I enjoy Lynch, his films are always engaging and original if nothing else.
I don’t know if I have a favourite, but I enjoyed Eraserhead and Twin Peaks. One thing i’m not sure about though is if any of his films have a deeper meaning underneath the weirdness, or if he is exploring any recurring themes.
Do any dopers think theres something more to his films, because I am always left thinking that there is, but don’t know what.
David Lynch is an experimentalist. I think he is inspired by various themes when he creates, but I think much of his work simply exists to show the imagery he has imagined. In general, I think his work is more or less devoid of deeper meaning, in fact usually rather shallow, although I do love Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive.
To his credit, I think he does this on purpose, trying to explore how juxtaposed images cause our psyches to create meaning out of them, as in dreams.
My prime example of this is his contribution to the compilation "Lumiere and Company , in which the world’s prominent filmmakers, in honor of its 100th anniversary, were given a Lumiere Cinematographe camera and its standard 1-minute reel, and told to do whatever they could using only the film technology that would be available in 1895. It’s a great rental, and Lynch’s segment is definitely memorable.
I remember reading that David Lynch identified himself as a surrealist, which explains a lot about his films, which tend to be very surreal and dreamlike. I’m not sure if they are supposed to have meaning or not, but half the fun is trying to figure out the symbolism and what they could mean.
Read Freud’s commentary on the story The Sandman and his writing on primal fantasies and the primal scene (watching your parents have sex as a child). Then watch [Blue Velvet. It is a virtual play-by-play.
Thanks CatFight, but I think i’ll give that a miss : ) Freud… 10 foot pole…
I didn’t know he was a surrealist HPL, its a good thing I didn’t go forming clever opinions of the subtle layers of meaning of Twin Peaks to amuse people at parties.
Heh I didn’t know about “Lumiere et compagnie” scotandrsn, i’ll most definitely check it out.
Even if you’re not a fan of Freud, even if you absolutely hate him and think he was a petty misogynist cokehead (as I often do), you should still give it a go. At least try a short piece on the Oedipal Complex, or Barbara Creed’s very readable ‘A Journey Through Blue Velvet.’ I’m not exaggerating when I say that I believe the movie is next to meaningless outside the realm of psychoanalysis, and that’s without taking any leaps in logic or forcing the movie to fit the facts. Almost every odd element of Blue Velvet falls into place perfectly upon reading Freud- Frank’s switching between Baby and Daddy, that uncanny dead man left standing up near the end, Frank’s lipstick kiss, even the fetishizing of actual blue velvet. It goes way beyond ‘Frank is Jeffrey’s dark side.’ Still looking into the woman dancing on top of the car, though. Also, Mulholland Drive is helped out a great deal by reading Freud’s writings on Dream Work and The Uncanny.
I don’t have bad opinion of Freud at all but I think people are weird enough without trying to fit them into strange theories. He’ll stay at the end of my 10-foot pole for now…
Interesting; it’s been said he did the same thing with Lacan in Lost Highway: Slavoj Zizek wrote a whole book on it.
Where can one get ahold of this? Do I have to dig up a 1988 copy of New Formations?
What was Freud’s take on Pabst Blue Ribbon?
Sometimes a PBR is just a PBR.