a Dr. Treves-is first seen wandering a carnival ground when he suddenly turns around, as though struck by a bolt from the blue, and begins to seek something inside the labyrinthine halls of a freak show. He journeys deeper into this maze, until he comes upon the threshold of the Elephant Man exhibit as it is being shut down by Old Bill for being too obscene, too grotesque. Later, Dr. Treves seeks the Elephant Man again in another labyrinth which almost seems like an unmasked version of the first labyrinth. The first one was decorated with theatrical flair; the second is a nasty, subterranean affair of brick and filth and shadows where John Merrick dwells in a miserable chamber tended by the cruel, drunk ringmaster and his child employee. Dr. Treves bribes the ringmaster to get a private exhibition of the Elephant Man. In glorious black and white, Merrick is revealed as a piteous living expression of physical suffering, and we see Dr. Treves, a model of British stoicism, shed tears in stricken silence.
Dr. Treves is magnificently played by Anthony Hopkins-Hannibal Lecter himself-who captures all the nuances and inner conflict of a British gentleman of the late 1800s who is expected to maintain control of his emotions at all times even when he is absolutely devastated by the sight of the afflicted Merrick. Dr. Treves is a model of exercising strength through a combination of intellect and compassion. He takes mercy on Merrick . . . and yet, his interest is also driven by a desire to make a medical breakthrough he can exhibit to his colleagues and take credit for research into the legion deformities with which Merrick suffers. Dr. Treves is aware of this contradiction inside himself, and, in an uncharacteristic show of vulnerability, asks his wife directly, "Am I a good man, or a bad man?" This new vulnerability and openness which gives him a quiet strength is set in motion by the time he spends with Merrick. Hopkins is perfect in every scene. For me, this is his finest film.
Merrick is played by John Hurt buried under prosthetic makeup that is indescribably grotesque. Do a google image search for "the Elephant Man," or "Joseph Merrick," which is the actual name of the real life Elephant Man. Hurt is one of those actors who never seemed to be driven by ego. He was the guy in Alien who had the alien baby rip its way out of his chest. And then he spoofed himself in Spaceballs. He played a doomed subject of totalitarianism in 1984, and the doomed figurehead of a totalitarian regime targeted by a determined anarchist revolutionary in V for Vendetta. He died this past year of pancreatic cancer. Hit up his filmography. Hurt was an actor's actor. He played just about everything, and he embodies Merrick, his physical difficulties, and his high-pitched voice as though they were all second nature to him.
Other standout performances include a hard-boiled Freddie Jones as the alcoholic ringmaster; a radiant Anne Bancroft as a theatre producer who befriends Merrick; and a delightful John Gielgud as Dr. Treves's rational, enlightened superior in the medical establishment.
The Elephant Man's strongest scenes depict Merrick's process of healing as he discovers his value as a human being with help from Dr. Treves and others who come like angels of mercy into his life. Merrick is a man who has lived in a state of pure brutalization, and so he must learn what it is to be loved, and to love himself, and to have dreams and hopes for the future. The dark and twisted dream of a misbegotten child born of an elephant's hoof is displaced by new dreams of his own creation, that are more in tune with the reality of his humanity.
If the movie has a flaw, it has to do with that whole "based on a true story" thing. Do a little research, and you will pick up very quickly on what's fiction and what's somewhat factual here. On the whole, I think this movie is a credible dramatization of a process of healing, but it is most definitely not a documentary. The real story of Joseph Merrick, who only lived 27 years, is much more complex, and in some ways is at odds with this film version.
Another flaw is that some of the scenes are played for absolute historical realism, while others veer into melodrama that doesn't quite fit, although they are well played by the actors here. David Lynch's exacting direction almost makes it seamless. The understated dialogue, punctuated with outbursts of great intensity, also keeps things mostly on track.
These missteps are, for me, mostly forgivable.
Bottom line: this is Lynch's most nakedly compassionate, and humane film. Shot in glorious black and white, immaculately designed and lit; and acted to perfection, it is a haunting evocation of a healer descending into a hellish labyrinth of misery to rescue a suffering soul.
NEXT: 1/29/18: Dune (1984)
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SUITMATION FAMILY PACK is available as an Amazon Kindle e-book.
Sunday, January 21, 2018
The Lynch Meditations -6
"Based on a true story."
I take these words as a warning,
that a life in all its complexity, contradiction, and paradox
is about to be rendered down into a trite, Hollywood stroke-job;
to please as many people as possible
with absurdly simplistic life lessons and bogus uplift
cynically calculated and implemented.
Especially when it comes to the biopic-short for biographical picture-which usually presumes to tell the life story of some famous and noteworthy person from history.
How do you make a human life fit within the artificial confines of the dogma of three-act structure?
The film I've seen that did this thing best was Shohei Imamura's The Insect Woman, and that was a totally fictional film that felt like an authentic biopic. Right at the two-hour mark, it managed to make you feel as though you've experienced decades of a woman's life in Japan from the end of World War II through to the early 1960s. I have no idea how Imamura did it. I tried to figure it out years ago, and all I could do was profess my admiration for it, note its unusual qualities, and move on with my life.
The Elephant Man is one of two movies David Lynch has directed-so far-"based on a true story"-with the other one being The Straight Story, and I would place them in second and third place behind The Insect Woman as far as conventional biopics are concerned . . . even though The Insect Woman isn't even a biopic, technically speaking. Sometimes good cinema screws up the usual categories of things. And if you don't like that, or you don't agree, well, um, it's my blog, I determine the reality 'round here, bub!
I take these words as a warning,
that a life in all its complexity, contradiction, and paradox
is about to be rendered down into a trite, Hollywood stroke-job;
to please as many people as possible
with absurdly simplistic life lessons and bogus uplift
cynically calculated and implemented.
Especially when it comes to the biopic-short for biographical picture-which usually presumes to tell the life story of some famous and noteworthy person from history.
How do you make a human life fit within the artificial confines of the dogma of three-act structure?
The film I've seen that did this thing best was Shohei Imamura's The Insect Woman, and that was a totally fictional film that felt like an authentic biopic. Right at the two-hour mark, it managed to make you feel as though you've experienced decades of a woman's life in Japan from the end of World War II through to the early 1960s. I have no idea how Imamura did it. I tried to figure it out years ago, and all I could do was profess my admiration for it, note its unusual qualities, and move on with my life.
The Elephant Man is one of two movies David Lynch has directed-so far-"based on a true story"-with the other one being The Straight Story, and I would place them in second and third place behind The Insect Woman as far as conventional biopics are concerned . . . even though The Insect Woman isn't even a biopic, technically speaking. Sometimes good cinema screws up the usual categories of things. And if you don't like that, or you don't agree, well, um, it's my blog, I determine the reality 'round here, bub!
Saturday, January 20, 2018
COMICS REVIEW: APOCALYPTIGIRL: AN ARIA FOR THE END TIMES (2015)
Script and Art by Andrew MacLean
...
"You know, for an apocalypse . . . it ain't all bad."
...
"You know, for an apocalypse . . . it ain't all bad."
...
Review by William D. Tucker.
A woman named Aria wanders a post-apocalyptic world with her sword, her guns, and her twitchy tomcat, Jelly Beans, singing French opera, and not having such a bad time of it, really. The scenery is nice. Lots of trees and other plants reclaiming the abandoned office buildings, vehicles, and ruined infrastructure. Aria lives underground inside an abandoned subway car wired up to a power source, hooked up to clean water, and she's able to harvest all-organic fruits and nuts from the trees all over the surface world. Aria has a motorcycle, and a broken down mech she has all but given up on repairing for the moment. Fresh air, clean water, healthy food, exercise-Aria's seemingly got the run of the planet.
Except for the muscle dudes in blue warpaint wielding Kalashnikov assault rifles. Oh, and the killer hordes of mutant attack dogs. And the blue-skinned lunatics, those dudes are heavy. And then there's the soldiers of the One . . . but you'll just have to check that crew out yourself.
Aria's life is in danger, but she is not scared. She's armed, she has survival skills, combat training, and a mission to find an ultra-tech power source to give her life meaning, since she is completely isolated from meaningful human contact during her time on this planet, aside from her skirmishes with the blue warpaint dudes and the blue-skinned dudes and the soldiers of the One. Only the soldiers of the One seem to speak Aria's language, and so we can perhaps assume that the lack of an ability to communicate only contributes to the tension and hostility that regularly boils over into lethal violence.
During one of Aria's battles with the blue warpaint dudes, she encounters a teenage boy who can't quite pull the trigger on his Kalashnikov. Aria spares his life, and she comes to be haunted by his intense eyes. Later, one of these eyes sheds a tear over a comrade-in-arms slain by Aria in battle.
At eighty-eight pages, Apocalyptigirl keeps things simple and to the point, telling an action-packed story of a post-apocalyptic wanderer contending with a dangerous world in the vein of A Boy and His Dog, The Omega Man, or the first Fallout game. The art is charming, colorful, slightly cartoony, and brutally violent where necessary. Bodies are blown apart in shootouts. Limbs get hacked off. Aria is not to be fucked with despite her sunny, borderline twee demeanor. The thing which Aria is trying to find is cool looking, but is basically a MacGuffin, just a device to give some semblance of a structure to the plot. I would've preferred a more interesting object for her to quest after, but it doesn't ruin anything. I was particularly pleased with the ending, which I did not expect. There is an intriguing subtext of a society divided along gender lines, with the apocalypse implied to be the outcome of militaristic hypermasculinity gone berserk, but the emphasis is on the action, and the details of Aria's solitary existence. Apocalyptigirl isn't preachy, but it does have more on its mind than is obvious on a first reading.
Overall, Apocalyptigirl gets by almost entirely on the charm and dynamism of its visuals, which is no mean feat. I read it several times over an evening, and I have since ruminated over its visuals, thinking, "What a cozy apocalypse! I would buy the RPG sourcebook. I want to wander this wasteland myself." There's a lot to enjoy within this slim volume. A lot of comics go on and on, to diminishing returns over time. I like it when everything you need is in one volume, between two covers, no bullshit, just the thing itself.
A woman named Aria wanders a post-apocalyptic world with her sword, her guns, and her twitchy tomcat, Jelly Beans, singing French opera, and not having such a bad time of it, really. The scenery is nice. Lots of trees and other plants reclaiming the abandoned office buildings, vehicles, and ruined infrastructure. Aria lives underground inside an abandoned subway car wired up to a power source, hooked up to clean water, and she's able to harvest all-organic fruits and nuts from the trees all over the surface world. Aria has a motorcycle, and a broken down mech she has all but given up on repairing for the moment. Fresh air, clean water, healthy food, exercise-Aria's seemingly got the run of the planet.
Except for the muscle dudes in blue warpaint wielding Kalashnikov assault rifles. Oh, and the killer hordes of mutant attack dogs. And the blue-skinned lunatics, those dudes are heavy. And then there's the soldiers of the One . . . but you'll just have to check that crew out yourself.
Aria's life is in danger, but she is not scared. She's armed, she has survival skills, combat training, and a mission to find an ultra-tech power source to give her life meaning, since she is completely isolated from meaningful human contact during her time on this planet, aside from her skirmishes with the blue warpaint dudes and the blue-skinned dudes and the soldiers of the One. Only the soldiers of the One seem to speak Aria's language, and so we can perhaps assume that the lack of an ability to communicate only contributes to the tension and hostility that regularly boils over into lethal violence.
During one of Aria's battles with the blue warpaint dudes, she encounters a teenage boy who can't quite pull the trigger on his Kalashnikov. Aria spares his life, and she comes to be haunted by his intense eyes. Later, one of these eyes sheds a tear over a comrade-in-arms slain by Aria in battle.
At eighty-eight pages, Apocalyptigirl keeps things simple and to the point, telling an action-packed story of a post-apocalyptic wanderer contending with a dangerous world in the vein of A Boy and His Dog, The Omega Man, or the first Fallout game. The art is charming, colorful, slightly cartoony, and brutally violent where necessary. Bodies are blown apart in shootouts. Limbs get hacked off. Aria is not to be fucked with despite her sunny, borderline twee demeanor. The thing which Aria is trying to find is cool looking, but is basically a MacGuffin, just a device to give some semblance of a structure to the plot. I would've preferred a more interesting object for her to quest after, but it doesn't ruin anything. I was particularly pleased with the ending, which I did not expect. There is an intriguing subtext of a society divided along gender lines, with the apocalypse implied to be the outcome of militaristic hypermasculinity gone berserk, but the emphasis is on the action, and the details of Aria's solitary existence. Apocalyptigirl isn't preachy, but it does have more on its mind than is obvious on a first reading.
Overall, Apocalyptigirl gets by almost entirely on the charm and dynamism of its visuals, which is no mean feat. I read it several times over an evening, and I have since ruminated over its visuals, thinking, "What a cozy apocalypse! I would buy the RPG sourcebook. I want to wander this wasteland myself." There's a lot to enjoy within this slim volume. A lot of comics go on and on, to diminishing returns over time. I like it when everything you need is in one volume, between two covers, no bullshit, just the thing itself.
Monday, January 15, 2018
The Lynch Meditations 5: Eraserhead (1977)
WARNING: If you've never seen Eraserhead, go watch it. It's excellent. It's a high point in the career of David Lynch. It's best to go into it totally blind, with no pre-conceived notions. Don't read what I think about it, don't read any other reviews before you see it-do that after, if at all. Eraserhead's worth the time spent with it.
...
An evil man in the moon manipulates a set of levers setting in motion a nightmarish existence for a printer named Henry.
Henry is full of monster sperm he doesn't want.
A woman with a face full of tumors-or maybe Jo Shishido-style silicone injections gone bad-sings of heaven inside a radiator, and stomps out the unwanted sperm monsters.
Henry is so ashamed of his desires,
he literally loses his head sometimes.
When he really gets down, the grotesque head of a monster baby replaces his own.
Henry's apartment transforms into a muggy jacuzzi when he finally has sex with the woman across the hall whom he has desired for so long . . . assuming this isn't a dream.
Henry lies in bed with his fiancee (not the woman across the hall, btw), post-coitus. Suddenly, he starts trying to remove the monster sperms he has filled her with by reaching inside of her and extracting them manually which causes extreme pain to the fiancee.
And then there's the dream of becoming an eraserhead . . .
Eraserhead is full of nightmarish imagery in glorious black and white meticulously planned, lit, designed, shot, scored, sound re-recorded, edited, and mixed over five laborious years in the 1970s. I had to remind myself that this was 1970s American cinema. It has that timeless look that Citizen Kane has, where I have to remind myself of the true age of what I just watched. Eraserhead feels even more contemporary than Citizen Kane, whose snappily paced dialogue and German Expressionist style clearly dates it to the 1940s. Eraserhead is still very much of this present moment with its long stretches of ambient sound scoring, and characters who alternate between anguished silences and awkward exchanges. The characters inhabit a world of deep loneliness and isolation, and so they turn inwards to keep their own counsel, nurture bizarre fantasies, or have outright hallucinations. Or are they transcendent visions? (Maybe these people need social media. I mean, if they could just situate themselves within solipsistic always online echo chambers I'm sure their angst and alienation would be geometrically amplified to lethal proportions-oh, wait . . .)
The question of whether this movie takes place in reality or a dream is seemingly settled by its well-know tagline: "A dream of dark and troubling things." Of course, you could say that every movie is a dream of one kind or another, especially if we define a dream as a discrete set of images, sounds, and moods that constitutes a hermetically sealed experience complete in and of itself.
Gojira is a nightmare of a giant radioactive monster laying waste to Tokyo; Double Indemnity is a fever dream of forbidden desire run riot overturning the placid surface of prosperous lives; Zero Dark Thirty is a slow-burn nightmare of vengeance hollowing out an intelligence analyst's soul; La La Land is a bittersweet dream of attractive young people making it in Hollywood; Mulholland Dr. is a nightmare of attractive young people making it in Hollywood hidden inside a bittersweet dream of attractive young people making it in Hollywood.
Eraserhead is, perhaps, a nightmare of a man who fears having to take care of another living being.
Henry has a child with his fiancee which is a monstrosity seemingly created before the camera from an actual cow fetus, expertly puppeteered like something out of a Clive Barker story. The newborn is piteous, magnificent, repulsive, and irritating in equal measure. He keeps it on top of his dresser in his tiny apartment. It mewls in pain at all hours of the night, and in this world it's almost always night. Henry tries to ignore the monster freak baby, but then he tries to tend to its fragile, bandaged body and everything only gets worse. Which is exactly what drives people from trying to love one another, right? A peculiar fear not just of failure, but of rejection, that no matter what you do you'll only become more vile, more alone, more unworthy of being loved. And because Eraserhead is a discrete set of images, sounds, moods, performances that constitutes a hermetically sealed experience complete in and of itself the only possible escape or transcendence flows from the logic of a dream or a nightmare . . . you just need to see it for yourself.
I really don't want to spoil the ending on this one, but I'll say this: a number of Lynch's movies play like nightmares with a transcendent climax in which some mercy or salvation is achieved even if that transcendence can't help but also encompass a high degree of perversity, of madness, annihilation of self and others.
Eraserhead. It's some weird shit.
1/22/18: The Elephant Man (1980)
My Patreon's here.
SUITMATION FAMILY PACK is available as an Amazon Kindle e-book here.
...
An evil man in the moon manipulates a set of levers setting in motion a nightmarish existence for a printer named Henry.
Henry is full of monster sperm he doesn't want.
A woman with a face full of tumors-or maybe Jo Shishido-style silicone injections gone bad-sings of heaven inside a radiator, and stomps out the unwanted sperm monsters.
Henry is so ashamed of his desires,
he literally loses his head sometimes.
When he really gets down, the grotesque head of a monster baby replaces his own.
Henry's apartment transforms into a muggy jacuzzi when he finally has sex with the woman across the hall whom he has desired for so long . . . assuming this isn't a dream.
Henry lies in bed with his fiancee (not the woman across the hall, btw), post-coitus. Suddenly, he starts trying to remove the monster sperms he has filled her with by reaching inside of her and extracting them manually which causes extreme pain to the fiancee.
And then there's the dream of becoming an eraserhead . . .
Eraserhead is full of nightmarish imagery in glorious black and white meticulously planned, lit, designed, shot, scored, sound re-recorded, edited, and mixed over five laborious years in the 1970s. I had to remind myself that this was 1970s American cinema. It has that timeless look that Citizen Kane has, where I have to remind myself of the true age of what I just watched. Eraserhead feels even more contemporary than Citizen Kane, whose snappily paced dialogue and German Expressionist style clearly dates it to the 1940s. Eraserhead is still very much of this present moment with its long stretches of ambient sound scoring, and characters who alternate between anguished silences and awkward exchanges. The characters inhabit a world of deep loneliness and isolation, and so they turn inwards to keep their own counsel, nurture bizarre fantasies, or have outright hallucinations. Or are they transcendent visions? (Maybe these people need social media. I mean, if they could just situate themselves within solipsistic always online echo chambers I'm sure their angst and alienation would be geometrically amplified to lethal proportions-oh, wait . . .)
The question of whether this movie takes place in reality or a dream is seemingly settled by its well-know tagline: "A dream of dark and troubling things." Of course, you could say that every movie is a dream of one kind or another, especially if we define a dream as a discrete set of images, sounds, and moods that constitutes a hermetically sealed experience complete in and of itself.
Gojira is a nightmare of a giant radioactive monster laying waste to Tokyo; Double Indemnity is a fever dream of forbidden desire run riot overturning the placid surface of prosperous lives; Zero Dark Thirty is a slow-burn nightmare of vengeance hollowing out an intelligence analyst's soul; La La Land is a bittersweet dream of attractive young people making it in Hollywood; Mulholland Dr. is a nightmare of attractive young people making it in Hollywood hidden inside a bittersweet dream of attractive young people making it in Hollywood.
Eraserhead is, perhaps, a nightmare of a man who fears having to take care of another living being.
Henry has a child with his fiancee which is a monstrosity seemingly created before the camera from an actual cow fetus, expertly puppeteered like something out of a Clive Barker story. The newborn is piteous, magnificent, repulsive, and irritating in equal measure. He keeps it on top of his dresser in his tiny apartment. It mewls in pain at all hours of the night, and in this world it's almost always night. Henry tries to ignore the monster freak baby, but then he tries to tend to its fragile, bandaged body and everything only gets worse. Which is exactly what drives people from trying to love one another, right? A peculiar fear not just of failure, but of rejection, that no matter what you do you'll only become more vile, more alone, more unworthy of being loved. And because Eraserhead is a discrete set of images, sounds, moods, performances that constitutes a hermetically sealed experience complete in and of itself the only possible escape or transcendence flows from the logic of a dream or a nightmare . . . you just need to see it for yourself.
I really don't want to spoil the ending on this one, but I'll say this: a number of Lynch's movies play like nightmares with a transcendent climax in which some mercy or salvation is achieved even if that transcendence can't help but also encompass a high degree of perversity, of madness, annihilation of self and others.
Eraserhead. It's some weird shit.
1/22/18: The Elephant Man (1980)
My Patreon's here.
SUITMATION FAMILY PACK is available as an Amazon Kindle e-book here.
Sunday, January 14, 2018
The Lynch Meditations -5
A man sitting on the edge of a bed gets up to walk through a door
a year and a half later
the man walks through the door
well,
that was the shooting schedule,
how it worked out.
Two years into the shoot, the original cinematographer died of some unspecified illness.
Leading man Jack Nance kept his hair all crazy teased-up like that during the entire shoot.
Money ran out, no one knew if it would ever be finished,
everyone involved gave whatever they had: time, money, labor,
with no real profit motive or hope of breaking in to the Hollywood scene,
Five years of filming
Eraserhead's the result.
It's some weird shit.
...
I saw Eraserhead for the first time sometime in 2002 on VHS with a couple of friends in a dingy, collegiate apartment. We watched it in mostly rapt silence, all Lynch fans, a perfect screening.
None of us knew anything about the making of the film. I assumed it was a movie made like any other movie. Maybe I thought of it being something like Night of the Living Dead, shot on weekends by a dedicated group of people over five or six months.
After Eraserhead, I recall us watching Tetsuo the Iron Man but I'm not sure. That would've been a terrific double feature.
David Lynch screened Sunset Boulevard for the cast and crew of Eraserhead to put them in the mood of a black and white reality. I guess we should've watched Sunset Boulevard with Eraserhead back in 2002. Well, we didn't know any better at that time.
Maybe I'll watch Sunset Boulevard first before watching Eraserhead this time around.
a year and a half later
the man walks through the door
well,
that was the shooting schedule,
how it worked out.
Two years into the shoot, the original cinematographer died of some unspecified illness.
Leading man Jack Nance kept his hair all crazy teased-up like that during the entire shoot.
Money ran out, no one knew if it would ever be finished,
everyone involved gave whatever they had: time, money, labor,
with no real profit motive or hope of breaking in to the Hollywood scene,
Five years of filming
Eraserhead's the result.
It's some weird shit.
...
I saw Eraserhead for the first time sometime in 2002 on VHS with a couple of friends in a dingy, collegiate apartment. We watched it in mostly rapt silence, all Lynch fans, a perfect screening.
None of us knew anything about the making of the film. I assumed it was a movie made like any other movie. Maybe I thought of it being something like Night of the Living Dead, shot on weekends by a dedicated group of people over five or six months.
After Eraserhead, I recall us watching Tetsuo the Iron Man but I'm not sure. That would've been a terrific double feature.
David Lynch screened Sunset Boulevard for the cast and crew of Eraserhead to put them in the mood of a black and white reality. I guess we should've watched Sunset Boulevard with Eraserhead back in 2002. Well, we didn't know any better at that time.
Maybe I'll watch Sunset Boulevard first before watching Eraserhead this time around.
Saturday, January 13, 2018
COMICS REVIEW: ORBITER (2003)
Writer: Warren Ellis
Artist: Colleen Doran
Colorist: Dave Stewart
Letterer: Clem Robins
Review by William D. Tucker
In the not-too-distant-future, a NASA space shuttle disappears not long after launch. No one knows exactly what happened, but this loss deals a deathblow to the program of manned spaceflight. The government is no longer willing to invest in any mission which could get people killed, and only robotic space exploration missions are funded. This shift in policy works alongside a drift towards militarism and growing economic inequality inside the United States, and within a decade of the space shuttle's vanishing, Kennedy Space Center has become a shantytown squat for growing populations of the permanently unemployed, climate change refugees from the flooding coastal regions, and masses of sick junkies, the untreated mentally ill, and those disenfranchised by jingoistic nationalism and white supremacy.
And then one day, the vanished space shuttle returns, crashing into the shantytown, and killing scores of innocent people. The military government of the United States moves quickly to investigate the returned shuttle, and try to crack the mystery of its disappearance. The military supervised scientists discover rather quickly that the shuttle is not what it once was: it is covered in a mysterious skin. Only one member of the original crew has survived. And they may no longer be human . . .
Orbiter is a science fiction allegory about the death and rebirth of manned space exploration in the United States of America. I describe it specifically as an allegory because the emphasis here is on themes, ideas, and an overall message about the necessity of interdisciplinary collaboration among the "hard" and "soft" sciences of physics, biology, psychology, and engineering in order to overcome the vast challenges of intergalactic exploration, as opposed to a focus on characters and interpersonal drama. The characters are important, and well-sketched for the most part, but like many science fiction tales, the ideas are what matter most. This results in a cast of characters who mostly exist as spokespeople for different values and philosophical points of view, with a few devolving into stock stereotypes of geekdom and hardline military authoritarianism. I was able to forgive the weaknesses of some of the characterizations because the overall thematic development was so compelling.
The art is seamless and cinematic, foregoing sound effects text and thought bubbles, and emphasizing shadows, earth tones, faces, and the magnificent returned space shuttle which has undergone a startling biomechanical transformation. Scenes of crushing poverty and cataclysmic mass death set a very dark tone early on with an abundance of detail depicting piles of corpses and heaps of trash side by side. Human life has lost much of its meaning and value. But as the human investigators probe deeper into the mystery of the returned spacecraft, the people-with their questions and memories and theories-take center stage lifting the story into a higher plane both visually and textually.
At one hundred brisk pages, Orbiter cuts all the bullshit, and gives you everything you need between two covers.
This comic was originally published as a single volume hardback "graphic novel" way back in 2003, the year the US embarked on its disastrous Iraq adventure, and it seems even more relevant now as the United States struggles to keep its shit together under the shameful administration of Fake President trump and his government of white supremacists, hyper-nationalists, and climate change denying anti-intellectuals. Orbiter, for all its gruesome dystopian world-building, actually depicts a path forward by dramatizing interdisciplinary cooperation in the face of nihilistic inertia and despair. Sometimes dystopia clarifies one's thinking, and makes you realize you need not be bound to the failed institutions and ideologies of the past. This, too, is what I see as the primary lesson of the ordeal of the Fake President trump White House as it implodes in real time: what kind of country do we want marching forward into the future? One that is inclusive of all people regardless of skin color, sexuality, and gender identity? Or a corrupt shithole of jingoism and white supremacy?
Orbiter offered transcendent hope in the dark days of the lying, warmongering Bush/Cheney regime in 2003, and it holds up in this present moment as well.
Artist: Colleen Doran
Colorist: Dave Stewart
Letterer: Clem Robins
Review by William D. Tucker
In the not-too-distant-future, a NASA space shuttle disappears not long after launch. No one knows exactly what happened, but this loss deals a deathblow to the program of manned spaceflight. The government is no longer willing to invest in any mission which could get people killed, and only robotic space exploration missions are funded. This shift in policy works alongside a drift towards militarism and growing economic inequality inside the United States, and within a decade of the space shuttle's vanishing, Kennedy Space Center has become a shantytown squat for growing populations of the permanently unemployed, climate change refugees from the flooding coastal regions, and masses of sick junkies, the untreated mentally ill, and those disenfranchised by jingoistic nationalism and white supremacy.
And then one day, the vanished space shuttle returns, crashing into the shantytown, and killing scores of innocent people. The military government of the United States moves quickly to investigate the returned shuttle, and try to crack the mystery of its disappearance. The military supervised scientists discover rather quickly that the shuttle is not what it once was: it is covered in a mysterious skin. Only one member of the original crew has survived. And they may no longer be human . . .
Orbiter is a science fiction allegory about the death and rebirth of manned space exploration in the United States of America. I describe it specifically as an allegory because the emphasis here is on themes, ideas, and an overall message about the necessity of interdisciplinary collaboration among the "hard" and "soft" sciences of physics, biology, psychology, and engineering in order to overcome the vast challenges of intergalactic exploration, as opposed to a focus on characters and interpersonal drama. The characters are important, and well-sketched for the most part, but like many science fiction tales, the ideas are what matter most. This results in a cast of characters who mostly exist as spokespeople for different values and philosophical points of view, with a few devolving into stock stereotypes of geekdom and hardline military authoritarianism. I was able to forgive the weaknesses of some of the characterizations because the overall thematic development was so compelling.
The art is seamless and cinematic, foregoing sound effects text and thought bubbles, and emphasizing shadows, earth tones, faces, and the magnificent returned space shuttle which has undergone a startling biomechanical transformation. Scenes of crushing poverty and cataclysmic mass death set a very dark tone early on with an abundance of detail depicting piles of corpses and heaps of trash side by side. Human life has lost much of its meaning and value. But as the human investigators probe deeper into the mystery of the returned spacecraft, the people-with their questions and memories and theories-take center stage lifting the story into a higher plane both visually and textually.
At one hundred brisk pages, Orbiter cuts all the bullshit, and gives you everything you need between two covers.
This comic was originally published as a single volume hardback "graphic novel" way back in 2003, the year the US embarked on its disastrous Iraq adventure, and it seems even more relevant now as the United States struggles to keep its shit together under the shameful administration of Fake President trump and his government of white supremacists, hyper-nationalists, and climate change denying anti-intellectuals. Orbiter, for all its gruesome dystopian world-building, actually depicts a path forward by dramatizing interdisciplinary cooperation in the face of nihilistic inertia and despair. Sometimes dystopia clarifies one's thinking, and makes you realize you need not be bound to the failed institutions and ideologies of the past. This, too, is what I see as the primary lesson of the ordeal of the Fake President trump White House as it implodes in real time: what kind of country do we want marching forward into the future? One that is inclusive of all people regardless of skin color, sexuality, and gender identity? Or a corrupt shithole of jingoism and white supremacy?
Orbiter offered transcendent hope in the dark days of the lying, warmongering Bush/Cheney regime in 2003, and it holds up in this present moment as well.
Thursday, January 11, 2018
The Lynch Meditations 4: The Amputee Version One and Version Two (1974)
A woman (Catherine Coulson) writes a letter or maybe a script for a daytime soap opera as a nurse (David Lynch) tends to the stump of her freshly amputated left leg. The right leg has also been amputated. The woman jots down a series of jealous accusations and insinuations exchanged between a group of close friends as the nurse tries to staunch the bleeding stump. The blood continues to flow. The letter or soap opera script or outline of a turgid novel of love and betrayal a la Peyton Place just goes on and on and on narrated in voice over by the woman who does not even seem aware of her amputated legs, the eternally bleeding stump, or the nurse who seems to be incapable of staunching the flow of blood.
Petty soap opera conflicts obscure the larger truth, the larger wound.
This short little flick-available in a five minute and in a four minute version-seems to encapsulate in miniature all three seasons of Twin Peaks + Fire Walk With Me.
The two versions were each shot on a different kind of videotape that the American Film Institute was looking to purchase presumably to cut costs. So this is early video work from Lynch, who would shoot web videos and the labyrinthine epic INLAND EMPIRE on digital video farther on down the line.
The video is a rough looking black and white that enhances the dreamy surrealism of the scene that plays out in one continuous take in both versions.
The scene has no real ending. I was left with the feeling that it just goes on and on, cyclically, a warped soap opera playing out inside the amputee's mind,
while the nurse tends the wound he cannot close,
the wound that will never stop squirting blood.
NEXT: 1/15/18 The Lynch Meditations 5: Eraserhead (1977)
My Patreon's here.
SUITMATION FAMILY PACK is available as an Amazon Kindle e-book here.
Petty soap opera conflicts obscure the larger truth, the larger wound.
This short little flick-available in a five minute and in a four minute version-seems to encapsulate in miniature all three seasons of Twin Peaks + Fire Walk With Me.
The two versions were each shot on a different kind of videotape that the American Film Institute was looking to purchase presumably to cut costs. So this is early video work from Lynch, who would shoot web videos and the labyrinthine epic INLAND EMPIRE on digital video farther on down the line.
The video is a rough looking black and white that enhances the dreamy surrealism of the scene that plays out in one continuous take in both versions.
The scene has no real ending. I was left with the feeling that it just goes on and on, cyclically, a warped soap opera playing out inside the amputee's mind,
while the nurse tends the wound he cannot close,
the wound that will never stop squirting blood.
NEXT: 1/15/18 The Lynch Meditations 5: Eraserhead (1977)
My Patreon's here.
SUITMATION FAMILY PACK is available as an Amazon Kindle e-book here.
Wednesday, January 10, 2018
The Lynch Meditations -4
The Amputee exists because the years long production of Eraserhead-David Lynch's first feature length film-ran out of money and had to shut down. The American Film Institute-which was helping to produce Eraserhead-was looking to test two kinds of film stock. David Lynch and his collaborator Catherine Coulson (known in later years for playing The Log Lady on Twin Peaks) wrote a script overnight, and had Frederick Elmes-the director of photography on Eraserhead-shoot it as one scene, all in one take for each version, shot on the two different film stocks.
So, The Amputee was created to scratch an itch: the desire to create, even in circumstances where there's no money, no real crew, and a script conjured from thin air.
What's possible?
How much something can you get from nothing?
So, The Amputee was created to scratch an itch: the desire to create, even in circumstances where there's no money, no real crew, and a script conjured from thin air.
What's possible?
How much something can you get from nothing?
Monday, January 8, 2018
The Lynch Meditations 3: The Grandmother (1970)
Mixture of live action and animation. Some live action sequences are shot as stop motion using human performers giving that weird herky-jerky effect to their motions-people become monsters out of a Ray Harryhausen fantasy sequence.
A man and a woman are secreted and processed by the earth until they reach the surface where they make animal noises, and crawl and fight upon the forest floor. The man brutalizes the woman, forces himself upon her, and a son is born, also secreted and processed upwards by the earth. The son is brutalized by the father, neglected by the mother.
Soon, the son is pissing the bed. The father punishes the son for this, rubbing his face in the bright yellow piss stains, reminiscent of how some dog owners abuse their pets.
The son goes to another bedroom-which might exist only in his imagination-where he piles dirt on the bed, adds water, and a large, spiny plant grows. The plant births an old woman, whom the son loves, and she loves the son. It is not clear if this is actually happening, or if this is a dream of the boy. The old woman-the grandmother-might also be drawn from some memory the boy has of his grandmother from earlier in life, but this is not certain. Personally, I think this grandmother springs wholly from the boy's imagination. He knows there are kindly, loving grandmothers out there in the world, even though he himself has never met one, and so he has created one in his imagination, and has brought her to life through green-thumb magick.
One thing I find interesting here is how the earth is portrayed as a crazy machine manufacturing miserable humans. Is this what human cruelty has done to the earth? Are we on another planet? My take is that this is what we have done to the earth. We humans have brutalized mother earth into a factory specializing in the manufacture of broken, abusive souls.
Animation and surrealism are used to go beyond the mundane surface of miserable lives. If this had been staged in a wholly realistic way, we would have no distance, and we would be deeply depressed. The movie's weirdness gets us into an investigative frame of mind: why are these people so fucked up? Is there a way out? Is fantasy any kind of salvation? Why must so many fathers be abusive, predatory pieces of shit?
I no longer hate The Grandmother, but I think I know why I disliked it so much when I first experienced it. This film is a harrowing portrayal of child abuse, and how a boy suffering abuse uses fantasy to imagine someone who loves him unconditionally in a world without love. The movie, interestingly, isn't trying to get you to fall in love with it-The Grandmother is meant to be difficult, bizarre, unpleasant, and nightmarish. I now have respect for it as a work of cinema, and I hope it does not reflect personal experiences on the part of David Lynch; but if it does portray personal experiences, then I hope this movie was part of some healing process. Either way, it is a challenging experience, and I'm glad I ventured into its frightful world one more time.
NEXT: 1/11/18 The Lynch Meditations 4: The Amputee Version One and Version Two (1974)
My Patreon's here.
SUITMATION FAMILY PACK is available as an Amazon Kindle e-book here.
A man and a woman are secreted and processed by the earth until they reach the surface where they make animal noises, and crawl and fight upon the forest floor. The man brutalizes the woman, forces himself upon her, and a son is born, also secreted and processed upwards by the earth. The son is brutalized by the father, neglected by the mother.
Soon, the son is pissing the bed. The father punishes the son for this, rubbing his face in the bright yellow piss stains, reminiscent of how some dog owners abuse their pets.
The son goes to another bedroom-which might exist only in his imagination-where he piles dirt on the bed, adds water, and a large, spiny plant grows. The plant births an old woman, whom the son loves, and she loves the son. It is not clear if this is actually happening, or if this is a dream of the boy. The old woman-the grandmother-might also be drawn from some memory the boy has of his grandmother from earlier in life, but this is not certain. Personally, I think this grandmother springs wholly from the boy's imagination. He knows there are kindly, loving grandmothers out there in the world, even though he himself has never met one, and so he has created one in his imagination, and has brought her to life through green-thumb magick.
One thing I find interesting here is how the earth is portrayed as a crazy machine manufacturing miserable humans. Is this what human cruelty has done to the earth? Are we on another planet? My take is that this is what we have done to the earth. We humans have brutalized mother earth into a factory specializing in the manufacture of broken, abusive souls.
Animation and surrealism are used to go beyond the mundane surface of miserable lives. If this had been staged in a wholly realistic way, we would have no distance, and we would be deeply depressed. The movie's weirdness gets us into an investigative frame of mind: why are these people so fucked up? Is there a way out? Is fantasy any kind of salvation? Why must so many fathers be abusive, predatory pieces of shit?
I no longer hate The Grandmother, but I think I know why I disliked it so much when I first experienced it. This film is a harrowing portrayal of child abuse, and how a boy suffering abuse uses fantasy to imagine someone who loves him unconditionally in a world without love. The movie, interestingly, isn't trying to get you to fall in love with it-The Grandmother is meant to be difficult, bizarre, unpleasant, and nightmarish. I now have respect for it as a work of cinema, and I hope it does not reflect personal experiences on the part of David Lynch; but if it does portray personal experiences, then I hope this movie was part of some healing process. Either way, it is a challenging experience, and I'm glad I ventured into its frightful world one more time.
NEXT: 1/11/18 The Lynch Meditations 4: The Amputee Version One and Version Two (1974)
My Patreon's here.
SUITMATION FAMILY PACK is available as an Amazon Kindle e-book here.
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