/vhs/ - Movies

>>1761 (OP) 
Dune
The Elephant Man

>>1761 (OP) 
>im guessing the rest of his films are the same
Dune, Fire Walk With Me, Twin Peaks Episode 1, Blue Velvet, and Wild at Heart aren't.

>>1761 (OP) 
>Mullholland Drive
>Pretentious bullshit that never tells an actual story
He does tell a story in Mullholland Drive, as well as in his other movies. But similar to Stanley Kubrick, you have a surface narrative and a deeper level. For example, The Shining on the surface level is about a man who kills his family in spoopy ghost skellington hotel, but the film also discusses the killing of native americans, as well as a more deep understanding that Jack is sexually abusing his son.
However, Lynch is a lot more convoluted in his storytelling where it just seems like he's jumping all over the place in tone and in story. So while you could enjoy The Shining without "getting" it, I find Lynch's films are for the guy who's into art movies or weird films. The only exception, for me, was Twin Peaks. It has a deeper story, but it's not insufferable to watch if you don't want to decipher clues.

>>1761 (OP) 
Dune is great.

>>1762
>>1763
>>1776 (GOD BLESS AMERICA)
I like Dune too, but Lynch took his name off that film for a reason. It's not really a Lynch film, it's a studio picture that Lynch worked on a bit.

>>1761 (OP) 

Watch the straight story ．it's one of his more grounded movies. It might even make you cry

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>>2544
>Watch the straight story
Guessing that one isn't about OP...

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>>2545
lel

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>>2544
>It is based on the true story of Alvin Straight's 1994 journey across Iowa and Wisconsin on a lawn mower.
>Alvin Boone Straight (October 17, 1920 – November 9, 1996) was an American man who travelled 240 miles (390 km) on a riding lawn mower from Laurens, Iowa to Blue River, Wisconsin to visit his ailing brother in 1994.

That's so American, it hurts.

>>1776
>>1763
>>1762
>>1783
Dune is a bore fest. And yeah, apart from it starring Kyle MacLachlan, you wouldn't associate Lynch with it.

>>1761 (OP) 
this thread is what killed lynch

this is absolute shameful, OP

>>1761 (OP) 
Rest Easy Big D!

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Derailing the thread with my thoughts on Inland Empire, which was one of the only Lynch films I never saw.

OP, if you thought Mulholland Drive was pretentious bullshit, watch Inland Empire. Lynch filmed it without a screenplay and kind of went along with it. He did still bring in elements from his previous films, though, so he had some shred of focus (clearest example was the ending credits where, among other things, we get a man sawing logs, flashing lights on characters, Laura Harring seducing a random guy, and a monkey).

The worst part is that it's shot on a handheld Sony camcorder by Lynch himself and the movie is something like three hours long. Let that sink it. You're watching some nasty, low-quality-looking film for THREE HOURS. I'm surprised I survived the ordeal. I understand Lynch wanted complete control, but that was a test of my patience (especially since the plot is pretty much thrown up in the air for, I don't know, 3/4 of the film for pure Lynchian dream sequences).

I can see why I never see this one mentioned. Wild at Heart and The Straight Story kind of get ignored by the glories of Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive, and Blue Velvet, but I completely put Inland Empire out of my mind since no one mentioned it when discussing Lynch movies. The most I got was a passing comment to watch Inland Empire once you've gotten through his easier-to-digest movies.

>>1761 (OP) 
I had the strangest dream about him a couple of nights ago. He was teaching me how to make some special hamburger recipe. They had some kind of red spice mixed up in them. If I ever remember the exact recipe or dream it again I'll post it.

>>3426
The plot was all over the place for sure, but I still enjoyed the film. Inland Empire works for what it is; a highly experimental art film. To me it perfectly captures the essence of independent film making in the 2000s with then-new digital tools and cheap electronics, including the camcorder which Lynch used. In fact the camcorder works in favor of the movie, making everything feel raw and gritty like a nightmare you can't wake up from (spoilers!) Plus it's /retro/ but that's more of an acquired taste.
Inland Empire may not be Lynch's best movie but it's still worth at least one watch.

>>1761 (OP) 
Lynch was good at making a certain type of film, dramas. Elephant Man would be indistinguishable from an overly artsy Lifetime or Hallmark movie if you made the titular character only slightly disfigured. Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, and the general idea of Twin Peaks are pseudo-autobiographical works of his and are well made, even if Eraserhead is closer to the stage play performance of Elephant Man than the serial performance of Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks. However, he had a hard time moving beyond autobiography as a writer, especially after Hollywood scorned him and transitioned to digital. If you learn about his life and philosophy, much of the mystique of his works evaporates, and the deeper meanings of them rise like oil in water. He is an example of someone who needs a fellow creative to bounce off of and/or a studio to control him. He obviously a people person and would have been good in a collective, which the development of the first season of Twin Peaks virtually was and the development of the third season of Twin Peaks clearly wasn't. If you want to consider him a pseud because of these things, I wouldn't argue against it.

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>>3429
>the camcorder works in favor of the movie, making everything feel raw and gritty like a nightmare you can't wake up from (spoilers!)
I also got that it was also intentional on his part for a theme, but man, it was still dirt mcnasty (at least to the average viewer today).

>>3437
>If you learn about his life and philosophy, much of the mystique of his works evaporates, and the deeper meanings of them rise like oil in water.
Second this. Look up transcendental meditation, for example.

>He is an example of someone who needs a fellow creative to bounce off of and/or a studio to control him.
He has said that he presents ideas the way he envisions them, so yes, doing a television series really forced him to surrender to an audience that wasn't willing to let his creative juices flow the way he wanted (for example, the constant pressure to reveal the killer - this drove him bonkers).

I think it's a bit of a disservice that you can't just sit and watch his work without knowing where he comes from (at least for the most part). No one will casually pick up Inland Empire and sit through it unless you one, like crazy shit for the sake of crazy shit, or two, you've already figured out, more or less, what Lynch is about and want to see him unleashed. I know his aim was never to be commercial, but I can't say David Lynch is a favorite director of mine because of that. I like hidden meanings, I like doing analyses, but I find that balance of surface-level narrative mixed with hidden meanings to be a lot more fun. It's kind of like James Joyce and his evolution into experimental literature - either you think Finnegans Wake is a masterpiece or a dud of experimental BS (Lynch is better in this since Finnegans Wake hasn't even been deciphered completely, but you get the idea).

Of course, that's a personal opinion. Regardless, your post resonated with me a lot.