Wow. It takes me a while to reply to threads, clearly. I have been absent for far too long.
I haven’t seen Eraserhead, no, but I do believe I have it somewhere in the house.
Thanks for the tip! 
I’m not the deepest guy in the world, so I would be tempted to call Eraserhead pure unalloyed, affected, film-school-student drek, but there’s something about it that keeps me coming back. The nightmarish quality of the film, including the constant sonic undertones. I gather it’s a movie more to be experienced than watched. However, I know there’s a lot to the film that I just haven’t gotten. Any help?
Or do you just have to be stoned to truly appreciate it?
I think that’s the over-arching problem with Lynch; there’s always much more to any of his films than we (read: or perhaps just me) could hope to understand. They tend to get more accessible with increased viewing but they generally still elude me.
Actually, the reason Mulholland drive’s last half hour is so bizarre is because it was supposed to the the pilot to a series, which never got made. Lynch realized he had to bring it to some sort of conclusion, and changed the last half hour drastically.
This would actually help to explain a lot of it. That said, Mulholland Drive was one of the more easily understandable ones, I found.
I love David Lynch, and I say that even though I don’t love all his movies, and can understand why a lot of people have zero interest in his work.
As a conventional story-teller, he’s not that great, although The Elephant Man certainly fits that bill. Let’s remember he followed that up with Dune, quite possibly the scariest of all Lynch movies if for no other reason than it featured both Sting and a weird cat. (I’m sort of joking and sort of serious about that, that cat was demented and I still get creeped out thinking about it.)
I think he’s fantastic at creating a mood, although it’s almost always the same mood, the David Lynch mood. I like that he plays around a lot with perception, sort of creating an overlay of a character’s feelings and impressions piled on top of reality, or what passes for reality in his films. Visually, I find his films generally pretty interesting, even the ones I don’t care for, but what really hammers it home for me is the sound. All those squeaky sounds from the Eraserhead baby? Yikes! Maybe he missed his calling and should have done radio plays.
The biggest draw for me is that there isn’t one hard and fast answer to “what is it about?” for most of his movies, and it’s my impression that is very intentional (as Raygun99 already pointed out). I like films as party games – sitting around with everyone throwing in their two cents about what was going on. One of our favorite aspects of this is trying to figure out why a particular scene is so creepy – sometimes it’s not obvious and you can have a lot of fun picking it apart to figure out why it strikes a nerve. Creamed corn is not intrinsically scary, so why is it scary in Fire Walk With Me? But, if that’s not your cup of tea, I can completely see why Lynch’s movies are not for you.
Exactly. Anyone who says they figured out Mulholland Drive is fooling themselves. And no one can say “You just don’t understand it”, because there is no understanding it, and just giving up and enjoying the movie is what you need to do.
Also, have you noticed what a master Lynch is with sound?
I think it’s entirely possible to appreciate Lynch as a visual artist without actually liking (or understanding) his work. We got into this discussion some years ago in a film studies class I took in college, when we watched Eraserhead and Salvador Dali’s Un Chien Andalou (which I probably spelled wrong). Heated discussions about what Eraserhead was about, and quite frankly, I also found it to be art-school “look how weirdly cool I am” drek. Lots of people in the class were absolutely certain that Lynch was making a pointed commentary on “society” but none were able to articulate precisely what that point might be. The whole thing left me with the impression that Eraserhead did have a point - and it was to make art students look stupid trying to look smart.
I kinda liked Blue Velvet for its character vignettes and its “look” but found nothing terribly interesting in the story. Don’t think I’ve seen anything else of his, except for bits of Twin Peaks. Oh, no - on re-read, I see that The Elephant Man was his - again, a film I liked visually, but I’ve seen the story told better.
And then there’s Lynch’s daughter, whose first name I can’t remember, but Boxing Helena I just can’t forget…
And Julian Sands is so sexy when he’s playing a raving psychotic.
Jennifer.
Eraserhead usually tops the lists of “Recommend Some Weird Ass Movies”.
I bought the gen-u-wine official version from Lynch’s website.
I don’t WANT to know what it’s about (even though I’ve read numerous synopses and interpretations and can understand what it means).
It’s all mood and weirdness.
Lynch was on Letterman a couple of years ago and he strikes me as just a totally weird dude. He definitely has his own “vision” and I don’t think he cares if anyone, including his diehard fans, “gets” his movies.
I haven’t seen all of his movies. Most of them just don’t interest me.
But he made it all fit together. I found it quite enjoyable.
I posted in this thread long ago, before the board went pay-for-play. I’ve long since seen Lost Highway now, and I’ve decided I didn’t quite follow it. There wasn’t enough of a correlation between the reality and the fantasy for me to put the whole thing together and come up with “a ha!” the way I could with Mulholland Drive.
Fine performances all around, though. I didn’t get it, but I did enjoy it.
I couldn’t agree more. Very few people, if any (myself included), are able to discern exactly what Picasso was trying to convey in any particular work. Bit and pieces maybe, or perhaps a general idea (such as the horror of war as illustrated by Guernica), but by and large, interpretations of Picasso’s work are as widely varied as the number of observers. What is unquestionable, however, is his genius and the fact that, understand it or not, when we look at Picasso’s work, we are looking at the work of a master.
The same with Lynch. I’ve only seen Mulholland Drive and was as flummoxed by it as anyone, but the incredible talent that lay behind it is unquestionable. I ultimately decided that the best way to enjoy the film was just to soak up the beauty of the scene that was before me at the moment and not try to assemble the various elements into a cohesive whole.
All in all, I look at Lynch the filmmaker in much the same way as I do Picasso the artist or Gertrude Stein the writer. You may not understand what they’re saying, but you can still revel in that which you can understand, because even that much is superb.
I’ve only seen Mulholland Drive, but I didn’t have the trouble that a lot of my friends had in figuring out what was going on. I liked it, especially since these two chicks totally do it!
Yeah! Not to mention Naomi Watts’ chops as an actress. Dayum! That was the first thing I’d seen her in and she just blew me away.
Heheh, ya. I appreciated her ‘acting skills’ in MD, that’s what I appreciated… 
Heh, heh, heh…see, that’s what I mean. Has sweet, school-girl innocence followed by worldly hotness ever been played so convincingly by any one actress before?
For me, understanding the work of Lynch is an ongoing process.
I dealt with Lost Highway for months, before I thought I had resolved its meaning. But a few years later I tossed those theories out in lieu of new ones (“psychogenic fugue” is a key term Lynch has discussed regarding Lost Highway.)
What has helped me get closer to understanding Lynch’s aims (at least the ones he himself understands) are books and documentaries (primarily the book Lynch on Lynch, a series of interviews by Chris Rodley – a revised edition has just come out), and the documentary Pretty as a Picture. But I feel that just “getting” a Lynch film is beyond the point. If you want to see a film you can just “get” right away, you can watch a disposable romantic comedy or something. Generally, a Lynch film is a great exploration of the art of filmmaking. Lynch films are a great example of how films are not any other kind of art, how they are immersive, complicated, multisensory.
LynchNet used to be helpful before it became less functional with ongoing promises to relaunch. There’s also Lynch’s own site DavidLynch.com but it’s more art than explanation.
One of my favorite quotes by Lynch, to paraphrase, regarding filmmaking, “Mystery is good, confusion is bad”. Lynch strives to create mystery, but not confusion. A bad (or apathetic, or disinterested) filmmaker wouldn’t know the difference.
I love Lynch, especially **Eraserhead ** and Lost Highway, which, IMHO, is his best movie ever. I never could figure out what was going on until I heard Lynch explain it in a documentary (which is rare–he almost never explains his movies). I wish he wasn’t so dead against director commentaries because I’d love to hear him talk about his films.
Good point.
Count me in the ‘I have no idea WTF Lynch movies are about, but I enjoy the dickens out of them’ camp.