Tag: Wild At Heart

David Lynch Friday #11 – The Wrap Up

Here we are at the end of the road only to find out we’ve been trapped in an eternal hallway. Lynch’s work never ends and I think that’s one of the main reasons I love it so much. There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t spend at least a small amount of time pondering explored themes of one of his films. And I can tell you all for certain that Twin Peaks in particular is always occupying a small amount of my consciousness.

His work is amorphous, like trying to catch and keep flowing water. Sure, you can get your hands on it, in it, around it but can you ever really get a firm grip? Can you keep it? This right here is the journey and the destination, together forever. We travel these roads, these dreamscapes, these hellscapes and once we reach our destination, we find out we’re searching for something totally different than when we first set out. To some, this is maddening but to others, like me, it’s refreshing and creatively invigorating. Lynch is my biggest artistic influence and the biggest takeaway from this project is that I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

But for everyone else, what was this all about? What did we learn?

To begin, you’ll likely never hear better use of sound in film than when watching a Lynch project. He is obsessed with sound and the stories that can be told with only ambiance. He has no equal in this regard. Lynch also likes to create a labyrinthian anxiety in his films. Many of his characters and us, as the viewer, often feel stressed out and claustrophobic throughout his work. The world is closing in on everyone and this creates a palpable sense of terror. He’s known as the “weird guy” and while this seems astute on the surface, he actually isn’t that weird. Lynch shows us the world as it truly exists. The notion of weird and normal is a construct created by us, greater society, as a way to compartmentalize feelings and place everyone and everything in easy to understand categories. This is not truth. No, the truth is that this world is wondrous and strange. Take the time to stop and simply exist amongst this planet and you’ll see all the odd and obtuse things you originally thought only existed in “weird films.” This reminds me of a line in Lynch’s Wild At Heart:

This world is wild at heart and weird on top.

I love that. I love that it normalizes individuality, which is something society has taught us to restrain. The more of us who refuse to restrain, the more interesting this world will become.

The last thing I’d like to present as a takeaway is that Lynch exudes love in his films. He is a romantic and no matter how dark his films get (save for one) love can and often does, prevail.

And now, the final thing, and this is for the ones who love and study Lynch and his work. Lynch somehow created a universe of his projects. They all exist together and this only recently came into view for us. When he and Mark Frost first returned to their world of Twin Peaks, we were excited to see them continue their darling. What we didn’t see coming was how Lynch would use this opportunity to comment on his own career. This project afforded me a wonderful chance to comb over his work and experience things anew. I began to pick up on little bits I originally missed and now could see how Lynch incorporated all of these little bits into his Twin Peaks universe. Or perhaps we should just call it a Lynch-verse.

And finally, my rankings but for the record, there isn’t anything here I don’t like and most of it, I completely love but here goes:

10. Dune – If only they had let him get crazy with this one.

9. Wild at Heart – Cage and Lynch and Defoe equals unbridled mania.

8. Erasherhead – His first film and one of his most impressionistic.

7. Inland Empire – I’ve finally come around on this one and can’t wait to dive in further.

6. The Elephant Man – A film of such beauty. Not only in it’s execution but in its humanity.

5. Lost Highway – His most nihilistic film. A nasty slice of noir pie.

4. The Straight Story – Heartwarming to the max. Impossible not to fall in love.

3. Blue Velvet – One of his most complete visions. Undeniable masterpiece.

2. Mulholland Drive – His best film. Masterpiece. Works on every single level.

1. Twin Peaks – My favorite thing ever. The biggest influence on my creative life. I don’t count Fire Walk With Me on its own, comfortable with its place among its television siblings. The fact that Lynch and Frost were able to return and end things on their own terms means the world to me as a fan. Twin Peaks is both Lynch’s greatest achievement and the culmination of his entire career.

Next week, I’ll be posting a retrospective on my top ten films from 2010. I’m willing to bet that some changes are coming. Next, I’ll be going week to week with some random films I’ve marked for rewatch. After that, I’m thinking about digging into the Coen brothers — that should be loads of fun. 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.