The best way to celebrate him: nude scenes from his movies
You can find my series on The Women of Twin Peaks here.
R.I.P. David Lynch
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Uncle Scoopy's world-weary musings about naked celebrities, sports, humor and other important, manly things.
A cinematic giant that will never be replicated. He is one of my all-time favorites. He will be missed. He was also great as Gus the Bartender in “The Cleveland Show”
One of my favorite directors.
Just in terms of interest to this group;
Blue Velvet
Twin Peaks
Wild at Heart
Chris Isaak: Wicked Game
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
Lost Highway
Mulholland Drive
Inland Empire
RIP
PR
I watch a substantial number of films, including occasionally attending film festivals. I might not be as big a film buff as some who comment on this site, but I still see quite a number. And yet…on learning of David Lynch’s death and reviewing his filmography, I realized I had seen a grand total of ONE of his movies – The Elephant Man – and NONE of his television series. I was kind of surprised and embarrassed to realize that.
I guess that my own one experience, and also briefly watching on TV some scenes from his other films and series, and reading reviews, gave me an impression of someone whose output largely consisted of exercises of style, rather than the sort of movie storytelling that attracts me. That is probably unfair, but that is the impression that I have. Maybe his death will inspire me to consider now watching more of what he did,. But honestly, on looking over his filmography yesterday, I am not all that tempted.
He’s dead, you’re alive. The best tribute you can make is to give a few of them a try. If they don’t float your boat, so be it.
Start with Blue Velvet. My friend’s description that drew me in: a young man returns to his home town, finds a severed ear in a field, and stumbles into its dark side.
Straight Story – good; more conventional and accessible than his others. Like a master brewer painstakingly recreating a watery American pilsner. Interesting back-story too: the actor playing a guy with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel was dying himself – he kept it secret.
DO NOT start with Inland Empire.
I read that Lynch offered his own description of Blue Velvet, which I found apt: “The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew go to hell.” (Except Kyle played a solitary Hardy Boy.)
Your recommendation as the first one to try is a good one, as is the big warning sign over Inland Empire. I’d suggest Blue Velvet, then Twin Peaks (OG + movie), then Wild at Heart for someone starting out.
Thanks for the suggestions. I will give it a try – probably with Blue Velvet.
I’d start with his tv series, Twin Peaks. It has influenced and continues to influence countless shows. I’d say it’s one of the more ‘normal’ projects of his, but only by Lynchian standards.
I’m a huge, huge fan of Lynch. Mulholland Dr. is my favorite film of all-time. It was the second film of his I saw, on release, a year and a half or so after Blue Velvet, which is the only film I’ve seen as an adult that’s given me nightmares. Blue Velvet probably is the single best place to start and get a sense of what “A David Lynch film” is. The Elephant Man and The Straight Story, especially the latter, are by far his most conventional films.
The stuff Lynch made before the Elephant Man are very much experimental art films. From Elephant Man through the end of Twin Peaks, his work is more narratively driven. From Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me on, with the glaring exception of The Straight Story, his work became less narratively conventional
I finally followed through on my intent to watch something by David Lynch, beyond The Elephant Man which I saw years ago when it came out. I settled on Mulholland Drive, largely on the basis that it came second in the recent NYT assessment of the top films so far in this century.
I wish that I had liked it more than I did, but my assessment is ‘meh’. The first 75% of it was moderately enjoyable – fairly interesting, atmospheric and with obvious cinematic qualities, even if not realistic (and I imagine not intended to be) and slow moving. The last 25% was entirely something else, after the storyline, characterizations, and timelines substantially shift and fragment. No doubt the last 25% has meaning – and is a key basis for the movie’s reputation for greatness – but that meaning was lost on me. To me it was like the director was repeatedly throwing ‘whatever’ crossed his mind during a fever dream up on the screen. For me, it did not work. Some great nudity and sex though.
I must say that I am heartened, but also shocked, that something this experimental came second in the NYT assessment, which was apparently based on the collected responses of numerous producers, directors, actors, and other filmmaking insiders. Even more shockingly, it apparently also came in second in an accompanying secondary poll conducted by the NYT, based on the responses of thousands and thousands of readers. I am pleased to have seen it, though I would not put it anywhere near the top in my own rankings. And I am glad that the effort to do something deeply imaginative was widely appreciated, if even if I did not like it myself. I probably will not be watching another David Lynch film though. Give me the Coen brothers, for example, anytime, but not this.
It’s funny. He made Fire Walk With Me, and the general tone of the movie and the mental state it left his leads in made him say, “I’m never gonna ask another little gal to take her clothes off again.”
Then he made Lost Highway, so apparently he got over it.
I’m not sure why the leads would have been over wrought from the nudity. Anne Gaybis, Sheryl Lee, and Moira Kelly did not seem adverse to nudity. Perhaps it was just him sweating it. He had such a mental lock on what the finished product should look and feel like. It may have taken a toll.
But like you said, he apparently got over it.
PR
There’s a lot more depth in Mulholland Drive than many realize. Youtube reactors tend to miss all of it. They usually consist of a movie fan husband who thinks he has it figured out but actually doesn’t, showing it to his dumb housewife who is utterly clueless about every scene and would much prefer to watch Wonder Woman. Commoners like that are allergic to depth and analysis; I even saw one particularly stupid woman declare it was the worst movie she’s ever seen, simply because she didn’t understand it. The exact same reaction is typically true of Blue Velvet.
The truth about M Dr. is, the whole thing is symbolic of the destructive nature of Hollywood hierarchy & politics & temptations. That’s why so much of the film has really dark lighting. (You can barely see Laura Herring’s bush in the penultimate love scene with Naomi Watts, even worse on the DVD where Lynch blurred it out intentionally.) Each character represents a concept in the Hollywood world, and the film shows how they all contribute to the making/breaking of a starlet.
I wish David would’ve opened up more about it before he died. But like Kubrick, he chose to let viewers develop their own interpretations, giving only only vague clues about his true ideas. So it remains a film that many people say “Wow, that seemed like it was good” about, (or the opposite), without understanding any of it. But that’s bound to happen when you display pearls before swine.
Mulholland is one where it feels like a puzzle – kind of like Memento. It is irresistible to tell yourself you have “solved” it, just so your mind can rest. If you hit on the wrong solution/explanation, you’re inclined to let it ride.
Best to just relax, let it roll over you the first time, like a dream. Then rewatch if you want to “make sense” of it. The second time you’ll at least know what’s ahead.
My take on it is that what we see at first is the fairy tale Naomi Watts’ character has built up in her mind, and the darker second half is the reality she’s been avoiding. I’ve had at least one relationship like that myself.
Disheartening fact is that, although major Hollywood figures like Spielberg and Scorcese paid tribute to him after his passing, in U.S.A. he couldn’t get the money needed to make new films and his latest ones only got funds from Europe