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Mulholland Dr. is for me the undisputed Lynch masterpiece. |
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If anything is overrated or terrible among his work, it's Dune. :P |
Well yea, but Dune isn't overrated. It's already well-known as as his most sub-par work.
I think Elephant Man is overrated because eveyone thinks it's amazing but I find it the most emotionally manipulative and the least intriguing (assuming Dune is already out of the contest. I don't consider it a Lynch film) of his works. Granted, it's not bad by any means, and there are certainly scenes that are disturbing for their imagery, but I don't know it doesn't sit well with me, the un-subtlety of it. |
Is Dune not weird enough for a Lynch movie? ;)
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"Emotionally manipulative"? As in "sweet, touching story", maybe. Lynch knows how to create a tense, uncomfortable atmosphere in a movie filled with mystery and sex, and thats perfectly fine. The Elephant Man was, however, exactly the opposite, and Lynch mastered it just as well as he did his other movies, and thats what makes it a great work of art.
Too bad I haven't seen Dune. Is it that bad, Spiwak? |
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Beautiful film, mind you, but awfully short on substance. |
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Mulholland Dr. is Lynch-lite. The abrasive elements of his vision have been toned way down, and it comes with a handy explanation to ensure that any unsettling elements can be dismissed by the viewer. It is easily one of his least challenging films, which is of course why it has achieved so much mainstream success. In Lost Highway, Lynch is at the top of his game, following his uncompromising vision like in Eraserhead or Blue Velvet. It makes no pretense of the mystical or irrational being under control by the characters, the viewer, or even the director. It is unpleasant, it is unsafe, it doesn't yield to analysis. Parts of the film are going off in every direction. Even the best explanations available remain wholly unsatisfactory. It's a film that doesn't let you go. Lynch stiched Mulholland Dr. together as a film by recycling the main plot devices from Lost Highway, and of course, they're far more stale the second time around. The film is buoyed by a marvellous performance by Naomi Watts, Lynch's confident cinematography, and the best Angelo Badalamenti score since Twin Peaks, but it remains a lightweight, minor work. Lynch may be weird for the sake of being weird; but he's weird for the sake of being weird for a reason. |
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Oh, and Dune isn't a bad movie compared to most, but because it's a Lynch film it's always going to be viewed in that context, and in that case it doesn't fit in because it doesn't feel like a Lynch movie (whereas Straight Story and Elephant Man, despite their relative normality, do), and is generally thought of as his worst because of this. A little unfair to the movie, I suppose. As for Lost Highway v. Mulholland Dr., I find it to be a matter of preference. Lost Highway is a brilliant Surrealist film, while Mulholland Dr., while displaying some Surreal qualities, is actually too structured to be so. Lost Highway, from what I could figure after watching, doesn't try to make a cohesive story in the slightest but mostly lays on the imagery and this could be very appealing for more "artsy-fartsy" viewers, because it does follow the tradition of Bunuel. Mulholland Dr. however is more like a poem or a short story, where everything --the imagery, the structure, the acting--creates a multi-layered story. That's the way I saw it, anyways. I like both, but watching Mulholland Dr. several several times just to piece the puzzle together was for me a more rewarding experience. Simply put, Mulholland Dr. changed the way I look at film when I first saw it and it's the main reason I've become interested in film both as entertainment and as art. |
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Although Hollywood has conditioned us to think of film as a storytelling medium, meaning in art is not limited to narrative. Lynch, as a painter, knows that art can speak to us in other ways than through accounts of sequences of events. That's not to say Lost Highway doesn't have a meaningful plot. Even at first look it tells several stories that are reasonably coherent, even if they may seem fragmentary or incomplete. Look a little closer, and you'll see that there's an overall structure and a secret narrative which makes sense of a lot of what you're seeing. However, the film is not a mere puzzle which you can solve and then put aside, like Mulholland Dr. Its true meaning remains shrouded in questions, contradictions and caveats. Even if we accept a particular interpretation as "correct", we have to admit discordant elements. This is an important aspect of how Lynch experiences life, as expressed in his art. "This whole world's wild at heart and weird on top", as he puts it in one of his films. That's why I said Lynch is weird for the sake of being weird for a reason: The inexplicable strangeness of life is one of the main things he's trying to express. Spiwak, you make a very good point when you call Lynch a surrealist. Lost Highway may not be a surrealist film in the vein of Un chien andalou or some of his own short films, but it definitely fits in well with films like Cet obscur objet du désir, which integrate surreal elements into an otherwise conventional story. Quote:
Now I quite enjoy a brain workout, and I'm not going to disparage disorientation as valid literary and filmic device, but a puzzle is entertainment, not art. And Mulholland Dr. is very little more than a puzzle. It doesn't have much to say other than "can you figure it out?" Quote:
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Hm.
Is this a bad time to say I adore Lost Highway? |
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Before Dali? I always thought they made Bunuel's first movie together.
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a) To show to people who claim that the movie makes no sense and cannot possibly be understood. b) As a way to examine it more closely. Quote:
What I'm saying is that a puzzle is different from a mystery with no solution. They have to be considered differently (For example, when an enigmatic element is not explained, that is not a flaw, as it would be in a puzzle that left loose ends.) Both are essentially devices, they don't determine the worth of the work by themselves. However, puzzles do have a tendency to be gimmicky, detracting from whatever other interest the work might hold. This actually isn't, to me, a big problem with Mulholland Dr. My complaint is rather that there isn't much more to the movie than the puzzle of finding the explanation of what's happening in the film. I enjoy puzzles as well as enigmas. In fact, I'm just reading a whole bunch of mystery novels by Patrick Quentin (pseudonym for, among others, Hugh Wheeler, who in his second career wrote Sweeney Todd and A Little Night Music). But I guess on some level I do feel that questions with no answers are more interesting than questions you can figure out through a little bit of cleverness. Tell me, would The Trial be a better book if, through close reading, you could figure out who accused Josef K? Would Rashomon be a greater movie if it finally showed us what really happened on that country road? Would Hamlet be a masterpiece if it kept us guessing about Hamlet's true motivations, then revealed them in a twist at the end? Would Picnic at Hanging Rock be improved if we knew what happened to the girls up on that mountain? |
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But yes they did make Un Chien Andalou together. |
You people try to find too much in Lynch's stuff. He's insane, there's nothing more than that.
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With all the disucssion about Lost Highway, I decided to give it a view. I did see similarities between it and Mulholland Drive, and I suppose it would offer more a challenge if I tried "getting" it. But while the movie was good, it didn't make me too interested in going back and analyzing it. I found Mulholland Drive more enjoyable. I don't care if it happens more accessible, because I don't think accessibility or non-accessibility necessarily makes a movie worse or better.
Speaking of Lynch, he has a new in the works. IMDB says it's in post-production right now, and gives the summary: "Set in the inland valley outside of Los Angeles, David Lynch's new film is a mystery about a woman in trouble." Sounds like Mulholland Drive right now. ;) Based on similarities I've seen in his movies, I bet it will feature very close close-ups, sex, and mysterious, powerful men. |
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EDIT: That includes Von Glower from Gabriel Knight 2, I might add. :) |
I too am anxiously awaiting Inland Empire, if that is what it's still called. Slap David Lynch's name on it somewhere and I'm there.
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Well, there are exceptions to every rule.
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The scary thing is, I would still see it. Though in my capacity as a Dune fanboy, not as a Lynch fan. |
Some guy explained Lost Highway to me, and it made perfect sense, same as in Mulholland Drive, so I wouldn't say it's weird for the sake of being weird.
And Dune is a masterpiece; I will defend that to my grave. After all, it's the only real space opera I've ever seen. It has a vision, it has originality, it has great actors (with shakespearian leanings), it has beautiful settings, and it has the worms, which are awesome. And, as a bonus, it translates the spirit of the books perfectly. |
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Spoiler: The explanation I got was during an party, so I can't say I remember more than this, but there was more, and it was damn interesting. Not that I hadn't loved Lost Highway even when I didn't understand it, because unlike Once a Villain said, I've always found that Lynch knows exactly what his movies mean. |
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I spoilerized the details of the Lost Highway explanation. ;)
I forgot a lot of the movie, but I'm pretty sure there were more holes in that interpretation than just the one kuze mentions. Spoiler: Another thing I loved in Mulholland is the range of emotions it triggers (in me, at least). I laughed, I cried, I was scared, sometimes all one after another. Mind you, I am not saying that movies played on one note (like Lost Highway's homogeneously morbid tone) are inferior. But I was in utter awe at how easily Lynch manipulated me into all those states, even before I had any idea what the hell is going on on screen. EDIT: You know what? I think the Lynch discussion deserves a separate thread. Give me a sec. EDIT 2: Done. |
Here are two things that I read about to keep in mind while watching Lost Highway:
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The only real difference with Mulholland Drive is that during MD, you feel like you almost understand, while in LH you're lost all the time. But at the end of the day, both obey the same basoc rules. |
David Lynch is a great film maker. To be honest i liked Lost Highway, maybe even more so than MD, this is because it's much harder to understand and if you have the mental capacity to deal with it you can relate all sorts of situations and implications and metaphors in the film. everyone says he's insane, but one thing is always lingering in lynch's work: what defines insanity? he tries to portray this argument - i think (do i?) - through elements in his movies, it's the baby in Eraserhead, the guy with the camera in Lost Highway, these things exist, how and why do they do this?
I saw blue velvet not long ago and thought that was a lot more straight-forward than the other D.L. films i've seen, particularly Eraserhead, which is EXTREMELY hard to watch. If you get past the intro that's a gold star for you. plus it's one of the only Lynch films without tits. and you know we love tits. there are parts of these films that take you on a dark journey to places you've never seen, to experience fear, excitement and so much thought-provocation it hurts. why wouldn't anyone like David Lynch? stick to Walt Disney hippies! |
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I haven't seen Eraserhead, though. If you think it's the sort of thing someone who loved Lost Highway to bits might like, then I think I really ought to see it, though. :) |
to be honest i can't tell you that you would like it. to be honest i don't think anyone anywhere likes this film, that could very well be one reason why it definitely should be watched ;)
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