FOT Forum
FOT Community => General Discussion => Topic started by: Andy on December 20, 2007, 10:40:44 PM
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I just saw Eraserhead on the big screen at the OKC Art Museum
I enjoyed it, but what the fuck?
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I enjoyed it, but what the fuck?
That's pretty much been my review of every David Lynch film I've ever seen.
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I enjoyed it, but what the fuck?
That's pretty much been my review of every David Lynch film I've ever seen.
Please exclude The Straight Story that film just rules
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The Grandmother is a really cool short. I watched a documentary on David Lynch where he talked about painting the walls of the little boy's room black for night scenes to create a darker effect - apparently he paints his walls black a lot for interior night scenes. Anyway, it's a great short I saw on the large screen somewhere. May be hard to find on DVD, I'm not sure.
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The Grandmother is a really cool short. I watched a documentary on David Lynch where he talked about painting the walls of the little boy's room black for night scenes to create a darker effect - apparently he paints his walls black a lot for interior night scenes. Anyway, it's a great short I saw on the large screen somewhere. May be hard to find on DVD, I'm not sure.
It's widely available on his short films dvd.
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I finally watched Lost Highway for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Needless to say, it's a very "what the fuck" movie; I enjoyed it, but I liked it the least out of all the Lynch films I've seen.
The Mystery Man, though? Holy shit.
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=JG7znh49a44&feature=related[/youtube]
I still have to go with INLAND EMPIRE as my favorite Lynch movie. The "locomotion" sequence is the very definition of awesome. Also, out of all Lynch's films, dare I say that INLAND EMPIRE also has the best soundtrack?
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I love David Lynch, because I laugh and cry in all of his movies, have the time of my life, and then walk out of the theater having no idea what happened.
Blue Velvet is my favorite. Also his version of Dune is stellar (WAAAAY better than the SciFi channel's miniseries). When you combine David Lynch and Kyle Mclaughlin, nothing can go wrong.
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That's interesting, Beth. David Lynch's films don't pull me in in that way. Maybe because his films are so stylized; not just the look of them but everything - the writing, acting. I'm somehow aware of his artistry and that sensibility tends to distance me.
Having said that, Blue Velvet did create a certain pang of anguish in me from the getgo and Eraserhead gave me a queasy feeling throughout, kind of like listening to a Bennifer recording.
ChrisL, thanks for noting that The Grandmother is on a shorts DVD. I might rent it, although I can't imagine it approaching the effect it had on the large screen.
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LOST HIGHWAY overdoes it with the pulp and seems to be weirdly influenced by bad 90's alt-rock. INLAND EMPIRE's moved way up the list for me. I've seen it three times so far (twice in the theater) and will eventually go back for more.
Jane, The Grandmother is easily the best thing on that dvd; the rest is more for die hard fans.
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LOST HIGHWAY overdoes it with the pulp and seems to be weirdly influenced by bad 90's alt-rock.
I love that soundtrack. Probably because I have a piece of my high school, tortured, goth/dreampop days still living in me. The Bowie Reznor stuff is great, and he uses my favorite This Mortal Coil song (Song to the Siren, a Tim Buckley cover) in the movie, although I don't remember it being on the actual soundtrack. And Angelo Badalementi is wonderful.
But my favorite musical moment in a David Lynch film is this, hands down:
[youtube]
qfFuJxCmz6o
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roy orbison made me cry before this, but holy moly.
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LOST HIGHWAY overdoes it with the pulp and seems to be weirdly influenced by bad 90's alt-rock.
I love that soundtrack. Probably because I have a piece of my high school, tortured, goth/dreampop days still living in me. The Bowie Reznor stuff is great, and he uses my favorite This Mortal Coil song (Song to the Siren, a Tim Buckley cover) in the movie, although I don't remember it being on the actual soundtrack. And Angelo Badalementi is wonderful.
Ha, I guess that soundtrack does have its moments but I always associate it w/ Rammstein and Marilyn Manson. That "Song to the Siren" cover is supposedly Lynch's favorite song. He originally tried to use it in BLUE VELVET but the guy from This Mortal Coil wouldn't license it, so he and Angelo tried to replicate it with Julee Cruise.
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Has anyone read his book, Catching the Big Fish?
There's not much in terms of new ideas, but I found it offered an interesting perspective on the way he creates his films. On the surface, it's really a much simpler process than I would have thought.
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LOST HIGHWAY overdoes it with the pulp and seems to be weirdly influenced by bad 90's alt-rock.
You hit the nail on the head, Chris. I'm not a prude, but I found 85% of the sex in Lost Highway to be completely gratuitous. Lynch could've just been more suggestive and it would be the same film, if not a better film.
The music, too...oy. While it's not my thing, I thought it was effective in a few scenes - the scene at Andy's house with Rammstein, for example. I do like the Lou Reed song, though.
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I LOVE Mulholland Drive. Gets better every time I watch it.
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Which one was Lost Highway again? I think I only half watched that one 'cause I get it mixed up with Mulholland Drive in my mind. I don't think I was really into Lynch at that point. Maybe because of the TV stuff. I did like Inland Empire though - but it was looooooooong. I guess it had to be, to fully flesh out the various personae/personas of his leading character - and I appreciated that, but it was so looooooooooong.
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I saw it at a museum too (and everyone laughed through it), and then got into an elevator with an old lady -- the door closed and she turned to me and asked "what the hell was that?"
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It's playing at the Regent Square in Pittsburgh (http://pghfilmmakers.org/exhibition/showtimes.html) from the 28th thru the 3rd. I'm pretty excited!
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Has anyone read his book, Catching the Big Fish?
There's not much in terms of new ideas, but I found it offered an interesting perspective on the way he creates his films. On the surface, it's really a much simpler process than I would have thought.
I just read this about three weeks. I find it ironic that so many of his images are so ugly (although there's also a wealth of beauty to be found), but despite the violence expressed in his stuff, he seems like just the sweetest guy, both in the book and in interviews.
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Has anyone read his book, Catching the Big Fish?
There's not much in terms of new ideas, but I found it offered an interesting perspective on the way he creates his films. On the surface, it's really a much simpler process than I would have thought.
I just read this about three weeks. I find it ironic that so many of his images are so ugly (although there's also a wealth of beauty to be found), but despite the violence expressed in his stuff, he seems like just the sweetest guy, both in the book and in interviews.
I think it has been expressed on this board before, but David Lynch: The Guy is indisputably lovable. Those videos of him cursing about watching movies on the iPhone and subliminal advertising are so great.
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Has anyone read his book, Catching the Big Fish?
There's not much in terms of new ideas, but I found it offered an interesting perspective on the way he creates his films. On the surface, it's really a much simpler process than I would have thought.
I think Ive mentioned this elsewhere, but getting Catching the Big Fish on cd is awesome. It's nice to sprinkle into a random mix on your iPod, suddenly his impish little voice shows up between songs and turns the lens a bit.
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His use of contemporary music has swung both ways. In Lost Highway, the use of NIN and M. Manson certainly provided short term gain and probably drew a lot of people in to see what he likely knew to be one of his least accessible works. Problem was in how it stuck the film in a time capsule. Simply doesn't age well.
Yet in Wild at Heart, the use of the band Powermad was done masterfully (imo). I can watch that over and over and the presence of an old school thrash metal band still enhances it favorably, even though that genre had aged very badly within a couple short years of the film's release.
Eraserhead is one of the finest slices of pure, unapologetic surrealism on film.
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I just read this about three weeks. I find it ironic that so many of his images are so ugly (although there's also a wealth of beauty to be found), but despite the violence expressed in his stuff, he seems like just the sweetest guy, both in the book and in interviews.
He was a formally trained painter first, wasn't he?
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I just read this about three weeks. I find it ironic that so many of his images are so ugly (although there's also a wealth of beauty to be found), but despite the violence expressed in his stuff, he seems like just the sweetest guy, both in the book and in interviews.
He was a formally trained painter first, wasn't he?
Yeah, he went to the Art Institute of Philadelphia. His first film is actually an animation of his paintings projected onto sculptures.
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Yeah, he went to the Art Institute of Philadelphia. His first film is actually an animation of his paintings projected onto sculptures.
Ah yes, I remember now. Eraserhead was heavily influenced by Philadelphia too, I believe.
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An all time favorite for me, Eraserhead. When I first saw it (at the Charles Theater in Baltimore, back around 1980) a new friend introduced it to me; he kept watching to see if I was going to walk out or react badly. After I hung on for the whole ride (and that first time was definitely a wild ride for me) our friendship was sealed.
I really love that the DVD is configured so that you have to watch it from the beginning, straight through. If you stop it and then try to start again from the place you stopped, you find yourself back at the beginning.
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I really love that the DVD is configured so that you have to watch it from the beginning, straight through.
Not mine. Thank heaven.
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I really love that the DVD is configured so that you have to watch it from the beginning, straight through.
Not mine. Thank heaven.
Yeah, it's annoying, especially if you've seen it many times and simply want to go to a spot you especially like...but I still like the naughtiness of the concept, especially in the hands of folks who are used to getting what they want, whenever they want (that being many of us). I think the version I speak of is the one called Eraserhead 2000 (something like that). He doesn't let the viewer have any control over the movie--I don't think you can even rewind or fast-forward on that version. It's a really great print, though.
I wonder--for those of you who might own the version(s) that are more forgiving/less hostile to the viewer--does he start the film with a "black-level" calibration screen? I found it helped a lot for seeing the movie well.
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Eraserhead haunted me for years after I saw it as a young teen. I would get spooked out thinking about it as I fell asleep.
I saw a new print of it a little while ago. No troubled nights. I must have finally grown up.