Finally, my first original blog post! In a long time, admittedly. And I’m not making things easy for myself by deciding to attempt to decypher the films of David Lynch. This has all come about because part of my summer viewing, trying to fill the post-uni void, has been the two series of Twin Peaks (1990-1991). I’ve been wanting to watch it for a while but simply kept forgetting about it, especially when I have so many other shows on the go. But I’ve finally started, and am currently making my way through season two, and I’m so glad. It’s really something special!
For a show that’s over 20 years old, it still feels remarkably fresh. Daring even, with many of the show’s plot twists, stylistic flourishes, strong directing, bold (and quite large) cast of characters, and surrealist elements coming across as pretty radical even now. Which makes it all the more remarkable considering this preceded the rise of the supposed third golden age of quality television, usually signalled as beginning with The Sopranos (1999-2007). Twin Peaks has a distinctly cinematic feel to it which I can’t help feeling has been a huge influence on later shows (someone please tell me if there are other more important examples!), such as its careful and expressive use of lighting and framing, and the importance of visions and dream sequences.
The show is centred around the investigation into the murder of Laura Palmer, a popular schoolgirl and homecoming queen from the small rural town of Twin Peaks in Washington state, near the Canadian border. Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) of the FBI is brought in to investiagate. However, the murder mystery actually only makes up a small part of the show, which is more concerned with the lives and stories of the eccentric townspeople including Laura’s boyfriend Bobby (Dana Ashbrook), her secret lover James (James Marshall), her best friend Donna (Lara Flynn Boyle), her grieving parents (Ray Wise and Grace Zabriskie) as well as the insidious goings-on of wealthy businessman Ben Horne (Richard Beymer) and his sultry daughter Audrey (Sherilyn Fenn). For me, Agent Cooper is fast becoming one of my favourite characters ever – both immensely practical and infectiously positive, he’s a joy to watch.
What I admire most about this show, and indeed all of Lynch’s work, is its sense of tone. The show has the cold seriousness of a mystery investigation, but also contains many melodramatic elements of a soap opera when focused on the other characters. Many scenes even have a weird sense of humour to them which can be genuinely and unexpectedly funny. The first season even parodies its soapy roots, by having many plot elements run parallel to those of an in-show daytime soap called ‘Invitation to Love’. Finally, there is a supernatural undercurrent which blurs and layers the show, giving it added depth and making it more mystifying and unique. What I really respect is how even within scenes, this tone can veer from deeply creepy and unnerving, to sublimely ridiculous without it feeling forced or off. This is partly helped by Angelo Badalamenti’s near-omnipresent soundtrack, which can be both jazzy and atmospheric. A lot of it comes down to the consistency of the show’s writing and directing though.
This all got me thinking about David Lynch, and how, from the few films I’ve seen so far, his work seems so distinctly… well, Lynchian. He has the most impressive control of atmosphere, and puts a real importance on sound design and iconography. So I decided to go on a bit of a mini-Lynch marathon and see how some of his films compare to Twin Peaks, which I’ve found so inspiring.
Wild at Heart (1990)
“You got me hotter than Georgia asphalt”
I think this was quite a weird film to start with, because Wild at Heart seems fairly different to the films I’d seen before. Much of the darkness and disturbing dream logic isn’t present. Instead this is a pulpy thriller, one with a broad and pretty crass sense of humour which you aren’t supposed to take too seriously. I really wanted to like this film, and the first half hour or so seemed promising. A young lovers on the run tale, it follows the road trip of Sailor (Nicolas Cage) and Lula (Laura Dern). Sailor had been imprisoned and separated from Lula for killing a man who had attacked him with a knife, but he’s done his time and now they escape together, much to the chagrin of Lula’s deranged mother Marietta (Diane Ladd). Maddened by jealousy and the thought of her daughter with a criminal, she sends both a private detective and a hitman after them.
I’m not sure whether this differing tone is perhaps due to this being the only one of Lynch’s films I’ve seen which is an adaptation, being based on a pulp novel by Barry Gifford (I haven’t seen Dune (1984) yet). The problems I found with this film is firstly that I began to find it boring towards the middle, as the story became more self-indulgent and plodding. A lot of the plot involves various flashbacks as characters describe events or reminisce, which I found messy storytelling. Indeed, I couldn’t help feeling Lynch in this case was far too interested in iconography and deranged excess, that it comes at the expense of proper context and characters.
I do really like Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern in this; they give it their all despite the limited development of their characters, like his Elvis-style drawl and awesome snakeskin jacket (“a symbol of my individuality, and my belief in personal freedom”), to her high-school wild charm. An early scene where Sailor wins a fight in a club, then leads the band in a rendition of an Elvis Presley track is pretty cool. A lot of the dialogue is snappy and quotable. But many of the characters are pushed to the point of cartoonishness, from Marietta’s screaming and smearing lipstick all over her face, to Willem Dafoe’s slimy bad-toothed gangster. A scene where he sexually threatens Lula leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, coming across like the film is almost sneering at Lula’s abuse. Yet even the two leads are barely drawn more than pop culture cliches. It all begins to undermine the seriousness of the storyline. On top of that, the film’s frequent references to The Wizard of Oz as an attempt to comment on the plot begin to feel heavy-handed after a few mentions. Some of Lynch’s surreal twists are here, but they feel out of place with the rest of the film which ends up a mess for me.
Blue Velvet (1986)
“I don’t know if you’re a detective or a pervert…”
It was a few years since I’d seen this, and what surprised me on both viewings is how straightforward I found Blue Velvet. Not to say that it’s simple, it’s still a weird and psychologically complex film about destructive sexuality and voyeurism. But more that the storyline is surprisingly grounded and driven – it has a definitive beginning, middle and end. College student Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle Maclachlan) returns home to the quaint suburbs of Lumberton to visit his father who has been hospitalised. One day when walking through a field, Jeffrey finds a severed ear, which he takes to the police. Through this, he begins a friendship with a detective’s daughter Sandy (Laura Dern), and through her learns how the ear may be linked to investigations into a nightclub singer called Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini). His curiosity piqued, Jeffrey begins investigating Dorothy himself, which takes him into a seedy world of crime.
What’s so great about Blue Velvet, similar to Twin Peaks, is its hybridity of tone and genre. Blue Velvet plays out like a neo-noir detective story, but also contains elements of horror, erotic thrillers and teen films. It’s this combination of teen drama, and the innate curiosity and innocence of its protagonists, as contrasted to the darker elements of the story, which I find so interesting. As many have pointed out, this film is about the sinister underbelly of everyday America, the disturbing events hidden beneath the ordinary surface, often symbolised through images of insects such as in the iconic opening scene. This is a major theme in Twin Peaks too, and watching this back, I can see how this theme had such a big influence on later films like Donnie Darko (2001) and Brick (2005). For me, this film also has some of Lynch’s most well-developed and interesting characters. From Jeffrey and Sandy’s natural awkward teen dialogue and 1950s throwback style, but especially with Dorothy’s vulnerable and tortured sexuality and Dennis Hopper’s foul-mouthed character Frank Booth, with his iconic gas mask and disturbing recession into violent sexuality which is almost childlike.
I can’t recommend Blue Velvet highly enough, it really is terrific. Dealing with fairly disturbing subject matters, it nonetheless still has a human soul beneath all the extreme events, and this comes down to the strength of the script and characters. It’s easy to see how this is Lynch’s most personal film, from the small-town American setting to the deliberate evocation of 1950s pop culture and music. And that really shows through with the overall essence of the film.
Lost Highway (1997)
“Dick Laurent is dead”
These are the words that start the bizarre and hyperstylised madness of Lost Highway. I’m not going to admit to fully understanding this film, not all of it made sense to me. I doubt it’s even meant to make sense or have broader meaning, or it simply probably does only in Lynch’s head. Fred Madison (Bill Paxton), a nightclub saxophonist, lives with his wife Renee (Patricia Arquette) in their angular minimalist house in Los Angeles. They begin to receive packages containing videotapes of their home being filmed. These tapes become increasingly intrusive, going on to filming the inside and even the couple as they sleep. The police can’t help. Fred later meets a mysterious man at a party, who informs him that they’ve met before. And after this, well, it’s hard to explain. Not without giving away too much. However, my overall reading of the film seems to be that Fred, through a combination of jealousy and grief, tries to transform himself, to mask the terrible things he’s done even from himself.
Lost Highway saw the revisiting of some of Lynch’s most prominent themes. The darker, seedier side of American life is here foregrounded however by the LA underbelly setting. It’s still undeniably creepy, from the home invasion-horror vibes at the start, to Robert Blake’s chilling pale faced man. The hybridity of genres continues, borrowing from film noir to psychological horror. But I feel it lacks some of the subtlety of Lynch’s best work. Full of brash visuals, an overabundance of sex (Patricia Arquette seems to spend a great deal of the film naked and/or screwing), bursts of pounding Rammstein songs – this attempt to depict a decent into madness tends to work best in the quieter moments, those that build a sense of dread. Overall though much onscreen seems designed primarily to shock.
Looking back now, it can be seen that a lot of Lost Highway seems to build towards the completeness of Mulholland Drive. Both films share similar themes: storylines in roughly two parts, characters/actors playing dual roles, violently jealous lovers, LA settings, mystery men secretly pulling the strings. As a result, this can’t help Lost Highway seeming like the lesser film. There’s much to admire, especially in the more enigmatic and atmospheric moments. But the patient pacing, sudden shifts in content and focus on such unlikeable and often impenetrable characters made this hard for me to like.
Mulholland Drive (2001)
“Hey pretty girl, time to wake up.”
Mulholland Drive has certainly developed a formidable reputation for itself. One of the most critically adored films of the 21st century, but also one of the more divisive and challenging films. Watching this again now, I certainly agree. This film is so incredibly rich – in ideas, in depth, and in quality of production.
Like Lost Highway, I’m not going to admit to fully understanding this film. Many questions are left ambiguously answered, and lot of theories abound online attempting to answer them: what is it about? which parts, if any, are dreams? who is dreaming? (This theory I stumbled on is one of my favourites, and definitely one of the more entertaining ones). I’m not going to attempt to explain what I think it’s about, I don’t think that’s the point of this film. And frankly that sort of writing and analysis deserves a post to itself. Hopefully I can attempt one in the future, definitely after another viewing.
Featuring a collection of seemingly disparate vignettes, the story focuses on Betty (Naomi Watts), a naive and eager small-town girl who arrives in Los Angeles in the hope of having a career as an actress. As she moves into her aunt’s apartment, she finds a woman (Laura Harring) hiding there, scared and lost after losing her memory in a car accident. The woman takes on the name Rita after seeing a poster for Gilda starring Rita Hayworth. Whilst preparing for Betty’s first audition, the two women investigate Rita’s past. Meanwhile, a Hollywood director (Justin Theroux) finds his latest project being sabotaged by gangsters, demanding he give his lead role to an unknown actress called Diane Selywn.
Watching this again, I enjoyed and appreciated it a lot more. I think the first time I was so caught up in trying to understand it all that I got lost. This time, like with Lynch’s other films, I got caught up in the atmosphere, the mood of it. Many parts of this film are disturbing in ways I can’t really put my finger on. Shamelessly calling back to my degree, this brings to mind Susan Sontag’s belief that the overinterpretation of artworks reduces the affective power of the work by attempting to shoebox it in to pre-existing interpetative ideas and theories. She calls for an increased focus on form over content, to regard more how a film affects us on an emotional and sensorial level, rather than attempting to force supposedly hidden meanings upon it. Lynch’s films I feel are appreciated best when viewed in this way. They are studies in mood, time and place. Whilst the complex story is certainly impressive, I personally didn’t feel the need to fully break it apart. The way Mulholland Drive made me feel told me everything I needed to know about what it wanted to convey.
The quality of this film really comes to the strength of the directing, which expertly conveys the feelings of the characters at different points of the film, which are often radically contrasting. The very careful focus on often small details – the distorted features of a gangster behind a glass screen, the relay of phone calls between criminals, the appearances of lamps and keys at vital scenes – all creates a sense of both dread and curious anticipation. Similarly, by having the main characters both naive and, in Rita’s case characterless, they become blank slates for the audience. They discover clues as we do, and we can see their development as the malevolent forces within the diegesis begin to affect them. The very self-conscious referencing of film noir cliches, but tinged with an almost supernatural twist, turns this into a scathing critique of the Hollywood system, one where creative freedom is restricted and skewed.
Finally, I have to mention Angelo Badalamenti’s score, which is simultaneously both his darkest but also his most romantic. It gives real presence and depth, and displays the contrasting feelings within the film, as well as genuine affections between characters.
I decided to focus on the films which I felt were more obviously within the same vain as each other. I’ve seen Eraserhead, but don’t really fancy watching that again! I’ll hopefully watch The Elephant Man, The Straight Story and Inland Empire soon when I find the time.
Musings from a Darkened Room 