David Lynch

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Brian C
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Re: David Lynch

#501 Post by Brian C » Mon Jun 25, 2018 11:48 am

mfunk9786 wrote:Even better, in a sense. If this horrendous valley in U.S. history can lead to substantive improvements in voting rights, in the integrity of the composition of the federal government (abolishing wasteful and unconstitutional enforcement like DHS and ICE), and electing officials who actually have the stomach to accomplish much of this, then maybe all is not lost. It's a tall order and an optimistic view of something ultimately terrible, but this seems more and more like it's going to be a tipping point in one direction or another and not just something we can sweep under the rug and pretend never happened.
I think you need a little more than wishful thinking for this to be not ridiculous.

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mfunk9786
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Re: David Lynch

#502 Post by mfunk9786 » Mon Jun 25, 2018 12:00 pm

I also have *counts change in palm* $1.35, if that helps

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HJackson
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Re: David Lynch

#503 Post by HJackson » Mon Jun 25, 2018 12:02 pm

hearthesilence wrote:
Mon Jun 25, 2018 11:37 am
The idea of "disruption" for the sake of shaking things up is asinine. It's easy to break an existing institution apart, but far more difficult to construct something that's actually more meaningful and effective. I don't think I'm alone in seeing this play out in a professional context, far from it.
But Lynch isn't defending disruption for the sake of merely "shaking things up". He's seems to be making the more specific claim that Trump disrupted the system and, in so doing, exposed the existing political class as utterly incompetent and child-like. Deconstructing the myth that career politicians are responsible stewards of state is obviously no more destructive than dispelling any other lie.

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mfunk9786
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Re: David Lynch

#504 Post by mfunk9786 » Mon Jun 25, 2018 12:06 pm

hearthesilence wrote:
Mon Jun 25, 2018 11:37 am
The idea of "disruption" for the sake of shaking things up is asinine. It's easy to break an existing institution apart, but far more difficult to construct something that's actually more meaningful and effective. I don't think I'm alone in seeing this play out in a professional context, far from it.
I agree that were there the opportunity to go back in a time machine and not elect Donald Trump, that would be preferable to the alternative. But I'm not sure if that means that the election of Donald Trump won't lead to the institutions of the U.S. government being stronger (by mere necessity of needing to rebuild) in, say, 30 years than they would be were he not elected.
HJackson wrote:
Mon Jun 25, 2018 12:02 pm
But Lynch isn't defending disruption for the sake of merely "shaking things up". He's seems to be making the more specific claim that Trump disrupted the system and, in so doing, exposed the existing political class as utterly incompetent and child-like. Deconstructing the myth that career politicians are responsible stewards of state is obviously no more destructive than dispelling any other lie.
Gotta check to see if there's a full moon tonight, because I agree with you completely on the above statement, HJackson.

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Brian C
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Re: David Lynch

#505 Post by Brian C » Mon Jun 25, 2018 12:11 pm

mfunk9786 wrote:Gotta check to see if there's a full moon tonight, because I agree with you completely on the above statement, HJackson.
Maybe instead you should check to see if you’re vacuously advancing destructive right-wing cliches.

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swo17
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Re: David Lynch

#506 Post by swo17 » Mon Jun 25, 2018 12:18 pm

mfunk9786, Rome 455 A.D. wrote:I agree that were there the opportunity to go back in a time machine and not allow Petronius Maximus to declare himself emperor, that would be preferable to the alternative. But I'm not sure if that means that his rule won't lead to our institutions being stronger (by mere necessity of needing to rebuild) in, say, 30 years than they would be otherwise.

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mfunk9786
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Re: David Lynch

#507 Post by mfunk9786 » Mon Jun 25, 2018 12:51 pm

Brian C wrote:
Mon Jun 25, 2018 12:11 pm
mfunk9786 wrote:Gotta check to see if there's a full moon tonight, because I agree with you completely on the above statement, HJackson.
Maybe instead you should check to see if you’re vacuously advancing destructive right-wing cliches.
I doubt the GOP is particularly interested in their own party rotting from the inside out because of the spread of unsustainably toxic far-right thought that in turn makes otherwise apolitical or wishy-washy centrist citizens stand up, take notice, and engage in our democracy in order to shoo them out of power. Although if they are, whoo boy, is there egg on my face!

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mfunk9786
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Re: David Lynch

#508 Post by mfunk9786 » Mon Jun 25, 2018 2:42 pm

Image

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DarkImbecile
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Re: David Lynch

#509 Post by DarkImbecile » Mon Jun 25, 2018 7:29 pm

Image

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Big Ben
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Re: David Lynch

#510 Post by Big Ben » Mon Jun 25, 2018 7:40 pm

I confess I'm more impressed he managed to make a link work than the fact that he didn't care about what Lynch actually said.

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soundchaser
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Re: David Lynch

#511 Post by soundchaser » Mon Jun 25, 2018 7:41 pm

Well, I suppose it's for the best that Twin Peaks is likely the last film he'll make. I still maintain that this is simply a questionable accelerationist viewpoint rather than a genuinely supportive one (perhaps out-of-touch, but not *evil*), but it's absolutely not going to be read that way by most. A shame, because Lynch's art is so empathetic ("fix your hearts or die," anyone?) that I can't imagine the alternative.
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Boosmahn
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Re: David Lynch

#512 Post by Boosmahn » Mon Jun 25, 2018 8:19 pm

This might sound like a stupid question, but this won't affect any upcoming Criterion Lynch releases, right?

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hearthesilence
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Re: David Lynch

#513 Post by hearthesilence » Mon Jun 25, 2018 8:22 pm

UPCOMING releases? Shit man they're already boycotting this MF and pulling his titles out of their catalog.

In all seriousness, I really doubt it.

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mfunk9786
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Re: David Lynch

#514 Post by mfunk9786 » Mon Jun 25, 2018 8:27 pm

Wait, a deliberate misquote and misinterpretation of a larger thought of Lynch's would lead to cancelled Criterion releases? All due respect: Are you guys insane?

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Dead or Deader
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Re: David Lynch

#515 Post by Dead or Deader » Mon Jun 25, 2018 8:40 pm

For a more positive outlook, just think of the MAGA crowd suddenly discovering David Lynch in 2018 and picking up his films on DVD at the local Barnes & Noble, only to be shattered by the ambiguous nature of his work? Almost as weird as that crowd becoming fans of the rapper who has made vehemently criticism towards a Republican president.

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Boosmahn
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Re: David Lynch

#516 Post by Boosmahn » Mon Jun 25, 2018 9:19 pm

mfunk9786 wrote:
Mon Jun 25, 2018 8:27 pm
All due respect: Are you guys insane?
I never said my question was logical. :wink:

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whaleallright
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Re: David Lynch

#517 Post by whaleallright » Mon Jun 25, 2018 11:37 pm

HJackson wrote:
Mon Jun 25, 2018 12:02 pm
But Lynch isn't defending disruption for the sake of merely "shaking things up". He's seems to be making the more specific claim that Trump disrupted the system and, in so doing, exposed the existing political class as utterly incompetent and child-like. Deconstructing the myth that career politicians are responsible stewards of state is obviously no more destructive than dispelling any other lie.
This reads a bit like what happens when Trump shits some indefensible bullshit on his Twitter feed and his toadies have to "massage" it for the press—that is, make up their own, more intelligent and/or less unsettling meaning from nearly whole cloth. Lynch's actual words were much simpler, and less thoughtful than your gloss. His was the same reasoning by which many Trump supporters justified (to the press and possibly to themselves as well) their votes.

Yes the "heightening the contradictions"/"it needs to get worse before it gets better" line of leftist argument is immoral, and stupid. But I think it's giving Lynch too much credit to suggest he was making that argument. He is not a sophisticated political thinker. This is a guy who doesn't even seem to grasp that he's a spokesperson for a New Age ponzi scheme.
Last edited by whaleallright on Tue Jun 26, 2018 9:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Big Ben
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Re: David Lynch

#518 Post by Big Ben » Mon Jun 25, 2018 11:53 pm

We jest but I really want the MAGA crowd to binge his stuff and get mad at it. I really do.

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Omensetter
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Re: David Lynch

#519 Post by Omensetter » Tue Jun 26, 2018 12:24 am

whaleallright wrote:
Mon Jun 25, 2018 11:37 pm
Yes the "heightening the contradictions"/"it needs to get worse before it gets better" line of leftist argument is immoral, and stupid... He is not a sophisticated political thinker.
I mean, the above is really more of a right-accelerationist viewpoint; left-accelerationists ala Srnicek/Williams are fine, but it seems the above argument has claimed accelerationist-anything.

You're definitely right that he's not only not a sophisticated political thinker, but not a political thinker---he admitted he isn't a political person (although that doesn't exculpate him from...people posting about his comments on the internet). You could get Lynch's vote by appealing to his nicotine addiction.

The MAGA crowd is not going to watch a Lynch film, just like they didn't buy Kanye records en masse. They just want to claim someone for their "team" to "own the libs" or whatever.

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furbicide
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Re: David Lynch

#520 Post by furbicide » Tue Jun 26, 2018 12:32 am

soundchaser wrote:
Mon Jun 25, 2018 7:41 pm
Well, I suppose it's for the best that Twin Peaks is likely the last film he'll make.
Um, what? Please tell me you’re joking and don’t actually believe this.

I don’t really care whether or not Lynch really/kinda/not particularly likes Trump, because it has no bearing on his ability as a filmmaker and I don’t look to esoteric filmmakers to tell me how to vote. Wanting his career to be over because he might have some questionable political views is pretty eccentric, in a bad way. I don’t want to be mean, but I’m kind of appalled that people think like this.

P.S. If you’re going to go after Lynch for his extracurricular activities, the transcendental meditation stuff seems 100x more dodgy. I just choose to ignore it and not let it affect my enjoyment of his work.
Last edited by furbicide on Tue Jun 26, 2018 12:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

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whaleallright
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Re: David Lynch

#521 Post by whaleallright » Tue Jun 26, 2018 12:33 am

Omensetter, I've heard that accelerationist line from plenty of people on the left though less and less of it as the fascist coup has proceeded.

Maybe I'm heedlessly treading into rough waters here, but given Lynch's having gone all in for—not just transcendental meditation, which is fine, whatever, but the copywritten, corporate version thereof, once upon a time and place he would have been a decent mark for the mystical-nationalist-transcendental elements of Nazism. after all, it did attract some of the greatest artists of midcentury Germany, whose work was not necessarily lacking in empathy and compassion. There's that chilling video on YouTube where this self-styled "guru" appears onstage w/ Lynch at a TM event in Germany and is torn to shreds by the audience for voicing what amounts to neo-Nazi rhetoric. Lynch seems not to grasp what's happening and even defends the guy—which is partly a product of not understanding German, but also a product of his awesome political naïveté, which is somehow both an unforgivable personal characteristic and probably essential to the creation of his art.

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furbicide
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Re: David Lynch

#522 Post by furbicide » Tue Jun 26, 2018 12:50 am

OMG I just watched that video (apologies if it’s been posted previously):

https://vimeo.com/4201441

Personally, I’m less disturbed by the fact that the robed charlatan is saying stuff that sounds fascist and neo-nazi (but mostly just meaningless woo-woo, as is such people’s wont) than that Lynch is an enthusiastic, paid-up member and active promoter of this cult. Maybe, just maybe, we shouldn’t be taking his political expressions seriously?

And yet, you know, this is still the same guy who made Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive, Twin Peaks – are you going to chuck him out of the film industry and replace him with someone (who?), or are we going to accept that great/important/necessary artists sometimes have bad/crazy views, and that it would be an act of cultural seppuku to try to chase them out of the industry and leave us with only politically ‘right-on’ types (as if Hollywood doesn’t already have enough of those)?

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soundchaser
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Re: David Lynch

#523 Post by soundchaser » Tue Jun 26, 2018 12:56 am

furbicide wrote:
Tue Jun 26, 2018 12:32 am
Um, what? Please tell me you’re joking and don’t actually believe this.

I don’t really care whether or not Lynch really/kinda/not particularly likes Trump, because it has no bearing on his ability as a filmmaker and I don’t look to esoteric filmmakers to tell me how to vote. Wanting his career to be over because he might have some questionable political views is pretty eccentric, in a bad way. I don’t want to be mean, but I’m kind of appalled that people think like this.

P.S. If you’re going to go after Lynch for his extracurricular activities, the transcendental meditation stuff seems 100x more dodgy. I just choose to ignore it and not let it affect my enjoyment of his work.
Well, let me clarify: I'm not joking in that I think Lynch is finished with filmmaking. He's made it fairly clear that he'd just like to carve tables and paint now, and he just put out what appears to be a career sum-up memoir. And that's fine, if it's what he wants to do.

But I perhaps should have made my intention clearer. I don't *want* Lynch's career to be over, but given that I think it already largely is, I'm glad we'll be spared the "does this work have latent (or overt) fascistic tendencies?" discussion, which I think would inevitably swallow the next project. Hell, it's already started. The last season of Twin Peaks was a beautiful, once-in-a-lifetime type event for me, and it's disheartening to see people now saying "I never liked it and I was right not to like it!", because of one out-of-context interview. Maybe I'm just being too thin-skinned about art criticism. But I'm worried about this being a cultural shift (however small) after which it will be anathema to like Lynch's work. And THAT seems totally unfair to me, because the work itself is still infinitely more empathetic than most things out of the film industry.

I know the man has always been something of a political weirdo (vote for Reagan because of smoking bans?), and yes, the TM stuff is sketchy, but I think there's a good-heartedness there that people are more willing to forgive the dodgier aspects.

Forgive me if I sound like a reactionary, or if I'm not making much sense. Lynch is my absolute favorite artist, and I feel like I'm going through some "five stages of grieving" thing here, however unjustified.

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mfunk9786
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Re: David Lynch

#524 Post by mfunk9786 » Tue Jun 26, 2018 1:52 am

I'll do everyone one better: By depicting and indulging the much darker side of humanity and actually wrestling with it in a way that is meaningful, Lynch's work is among the most empathetic of any filmmaker's in history. Any amount of stated political opinions could not change the fact that this man has been a champion of victims of violence, rape, incest, and [psychological + physical] illness throughout his career. To dismiss that work because of an answer to an interview question is misguided in the extreme. Lynch's work has done more to question the relationship that society has with figures like Donald Trump than any interview with an extremely woke filmmaker ever could. Not only does his work speak for itself, it is the only thing that speaks for itself, because of the degree to which Lynch has refused to sully it with his own words.

He deserves our benefit of the doubt right now, and moreso, he deserves our indifference to his personal opinions. Because no filmmaker has kept those apart from his work more vociferously in the last few decades than Lynch.

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Big Ben
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Re: David Lynch

#525 Post by Big Ben » Tue Jun 26, 2018 2:05 am

Even "Woke" Twitter has dismissed the interview as a quote taken way out of context. It's a non controversy to them. The MAGA folks are the ones who have attached themselves to Lynch. I'm sure for instance they'll love things like Twin Peaks were a trans character is treated as a person and will absolutely not in any way quit his works out of frustration.

As for Lynch's body of work and empathy I agree with mfunk. As someone who has experienced some of the above things I've always find a sort of piece with Lynch's work because he understands that the horror and sadness comes not from just the act itself but because the effect it has on you and how society perceives you. His works are things of great empathy. Indiewire making a shitpost for the ages doesn't change that.

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