Dune

It's a shame Dune ended up being a negative experience for David Lynch. Some of it's very well done. I still love watching it year after year.

Some of the heavier action sequences like when the Harkonnens attack Arrakis or the sandworm battle at the end, don't fare as well as those that you find in Star Wars or Star Trek, and a lot of movie goers tend to focus on those transitions which are often filled with nail-biting excitement.

It would be nice to watch a copy without the consistent inner-character monologues as well, too bad it wasn't as huge as Blade Runner and such an alternative was never released.

Nonetheless, in classic Lynchean style the scenes with the villains still seriously impress, especially the introduction of the Harkonnens which I would argue is some of Lynch's best work.

It's grotesque and terrifying and over-the-top and the attention to detail is so immaculate, along with the chilling production design all focused around Kenneth McMillan's performance. 

I've seen him show up in other films where he didn't have a serious role, in Dune he steals the show though, alongside many prominent actors.

Lynch also thrillingly excelled with his less psychotic sublime nobility, notably during the scenes with Dr. Kynes when they head out to look over spice production. 

When Duke Leto demonstrates that he truly cares for the integral lives of his working people, it's a powerful moment that evocatively captures the democratic spirit of the times.

Kyle MacLachlan has his moments too as does Patrick Stewart, Siân Phillips, Francesca Annis, and Brad Dourif, in interviews I've seen with actors Lynch worked with the genuine admiration clearly shines through.

If you want to see Lynch the editor at work you should compare the theatrical version to the full-length feature, the excessively long studio-cut version that he had his name removed from.

It is much much much worse and you can see Lynch's genius in full swing, when you watch his director's cut and see how he saved so many scenes.

With strong performances, a complex plot, an intricate unique production design, along with his trademark wicked villainy, Lynch's version still impresses.

Denis Villeneuve's films are remarkably well done too and I hope he gets the next Star Wars franchise.

I hope they stick with one director for the entire run.

He's a contemporary sci-fi master. 

Eraserhead

The generation of ideas overwhelmingly uplifting intent transcendental forces, motivation and effort and impact and relevance reflexively augmenting acrobatic flourishes. 

The barren landscape requiring fuel to effectively germinate healthy crops, thoughtful endeavours in bewitching fecundity profusely cascading integral lounging.

The gradual development at times uneasy the formal onslaught of ceaseless ambition, tirelessly adjusting and diffusely remodelling creative cognizance and bold revelation. 

As the seeds tumultuously take root the world at large commodiously ossifies, the general estimable uptight imposition of regulation and duty opaquely cataloguing.

A family prospers and grows communally depicting dynamic tethers, the enviable tradition wholesomely cajoling duplication and collegiality. 

Yet the unbroken ancient line between holistic custom and random alternative, offbeatly vibrates with tenacious recognition as distressing realities duel and challenge.

Thus the emergence of odd surreal fantastic escapes from the awkward humdrum.

Not necessarily cloaked in tedium.

As daring varieties innately juxtapose. 

The industrious dreamlike imagination inherently bewildered by verdant nutrients, yet still reacting to latent stimuli with in/direct in/coherent lucidity.

It's difficult to narrativize the random thoughts which peculiarly inspire dreams throughout the day, the continuous orchestration of improvised insights sub/consciously manifesting elegant distractions. 

What to do with the cerebral material as it suddenly appears within your mind, especially if there are other tasks at hand austerely demanding your strict attention?

The inexhaustible uncontainable ethereal ameliorations of the human spirit, can't be suffocated by even the most dire and dismal environments as Eraserhead suggests.

The spirit of creation still attempts to alter the blandest of circumstances even if untrained, like a natural intuitive humanistic instinct habitually disseminating art and culture. 

What to do with it remains up to you David Lynch went on to direct brilliant films and television.

Never losing the fascination first displayed in Eraserhead.

Which he spent 5 years making and took a paper route to complete.

The Elephant Man

A gentle soul, curious and thoughtful, is habitually tormented by another, who obscenely profits from his misery and spends next to nothing on his care or comfort.

The individual in question suffers from severe deformities which make him appear extraordinary, people wishing to marvel at his stunning difference and willing to pay for the chance to do so.

No one asks him for his opinion regarding his tragic state of affairs, he isn't consulted his steadfast approval is disregarded, ignored, disdained.

No one talks to him either in fact he's left voiceless and caged and isolated, confronting violence should he humbly protest his scathing chains and caustic fetters.

Fortunately, a kind and sympathetic promising young doctor learns of his struggles, and goes about freeing him from the carnival while searching for a permanent place of residence.

Mr. Merrick is then given the opportunity to calmly express himself and converse, his discussions and observations inquisitively demonstrating tender caring playful cognizance. 

For the first time in his life he's treated with respect and he wholesomely responds with innocent wonder.

As those seeking to exploit him discover his whereabouts.

And set about wildly profiteering. 

A young gifted director with one film to his credit was lovingly tasked with crafting The Elephant Man, David Lynch responding with incisive imagination which still resonates this postmodern day.

The just and the wicked frequently colliding in his chaotic campy down-home daring dramas, we find scenes scenarios that stretch throughout his work in their sophomore distillations in this film.

Is Dr. Frederick Treves who seeks to take away John Merrick's pain and let him live in mindful society, not unlike Special Agent Dale Cooper who genuinely cares for the residents of Twin Peaks?

Is the wretched slave-driver Bytes who makes his living spreading death and decay, harbingers of Frank Booth and Dick Laurent the Baron Harkonnen or the Killer Bob?

The dreamlike fascination with surreal storytelling far beyond what the scene depicts, amorphously anchors our innate curiosity as this early outing creatively transmits.

A good place to start if seeking to learn much much more about David Lynch the filmmaker, while sincerely taking requisite note that the path you're on will get much rockier.

At home with artistically embracing noble and unsettling offbeat emotions.

He spent his life contemplating holistic humanism.

In a bona fide theatre of debutant dreams. 

David Lynch: The Art Life

Jon Nguyen, Rick Barnes, and Olivia Neergaard-Holm present David Lynch in his own words, as he prolifically creates at home in California.

Better known for his films, David Lynch: The Art Life alternatively investigates his multidimensional paintings, while he tells the tales that led him to begin narrativizing canvasses in motion.

From his wholesome beginnings in Montana and Idaho, to his wild adolescent high school days in Virginia, Lynch constructs several transformative trestles and discusses time spent with both mom and dad.

His mom detected special abilities during his childhood and took comforting steps to lovingly cultivate them.

His father found his outputs to be somewhat too macabre while visiting him in Philadelphia however, after he had moved there to study painting and actively engage with distinct recalcitrant phenomena, and made some harsh recommendations the timing of which was ironically inappropriate.

It was classic feast and famine.

The feast.

He suddenly receives a grant to study film at the American Film Institute.

Famine: the creation of his masterpiece, Eraserhead, takes longer than expected, and he doesn't complete the film until after his father and brother show up to give him the, "you should start thinking seriously about life" talk, which shortsightedly reduces him to tears.

He obviously disregards their criticisms and goes on to become one of America's great directors, working in film, music, television and painting, notably forging a strong bond with Mark Frost.

It's happening again.

And Stanley Kubrick once stated (paraphrasing) that Eraserhead was the only film he ever wished he had directed.

I think that's in Michael Chion's David Lynch but I'm not certain.

Dark and sombre yet light and dreamy, his texts possess a mystic quotidian quality that defies sustained comparison.

The man himself showcased in The Art Life is down to earth yet provocative, humble and unique.

Listening to him modestly describe his formative years sounds like an extended free form boundless poem which patiently articulates all things clasped artistic.

Like Paterson after a few more decades.

What I gathered from his thoughts was that it was never a matter of stopping, or that creation is his life's work, just as others drive buses or cure the sick, it's just what he does, and he never had any inclination to do anything else.

A gifted storyteller and a remarkable artist, it's amazing that he never stopped working, and incredible that he continues to create to this day.

An honest to God/Buddha/Coyote blue rose.

In bloom.

Inland Empire

Just finished David Lynch's Inland Empire and here are some initial impressions: the film begins by settling us into a darkly surreal landscape, reacquainting us with Grace Zabriskie who plays Laura Dern's portentous neighbour. She sets up the film's phantasmagorical relationship with linearity before fading into the background. Zabriskie is one of several characters whom I would have liked to have seen provided with a bigger role. In fact, my principle critique is the quality that I usually love so dearly within Lynch's texts: its weirdness. Rather than taking the time to firmly develop a number of characters throughout, Lynch introduces several characters, has them utter mysterious one-liners, and then trail off into the dreamscape. The mysterious nature of the film's compelling, kind of like an ontological detective story; but it would have been more so if we didn't lose Justin Theroux, Harry Dean Stanton, Jeremy Irons and Grace Zabriskie half way through (Irons and Stanton return briefly near the end). Instead, Laura Dern liaises with a number of identities before disappearing and reappearing in a variety of different puzzling contexts, the realities of which are difficult to penetrate to say the least (do her multiple identities reflect an artistic actors torment, the feeling they acquire from trying to BE so many different people correctly, in the context of their various stories?), and the rest of the cast is forgotten. What made Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart and Mulholland Drive so mesmerizing were the different characters caught up in the enigma, the different opaque perspectives within. Inland Empire suffers by not providing more of its principle characters with a chance to flesh out their identities, while, fittingly enough, the lead character experiences a severe crisis regarding her in/abilities to do so.