David Lynch Friday #9 – Inland Empire

Oh man, this film. Fourteen years later and this film still confounds me. Watching it earlier in the week was the first time I made it all the way through. Back in 2006, I couldn’t do it. The film was obtuse and unwieldy and nothing clicked for me. This isn’t exactly uncharted territory for Lynch and his viewers. Inland Empire remained, for nearly a decade and a half, the lone Lynch work that just didn’t mean anything at all to me. Part of the reason for my doing this project was that it would provide me an opportunity to give Inland Empire another go. I initially planned to watch this film in two sittings — make it easier on my brain. Ninety minutes and ninety minutes. Monday night I sat down, hit play and was mesmerized for 180 minutes. I did it! I finished! And I did it in one go! Hurray for me!

This film still confounds me.

But now, it confounds me in a good way.

I’m on the path now.

There’s a destination in mind.

I will watch this again and again and then again and one day I will unlock all of its mysteries.

And this has been my ultimate point with the project: film requires us as much as we it. Fourteen years later, I’ve now exited my twenties and thirties. I am more mature from a life standpoint and most certainly from a film standpoint. This is why Lynch is my favorite filmmaker of all time: his work grows and matures with us because, love it or hate it, his films stay with us, in our subconscious, the entire way.

So, what exactly is Inland Empire?

The only thing I can say with certainty is that it’s Lynch’s most experimental film. It’s also likely to stand as his final feature, which is oddly satisfying as it bears a certain symmetry to his very first feature film, Eraserhead. Both films are experimental and with Inland Empire, it shows that, decades later, Lynch has never lost his spirit or individuality. Where Eraserhead, to be reductive, told the story of a man in trouble, Inland Empire, again being reductive, tells the story of a woman in trouble.

But let’s dive in a bit deeper.

The first thing to strike me as interesting occurs in the opening seconds of the film. Dark. Shadow. A flashlight clicks on. Flooding light. The unseen person holding the flashlight retreats and the title, Inland Empire is revealed. I love how Lynch shoots this sequence in reverse. Instead of highlighting the film as something found, he unearths the film by showing light retreating to the shadows. I’m sure this is going to be key, one day, to my ultimate understanding of this film.

We move on to a dream sequence, cloaked in shadow, featuring two fuzzy faced people. They engage in sexual intercourse. We’re immediately thrown off and cannot understand what they’re saying (subtitles help, lol). Then, SNAP! We’re in the aftermath. The film is colorized and a traumatized woman sits alone in a hotel room, staring at the snowy signal loss on her television. This is reality and the aftermath of a dream. Everything will only grow more abstract from here because where we snow, she sees a sitcom featuring three people in full rabbit suits. They speak using obtuse sentences that don’t connect to each other in any normal way. There’s a laugh track that makes no sense. Are we peeking into this woman’s soul? Has television snatched her soul? Our soul? I believe the rabbits are a commentary on art and the critique of art. They also come across as a way for Lynch to show us how something that doesn’t make sense to us, may make perfect sense to someone else. It is a fascinating opening salvo.

We move on to Laura Dern, who will dominate this film. She is extraordinary here, like she always is with Lynch. She’s an actress recently cast in a film alongside a mega star played by Justin Theroux. Before that can take place, she’s visited by her Polish neighbor, played with gusto by Grace Zabriskie. Zabriskie levels an ominous warning to Laura Dern about her film, stating that where Dern thinks the film innocuous, she should prepare herself for brutal fucking murder. She then tells a fable about a boy who went out to play…he looked into the mirror and evil was born. And right there folks, we have a direct connection into the world of Twin Peaks. The mirror. The evil twin. Lynch is incorporating all of his work into one gigantic universe and I am here for all of it. Yet there’s more to the fable than just a connection to Twin Peaks. The fable is central to helping us understand this narrative.

Continuing on, it doesn’t make much sense to further explore the plot because it’s borderline indecipherable. Lynch is toying with our perceptions of reality and he’s being overtly impressionistic here. He chose to shoot the film on video and it’s definitely odd at first but we get used to the look and feel and ultimately, we come to understand why he made this choice. The real star of Inland Empire, however, is the sound design. It’s, at once, sparse and all encompassing. The sound screeches at us and fills us with dread and anxiety, never relenting. It is out of this world — perhaps the best use of sound in Lynch’s career.

So what we have here is Lynch using his crew and everything else at his disposal to tell a story without a coherent or cohesive narrative. Why? Because he is obsessed with dream states and psychological story telling. The film in the film is a remake of an older Polish film that was never finished because the leads died during the filming — dead by murder. The film was deemed cursed and nobody involved now, knew this when they signed up. Soon, Dern’s character falls further into descent. Her husband is a violent Polish (possible) gangster. Theroux’s character, after having been warned to not have sex with Dern, does just that and disappears. The director (Kingsley) and a grip (Bucky) get into a hilarious spat on set. But what does any of this mean?

I wrote in my notebook: I am TORN on what this is!

And I still am.

Because this seems to be an exploration on how we, as humans, interact with each other. If it’s just that, it’s fascinating but I think there’s more at work here. There is also a central theme of women navigating a dangerous world. It’s like a noir-ish mashup of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz. The thing is, the real world is just as wild and dangerous as these aforementioned fantasy worlds — especially for women. Our female counterparts must always be cognizant of their surroundings and who could be inhabiting the shadows. Nothing is easy or safe for them but I still think there’s more at play here.

Here’s one other thing I know for certain: the final hour of this film is equally haunting and mesmerizing — the viewer cannot look away.

But what else is going on?

So I had a thought about the woman watching all of this unfold on her television. Is she watching the original Polish film? Is it all in her head? Is she watching a fictionalized version of her own life and how it could be? Or…is she…us? This is where Lynch’s home video look makes sense to me. The camera is us. We’re judging all of these events and these people experiencing said events. We are the viewer and this is the story as seen through the eyes of the viewer but still, there’s more going on here.

And this is the major reason I find this film so confounding. I simply cannot land on solid ground.

I think back to that fable about the little boy and the mirror. The mirror can be seen as an instrument of vanity and vanity is the evil twin. A world obsessed with itself is an evil world. We must look inward to project outward. This is vitally important in art. There are sometimes two sides of an artist. You have the creative side and the destructive side. The process of filmmaking is no easy undertaking and there are plenty of aborted projects or projects that die for various other reasons. There are allusions to a possible miscarriage by Dern’s character and part of her journey can be seen as her way of coping with the loss and trying to make sense of the world in the aftermath. But then again, it could merely be Dern reflecting on events and non-events from her past that have already happened. This could be purgatory and she is already dead. Hell, this could be Lynch commenting on his own creative process — the trials and tribulations of the eternal life of success and crushing defeat of a project’s death.

Or.

This is all about two sides of the same world. We have the surface and we have what’s just below the surface. Just below the surface is where the engine revs and powers what we see on the surface. Perhaps, it isn’t the twin who is evil but the world that decided to mirror itself and confound us with its lies. And maybe through sacrifice, the good side, the side of courage and perseverance, can give and receive love.

And then again, maybe I’m all wrong. Either way, I have begun to open myself up to Inland Empire and thus it has begun to share some of its secrets.

Next week, Twin Peaks. Until then, love each other.

David Lynch Friday #8 – Mulholland Drive

Lynch originally envisioned Mulholland Drive as part of the larger universe of Twin Peaks. It was a work conceived as a way to further explore the character of Audrey Horne and her adventures in Hollywood and quickly deemed a no go as a new television series. It was later workshopped as a feature and was still deemed a no go. Eventually Lynch reworked his idea into what we would eventually see on screen but upon the ramping up of the production, it was discovered that most of the sets and props had been destroyed. Almost as if the world was gathering to conspire against this project, Lynch and his team got serious and persevered. What we received is, in my opinion, Lynch’s greatest film. A puzzle box of a noir that is more inspired than most anything we could reasonably expect from the genre and one that is constantly more infatuated with the characters over the plot. I have this ranked as the number one film of the 2000s. Let’s dive in.

We open with a town car winding its way around Mulholland Drive with Laura Harring’s character in the backseat. The car stops, a gun is trained on her as she is ordered out of the vehicle. Before that can happen, two other cars careen out of control and one smashes into the town car. This results in the two men up front being killed and Laura Harring’s character stumbling around, concussed. This is THE moment in the film but a first time viewer would not know this yet. The moment is preceded by the camera laying down on red sheets until the camera blacks out. These two moments, placed together, tell the entire story of the film and I love how Lynch always drops the keys to his mysteries right in front of the viewer. This is what makes any Lynch mystery so worthwhile — there are no tricks and no logic leaps. When a viewer returns to a Lynch mystery, they will always have the tools necessary to solve it.

The first half of the film unfolds as a multi-layered classic noir-ish mystery, albeit one where the events we’re seeing are happening all out of order. There is also a heightened sense of reality throughout the first half because what we’re seeing isn’t exactly what has actually happened. The truth is hiding from us and choosing to play a game of peek-a-boo — sometimes literally as we meet death a few times in the film in the form of the person living behind the diner and when that person shows up at the apartment door. One of the keys to understanding the mystery is to give in to it and allow the story to wash over you at first. There are small touches that will stand out. Lynch’s oft used POV shots put us directly in the story. Why would different characters get POV shots? Good question and the answer is one of the keys necessary to unlocking this story.

Cards on the table, everything we’re seeing in this film is from the perspective of Naomi Watts’ character. Her name, at first, is Betty and she has just arrived in Los Angeles to pursue her dream of acting. She befriends Laura Harring’s amnesiac Rita as they try to solve the mystery of the car accident and Rita’s true identity. They stumble across a name of Diane and search her out. When Diane’s apartment is found, it’s in a funhouse mirror version of their current apartment complex. Where Betty’s life in Los Angeles has been brightly lit and full of pluck, everything suddenly shifts to muted and somber. At first, this world revolves around Betty and her life. Everyone seems so invested in her. When the key to the mystery finds its keyhole, the reasoning behind all of this will become crystal clear. Nothing in this film is where it should not be.

One quick little addition here is that Lynch infuses some of this film with hilarious slapstick humor. There’s an entire assassination attempt that goes about as wrong as it could possibly go and the hitman’s attempt to clean up his mess spirals completely out of control in the funniest possible way. There’s also another small detail in this sequence that we’ll dive into in a moment.

Back to the new apartment complex where betty and Rita meet a woman they believe to be the Diane they’re looking for. This woman is not Diane but knows her and she bears a striking resemblance to Rita. Hmmmmmm. Our two leads break into the apartment where they find Diane dead in her bedroom. The only thing we can determine from the dead body is that she was a blonde. Hmmmmmm. They also find a curious blue box that looks to match a blue key in Rita’s possession. Betty and Rita return to the nice apartment in order to figure out their next move. They comfort each other and engage in a love affair. Rita tries on a blonde wig. They are becoming one, in both a figurative and literal sense. Rita and Betty awake to Rita chanting the word: Silencio, over and over again. We’re then transported to a nightclub which goes by the name Silencio. Betty and Rita are ushered in and take their seats. Oh baby, this should have Twin Peaks fans all hot and bothered because this is beginning to directly connect with the fabled show. We’re in the lodge — the black lodge now. The red curtains and blue lights. A performance by Rebekah Del Rio. The sounds and sights of electricity. The mic turning into a pulsing blue orb. This is where souls go to be processed. What is going on? We are so close to answers. But first, the sadness begins to grip everyone involved.

Back at the apartment and Betty has disappeared, leaving Rita in a Betty wig, all alone. She pulls out the blue box and inserts her key. She opens the box to see it empty — a black hole. The camera is again POV here and we get sucked in and through the box.

The film is now completely different.

Everything is more muted and somber, the bright colors and pluck are few and far between. We’re in an alternate world or perhaps we’ve left the alternate world. Betty now goes by the name Diane and Rita goes by the name Camilla. They are lovers on the outs. Things are beginning to clear up. Lynch has partly been telling us a story about ego. We can question everything we’ve seen so far. We humans are infatuated with ourselves. We exist with the idea that we live in a fishbowl, with everyone watching and commenting on our lives. This film was released twenty years ago and it’s even more relevant today. Another relevant tidbit: Lynch stuck himself in this film. Justin Theroux’s conflicted director is Lynch himself. He wants us to understand how difficult this profession can be to navigate in a corporate world. Inspiration can be fleeting and we’re rarely on solid ground.

The film continues and we watch Diane (Watts) spin out of control. She returns to her apartment (the sad one) and throws herself on the bed. Red sheets, look familiar? Her parents are laughing and mocking her in her mind. We originally met them as strangers so full of love and hope for young Betty. Oh the tables have turned. Diane cannot quiet the voices and shoots herself dead in a fit of desperation. The room fills with smoke followed by super lit and superimposed scenes of Betty and Diane before fading out and reentering Club Silencio for good.

So what exactly happened?

What happened is that Naomi Watts starred as a young, hopeful actress named Diane who couldn’t quite catch the breaks she needed to sustain a career. Her girlfriend (Rita/Camilla) caught the breaks and they drifted apart. Diane fell deep into a depression with no end in sight and unfortunately succumbed to her depression by committing suicide. The first half of the film is a rendering of Diane’s life — somewhat as it happened and somewhat as she wished it had been. The Blue box represents the truth and once we pass into it, we’re then in actual reality. This is what happened to Diane. The second half of the film is the harsh truth. Remember the hitman? Did you notice how he had two different colored eyes? One eye was Betty and the other Rita. The first half of the film is the moment between when Diane shot herself and the moment she actually died. Still, as harsh as the story is, Lynch is telling us a love story. Sure it’s sad but you cannot have sadness without happiness, love without anger, life without death. That is the yin and the yang of life. Mulholland Drive is ultimately a film depicting the various stages of our lives. We travel from the wild eyed wonder of infancy to the adventurous spirit and mystery of growing up. We then enter our work/purpose phase and this is often where it can go all right or all wrong or everything in between. This is where the ego rules over all. Adoration can lead to doubt which can breed anxiety and then enter depression which holds the hand of helplessness and walks us up to death’s door. It’s a miracle of a film that throws everything at us and mixes it up to the point where we question our own reality but it also gives us the tools to solve its central mystery. It’s about creation and inspiration as much as it’s about depression and destruction. It’s a journey about the journey and I love it as much as it’s possible to love a film.

One last thing before we go: Naomi Watts is flat-out fucking astonishing in this film. Her performance is easily one fo the best I’ve seen in the last two decades.

Next week, Inland Empire. Until then, love each other.

David Lynch Friday #7 – The Straight Story

“A brother’s a brother.”

I was twenty when The Straight Story hit theaters and I skipped it. Lynch was already a fascination of mine but in my arrogance I assumed it was nothing more than a Disney funded cash grab for an artist who struggled to get films made for so long. The Straight Story remained my lone Lynch blind spot throughout my life until very early in 2020 when I decided to watch it on Disney Plus. We were just beginning our Covid quarantine and the thought was, why the hell not?

I’m glad I did because my younger self needs reminders to pass back to my current self that not only did I not know everything, I knew very little — still do but at least I can acknowledge it these days. For the purpose of this project, I rewatched the film this week and managed to mine even more from it — a hallmark of great art.

The Straight Story tells the true story of Alvin Straight, and elderly man who makes a 370 mile journey on his riding lawnmower in order to visit his estranged and suddenly ill brother. That’s it and that’s all we need to know. The magic of the film is all in the relationships Alvin forms on his journey and how we come to better understand him as a human being.

When I was twenty and too busy ignoring this film, I did so because it seemed to not be aligned with anything else Lynch had ever done. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. This is right in line with the themes of love and hope that Lynch has always enjoyed exploring. He’s not as weird and obtuse as he initially seems, he just sees the world for how it really is — weird and obtuse. Lynch loves small town America and the stories hidden within these towns. There is a real beauty to the run down and forgotten because these things were not always this way. They were once new and adored and everything has a story attached to it. The music and cinematography combine to implant this idea deep in our brains. The music is pure Americana and the cinematography moves at the speed of Alvin’s tractor — a brilliant touch. I just noticed this aspect of the film earlier this week. What this does is lend the film a feeling that we’re watching a slide show of a land we have long forgotten. Reminders are always helpful, especially with how wrapped up in our current state we are. The other aspect of small town America Lynch has always nailed is how the residents interact with each other. The stubbornness and bitchiness of elderly people who’ve known each other for decades is very funny and prevalent throughout the film — hell, they even acknowledge it.

Lynch really gets to the heart of the idea of family in this film as well. When Alvin’s daughter receives the phone call about his brother Lyle, the camera slowly pushes in on Alvin’s face and the moment he hears his brother’s name, filmmaking magic. Alvin then lies to his daughter about his doctor’s visit because he knows she will worry herself sick over him and this is another aspect of family: the little lies we tell to loved ones to make them feel better. Rosie asks Alvin what the doctor said and he replies, “He said I’m gonna live to be a hundred.” The smile it produces on his daughter’s face is worth the lie.

The film, as a whole, is a spectacular depiction of the trivial wedges we allow into our lives and how these wedges work deeper and deeper until the gap is larger than we ever thought possible. The film is also about the purity of the human spirit and (again) how love, unabashed love, can conquer the worst. In the end, it doesn’t matter because when you share a deep familial bond, no wedge can break it away in totality. I wish we all spent a little more time in the present and allowing ourselves to be reminded of these things. The film helps us along the way by opening and closing on a starry night sky. Lynch’s characters often look to the sky and I think it’s his way of reminding us that space unites us all. We are all small beings in the context of our universe and nothing out there cares about the minuscule things we moan and groan about. We are all common in the grand scheme.

This all builds up to the final scene and the big payoff of Alvin arriving at his brother Lyle’s house. What a final scene it is. Sparse dialog and a river of history sit between these two men. They have been as close as two people could be and as far away as two people could be. They are two old men with anger that long ago turned to regret hovering between them. Near wordlessly, they once again accept and bask in each other’s love. I love this film and it has grown to mean a lot to me for reasons that are my own. It also stands as one of Lynch’s greatest works and I cannot wait to watch it again.

Next week, Mulholland Drive. Until then, love each other.

David Lynch Friday #6 – Lost Highway

“In the East, the Far East, when a person is sentenced to death, they’re sent to a place they can’t escape…”

This quote, which comes late in the film, is the key to unlocking this story’s secrets. Now, I’ve seen this film a handful of times, the first time was in theaters and that didn’t go over well with my friends. This week was the second time this year that I watched this film and the first where I thoroughly enjoyed myself. This is an aspect of Lynch’s work that has been well documented by people, including myself. Lynch makes you work — he makes you earn everything. Lost Highway was a film I struggled to fully appreciate for years and it wasn’t until earlier this year where it all finally clicked for me. So this past week, when I watched it again for the purpose of this piece, it became a rocket ship of awesome insanity.

I won’t bother you with much of the plot because this isn’t even close to a plot driven film. There is the real and the quasi real and then half the film exists in no form of reality whatsoever. To be reductive, it’s a film about an angry and bitter man who murders his wife and is sentenced to death as a result. In prison, this man conjures up an alternate reality in an attempt to reconcile his own emotions with the world and his place in life. The story eventually folds back in around itself and one version of our protagonist speeds away down a lost highway, chased by the police.

To begin, Lynch’s camera during the opening credits, is a maniac. It’s a simple shot of a pitch black highway, lit only by a speeding car’s headlights. It is manic, illicit and frenzied. The credits fly at us like bolts of lightning. This is more than it seems, these little tidbits will come back around full circle by the end of the film. The story then begins proper as we’re taken to the protagonist’s home. Fred, played with restrained detachment by Bill Pullman, is a musician woken from slumber by a buzzing on his intercom.

“Dick Laurent is dead,” is all the voice says. Fred looks outside but there is nobody around. His wife Renee, played with an otherworldly sexual peace by Patricia Arquette, comes down and opens the front door to find an unmarked package on their front steps. Inside is a videotape and on that videotape is camcorder footage of the inside of their home. Unsettling. Everything Lynch does in the early going is unsettling. His camera has now slowed down to resemble security footage — as if we are the ones spying on Fred and Renee. The sound design, again (I know, broken record), is top notch and used to build an immense amount of dread. We are so confused by what is happening or the lack of anything meaningful happening. But beneath the surface resides a storm of emotion. Lynch spends most of the film exploring shadow and light. This rewatch is really hitting home that Twin Peaks: The Return was Lynch’s way of connecting and commenting on his entire career. The colors red and black are significant in this film. They represent desire and danger, violence and death. The colors can be amorphous but they are representing an extremely violent yin and yang of Fred’s world.

The more time we spend with Fred, the more we see him unhappy in life. It’s clear he doesn’t trust his wife and thinks she’s cheating on him. He’s stuck but he’s also too much of an ineffectual nothing to actually take command of anything. He is constantly retreating into shadows — into his own darkness. The film continues to explore “dark places” and when we join Fred and Renee at a party, Fred is cracking. It’s here where he first meets the white faced man, played with demonic gusto by Robert Blake. Quick side note here, Robert Blake is supernaturally good in this role. I know, I know, perhaps this hit kind of close to home for him but it is worth mentioning how incredible his performance is. The white faced man is elusive and speaks in riddles but he also serves to egg Fred on, but to what? The answer comes quick as Fred is shown a tape of himself right after he has brutally murdered his wife. Fred is arrested, convicted, and sentenced to die by electric chair. He is trapped in prison and we feel his claustrophobia. It’s also here in the film where we realize how tight everything through this point has been shot with Fred. Lynch has put us in Fred’s skin, making us crawl and fidget with how uncomfortable and closed in we feel.

It is in prison where this film goes completely crazy. Fred wakes up one morning and he is no longer Fred. He’s a young guy named Pete, played by Balthazar Getty. Nobody can figure out where Fred went and where Pete came from. Pete is returned to his parents’ house and soon continues his normal life as a mechanic. Right off the bat, the film settles down. Lynch uses a wider color palette and shoots the film in a more traditional way. Pete is normal. Pete is well liked by everyone. Women throw themselves at Pete. Pete has it all. The first part of the film feels almost sterile compared to how alive Pete is in his world. Pete gets a visit from an older rich man named Mr. Eddy, played exactly how you’d expect from Robert Loggia. Mr. Eddy loves how smart Pete is when it comes to cars. Mr. Eddy also has a woman with him played by Patricia Arquette. Her name is Alice and she’s blonde instead of a red head now. Alice only has eyes for Pete and he for her. They begin an illicit affair. This is all vitally important because it shows how wanted Pete is by Alice compared to Renee’s indifference toward Fred.

Pete begins to unravel a bit as the affair continues and Mr. Eddy begins to catch on. The air kicks up a dangerous wind directed at everyone involved. Pete begins having visions and dreams of a seedy motel with a layout like a maze. Pete eventually agrees to help Alice rob her friend Andy so they can run off together. They accidentally kill Andy and when they run, the stop at a mysterious cabin where they disrobe and have sex one final time. Pete tells Alice he wants her and she whispers in his ear, “you can never have me.” She then walks into the cabin and disappears. When Pete stands back up, he’s transformed back to Fred. This is where he again meets the white faced man and the quote from the top of the piece is uttered. Key given. Secrets unlocked. Lynch was doing inception over a decade before Nolan. Pete doesn’t actually exist — he’s a fantasy that Fred conjured up to make himself feel better. Pete is how Fred wishes he was perceived by the world. It’s the life he thinks he deserves. The film uses dreams and fantasies as a way for our protagonist to act out his deepest and darkest desires. Fred is transported to that seedy motel and arrives just after his wife Renee has slept with Mr. Eddy, who in the real world is named Dick Laurent. Fred bursts in and beats the shit out of Dick, eventually throwing him in the trunk of his car. They arrive back at that cabin where Dick tackles Fred to the ground. An unseen man hands Fred a knife and he promptly slits Dick’s throat. The unseen man is revealed to be the white faced man who then shoots Dick dead.

Several things here, obviously the white faced man doesn’t actually exist. He is either the devil or the devil inside of Fred. He is Fred’s rage manifested into human form. This is how it all happened. Fred killed his wife’s lover and then killed her in a rage. Everything else is fantasy. Lost Highway is perhaps Lynch’s most nihilistic film. He usually has an undercurrent of love or hope but this one is all rage. It’s about power and fear — specifically the fear of women and how men try to exert power over them. Lynch has a penchant for turning the ordinary extraordinary and never more so than in Lost Highway. I was reminded of two specific Lynch works when watching Lost Highway: Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart. Lost Highway is similar in theme to Blue Velvet if the world contained no love. As for Wild at Heart, Fred reminds me of Sailor in an inverted sense and if he was never able to escape his own demons. Lynch likes to circle around themes, often exploring the same ones in multiple works.

And now we come to the finale with the newly Pete-free Fred arriving at his home to ring the buzzer. Once it’s answered, he says, “Dick Laurent is dead.” Fred turns to see the police arrive and takes off in his car. The police give chase and this closes the loop of the “plot” of Lost Highway. How could Fred be two people or even three people at the same time? He can’t and it doesn’t matter because none of this is actually happening anyway. Remember the quote I used at the top? This is what it all means. This is the world Fred is trapped in. He cannot escape…or can he?

We end with Fred fleeing the police and racing down a desolate highway. The camera shifts back to what we saw during the opening credits. The frenzy has come full circle. Fred screams and shakes his head violently, we see flashes of light. The film ends. Yeah, but like what’s the deal? Simple, Fred was put to death by electric chair at that moment of his journey through his psychological prison. The only thing that could free him was the carrying out of his death sentence. Done and done. Man oh man has this film jumped up my list of Lynch faves.

Next week, The Straight Story. Until then love each other.

David Lynch Friday #5 – Wild At Heart

Wild At Heart. Phewwwww boy. Where to begin? I don’t know how to write about this film and it’s beginning to terrify me. I looked over my notes and they don’t make any sense — they’re all questions. I specifically remembering deciding not to get stoned beforehand because I knew this film was a bit of a crazy ride. Now, I’m wondering if I did get high before watching and somehow forgot that I did that. Seriously, this is a question I wrote down and I present it to you verbatim: Is this a visual representation of smoking a cigarette? Love=cigarette?

Uh, what?

First, it’s Lynch and then on top of that, it’s Nicolas Cage. Lynch and Cage together is a recipe for volcanic eruption. Then, you add Willem Defoe and it becomes the end of the goddamn world.

What’s it about?

It’s about a karate kicking guy named Sailor, who’s in love with a hyper sexual woman named Lula. Lula’s mother is a maniac in love with a mobster and she hates Sailor with a passion. She will stop at nothing to murder him in order to keep him away from her daughter. Sailor and Lula embark on a cross country trip full of every vice imaginable as they flee Lula’s mother. There is a ton of sex, multiple cigarettes being smoked at once, murder, mayhem, car accidents, a robbery gone wrong, a decapitation and of course, a snakeskin jacket. After all, it’s a symbol of Sailor’s individuality.

Is it good?

Yes, in a crazy way and definitely not a for everyone way. The film starts, right off the bat, at level 100 and only escalates from there. It can be a bit exhausting. There’s a line in the film that goes: the world is wild at heart and weird on top. That’s Lynch’s philosophy on life and here he is all about showing us the unkempt nature of blossoming love. For the record, the actors are all fantastic in their own scenery chewing ways. Cage has always been both the best and worst actor alive and here he lays the blueprint for every supernova Cage we’ll see during the rest of his career.

We can’t escape the crazy in this film — it’s all consuming. Even when the film slows down a bit as Sailor and Lula reach the town of Big Tuna, we’re only exchanging crazy for a different sort of more unsettling crazy. And then the film ramps it all up again. It is sort of mesmerizing in a reckless way.

Lynch sprinkles plenty of his Twin Peaks cohorts around in the film and also tips his hand toward what we would see in a couple years with Fire Walk With Me. Lynch is always mining himself and his viewer for a deeper understanding of what makes us all tick. Wild at Heart is more soap opera than crime flick while also being Lynch’s completely fucked up version of, The Wizard Of Oz. It’s all there and honestly pretty overt, especially for Lynch. It’s like melding Oz with the Hell depicted in The Divine Comedy.

Everything in the film is set at odds with Sailor and Lula — they are all distractions wishing to keep Sailor and Lula from their ultimate goal. It’s an awesome representation of the trials of young love when two lovers must decide if what they have is real and sustaining or flippant and fleeting. They are tested, and the cigarettes do mean something. Lynch loves the flame and loves the phrase: fire walk with me. Even if that phrase is never uttered in this film, it’s there for us to infer. The flame here represents burning desire and everything else is life after desire has burned itself out. Most of the characters are like zombies because they’ve become trapped by their own emotional failings. Sailor and Lula (really Sailor) are headed here as well until two things: Lula’s pregnancy and Sailor triumphing over his own demons. Lula makes a decision to live her life for their son and Sailor makes a decision to initially stay wild and let Lula go. He’s then assaulted by a group of random thugs after calling them an insensitive sexual slur. It’s after his beating that he realizes the error of his ways. And we realize these thugs to be a representation of Sailor’s inner demons. You cannot conquer your demons with violence and ugliness. You have to recognize them and accept them if you ever hope to walk away and move forward. Sailor finally learns this lesson and returns to Lula and his son, a (slightly) changed man and we’ve all learned a little bit about acceptance.

Next week, Lost Highway. Until then, love each other.

David Lynch Friday #4 – Blue Velvet

“I don’t know if you’re a detective or a pervert.”

The above line sums up a central theme of the film with succinct accuracy. I have vague memories of my parents renting this film when I was a child. I was not allowed to watch it at around seven or eight years old. What I do remember is sneaking into the hallway to try and see what it was I wasn’t allowed to see. I remember Kyle Maclachlan because I was obsessed with Dune at the time and I remember Dennis Hopper because he was always screaming and had that oxygen mask. As soon as I was old enough, I rented the film for myself and I rarely go long without a re-watch. I love this film. I consider it one of the very best films of the 1980s and one of my favorite films of David Lynch’s entire career.

What’s the deal?

It’s a mystery and a hyper-sexualized coming of age story all rolled into a two hour feature film. It stars Kyle Maclachlan as Jeffrey, a college student returned home after his father falls ill, who happens across a severed ear in a field and takes it upon himself to investigate. Laura Dern co-stars as Sandy, a high school senior who is the daughter of a local detective on this case. She aids Jeffrey in his own investigation and the two form a budding romantic relationship. Dennis Hopper plays a psychotic criminal who is the perpetrator of the severed ear and Isabella Rossellini stars as a lounge singer in debt to Hopper and thus subjected to his violent whims. Maybe this is Lynch’s version of a Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew mystery — more vibrant in its first half while devolving into a shadowy masterwork in its second half. There’s no need to get into plot specifics here. It’s an interesting and well-told mystery but that is all window dressing to what Lynch is truly after.

In fact, Lynch dishes his thesis in the first few moments. We see scenes of idyllic small town life, full of vibrant color and playful music — white picket fence, flowers, birds, bustling life. Then it quickly gets muddy — both in a figurative and literal sense. As Jeffrey’s father is watering the lawn, the hose kinks and as he struggles, tragedy strikes. He falls unconscious on the ground as the hose goes wild. We see the image of a gun. The dog attacks the hose like a maniac. The camera then moves below the surface of the picturesque lawn — down in the muck we see ants eating and attacking. Nature can be visceral and violent and it all hides just beneath the calm surface. It is always there.

I love how Lynch’s worlds seem off and weird but the truth is that if we were to just stop and observe our own world around us, we would see that he’s never far off from reality. Another important aspect to Lynch’s work, especially here, is his impeccable ear. He is obsessed with sound and his films reflect this — they always sound natural. He continues down this path in the early half of the film as we begin to meet the players and the mystery deepens. Maclachlan and Dern have instant and perfect chemistry — they will become Lynch’s two most indelible co-conspirators as their respective careers blossom. Lynch also infuses the first half of the film with an intense color palette — almost begging us to believe that nothing bad can actually happen.

Then we go to the slow club.

The red curtains. A singer’s introduction. The blue light hits and everything changes. Looking back now, yeah, major Twin Peaks inspiration right here. We are woefully unprepared for the second half of this film. Lynch’s camera at first was observational but now we see it differently — it is voyeuristic. The quote at the top comes back to mind because it’s not just Sandy asking Jeffrey a question disguised as an observation, it is actually directed at us. What are we about? Where are we hoping this film will go? Are we comfortable with our desires? When Jeffrey gets caught in the apartment, a stunning reversal happens. His intrusion is immediately reciprocated. The violation is returned and both involved actually get off on it. It is bold and unflinching and the film is better for it.

We think we still have a handle on the film until Dennis Hopper shows up a few seconds later. He is electrifying and terrifying in equal measure — an all-timer on the film villain list. At the same time he is a stand-in for the dog in the film’s opening. He’s crazy and commands our intention but the real shit is happening beneath the surface. He is our usher into depravity. It’s here where we begin to realize a few things. First, Jeffrey is a boy becoming a man and this is his first glimpse into adulthood. He likes Sandy because she represents the purity of childhood that he still partly craves. But he also likes Dorothy because she represents the dangerous lust he’s beginning to crave as an adult. In return, Sandy likes Jeffrey because she has not yet crossed over into adulthood and Jeffrey represents her own usher. Dorothy, for her part, likes Jeffrey because he is the only thing in her life she has a bit of control over. The real premise begins to present itself: this is an anti-hero’s journey. Jeffrey selfishly wants it all but is unprepared at this stage in his life.

Once we make this connection, everything becomes clear. Lynch is telling a story about the passage from childhood to adulthood. The film is littered with scenes depicting the clash between these two stages of life. For example, Jeffrey’s journey begins with the hospital visit to see his father. This is the moment where his innocence is lost. Even before finding the ear, this is it. Children view their parents as seemingly invincible and their entire world changes when they get smacked with reality.

Lynch drags us further down the depravity well as we spend more time in the company of Hopper’s Frank Booth and cohorts. The Candy Colored Clowns scene is oddly chilling only to be outdone by itself a few moments later in a wicked reprise of the same song. Frank is pure depravity — the dark heart of man. Like I said, he is our usher. There is an animalistic nature to mankind and it hides beneath the surface of civilized society but it is always there, waiting.

But this being Lynch, there is still hope. Jeffrey prevails over the evil Frank Booth. There are two sides to man and those sides must be balanced with precision. Jeffrey taps into his vicious side but never succumbs to it. There can be no light without dark and vice versa. The robins return to the trees and bring love back with them. Love is greater than viciousness. Through all the darkness and flame, we come out the other side more understanding of the world. If violence is a part of nature, so is love and love can conquer all.

Next week, Wild At Heart. Until then, love each other.

David Lynch Friday #3 – Dune

Where should I start? Laborious? That is a great word to describe this film. It feels completely at odds with the rest of Lynch’s filmography. You can feel the stress hanging over this production due to the financial responsibility of the endeavor. There are also constant disparate touches throughout the running time which leads me to believe that there was constant studio interference throughout the production schedule. Dino DeLaurentis has spoken candidly about this in the years that followed the film’s release. He wishes they had just let Lynch loose to interpret the material in his own way instead of trying to be as faithful to the book as possible.

So, does anything work?

If you’re asking me as the child who saw and loved this movie upon release, yes, lots of the film works. It was my first Lynch experience and I didn’t even know who he was — I was a kid. I watched Dune, the Star Wars trilogy, and Raiders of the Lost Ark constantly. Now, as an adult, I can see the film for the difficult mess it is. So we will begin with the good. The creature designs are great and they hold up surprisingly well nearly forty years later. Production design is extravagant and generally well designed if not a bit plain in some spots. Costume design follows this same pattern. A real highlight of the film is the score, still great all these years later. My favorite moment in the film is our introduction to Harkonnen. It’s pure Lynch horror and really the only time we feel his personality ringing through — this and Lynch squeezing in his superimposed images, that is.

What doesn’t work?

Everything else. They tried to be too faithful, to an embarrassing degree. The film opens with the superimposed image of Virginia Madsen’s character literally explaining the plot and the players to us. Not great. I will say that I’m beginning to think we live in a simulation with only so many available assets. Brad Pitt has to be a clone of Robert Redford and Scarlett Johansson has to be a clone of Virginia Madsen — there can be no other answer. Back to the film and the problems multiply from here. Every single character explains everything to everyone else in the film. There is nothing but exposition in this film. The characters even narrate their own thoughts. Everything flies in the face of the rest of Lynch’s work. He’s never been one to explain anything and here, there’s nothing but explanation — for over two hours.

What this reminds me of is Zach Snyder’s valiant Watchmen effort. I admire the film and his swing at it but it was at once over-stuffed while feeling like a filmed outline. Some stories aren’t meant to be translated to film. Again, Watchmen is a perfect example. HBO released a limited series inspired by Watchmen last year to great acclaim. I, for one, loved it. What Damon Lindelof and his crew accomplished was extraordinary but they accomplished it because they used the original source material as a jumping off point to something unique instead of rehashing what we already know. Perhaps Dune would be better served as a prestige television project. We’ll never get that because there is a new film version releasing next year. It looks slick and boasts incredible talent both in front of and behind the camera. But it also looks like a faithful attempt. This all serves to point out how much of a miracle Peter Jackson’s Lord Of The Rings trilogy turned out to be. That should not have worked and now it’s the gold standard. Perhaps the exception that proves the rule.

I really don’t have much more to say about this without it turning into a rant but this will assuredly mark the low point of Lynch’s filmography. The only other thing I could note is that the cast is littered with people who would go on to star in Lynch’s magnum opus: Twin Peaks. Next week, one of my faves, Blue Velvet. Until then, love each other.

David Lynch Friday #2 – The Elephant Man

Remember when I said how surprised I was that Lynch could get money for more work in the wake of Eraserhead? Well, it turns out, he could not. After Erasherhead was out in the wild, Lynch wrote a script titled, “Ronnie Rocket.” The script was shopped everywhere and nobody was interested. Lynch called a friend and asked for work directing someone else’s script. He was pitched, The Elephant Man and immediately jumped at this opportunity. The script found its way into the hands of Anne Bancroft (who would end up playing a role in the film) who then showed it to her husband, Mel Brooks. The picture was on but Brooks had no idea who Lynch was and so asked for a screening of Erasherhead. Lynch figured this would doom him. Upon exiting the screening, Brooks ran to Lynch and said, “you’re a madman, I love you, you’re in.” The Elephant Man would go on to receive eight Oscar nominations, including direction and adapted screenplay for Lynch himself. They would win zero but not shabby at all for a second feature.

The film opens with circus music as Anthony Hopkins’ character makes his way through a backstreet sideshow. Lynch pulls no punches from the beginning. He is putting the onus of this story on us, the audience. What will we make out of this? He cloaks each scene in alternating bright light and deep, husky shadow. The black and white photography is gorgeous, at once offering itself as a vessel for seedy territory and of 19th century elegance. Lynch is obsessed with depicting the ugly side of industry. He comes back to this over and over again throughout the film. Progress cannot happen without creating downtrodden to step over. It’s a vicious cycle.

Anthony Hopkins plays Doctor Frederick Treves, who hears of this Elephant Man and manages to secure himself a private viewing. We receive the initial shock of the deformed man’s appearance but Lynch is smart to only show two quick glimpses and then focus the rest on Hopkins’ face. The doctor perhaps came for a thrill but now wants to help the deformed man, named John Merrick (real name was Joseph Merrick). Treves gets Merrick to the hospital and subjects him to a thorough examination in front of an auditorium of his colleagues. Merrick remains hidden to our view throughout this process. Lynch instead opens this examination by pointing the camera directly at us, the audience. The light clicks on — shines a light on our own soul. The examination ends and we’re POV with the camera once again — shutting down. Some would say the camera snatches the soul. Well, we are now complicit. Again, what do we want out of this? Lynch chooses to hold our feet to the fire, illuminating (quite literally) how we view some in our society monsters based on appearance and nothing else. It is society that is the monster — an ever hungry and feeding beast. Perhaps, Lynch is enlightening us as to what fame can be like for those in the constant crosshairs of a society who loves to build people up only to revel in their eventual fall from grace.

The way Lynch shocks us with the first glimpse and then hides Merrick’s appearance for a while gives off an illicit vibe. Are we sure we’re ready for this? And by that I mean are we ready to plumb the depths of our own souls? Once we’re complicit, we are fair game. We’re then forced to make a choice. Merrick will now be depicted plainly to us — no longer hidden. Merrick is blossoming due to kindness and our reactions are ours to own.

The depiction of John Merrick by the late, great Joh Hurt blows me away every time I see this film. It’s so physical yet delicate. His mannerisms and speech are deliberate and nuanced. Nearly any other year and Hurt waltzes away with the Oscar but unfortunately he lost to DeNiro’s mind-melting performance in Raging Bull. Anthony Hopkins, for his part, has this way of speaking that seems as if we’re always hearing his innermost thoughts. I have always loved this about him and here, he is so restrained and composed in his performance. Legend.

There is a famous line form this film when Merrick is being chased through the train station as he attempts to return to the hospital. It reads:

I am not an animal. I am a human being. I am a man!

It’s a great line and delivered with the perfect mixture of anger and anguish by Hurt. I would, however, like to point out two other lines that speak to the enormous heart Lynch has and has infused all of his work with.

Anne Bancroft says the following after reading some Shakespeare with Merrick:

You’re no Elephant Man at all. You’re Romeo.

She then kisses him on the cheek and Merrick cries. I cry. My heart is nearly as full as Merrick’s heart in this moment. But we’re not done because upon his return to the hospital and Treves is busy apologizing to Merrick for not better protecting his patient and friend, Merrick stops him with this:

I am happy every hour of the day. My heart is full because I know I am loved.

Dead. I’m dead. This beautiful fucking film has executed me.

Now, it’s no secret in the film that due to his increasing deformities, Merrick is not long for the world. He knows this as well. The last we see of him is him removing the pillows on his bed so that he may sleep like a painting hanging in his room. We know he will die because of this. He knows he will die because of this. He looks at the picture of his mother that rests on his bedside table — his most cherished possession. In fact, his mother looms over the entire film, at once his antidote to a cruel world and also a bit of an albatross that keeps him hanging on. Merrick finally lets go and as he dies, he sees a vision of his mother. She calls to him and tells him everything will be fine. And delivers one final line:

Nothing will die.

A perfect ending.

Not many films can claim this but The Elephant Man is such a film.

Next week, the very first Lynch film I ever saw as a child, Dune. Until then, love each other.

David Lynch Friday #1 – Eraserhead

Eraserhead. Been awhile. Like much of Lynch’s work, Erasherhead benefits from time and exposure. The more time you spend with the film, the more you will get out of it. This was Lynch’s feature film debut, way back in 1977 and in the spirit of total honesty, it’s a miracle anyone saw this film and then decided to give Lynch money to make a second feature. This isn’t a knock on the film, it’s a wonderfully complex work and supremely assured for a debut feature but the film is also a nightmarish puzzle box. It is not easily digestible and at times it’s even a bit offensive to the senses. Lynch is challenging his audience right out of the starting gate, a trait that will never abandon him.

Watching it again now, after Lynch was able to revisit Twin Peaks, it’s clear that there is a lot here that either exists in the same universe of Twin Peaks or at least the universe of the Black Lodge. Erasherhead will be a major talking point when we wrap this project up with the sure-to-be massive post featuring everything Twin Peaks. For reference:

The apartment lobby floor is the same as the Black Lodge.
Electricity is prominently displayed throughout the film.
The electric, old-fashioned humidifier looks a lot like Phillip Jeffries.
The tree growing in Henry’s apartment looks exactly like THE ARM from the Black Lodge.
There is also a small photo of an atomic bomb explosion next to Henry’s bed.

So yeah, we will be revisiting all of this because I feel like I am on the verge of some new, mind blowing Twin Peaks revelations. But we will get back to that at a later date.

One of the themes of Erasherhead is that of parenthood and specifically fatherhood. The opening scene with Henry’s face superimposed over some kind of cosmic egg is an easy to grasp metaphor for the paranoia of parenthood. Lynch loves the technique of superimposing and still uses it to this day as a filmmaker. Jack Nance also has a face made for closeups — I swear it’s as malleable as clay. It says, “what have I done?” This could also be Lynch working through his feelings on birthing an idea and creating life in art.

An undervalued aspect of Lynch’s work is how funny it often is. Erasherhead is full of body horror and psychological torment but it’s also hilariously uncomfortable. Lynch uses black and white photography to cloak the film in shadow, like there is a looming, negative force overseeing everything. This also serves to exude a silent film vibe. It’s like if Charlie Chaplin were cast in Nosferatu. I love this. The dinner scene where Henry visits his girlfriend’s family is uproariously creepy. Everything is there to be considered normal but it’s all heightened enough to be off. The catatonic grandmothers cigarette. The tiny chickens and enormous carving knife. Then comes the blood. Then comes the tiny chicken seizures. Later on, Henry literally loses his head and some kid runs over and steals the severed head. Again, wild and hilarious. The kid then sells the head to the pencil factory where they turn it into a literal eraser head. I am not making this up.

So, what could this all mean?

There is more than just a singular theme — this is true for all of Lynch’s work. Sure it’s about fatherhood but it goes deeper. It touches on how children are our soul transferred into a new being all while being born of our own faults and demons. It’s also about how alien-like babies are and Lynch establishes this in the most heightened way possible. Lynch is also commenting on nature versus industry. We are inundated with images of machinery and general industry encroaching on and diminishing nature. Lynch then gives us plenty of background scenery depicting nature attempting to reclaim its place by invading the characters’ homes.

This brings me to one final conclusion: Erasherhead is very spiritual. Lynch drives us through an intense white light and I think he’s depicting how birth and death are the same. He then pushes us through a soupy mess and into a puddle that turns into a black hole. This is him differentiating between duty and desire — daily life and intense lust. I’ve also contemplated the possibility that the barnacled man is Henry’s grown-up son who has trapped his father in some kind of nightmare purgatory of his own creation. It’s like an eternity being forced to live through all of your own failings.

In the end I think that part of the film is Henry’s subconscious shown to us as real life. Henry is full of self doubt and this is best represented by the baby. The infant is a slimy, hideous creature who resembles ET in the worst possible way. Here’s the thing: the baby doesn’t actually look like how we see it. The baby is a manifestation of Henry’s self doubt. Parents worry, especially with newborns, that there is something wrong with their child. Their baby is different in a bad way. It’s a trick the mind plays on its subject. This is where Erasherhead leaves us, with Henry attempting to free his child by murdering it — killing his self doubt. Lynch hits out at life as an all encompassing process.

Birth. Life. Failure. Sex. Duty. Murder. Death.

Next week, The Elephant Man. Until then, love each other.

David Lynch Friday #0 – The Intro

My first experience with David Lynch was watching Dune as a child. I loved it. Now, I know that isn’t exactly the popular opinion with that film but it certainly mesmerized me. I also recall my parents watching The Elephant Man and then Blue Velvet. I specifically remember Blue Velvet because my mother thought it was crazy in a good way and my father thought the exact opposite — not at all his type of movie. Next was Twin Peaks. I was about ten years old when Twin Peaks came out. My mother was excited and I was already a huge fan of detective stories. To me, a new show from the guy who did Dune, starring the guy from Dune, and it was sort of a detective story? Yes please.

As I grew older, Lynch faded from me for a bit. I began my true obsession with his work when I was in high school. This was the jump off and I never looked back. I’ve devoured his work ever since and have loved it all, even when I hated it. There was only one film of his that I missed completely, The Straight Story. Disney Plus rectified that for me and now my only blank spot is Inland Empire. For the record, I’ve watched it, just not all the way through. I have a blu-ray waiting for me and I’ve revisited the Rabbits in the years since. I’m looking forward to it now.

This is what I cherish about Lynch’s work — it is uncompromising. Even when Twin Peaks returned, there were moments that drove me up the wall but I have learned to trust Lynch’s process and have found rewards at every turn. He is my favorite. He’s been my favorite for a long time and only recently challenged for the title by Sofia Coppola. We’ll see how this all holds upon this new revisiting of his oeuvre. Typically, I would focus solely on feature films but Twin Peaks in it’s entirety will be thrown in here because it is my absolute, number one, favorite thing ever. I will also be breaking the timeline and holding Twin Peaks for the very end. There is a chance that week will see my largest post ever. I always have a ton of thoughts on Twin Peaks and there is not a day that goes by without me thinking about the show.

Here we go. The David Lynch project will begin with Eraserhead next Friday. Until then, love each other.