A while back me & a couple of friends were recovering after watching the fantastic & confusing Inland Empire on DVD & we started coming up with a list of things to avoid if you want a long life as a character in a David Lynch film; of course they were all cheap shots eg 1. avoid oblique angles 2. avoid screaming women 3. avoid flickery lights in long hallways etc… But I remember first seeing Inland Empire at the NZ Film Festival at a packed late night screening – it was obvious a few audience members had been on the turps beforehand as one drunk in particular chose to interpret the film as a comedy, for a start at least. But of course David Lynch had the last laugh; the unrelenting dark tone & general weirdness soon quietened the drunk down until he became entirely silent, even during the lighter moments…. But it is a huge reflection on an artists work that their influence can be felt far & wide, in their own primary medium and in other artforms, and that is definitely true of Mr Lynch. Buzzfeed have a selection of five David Lynch mashups (via The House Next Door) and while I can see what each is aiming to achieve, only one of them really begins to evoke a fragment of his oeuvre & it couldn’t be a more disparate meeting of forces: David Lynch vs Dirty Dancing?
Jokes aside, what is your favourite moment in a David Lynch movie?
“Just cut ‘em up like regular chickens?”
My favourite line. No idea why.
Ah! so thats where that line is from – I heard it in an Amon Tobin track…
Its hard to choose one as there are so many, but I think one of my favourite disturbing moments is in Wild At Heart when they come across the car accident, the point of view from inside the car… & the soundtrack features a weird slowed down mix of an African Head Charge track – the sense of dread is palpable…
I also love that moment/picture edit when the girls are dancing in Inland Empire; ‘you gotta swing your hips… ‘ and bang they are gone…
It always strikes me as odd that despite Hollywoods attempts to scare us using every obvious tactic known to man, moments in some of David Lynchs films (or equally in The Shining) are more disturbing than anything I’ve struck in a horror…. Its like the horror genre veered off in search of literal scares & forgot about all the potential achieved by getting inside the audiences psyche!
the best horror films imply the dreaded outcome and then leaves the rest to the viewer’s imagination.
people are fully capable of finishing it off with their own private fears
I agree… the scariest stuff is always in your mind.
The very first time I saw Jacobs Ladder was probably the most frightened I ever felt during a film (I much younger then), but I think it was because I couldn’t decide what was real and what was imagination. It’s nothing to do with ghosts or serial killers, what’s really disturbing is “do you know where your mind is?” stuff.
And the Shining, I think I had nightmares about those twin little girls for weeks. Why my parents let me watch that at 14 I’ll never know. Damaged for life!