Lynch shocker
Essay
David Lynch (1946-2025) passed away. For those who have known the film director, his movies may or must fall into a range of familiarity at different degrees, including “somewhat I know”. For those who don’t know the film director, his movies must be a shocker.
I went to a visual art high school in Tokyo. There, I was a nerdish type loving the Sci-Fi fiction genre (ever since my childhood, in fact), and tried to fuse myself at the art high school into the rock music culture of the era. Telling the truth, most of the rock bands of the day had not though held my interests. One vital exception is The Rolling Stones.
If today in the US, I could have easily been self-mixing into a LGBTQ community. If so, my thoughts and convictions along the line must be something like: Many teenaged girls are pretty or somewhat pretty. I’m not. At all. By all means. But, that’s okay. I make my stance for living in my life.
Sci-fi, eccentricity, arts, and visual arts, oh, very conveniently I was already in the last category. When the contrived taste for horrors as a creative genre comes along, the picture for a nerdish high school girl can reach a perfection for her goal.
However, there is other way around for one to think about how to get David Lynch. When “Lost Highway” was theatrically released, I watched it in Brookline (Boston) MA. Then, I firmly thought. Done. I’m done for David Lynch. That's decades ago. Since then, I’ve never watched his new films. My familiarity with “Twin Peaks” is also at the absolute zero.
I used to wrongly think David Lynch was a British film director. Wrong. He was an American, born in Montana. But, he went to a visual art school in Boston oh, no doubt. For those who know the traits of arty films, David Lynch falls into an art genre. If not, his movies could be decisively taken as a psycho genre.
Below are screenshots I took from Lost Highway trailer. Several video clips of the film are available online. I chose this one (below the screenshots) for the merit of the editing and tempo. I don’t recommande the film itself to anyone unless you have a bent to film studies.
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The real shocker back then and even now for me was “Eraserhead”. Usually and very correctly, the film is described as a nightmare. The video clip I chose is below my screenshot from the same clip. The whole movie seems to be viewed online. I anyway recommande it to anyone unless you are very keen to film studies of all genres.
There are lots of early black and while movie flavors with a kind of subconsciousness, imposed and captured on a reel of films as fragmental terrors. In a fabricated world of machinal noises mixed with mechanical cuts of consciousness, organic aspects must serve as comforts. Here, not. Instead, brutally horrific, all are with details.
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“Dune (1984)” is, with no argument, the most engageable one of the three David Lynch films I introduce in this post for all people in my sense. Below are two screenshots I made from the trailer of Dune 1984 Part two, which is found below the video clip of sandworm riding. The order of the images and videos is thus: screenshot, video (sandworm ride), trailer (part two), another screenshot. The second screenshot captures the actress, Sean Young, who played a member of Fremen, rebels. She was also in Blade Runner 1982 (by Ridley Scott), playing a replicant. In 1984, Feyd was played by Sting. In 2024 in Dune by Denis Villeneuve, the same character is played by Austin Butler.
Personally, I found the 1st screenshot which I picked was one of the best images in Dune 1984. The girl is the power sister of Paul, the protagonist of the story. I also love the sandworm riding. The big catch (for me) in Dune 1984 was the soundtrack coming with the ride. The music was on, though short, with the ride in both video clips below.
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Today is my search struggle-day online. It took much longer than I expected to re-find the video clip (Dune 1984 Part Two trailer) after I casually did logout the YouTube site after my initial viewing it earlier this morning. Just now, I renounced the exact location of my old review post on Dune 2021 and Dune 1984 in comparaison. That could very likely be in my Facebook archive, which has been in a total chaos for having being abused so many times by those who have my official ID documents of any kind. So, right now, I gave up. Instead, below is the pull from an old version of my google website. My comment was made on Dune 2021.
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D U N E
(2021)
Disappointed by the story flow
Impressed by mélange-imageries
My viewing was online, the date was yesterday (11/4/21). The utterly otherness-planet, though somewhat familiar, in the future as depicted such as that a democratic monarchy would be born by united people against the cannibalistic monster regime (well literally..) is a prototype si-fi subject matter in eternal recurrence, because the audience likes it, including myself. The cinematography is not heartbeat-new nor awesome-superb, but very impressive. I am sure many film critics have been already on about design elements and camera shots. In my case, Renaissance paintings manners of shadows and lights, figures' (characters') still postures and physiognomies in pivotal scenes for narratives are quite deliberately classic with success. Personally, I fell in love with Dragonfly aircrafts.
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Just days ago, I watched Dune 2024 online. It has been my very first movie viewing in full length since July 2023, speaking of any movie. At this time, Dragonfly aircrafts didn’t impress me so much.
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I recall that, in my review post which I mentioned above and which I can’t find for now, I wrote about a visual association between the eraserhead in Eraserhead and the sandworm in Dune 1984. In a way, that’s quite a comment that could be said even as outrageous. Well… I don’t know… but, the nightmarish visual associations may be part of David Lynch’s unique and original creativities. One may like it or not, regardless. As for me, if I try hard to find elements which I like and appreciate most in Eraserhead, I’d say the décor factors from early cinéma. I mean the very early cinéma in the history of cinéma.
I immediately thought of Flitz Lang (1890-1976). Or, Dr. Caligari, a German Expressionism film, made in 1920 by Robert Wiene. Below is a restored version of clip, “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”.
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Here, let me end this post with no drama nor smartly pretending conclusion. As I stated far above, when I watched Lost Highway for decades ago, my mind was hard set as “I’m done for David Lynch, that’s it”. In this morning, however, when I learned his death, my heart sank.
The world lost an artist.
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“Lunch Shocker” by Juliette Masch (1/17)