the fuzzerycalishnessiousosity of david lynch's cinema
anthead
precious little that's truly psychological or subjective.
a flashback will take place sometime in the past, representing the
character's memory... yet, the details are perfect, flawness, precise.
what kind of memory works like this?
for example, suppose you're recalling long long ago when you sat in
highschool classroom.
do you recall the details of every desk, chair, stuff on the wall,
clothes everyone wore, etc, etc? of course you don't. memory is like
rummaging thru archaeology, as in le jettee. it exists as ruins, as
fragments, not as brand new consumer items.
to be sure, some directors have tried visual tricks to suggest as much.
dissolves, filters, flashcutting. but, they always struck us as
artificial, a bit contrived and forced, self-conscious, obviously
stylistic and aesthetic. we almost never see them as memory-as-memory.
we see them as artsery-as-memory. same with dream imagery. take the
first nightmare in 'wild strawberries'. it is striking and great...
but bit too carefully grammatical, as though we are supposed to 'read'
every detail for its significance. it's arranged like a dream analysis
session out of freud's book. it's not dream as dream but dream as
artfilm.
it's striking and unforgettable but we sense the artist's hand between
us and the dream/memory imagery. we see the puppet strings.
this is the greatness of lynch, for mulholland drive is one of the few
films that presented the true texture/feeling of memory, fantasy, and
dream.
there is slight fuzziness--visual and aural--that shrouds the entire
movie. but, it's subtle, not obvious--like the use of most filters in
artsy mooies. this slightly fuzzy texture suggest a world that may not
be what it seems. it suggests that this world is the product of
neuronic flare-ups within the mind. wisely, lynch avoided using
CGI--at least 99% of the movie--because CGI is always crisp and
flawness. 'the cell' is striking but it suggests the human mind holds
data like a computer. the human mind is more like an ocean bottom with
layers and layers of buried decaying matter. the human mind preserves
much but nothing is preserved in its pristine state. everything decays
or is transformed into fossilized ghosts.
mulholland drive is more realistic while eraserhead is more fantastic.
what they share is a strong sense of convincing subjectivity.
most of mulholland drive is the transformed fantasy-flashback of diane
selwyn. it's her inner mind mooie.
and all of eraserhead is meant to be lynch's mind-movie. unlike
mulholland drive, eraserhead has no 'objective' vantage point or
anchor. every person, thing, or detail in that movie is meant to be
the funny stuff happening inside lynch's mind.
in reality, everything and everyone has its independence and
singularity. you could be doing one thing and 10 different folks can
be doing their stuff. but, in our mind, nothing has independnece. they
all function or operate by the laws of brainicality. take the dinner
scene at mary's house with her parents and grandma in 'eraserhead'.
each person seem to be waiting to be activated by the mind(of lynch).
they lack independence as individuals. they are creatures inside the
human mind, bits and pieces of neuronic material, puppets waiting for
their strings to be pulled.
the law of brainicality says the fantasy creature can have his own
fantasies. so, its main character looks into a heater(what's it
called?)and sees the mumpfaced girl.
why is she mumpfaced? why do so many characters in the mooie look
mushroom-people-ish? because our fantasies are created by our mushy
brains with its mushroomish circuitry of neurons and such. imagine the
face of 'rita hayworth'. you can see her face not because she is inside
yo head but because your neurons can flare up and create that image. if
you go inside your head deep enough--as in a dream--, you come to see
how the mushy, yucky, gooey stuff inside your head forms images. so,
an image of beautiful rita hayworth is formed by the mechanics of your
lumpy gooey brain matter powered by all sorts of fluids, hormones, and
funnyass electric signals. seen deep inside, she'd be mumpish.
now, lynch wasn't the only director be aware of this, but most
directors have been literal minded in presenting this aspect of
brainery, as in 'the cell' and 'matrix' mooies. or, they've been too
theatrical or artsy, as in 'juliet of the spirits' and 'hour of the
wolf'. lynch has been one of the very few--if not the only--directors
to reach into this area and present it in a way that is both powerfully
real-like yet strangely off-kilter. like stuff by kafka.
even during day scenes, there is a kind of dim, fuzzy, twilight quality
throughout 'mul dr'. the soundtrack suggest a reality beneath the skin,
beneath closed eye-lids; it's as though we're hearing real sounds
filtered thru human organs. even in seemingly waking reality, we sense
a kind of slumberishness.
we also feel a sense of familiarity, a warmish glowness, as though this
memory-fantasy has been visited over and over, day after day, night
after night, hour after hour. it's wombish, a kind of safe zone. naomi
watts character seems to be venturing into a new world in the beginning
of the movie but there's an aura of hollywood's golden age, a sense of
nostalgia, of recycledness, and suppressed desperation. let's recall
that wizard of oz was a fantasy-escape for many during the great
depression. a kind of collective mulholland dr. and even today
hollywood plays that role to many of us.
yet, anything we turn to over and over grow more and more stale, its
artificiality more and more apparent and glaring. it's like watching a
mooie over and over. initially, you like it, you like it. but after
awhile, you begin to notice its bullshi**ery. it can no longer serve
as puerile fantasy or escape. the mental security blanket grows
thinner. you begin to see thru its tattered holes. and lynch was
masterful in capturing this sense in mul dr.
he not only makes us see thru the bullshi**ery of the silver screen but
thru that of our mind. our mind was always a movie-machine. cinema
only put it on the screen so we can fall for bullshi* collectively.
from the very first scene, we sense something is not right. we sense a
kind of deja vu. the old couple in the taxi remind us of the parents in
'eraserhead'. they seem to lack individuality. they are mind creatures
waiting to have their strings pulled, to be activated?
and who pulls the strings? partly, it's selwyn, wanting to see what
she wants to see, hear what she wants to hear. but, no one has complete
control over his or her head. eventually, the mental walls break down
and the hurricane of truth comes bursting in like the water that done
flooded new orleans and sent its folks scrambling for drier grounds.
if you can't run to dry grounds, you drown. and selwyn drowns
eventually drowns when truth comes rushing in. of course, even this
truth is not REAL truth but subjective truth of guilt, self-loathing,
and in-some-deep-doo-doo-ism.
in the beginning of the mooie, the old couple was sitting still with
stiff smiles on their faces and saying only what selwyn wanted them to
say. at the end, they are neurons gone wild. selwyn has repressed too
much and her repression bursts thru and kicks her arse.
now, bunuel was into this stuff too. but, his approach was more
blatantly surreal whereas lynch's achievement is more sensual. in
mooies like 'belle de jour' or 'discreet charm of boojie', we know
we're watching absurd scenarios. it's like watching an absurd piece of
theatre or some weird painting. the great exception is El and Los
Olivdados, whose dream sequence is overpoweringly invasive, fusing
together the separate realms of waking state and dream state.
in mulhollan drive, every inch of the frame, every second of movie is
saturated in a sensual kind of neuronic fuzzery. it's not an artistic
statement as with surrealism but a immersion into a zone that is both
remote and familiar. utterly strange but the very reality of our mind
matter itself.
there's a kind of low level static electric charge throughout lynch's
mooies. a velvet-like buzzy-fuzziness where the visual textures
release fields of subdued neuronic energy.
black in mul dr. is never really really black. it's a kind of fuzzy
blackness, the blackness underneath close eyedlids where neuronic
buzzery charges off some kind of hum of energy.
Wordsmith
anthead wrote:
> take most movie flashbacks or memory scenes or fantasies? there's
> precious little that's truly psychological or subjective.
>
> a flashback will take place sometime in the past, representing the
> character's memory... yet, the details are perfect, flawness, precise.
> what kind of memory works like this?
> for example, suppose you're recalling long long ago when you sat in
> highschool classroom.
> do you recall the details of every desk, chair, stuff on the wall,
> clothes everyone wore, etc, etc? of course you don't. memory is like
> rummaging thru archaeology, as in le jettee. it exists as ruins, as
> fragments, not as brand new consumer items.
> to be sure, some directors have tried visual tricks to suggest as much.
> dissolves, filters, flashcutting. but, they always struck us as
> artificial, a bit contrived and forced, self-conscious, obviously
> stylistic and aesthetic. we almost never see them as memory-as-memory.
> we see them as artsery-as-memory. same with dream imagery. take the
> first nightmare in 'wild strawberries'. it is striking and great...
> but bit too carefully grammatical, as though we are supposed to 'read'
> every detail for its significance. it's arranged like a dream analysis
> session out of freud's book. it's not dream as dream but dream as
> artfilm.
> it's striking and unforgettable but we sense the artist's hand between
> us and the dream/memory imagery. we see the puppet strings.
Moveis aren't dreams. Movies can mimic them, though. Some are better at
it than others.
> this is the greatness of lynch, for mulholland drive is one of the few
> films that presented the true texture/feeling of memory, fantasy, and
> dream.
There's no doubt that Lynch went the extra mile in presenting the
dreamy stuff in his film with brio and panache. It's got layers and
layers and layers...and then some.
> there is slight fuzziness--visual and aural--that shrouds the entire
> movie. but, it's subtle, not obvious--like the use of most filters in
> artsy mooies. this slightly fuzzy texture suggest a world that may not
> be what it seems. it suggests that this world is the product of
> neuronic flare-ups within the mind. wisely, lynch avoided using
> CGI--at least 99% of the movie--because CGI is always crisp and
> flawness. 'the cell' is striking but it suggests the human mind holds
> data like a computer. the human mind is more like an ocean bottom with
> layers and layers of buried decaying matter. the human mind preserves
> much but nothing is preserved in its pristine state. everything decays
> or is transformed into fossilized ghosts.
Memory is, and must be, a reification of reality. How can reality be
duplicated by anything? Except maybe itself.
Matter is putty in the hands of mind.
The old couple was her double barreled mouthpiece. She wrote reviews of
her own performance through them. Then the fog in the bedroom got,
well, kinda thick.
> now, bunuel was into this stuff too. but, his approach was more
> blatantly surreal whereas lynch's achievement is more sensual. in
> mooies like 'belle de jour' or 'discreet charm of boojie', we know
> we're watching absurd scenarios. it's like watching an absurd piece of
> theatre or some weird painting. the great exception is El and Los
> Olivdados, whose dream sequence is overpoweringly invasive, fusing
> together the separate realms of waking state and dream state.
> in mulhollan drive, every inch of the frame, every second of movie is
> saturated in a sensual kind of neuronic fuzzery. it's not an artistic
> statement as with surrealism but a immersion into a zone that is both
> remote and familiar. utterly strange but the very reality of our mind
> matter itself.
Mind lacks matter. The brain is full of it.
> there's a kind of low level static electric charge throughout lynch's
> mooies. a velvet-like buzzy-fuzziness where the visual textures
> release fields of subdued neuronic energy.
> black in mul dr. is never really really black. it's a kind of fuzzy
> blackness, the blackness underneath close eyedlids where neuronic
> buzzery charges off some kind of hum of energy.
Jung understood that hum.
W : )
rde...@gmail.com
the film medium. You certainly gave me a few things to think about
here. One film that came to mind for me was the recent flop "Stay".
Although a bad storyline in my opinion, I did like the imagery and the
very surreal and dreamlike state of the film. I know a film does its
job with a dream or fantasy when I don't even feel real anymore. This
is precisely what Lynch did for me in "Mulholland Dr." and "Lost
Highway". However, "Lost Highway" still resides on the edge of a cliff
for me, it is either a remarkable film or over two hours of gibberish.
As far as the idea of human psyche presented accurately in the film
medium...I wonder if it can ever truly be done? I would like to think
that nothing is impossible with film but in order to truly achieve this
I feel as though the audience would have to relieve themselves of their
perception of reality and only accept the film as such. Perhaps in a
truly controlled environment this can be achieved.
BTW, I loved the analogy of the tattered cloth of bullsh**ery. Funny
yet very true, and sometimes sad for me to cope with. But as far as the
CG appearing cleanly on the screen, I'm not entirely sure. You may be
right but in the 2005 J-Horror film "Pulse" the CG was apparent yet
utilized in such a way as to make the real world of the film seem more
fake. This of course could all just be a manipulation by my psyche on
my memories. I do see what you mean though. Many films with CG today
have an apparent divide between what is fake and what is real. Almost
reminds me of the old technique (I can't remember what its called) of
putting the actor in the frame twice to give the illusion of a clone or
twin. Hopefully in time this will be eliminated.
One last thought....Is it possible that a director, Lynch for example,
could so accurately portray the essence of a dream that viewers would
later recall that particular sequence with the same fleeting memory of
a dream?
rde...@gmail.com
Lynch's films cause a better representation of dreams?
Derek Janssen
> anthead wrote:
>
> Jung understood that hum.
(Uh, WS? Gaza's into his usual last-ditch "Sarcasticaly resentful
self-parody" stage, and you're STILL treating them like actual threads?...
...Whose self-esteem is *lower*? 0_0 )
Derek Janssen (what does he have to DO??)
eja...@comcast.net
Wordsmith
I don't deny the parodic flightiness of his post, yet I find, in spite
of it, interesting nuggets of data which spark my fancy.
W : )
hi2u
and what a word: "fuzzerycalishnessiousosity" :)