@Roscoe
Assuming you mean that LH and MD are equally incoherent, I can respond by showing how MD is coherent. If you’re interested, I can do this in an MD thread.
@Jazz
Sorry, wasn’t clear. I was asking how LH is incoherent.
Well, that’s little trickier to explain. I’d have to cite parts of the film that are confusing or incoherent, as well as showing how the parts don’t come together in a coherent whole. Or maybe we you could help me understand LH?
Cite away. I’m not asking for a dissertation, just some info.
I don’t think there’s much point in trying to understand David Lynch. Just enjoy the experience.
@Roscoe
The problem is I can’t remember specific scenes! (I forgot to mention that part. Btw, I’m pretty sure we had this conversation before, and I believe you or someone else did offer an explanation for LH).
@Bobby
I don’t think there’s much point in trying to understand David Lynch. Just enjoy the experience.
I think that applies to Eraserhead, LH and some of his earlier shorts, but it doesn’t apply to BV or MD. I’m pretty sure I said this before in previous conversations, but LH and MD both try to merge Eraserhead and BV—only, I think LH ends up being more like latter while MD actually is a perfect balance between the two.
Jazz, ok. I don’t remember discussing LH at all, but I may be wrong. I think LH (which I haven’t seen in a long time, for what it’s worth) hangs together fairly well, and is pretty coherent, as is much of Lynch’s work, I’d say. There’s always a logic there, even if it takes multiple viewings to tease it out. The problem I had with INLAND EMPIRE and the unspeakable MULHOLLAND DR was that I didn’t give enough of a fuck about the films to bother with the effort of getting to the bottom of them — they’re puzzles that aren’t worth the trouble of solving. I know I’ve said that my patience for this kind of filmmaking has pretty well run out, and that it ran out with MULHOLLAND DR.
@Roscoe
Jazz, ok. I don’t remember discussing LH at all, but I may be wrong.
To be clear, I’m not saying I don’t want to have this discussion. (I just feel a little foolish if you answered my question in the past.)
I think LH (which I haven’t seen in a long time, for what it’s worth) hangs together fairly well, and is pretty coherent, as is much of Lynch’s work, I’d say. There’s always a logic there, even if it takes multiple viewings to tease it out.
Wait, just to be clear, are you saying that Eraserhead, LH and some of the earlier shorts are coherent in the same way that BV, Elephant Man and The Straight Story are? I mean the former group of films might have meaning, but they’re operating under a dream logic—i.e., no logical or realistic coherence, while the latter group do operate have a coherent narrative structure. I’m not expressing myself well, but do you see what I’m saying? And do you agree, if so?
Again, I think looking at Lynch’s films as puzzles that need to be solved will only cause you pain. That’s clearly not what he’s about, even if he plays a bit with the mystery genre.
@Bobby
I don’t approach some of the more abstract, experimental films as puzzles, but LH and MD seemed to be functioning in that way to some degree—not so much as puzzles, but as having a coherent narrative under the surface that one would have to dig for. At the same time, both films can be enjoyed, to some degree, without getting to that narrative. I enjoyed both that way, and with MD, after the first viewing, I had no idea what was going on. But, again, when I discovered what was going on I was greatly impressed, It’s a huge accomplishment, imo.
Jazz—
By “coherent” I mean that Lynch’s films always make sense on some level — they hold together (“cohere”) as consistent works, sometimes with more or less straightforward narratives (like BLUE VELVET and STRAIGHT STORY) and sometimes with more difficult narratives (the dream-logic shifts in ERASERHEAD and LOST HIGHWAY and the earlier shorts, and even MULHOLLAND DR and INLAND EMPIRE).
Bobby—
True enough about puzzles and Lynch, but I think that MULHOLLAND and INLAND invite the puzzle approach, MULHOLLAND especially with its noir settings (and that scene with Justin Theroux meeting the Pale Cowboy who speaks in ever-so-Lynchian Riddles felt like a leftover from TWIN PEAKS), and INLAND with the real/film stuff. The difference between these two films and the others like ERASERHEAD and LOST HIGHWAY, as I’m afraid I keep saying, is the complete lack of interest I had in what was going on in MULHOLLAND and INLAND. There were flickers of interest, the old magic came to life during the Cafe Silencio scene and those wonderful rabbits. But overall, meh to them both.
@ Jazz
Do you mean you think Lost Highway is less coherent in the sense that the Fred plot isn’t resolved with the Pete plot as neatly as the Diane plot and the Betty plot are in Mulholland Drive? (Because that’s actually a large part of my preference for Lost Highway)
@Matt
I don’t remember Fred and Pete at all! so it’s hard to respond, but I suspect you’re right. LH has elements of dream and reality, but it pulled more to the dream side, whereas MD blended the two perfectly. Do you agree with that assessment?
Can you say more about why you preferred LH over MD?
Highway strikes me as, even at the end of the film, like the song says it, deep in a dream.
I agree with this and it’s what I mean by the film pulling more towards the dream side. MD does NOT try to be a dream, but both a dream/nightmare and realistic narrative. If I recall, we mostly get the dream/nightmare first, but towards the ending, the dream/nightmare begins to disintegrate into real memories, which is where we can piece together the realistic narrative. If you prefer films that are like dreams/nightmares (Eraserhead), then I understand why you prefer LH. But what Lynch tries to do is really difficult; that he pulls it off is impressive; and because he manages to synthesize the filmmaking and ideas from both Eraserhead (and the earlier shorts) with something like BV (the noir, darker undercurrent of middle class world, etc), I consider this his masterpiece.
(Btw, I forgot to respond to those short videos you linked. I watched one of them and part of ther other.)
“I forgot to respond to those short videos you linked. I watched one of them and part of ther other.”
Yeah, I guess we can get back to those at some point.
I would have to watch them again, though. :)
Me too, if I wanted to be able to go into any detail.
I haven’t yet picked up Blue Velvet on Blu but I’m curious to check out the 40 minutes of deleted scenes from his rough cut. Lynch never really shows deleted scenes so I’m really curious what didn’t the cut.
When this thread started I mainly started it out of my disgust that Blue Velvet isn’t on the AFI Top 100. Now after seeing this thread continue perhaps this is the reason. It really is hard for a movie buff to pick just one film by a great filmmaker to define their entire career.
I’m also a big fan of Lost Highway and it was that experience in cinemas when I was about 16 that introduced me to his body of work. I really believe that Lost Highway was his last visually arresting work. Even if you love everything that he made after there is no denying that he has the budget he needed on that film. I have always thought that Mulholland Drive look very cheap like a cable tv pilot (which it was until it then got more funding and Lynch bought it off I believe Showtime). I really wish he would go back to shooting on film.
oh I picked up the blu ray yesterday and I it is worth picking up just for the deleted scenes.
I’ve watched a few of his films and I hated Blue Velvet. Loved the others, though.
^Aww, why didn’t you like it?
Bobby Wise
I won’t go so far as to call “Mulholland Dr” gimmicky. And the incoherence of “Lost Highway” is actually something I like about it. I prefer that it gets as close to avant-garde as possible. If I like “Inland Empire” better than “Mulholland Dr” it’s because it’s more experimental.
re: “but a question: does there really need to be just one definitive movie for any director?”
Not necessarily, but there’s got to be something to spark off an interesting conversation somehow!