The Films of David Lynch: Conclusion and Updated Ranking

So with all that said, I decided to do an updated ranking of the features, as well as a separate ranking for the shorts and experiments and music videos, all rolled into one. I didn’t rank the Twin Peaks TV series or the On the Air Pilot, because how the hell could I (I am already stretching things with including the Yves Saint Laurent Perfume add in the shorts.

Updated Rankings

I didn’t rank the three that Lynch was involved in – it doesn’t make much sense to rank Twin Peaks or Off the Air, as a single entity, and I could not track down Hotel Room – which was a miniseries. But, I did rank the features, and then the shorts, music videos and oddities.

Feature Rank

Here’s a ranking of the features only – everything else will be below.

10. Dune (1984) – I’m not exaggerating when I saw this may be the worst thing Lynch ever directed – and not all of the shorts, music videos, etc. are very good at all. It’s an example of the wrong director with the wrong material, with the wrong producer/studio behind him. Lynch learned a lesson, and moved on. So should we.

9. The Elephant Man (1980) – Yes, it was a hit – and got Lynch his first Oscar nomination for Best Director (and remains the only one of his films to be nominated for Best Picture). But it’s a dull, overly sentimental – if wonderful looking – film. This isn’t what I watch Lynch for.

8. Lost Highway (1997) – Yes, it’s still the most frustrating film on Lynch’s filmography, because so much of it is so good, but it ends up making you feel like you’ve been jerked around. But, over the years, I’ve come to accept this, and enjoy it on its own terms – as limited as they are.

7. Wild at Heart (1990) – The fact that I quite enjoy this film, and still ranks fairly low, tells you how good Lynch’s filmography is. Yes, it does look fairly weak alongside other Palme D’or winners, and other Lynch films for that matter, but it’s still very entertaining, and quite possibly the most positive movie of Lynch’s career – at least among the films that contain that much violence and bloodshed. And Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern are terrific – the supporting cast is wonderful too.

6. The Straight Story (1999) – A deceptively simple story that is quietly powerful and heartfelt. I had only seen it once before starting this series – and to be honest, once is probably enough for this movie. But it has a great central performance by Richard Farnsworth, and is a really, really beautiful film. But it is quite simple and straightforward. I’m very glad Lynch made it though – if only to prove he could make a great film without being weird.

5. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) – This film, without a doubt, was the most improved on the most recent viewing. Perhaps it was having the original series so fresh in my memory, or perhaps it was just knowing what to expect this time around. But watching the film this time, what emerged was a near-brilliant, surreal nightmare – a definite sign of where Lynch was going to go later in his career. It still has flaws, but it is a great film – with an incredible performance by Sheryl Lee. If you hated the film the first time you watched it, give it another chance.

4. Inland Empire (2006)- The wonderful, bizarre, three hour odyssey that may or may not add up, but is so brilliantly executed, that I don’t much care. Laura Dern delivers one of the greatest screen performances of all time, and the film really is a one of a kind experience. It’s also a throwback to Lynch’s DIY spirit of his first films. It’s too bad he stopped making films after this – because he really could have gone on to do something even better.

3. Eraserhead (1977) – I always loved Eraserhead – but I think I loved it even more this time than I ever had before. The soundscape is brilliant, the visuals haunting and unique, the performances odd. From his first feature, Lynch had his aesthetic down pat – and made one of his masterpieces.

2. Blue Velvet (1986) – I have seen the film so many times, and never fails to win me over, to draw me into the seemingly perfect suburban world on the surface, which hides the unspeakable evil underneath. The film is funny at first, and then gets sickening as it moves along, and at the end, we all just bury our head in the sand again at the end. The more times I watch it, the better it gets.

1. Mulholland Dr. (2001) – This is Lynch’s masterpiece – a surreal dream world that slowly becomes a nightmare. No other film I have ever seen has ever so perfectly replicated a dream world. An absolute perfect film – one that usually makes my list of the 10 greatest films of all time.

Shorts/Music Videos/Commercials/Experiments Rank

Ranking 35 shorts, videos, oddities and experiments is a ridiculous activity – so of course I did it. Take it with a grain of salt, which is how I intended it.

35. Longing - X Japan (1995) – Music Video – Painful song, sappy visuals – if it was much longer than the 6 minute length, I may well have given up watching it.

34. Yves Saint Laurent's Opium Parfum (1993) – TV Commercial – It’s just another perfume commercial – the type of thing we see every day on TV, and nothing at all special or memorable. Not sure why they wanted him to turn in something that any director could have done.

33. DumbLand (2002) – Web Series – The title is apt – it’s is very dumb. A series of 6 shorts, 5 minutes long each, which are stick figures swearing and doing crude things. It would work if it was funny – but it isn’t. The 30 minutes spent watching this seems much longer.

32. Fictitious Anacin Commercial (1967) – Short – The title is apt – this is a fake commercial for Anacin, which is very similar to most headache medication commercial, just slightly exaggerated. I can think of worse ways to spend 1 minute of your time – but there isn’t much to recommend it either.

31. Out Yonder – Neighbor Boy (2001) – Short – Lynch co-stars with his son in this short about two guys hanging in their backyard that is trying very hard to be funny, but isn’t.
 

30. Thank You Judge – BlueBob (1999) – Music Video – This was supposed to be the first of three videos made in support of Lynch’s band BlueBob’s album. The fact that the other two didn’t get made probably tells you how good the video – and song – are.

29. Industrial Soundscape (2002) – Short – Not really a movie, but a strange motion painting, with some very strange music. It works for what it is – but what it is, isn’t exactly all that interesting.

28. Intervalemeter Experiments (2004) – Experiment – An experiment, which is right in the title, and it is rather interesting. But there isn’t much here to talk about.

27. Wicked Game - Chris Isaak (1990) – Music video – A fairly typical little music video – taking clips from Wild at Heart, combined with Isaak and his band playing the song from the movie. It’s better than most of these – but still not precisely that great.

26. Absurd Encounter with Fear (1967) – Short – A very odd little short, with a man coming across a woman in a field, and attacking her, with bizarre results. It’s only two minutes, so there isn’t much here – but it’s weird.

25. I Predict – Sparks (1982) – Music Video – The video was controversial in 1982, not so much anymore, and not particularly interesting. But that song has been stuck in my head for weeks – and it is amusing, so it’s not bad by any means.

24. The Amputee (1974) - Short – Lynch only had a night to write the screenplay, and shot it twice in a row, on different film stocks. It’s kind of funny, but the short time frame shows – especially compared to what was made right before and right after this.

23. Boat (2007) – This is Lynch simply goofing off, with his strange short with a disembodied voiceover with only shots of boats and water for the first half (of 7 minutes), then Lynch himself driving a boat on a “journey into the night”. Does it mean anything? Not really – but it’s somewhat amusing.

22. Crazy Clown Time – David Lynch (2012) – Music Video – Too long, and not a very good song that just keeps going and going and going. It’s strange, but not much else.

21. 42 One Dream Rush - Dream # 7 (2009) – Omnibus Segment – Another film that doesn’t have much to offer except strangeness – but at least its short, at only a minute.

20. Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Brokenhearted (1990) – Short – This really is a film stage play that Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti co-created. From what I saw, I would have loved to see the stage show. But as a movie, it doesn’t really work – and at 50 minutes it is a little long. But it is very interesting.

19. Bug Crawls (2004) – Short – A bizarre short – which is about a bug crawling on a house, and falling off. That’s all. But god is it creepy and memorable – at least for.

18. Blue Green (2007) – No, Blue Green doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it’s a haunting little piece of surrealism that sticks in your head – and perhaps that’s all it was intended to be.

17. The Three Rs (2011) – Film Festival Intro – The film is rather haunting, and although I don’t get it, I do think there’s something here – even if I don’t quite get what.

16. Idem Paris (2013) – Short – A short documentary about master print makers is fascinating, yet repetitive, and more than a little slow.

15. Rabbits (2002) – Web Series – As a part of Inland Empire, the rabbits are haunting, memorable and really rather brilliant. As a standalone series – especially when they are watched back to back to back for 50 minutes, it’s a one joke comedy that still works, but certainly drags.

14. Ballerina (2007) – Short – A mixture of beautiful and creepy, this short from the Inland Empire DVD is haunting, creepy, beautiful and memorable.

13. I Touch a Red Button – Interpol (2011) – Music Video – A decent music video that may be repetitive, but is also creepy and memorable.

12. Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times) (1966) – Short – The first thing Lynch ever directed – a “motion painting” which is about what the title implies. This one has grown on me since first seeing it. It really is something to see where he started from.

11. Lamp (2003) – Short – A 30 minute documentary about Lynch making a lamp. It shouldn’t work – but it does.

10. The Cowboy and the Frenchman (1988) – TV Segment – A half hour TV stand alone TV episode for a show that never existed. I enjoyed the more typical, sitcom level stuff at the beginning, more than the strange turn at the end – but it is certainly amusing.

9. Shot in the Back of the Head – Moby (2009) – Music Video – One of Lynch’s best music videos, a wonderfully animated film that takes Moby’s song both literally, and then spins off into the surreal.

8. Came Back Haunted – Nine Inch Nails (2013) – Music Video  - It may given you a epileptic fit, but if it doesn’t, this is the best music video that Lynch has directed in his time – for the best song as well.

7. Lady Blue Shanghai (2010) – Short/Commercial – Yes, this is basically a 15 minute purse commercial, but it’s one that only Lynch could make, and one that works, even when you can tell what it’s selling.

6. More Things That Happened (2007) – Deleted Scenes – Still not sure if it’s supposed to be a standalone movie, or just a collection of deleted scenes from Inland Empire – but at its best, it is very, very good and a must see for Inland Empire fans.

5. Darkened Room (2002) – Short – An odd short that starts in one place, and ends somewhere completely different. Perhaps not overly original, but really effective.

4. Absurda (2007) – Omnibus Segment – An odd three minute movie that was supposed to be about the future of film – I have no idea what Lynch thinks this is saying about that, but I do know it’s a surreal nightmare par excellence from Lynch.

3. The Grandmother (1970) – Short – This half hour short is probably a little too long – but is a key short to show where Lynch was going from here. The little boy in this may well have grown up to be the lead character in Eraserhead.

2. The Alphabet (1968) – Short – A haunting mixture of animation, and live action – a childhood nightmare about a girl getting her period, the film is abstract, haunting and somewhat brilliant.

1. Lumière and Company - Premonition Following An Evil Deed (1995) – Omnibus Segment – Lynch embraces the limitations placed on him to be a part of this omnibus, and ends up making a brilliant, haunting, 52 second silent masterwork – as complex and jammed with ideas as many features. Absolutely brilliant.

So that’s it – 10 feature films and 35 shorts and other curiosities ranked – and that doesn’t even mention a two TV shows. I know I probably missed some things – Lynch has made and released a lot of these weird shorts in the past decade or so. I still hope that one day, Lynch will directed another feature – but perhaps next year’s Twin Peaks revival will be even better than that.

The Films of David Lynch: Shorts and Curiosities 2010-2013

David Lynch has continued to direct shorts and other things in the past few years. Here, I’ll go over one short/commercial, three music videos, a short that played at the Vienna film festival as an introduction and one last short. Again, there are some gems here, and some that are, well, not gems.

Lady Blue Shanghai (2010)

Directed by: David Lynch.
Written by: David Lynch.
Starring: Marion Cotillard, Gong Tao, Emily Stofle, Cheng Hong, Lu Yong, Nie Fei.

There are few things that David Lynch has directed that I have covered so far that I disliked more than a perfume commercial he directed for Yves Saint Laurent back in 1995. Well, dislike, is perhaps the wrong word – bored would be better, since it’s basically like any other commercial. So, I wasn’t sure what to think of Lady Blue Shanghai – which is essentially a 15 minute commercial for Dior – when I heard about it. But watching it, I can say confidently it’s one of the better things Lynch has directed since his feature career stopped. Yes, it’s a commercial – there’s no getting around that, and the many loving shots of a Dior handbag, which figures greatly in the plot, are there to justify Dior giving Lynch the money to make this. But aside from that, this is an odd little film – starring the always great Marion Cottilard as a French woman in Shanghai, who finds a handbag in hotel room, and has no idea where it came from – calling hotel security, and then having a fever dream that explains it. No, it’s not quite as fucked up as prime Lynch – but it’s certainly a surreal little film, that works very well, and is actually very well made. The past 15 years or so, more and more companies have given great filmmakers a little money to make shorts/commercials, and although we should probably hate this, as a sign of selling out, if more of them were like this (or Scorsese’s Key to Reserva), I wouldn’t complain.

I Touch a Red Button – Interpol (2011)

Directed by: David Lynch.

Lynch’s style is uniquely suited for music videos – where things can be strange and surreal, and are more about visuals and sound that any sort of coherence. Yet, often his videos haven’t always been good – either being too weird or too normal. His video for I Touch a Red Button for Interpol works – up to a point – and actually reminded me of Lynch’s first film – Six Figures Getting Sick (Six Times) – which he called a “motion painting”. That’s because I Touch a Red Button is crudely animated – much like that film, in an unmistakedly Lynch-ian style. But the longer you watch the video, the more you realize it’s basically on a loop – a ugly, creepy figure, with a distorted face, repeating touching a red button. The camera zooms in a out, concentrates on different points at different times, but basically it’s on a loop. This works for the video – and it’s nice to see Lynch playing with a style he did decades ago.

The Three Rs (2011)

Directed by: David Lynch.
Written by: David Lynch.
Starring: Mindy Ramaker

At times, watching these Lynch shorts can make you feel kind of dumb – as was the case with The Three Rs – a “trailer” made for the 2011 Vienna Film Festival by Lynch, which when I watch the 52 second film, I see more of Lynch goofing around – making some memorable images – including a disturbing finale – but without much of a point. The Vienna Film Festival website sees things differently of course – but for me, The Three Rs is just another curiosity piece – and not much else.

Crazy Clown Time – David Lynch (2012)

Directed by: David Lynch.
Starring: Emily Elicia Low (Scarlett Soles), Chris Pounders (Mohawked fire starter), Pandie Suicide (Demented lipsyncher).

I can imagine Lynch’s song “Crazy Clown Time” fitting in very well in the course of one of his movies. It’s on odd song – to say the least – with repetitive notes, and Lynch singing as if he just sucked in a lot of helium. But as a song unto itself, it really isn’t very good. And the video – a bizarre backyard party – isn’t either. And it drags on for 7 minutes.

Came Back Haunted – Nine Inch Nails (2013)

Directed by: David Lynch.

Of all the Lynch directed music videos I have covered for this series, I think the one he directed for Nine Inch Nails Came Back Haunted is the best – perhaps that;s just because of all the acts he has worked with, Nine Inch Nails is far and away my favorite, but I don’t think so. The video – which opens with a well earned epilepsy trigger warning – is a very odd video, but one that is perfectly fitting with the song and the band. To a certain extent, there is some of what Lynch did for Interpol here – but there’s more going on this time – flashing not just on a main image – but on Trent Reznor himself, or other disturbing images. Music videos don’t need to make sense – and Came Back Haunted doesn’t – but damn it, it’s good.

Idem Paris (2013)

Directed by: David Lynch.

It’s no surprise that Lynch – who seems like an old school guy in many ways (accept for his embracing of digital) would be drawn to the “master print makers” in Paris, he films doing their job here. It is interesting – it’s in way – to see them going about their business without a word. It’s also repetitive, and a little slow. I prefer watching Lynch make a lamp to this.

So that’s it. All of the work by Lynch I have seen. Coming up tomorrow, a conclusion and a ranking!

The Films of David Lynch: Shorts and Curiosities 2007-2009

David Lynch completed his final (so far) feature film in 2006 – but he has hardly “retired” since then. In the three years between 2007 and 2009, Lynch directed two segments of omnibus films (Absurda, Dream #7), a couple of shorts (Boat and Blue Green), and a music video (Shot in the Back of the Head for Moby). Some of these seem like Lynch just goofing off, but some are interesting – to say the least.

Absurda (2007)

Directed by: David Lynch.

In 2007, the omnibus film Chacun Son Cinema gathered quite a few filmmakers from around the world and gave them 3 minutes to make their case for the future of cinema. For Lynch, the result was Absurda – which is a fascinating little three-minute film, although I must admit, I have no idea what the hell he’s saying about the future of cinema. The three minute short takes place in a movie theater itself – with a trio of people talking watching a movie on the screen, when one of them, a young woman, realizes that she is seeing herself on the screen – and that what she is seeing is her nightmare, which is starting to come true. The film is Lynchian surrealism at its finest – disturbing, violent, a little bit of humor involved – all down with an unmoving camera in a movie theater. This is one of the best of the Lynch shorts.

Boat (2007)

Directed by: David Lynch.
Written by: David Lynch.
Starring: David Lynch, Emily Stofle.

There isn’t all that much to say about Boat – a seven minute short that Lynch made for his website. It’s an odd little film to be sure – with a voiceover from a woman talking throughout the early part of the film, with only visions of a boat, and the sea, as visuals. Then the boat pulls away – the driver is Lynch himself – who wants to take the boat so fast they can journey into the night. This seems like Lynch goofing off to me – I have no idea what this means, if anything. But it is amusing (especially the shot of Lynch at the controls), the sound design is classic Lynch, and it takes a strange turn near the end. Not bad by any means, but if it means anything, it’s lost on me.

Blue Green (2007)

Directed by: David Lynch.

Like Boat, I think Blue Green is mainly just Lynch goofing off a little bit – but even if this film is only half the length of Boat, I think there’s a lot more going on – and is a nice bit of Lynchian surrealism. The film is made up of several types of shots – including returning time and again to a tracking shot of a happy little boy skipping through an industrial hell scape. There’s also scenes of a woman, who is going through some sort of pain, and various shot of a man watching it all. Blue Green doesn’t make a lot of coherent sense – but it’s a haunting little film, that comes back to your head again and again, which is perhaps all it was intended to be.

Shot in the Back of the Head – Moby (2009)

Directed by: David Lynch.

Other than Absurda, my favorite thing Lynch directed in this post. Shot in the Back of the Head is a music video for the wordless Moby song (which I’m pretty sure I’ve heard multiple times on This American Life), and this animated video fits the song perfectly, and works as a mini-Lynch film in its own right. A man comes home to his wife, when another man enters, and does what the title implies. There are surreal touches through – floating body parts, etc. and the song and the video go together perfectly. A lot of these late shorts, etc. seem like Lynch goofing off – but this one works.

42 One Dream Rush - Dream # 7 (2009)

Directed by: David Lynch.

This film is basically 42, one minute short films, giving directors a chance to show off one of their dreams in a minute or less. I think perhaps I should go back and watch the entire film other than just the Lynch segment – afterall, some of the 42 directors include Kenneth Anger, Charles Burnett, Leos Carax, Larry Clark, Abel Ferrara, Mike Figgis, Harmony Korine, Gaspar Noe and Carlos Reygadas. On the other hand, I love Lynch, and his one minute segment is completely forgettable and fairly uninspired – some nonsense involving an egg. You would with a roster of directors like that, this would have garnered more attention. Perhaps there’s a reason it didn’t.

Overall these five shorts (and others)   are interesting – but other than Absurda and Shot in the Back of the Head, forgettable, and feel like Lynch just having a good. You be the judge as to whether or not you want to see that.

The Films of David Lynch: Ballerina/More Things That Happened (2007)

Ballerina (2007)
Directed by: David Lynch.

More Things That Happened (2007)

Directed by: David Lynch.
Written by: David Lynch.
Starring: Karolina Gruszka (Lost Girl), Peter J. Lucas (Piotrek Król), William Maier (Karolina's Friend), Krzysztof Majchrzak (Phantom), Laura Dern (Susan Blue), Nastassja Kinski (The Lady).

There are some interesting special features on the Inland Empire DVD for fans of Lynch, and the film itself. Among them is a 20 minute short entitled Quinoa, where Lynch, yes, makes Quinoa – and while it’s not as fascinating as watching him make a lamp (in the previous covered short Lamp) – it’s something. But the only two features on the DVD that show up in the official filmographies for Lynch as director on Wikipedia and/or IMDB are Ballerina and More Things That Happened – so those are what I’ll covered here, if rather briefly.

Ballerina is, appropriately enough, about a Ballerina. Essentially, it is a six minute short of a ballerina – shot mostly in blurry soft focus, dancing. She is dressed in red, and there is a blank background all around her, as she performs a dance that is beautiful. What makes the short more than a little creepy as well though is the music – which sounds like something Angelo Badalamenti would write, but may well not be. While more beautiful music may well have made the short more soothing, the choice of this music – as well as the choice to have darkness start encroaching on the dancer more and more as the film progresses, makes the whole thing a little disturbing. There isn’t much else to say about the short – as there isn’t much else to it – but it is a good looking short.

As you may have guesses from the title More Things That Happened, this is basically just a series of extended or deleted scenes from Inland Empire – that runs for 75 minutes. But it isn’t presented like most deleted scenes are – they aren’t available individually, but only as part of the whole thing, and contain no introductions from Lynch about where they fit into Inland Empire, or why they were cut, or anything else.

What I cannot figure out, is whether Lynch means this to be a standalone film – and that’s why he presents them that way – or whether we’re supposed to see these just as deleted scenes. I deliberately let a few days go by between my watching of Inland Empire and this, to see if some sort of structure beyond Inland Empire emerges when watched in isolation. It does not – but that doesn’t mean it still isn’t intended that way, just that if it was the intention, I cannot figure it out.

Yet, I enjoyed More Things That Happened regardless of what it is – primarily it allows extended access to some great Laura Dern scenes – like her further confessions to the sweating man in glasses, which takes up a very large chunk of the back half of More Things That Happened – and unlike in Inland Empire, it doesn’t cut away after a minute or two, to return later. It runs and runs – and Dern is brilliant. It also provides more insight into the Lost Girl, and more Nastassja Kinski, and that’s never a bad thing.

In the end, both Ballerina and More Things That Happened are basically glorified DVD special features. Yes, they are interesting in context, but by themselves, a little less so. Then again, anyone who’s going to be watching, will know the context, so who the hell cares, right?

The Films of David Lynch: Inland Empire (2006)

Inland Empire (2006)

Directed by: David Lynch.

Written by: David Lynch.

Starring: Laura Dern (Nikki Grace/Susan Blue), Jeremy Irons (Kingsley Stewart), Justin Theroux  (Devon Berk/Billy Side), Harry Dean Stanton  (Freddie Howard), Peter J. Lucas (Piotrek Krol), Karolina Gruszka (Lost Girl), Grace Zabriskie (Visitor #1), Diane Ladd (Marilyn Levens), Julia Ormond (Doris Side), Krzysztof Majchrzak  (Phantom), William H. Macy (Announcer), Jordan Ladd (Terri), Mary Steenburgen (Visitor #2), Laura Harring  (Jane/Herself), Nastassja Kinski  (Woman in Yellow Dress on Couch), Naomi Watts (Talking rabbit). 
 

If David Lynch is to be believed (and I don’t see why he shouldn’t be), then Inland Empire may well be his swansong to feature movies. True, in the nine years since he made Inland Empire, he hasn’t just been sitting around doing nothing – there is a host of shorts, videos and other work (some of which we’ll get into in later installments), and he will apparently direct all 18 episodes of the new Twin Peaks series – but it still makes me short of sad that we won’t see another Lynch feature. But if Inland Empire really does remain his last feature, it is a fitting way to leave this world behind – it almost brings us right back to where Lynch started with Eraserhead. Yes, the films are radically different in most ways – but they remain the only two truly independent Lynch films – films he made with no studio behind him, and he could simply do whatever the hell he wanted to (not that a nosy studio ever really prevented Lynch from doing what he wanted, but still). Inland Empire is a mesmerizing, three hour, surreal nightmare of a film. Moreso than any other Lynch film, it defies explanation. It is certainly similar to Mulholland Dr. in many ways – but unlike that film, I’m not sure there is an answer to anything in Inland Empire – and I know it doesn’t much matter to me. It wasn’t designed to be a feature – but some shorts, but the more Lynch shot, the more he wanted to make it into one. Star Laura Dern admits she has no idea what the movie is about – which makes her career best performance even more remarkable (perhaps I should say performances, since she is clearly playing different characters, or at least, different versions of the same character). Inland Empire is not quite like anything Lynch – or anyone else – has ever made before.  

The story, such as it is, is about Nikki Grace (Laura Dern), a movie star with a rich and powerful husband who gets a role in the movie “On High Blue Skies Tomorrow”, to be directed by Kingsley Stewart (Jeremy Irons). Her co-star is Hollywood playboy Devon Berk (Justin Theroux, who played the director in Mulholland Drive). His managers tell him to stay away from Nikki – her husband is all powerful and will kill him if he sleeps with her. Then Kingsley, and his right hand man Freddie Howard (Harry Dean Stanton), inform the two stars that the movie their doing is actually a remake of an unfinished Polish film, whose title translates to 47. The movie had to stop production because the two stars were murdered. There was something inside the story that was too powerful for them to handle. The movie within in the movie seems like a Southern melodrama about a married woman, Susan Blue who cheats on her husband with a married father, Billy Side.

But then Lynch twists and fractures the narrative so that Nikki/Susan is somewhere else. In all, Laura Dern plays at least five different versions of the same woman, one as a more middle class woman, whose husband is throwing a barbecue and gets ketchup all over his white shirt, and one where is further down in class and lives in a dingy apartment with her husband, and occasionally with a group of prostitutes, or perhaps just outcasts from Sex and the City (and occasionally stop their sex talks to do choreographed dance numbers to songs like The Locomotion). Finally, there is Dern as a completely down on her luck prostitute telling her violent and sad story to a pudgy, sweating man with glasses, who depending on what review you read is either a psychiatrist or a rabbi – perhaps both, or neither.

What else is in the movie? Well, there’s Julia Ormond as a woman who is being interrogated by the police with a screwdriver stuck in her stomach. Later, she’ll show up as Billy Side’s wife, angry at Dern for sleeping with her husband. There’s Lynch Grace Zabriskie as a mysterious guest to Nikki, the Hollywood stars home, with a strange warning about evil entering the world with the birth of men. There are some Polish people, who seem to haunt the movie, and Nikki. There is the Lost Girl, who is stuck in a hotel room watching the same movie we are and crying. And there is room in which man size rabbits, in full clothing, speak in non-sequitors as a sitcom laugh track plays in the background.

What Lynch is up to in the film is certainly open to debate, and true to form, Lynch has l never really explained it – and almost definitely never will. He enjoys this – saying that he likes listening to the theories of Eraserhead, but he doesn’t think anyone sees it as he does, and only offering a series of cryptic clues in the DVD release of Mulholland Drive to explain that film. Yet, like both Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive, the film takes place in Hollywood – and continues to look at the seedy underbelly of the industry he was moving away from. Whereas Mulholland Drive is the Hollywood dream turned into a nightmare, Inland Empire is a much darker film – it’s all nightmare – except for a rather hopeful ending.

Lynch shot the movie on low grade digital video, and the effect is initially jarring, until you get on its wavelength. Normally, you could always admire the rich visuals of Lynch’s worlds even if you hated the movies themselves (for example Roger Ebert almost always praised Lynch’s visual tactics, while almost always hating the films themselves), but digital is much harsher then film. Inland Empire is made up of mostly close-ups letting us observe the performances in the utmost detail. And Lynch is not let down by his actors. Everyone in the film plays their role perfectly (which is saying a lot since they apparently never had a completed script, and Lynch would simply direct them for whatever scene they were shooting at the time, not how it fit into the whole movie). Most impressive is Laura Dern, in what one of the great performances in recent years, as she has to negotiate nearly impossible emotional terrain that changes nearly scene for scene. Whether she’s delivering the lackluster dialogue of the movie within the movie (and doing it more justice then it deserves), or pouring out her soul to that strange man with the glasses, Dern is mesmerizing. Without her, this movie probably completely fails, but because she is so convincing in every scene, we give ourselves over to it and follow along.

Inland Empire is obviously for a special kind of audience, and you know whether you’re a member of that audience or not (and probably don’t care what I say about the film, you’d be there anyway). It is for the adventuresome movie lovers who want to be challenged by a film instead of simply being told what to think. Inland Empire ranks among Lynch’s best films – which is what makes the fact that it may be his last film rather sad. He could have entered a fascinating new era of his feature directing career, but has instead decides he’s done with it all. Then again, he also said (more than once), he was done with Twin Peaks – so there’s still hope.

 

The Films of David Lynch: Shorts and Curiosities 2001-2004

After Mulholland Drive, Lynch was already moving away from feature films – using his website to unleash a series of shorts, series and experiments. No two lists of Lynch’s from here on out seem to be the same, but between IMDB, Wikipedia and Mubi, I think I have captured all (or most) of the work during this time. Let’s have a look. There’s a lot, so if something isn’t worth much time, I won’t devote much time to it.

Out Yonder – Neighbor Boy (2001)

Directed by: David Lynch.
Written by: David Lynch.
Starring: David Lynch, Austin Jack Lynch.

An odd black and white film, 10 minutes long, that has Lynch and his son, playing two characters sitting in lawn chairs in a backyard listening to a boom box, speaking in voices that sound like they have inhaled too much helium, saying a bunch of stuff that makes little sense – often revolving around “B” sounds. A shadow eventually sneaks up on them – a large man or monster of some sort that must be appeased. Out Yonder – Neighbor Boy is certainly weird, I’ll grant you that. But there’s not much else here. It isn’t really funny, it’s not very interesting, and Lynch’s camerawork in mainly stationary, and brightly lit. Sorry, I didn’t get much out of this one.

DumbLand (2002)

Directed by: David Lynch.
Written by: David Lynch.
Starring: David Lynch (All Voices).

This was the first “series” for Lynch’s website – consisting of six, five minute shorts that are really, really crudely drawn that tells a series of stories about a vulgar, violent man, his annoying son, his afterthought of a wife, and their vulgar, violent adventures. The visual look of the film is purposefully crude – the drawings are one step above stick figures, all in black, on a white background. Lynch does all the voices himself – and basically, they do sound like someone doing all the voices themselves. The stories are simple – and usually involve the father getting angry, swearing a lot, farting and people getting maimed or otherwise hurt.

You could probably read too much into DumbLand if you’re son inclined – that’s it’s the extension of Lynch’s view on suburbia – an issue he hadn’t really addressed since Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me a decade earlier, and how it’s only gotten worse, and people have become fat, lazy and vulgar. But that may be giving DumbLand too much credit. This is probably the easiest to understand of all of the shorts in this post, and also the easiest to dismiss. Had it been funny, perhaps it could have worked. But it’s rather dull and repetitive – seen one of these, you’ve seen them all, and I found them rather juvenile. That’s partly the point, I know, but it doesn’t really help.

Industrial Soundscape (2002)

Directed by: David Lynch.

With Industrial Soundscape, we’re back in Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times) territory. That, of course, was Lynch’s first film – a “motion painting” about precisely what the title implies. Well, the title of Industrial Soundscape pretty much tells you everything you need to know here as well – we get an industrial setting on a loop (and not a long one), with the droning soundtrack in the backroom also on a loop. There isn’t much here to talk about – and I have no idea why it runs 10 minutes (it could run 1 minute or days, the result is the same). But it’s not nothing – yes, it’s repetitive, and that is the point, but it’s also somewhat fascinating, and after a time hypnotic. I’m not saying it’s a good film – I’m not even going to say it is a film – but whatever the hell it is, it is something.

Darkened Room (2002)
Directed by: David Lynch.

Written by: David Lynch.
Starring: Jordan Ladd (Girl #1), Etsuko Shikata (Herself), Cerina Vincent (Girl #2).

The standalone short made in 2002 is entitled Darkened Room – and, yes, the majority of it does in fact take place in a darkened room. But before we get to that room, we meet Etsuko Shikata, playing herself, a resident of Tokyo, who shows us the view from her apartment, and telling us about how many bananas are eaten worldwide. She then tells us that her neighbor is sad –won`t someone help her neighbor. We then flash to that neighbor, played by Jordan Ladd, who is sitting in the darkened room of the title, with her makeup smeared, clearly in distress, as she begs the camera for someone to listen to her. A third woman will appear (Cerina Vincent), and says cruel things to Ladd, blames her for her own captivity before threatening to tell everyone the truth as the short ends.

First of all, let me admit I have no idea what the hell Etsuko Shikata is doing in this movie, or why she is necessary. She is intriguing and strange, but I also cannot help but feel that she`s rather pointless – a way to get us into that room that we really do not need.

But everything in that room, first with Ladd by herself – in silence, except for Angelo Badalamenti`s subtle score – is haunting, and mesmerizing. It`s hard not to think of Mulholland Drive when watching this film – the conflict between a beautiful blonde we feel sympathy for, and an equally beautiful brunette, who blames the blonde for everything is not that unlike the relationship between Diane and Camilla in that film. The two opposing women – the innocent blonde and the femme fatale brunette – also played out in Blue Velvet as well.

Lynch doesn’t explain anything here – he doesn’t need to in the short. It`s a haunting piece of work for a 10 minute film. No, it doesn’t really add anything new to the Lynch canon – but it`s fascinating just the same.

Rabbits (2002)

Directed by: David Lynch.
Written by: David Lynch.
Starring: Scott Coffey (Jack), Rebekah Del Rio (Jane), Laura Elena Harring (Jane), Naomi Watts (Suzie).

If you’ve seen Inland Empire, you already know all about Rabbits – as Lynch cuts to this surreal sitcom, with a family of rabbits speaking in non-sequitors in a room, while a laugh track brays in the background, and sometimes, something demonic happens – through that film. He got that from this series of 8 shorts he did back in 2002 – running approximately 50 minutes in total. Like in Inland Empire, there is no denying that Rabbits is haunting, disturbing and surreal. The rabbits are not saying anything of value – anything really at all – but in the way Lynch shoots it, with his unmoving camera, lights it – very dark – and especially the tone of the actors, and the pacing – monotone, with large gaps of silence between lines – the whole thing plays like a surreal nightmare. It’s all ridiculous of course – actors wearing rabbit heads, and human clothes always are – but it is in keeping with Lynch traditions. As part of Inland Empire, Rabbits is great. On their own, they are less effective – simply because there is too much of them. All of the shorts are basically the same, they never add up to anything greater than the sum of their parts, and eventually you just want it to be over. I know that at least initially, it was not meant to be watched all at once – but it is now, so although I think there is brilliance in this series, it’s at least twice as long (perhaps three times) as it needs to be, which dims its effectiveness.

Lamp (2003)

Directed by: David Lynch.

Do you want to spend 30 minutes with David Lynch as he makes a lamp? If so, then do I have a movie for you! Yes, Lamp really is just Lynch making a lamp – well, in truth, the lamp is already made, he’s just mixing painting and plaster to put the finishing touches on the lamp. Do you want to see this? Yes, you do. I admit for the first 10 minutes or so, I was wondering what the hell was happening, and why Lynch felt the need to make and share this. Then, I decided to just go with the flow – and found I enjoyed myself. Lynch is a weird guy – even when he’s doing something like this. He mixes the paint, and explains how, he talks about his coffee, his faucet, and other things. It’s all so normal, which somehow makes it weirder. No, Lamp is not a masterpiece or anything – and I’m still not sure why Lynch made and released this. But I will admit this – I had a lot of fun watching Lynch make a lamp.

Intervalometer Experiments (2004)

Directed by: David Lynch.

If you do not know what an Intervalometer is – and no worries, I had no idea – it’s basically a device counts intervals of time, and will signal a device to operate at set points. In Lynch’s case, he uses it to photograph some steps over what appears to be a day, as slowly the shadow of a tree comes out from the side of the frame, and will eventually cover the entire staircase in shadows, before receding again. So basically, it’s time lapse photography. It’s a good example of time lapse photography – and it doesn’t run very long (4 minutes or so) – so it’s not a huge time waster. But like Industrial Soundscape, it’s not really a film. It’s something though – although I’m not sure why Lynch felt the need to share his experiment.

Bug Crawls (2004)

Directed by: David Lynch.

One of the great things I am realizing about these shorts is how accurately they are named –no one could ever accuse Lynch of false advertising in coming up with these titles. So Bug Crawls is precisely that – a bug crawling. But this isn’t a normal big – and he’s not crawling over normal terrain. The bug seems huge in comparison to what it is crawling over – a black house in what looks like some sort of post-apocalyptic hellscape. He crawls up onto the roof, and then falls over, landing on his back and not being able to get up. The camera pans over (and this is not a short with much camera movement) to the house, where the door opens – sounds come out, but what’s there, we don’t know. Yes, this seems like another Lynch experiment, like many of the other ones here. But this one is more effective and nightmarish – but more Lynch-ian and haunting. I’m not going to make the case that it’s great – but it’s more interesting than his other experiments of this period.

The Films of David Lynch: Mulholland Drive (2001)

Mulholland Drive (2001)
Directed by: David Lynch.
Written by: David Lynch.
Starring: Naomi Watts (Betty / Diane Selwyn), Laura Elena Harring (Rita / Camilla Rhodes), Justin Theroux (Adam), Robert Forster (Detective McKnight), Brent Briscoe (Detective Domgaard), Maya Bond (Aunt Ruth), Patrick Fischler (Dan), Michael Cooke (Herb), Bonnie Aarons (Bum), Michael J. Anderson (Mr. Roque), Ann Miller (Coco), Angelo Badalamenti (Luigi Castigliane), Dan Hedaya (Vincenzo Castigliane), Melissa George (Camilla Rhodes), Mark Pellegrino (Joe), Lori Heuring (Lorraine), Billy Ray Cyrus (Gene), Lee Grant (Louise Bonner), Lafayette Montgomery (Cowboy), James Karen (Wally Brown), Wayne Grace (Bob Booker), Scott Coffey (Wilkins).

I’ve been asking myself a question I’ve been asking myself since watching Lost Highway (1997) and Mulholland Dr. (2001) on back-to-back nights: Why is Mulholland Dr. a masterpiece – a film on my personal Top 10 Films of All Time List – and Lost Highway just a mild curiosity for hard core Lynch fans only? Both film actually tell similar stories – of dual identities, or more accurately of people who create a fictional reality rather than live in the real one. Both have strange, unexplainable plot elements that dead-on, or seem to, and are discarded from the rest of the plot. Both are films that would require a very large diagram for me to explain the plot, and even then, I’m pretty sure that I would get partway into it, and then have to start over again – only to have the same thing happen over and over again forever. I think the answer to this question of what makes Mulholland Dr. Great and Lost Highway mediocre ends up being relatively simple – but with multiple layers. For one thing, Mulholland Dr. is quite simply more enjoyable. It has Lynch’s dark sense of humor, and his genre pastiche, and absurd touches that make me smile – like the guy in the cowboy hat. Second, this time is actually does seem that Lynch has a master plan in place – given the films origins as a failed TV pilot that he turned into a movie, he may not have made the master plan in place when he started it, but he certainly had it in place when he finished it. I know there are elements of the plot that I still cannot explain – but I have a feeling I could if I really wanted to delve THAT deep into the film. But the ending of Mulholland Dr. works, because it feels like a conclusion – it feels like what Lynch has been building towards for the entire movie, whereas the end of Lost Highway seems like it was designed to make the audience leave the theater scratching their heads. Perhaps most importantly though, the characters in Mulholland Dr. feel real – even though they are not real, and exist at least at parts in the movie solely as dreams, they feel genuine, their emotions feel real, and their relationships feel real. At the heart of Mulholland Dr. is the tenderest romantic relationship in all of Lynch’s films – and even if it is nothing but fantasy in the end, it’s real in the moments. The characters in Lost Highway feel like they are constructs that Lynch invented to fuck with – and by extension, to fuck with the audience.

I have seen a lot of film in my life that try, with varying degrees of success, to recreate a dream world – and none of them are as successful as Mulholland Dr. This is a film that operates on dream logic, where there can be wild tonal shifts, characters can change or merge over time, and events may or may not be connected. Lynch has, of course, done this sort of thing in the past – but I don’t think he’s ever done it for an entire movie, and been this successful (again, Lost Highway is probably the first example of him doing an entire movie in dream state – where almost all of his other movies simply have portions in a dream world). But also, like a dream, the world can be both confusing and logical at the same time (if that makes sense – and it does to me). You may not know precisely what’s going on at any one time, but it all makes sense in the moment. More importantly, when you look back over the movie, it seemingly makes sense as well.

The film stars Naomi Watts as Betty – a jitterbug champion from Deep River, Canada who comes to L.A. to make it as a movie star. She’ll be staying at her Aunt’s place, who is out of town (and has Ann Miller as her landlady). It’s not long after she gets to her Aunt’s that she discovers a dark haired woman, who will eventually say her name is Rita, after the poster for Gilda (1947) she sees on the wall. We know Rita from an earlier scene where she was riding along in a limousine, when a gun was draw on her – and only a car accident saved her life, after which she stumbled along until she came to this apartment. Now, she says, she has no idea who she is. Betty decides to help Rita figure out who she is. Already in this plot, we have seen elements of film noir and detective story fiction (and innocent detective story fiction at that – Roger Ebert references Nancy Drew in his review of Mulholland Dr. and considering that eventually the pair will simply break into an apartment going through an open window, it fits). The two keep discovering more and more information, that may or may not be relevant to their investigation- and they also fall in love, culminating in a sex scene that is as erotic as any I have ever seen in a movie – and not because it’s a graphic, lesbian sex scene between two beautiful women (its graphicness is nowhere near the level of Blue is the Warmest Color) – but because there have been few sex scenes in movie history where you feel the connection between the partners so much. Wild at Heart aside (where the sex scenes between Sailor and Lula were also charged with feeling), Lynch’s films have often portrayed sex negatively – either resulting in a monster baby like Eraserhead, or else the various degrees of rape and sexual abuse in Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks, or else something used solely to manipulate, as in Lost Highway. Here, the sex scene is beautiful, and yes, sexy – which so few movie sex scenes actually are.

While this is going on, there is another seemingly disconnected story happening surrounding Adam (Justin Theroux), as a famous movie director, who needs to hire a new girl for his latest project. He is used to getting his way, but he is warned of dire consequences that will befall him if he doesn’t choose the girl that a pair of brothers (Angelo Badalamenti and Dan Hedaya) have told him to choose. There are other stories – a strange man in a room who seemingly controls everything (played by Michael J. Anderson, from Twin Peaks of course). A hit man (Mark Pellegrino), who latest job doesn’t go very well. A man telling his friend in a dinner about a strange dream he had – set in this exact dinner – about the strange bum, who may be some sort of evil force, who lives behind the dinner – only to go out back, and discover that perhaps it wasn’t a dream after all.

All that tells you what Mulholland Drive is about on a plot level – at least until its starts solving its mysteries, in a way that makes them even more interesting. But it doesn’t tell you what it’s like to watch Mulholland Drive – which is one of the strangest experiences you can imagine. I remember when the film came out in 2001, I went back to the theater at least three times to see it – and it wasn’t about trying to figure out the plot. It was about wanting to be in that cinematic space again – wanting the film to weave its magic spell on me. Before this last viewing, I’d estimate it’s been a good 5 or 6 years since I watched the film – in part because I always worry the experience will never be as great as it is in my head. Yet, it haunts me. I know the film inside out know, and it reminds a fascinating mystery to me. My interpretation of the film is not overly original – it’s probably the majority opinion on the film involving a certain character’s fantasy life until it comes crashing down around and she’s thrust back into reality. Still though, there are things about the movie I continue to notice each time out that are new.

I fear that I have started to ramble about Mulholland Drive – which if I’m not careful, I can do for far longer than anyone needs. So let’s just wrap by saying that like all Lynch films, the film is a technical marvel – from Angelo Badalamenti’s haunting score, to Peter Demming’s expert cinematography, which goes from noir nightscapes, to 50s inspired musical numbers, to surreal concerts, to bright sunshine and back again. The performances are brilliant – Watts giving her star making, and what remains her best performance, as the sunny Betty, who gives away to something darker. Harring is almost her equal as a woman who earns her comparison to Rita Hayworth in femme fatale mode. But best of all is how everything works together to create a dream life atmosphere. Could I explain everything in Mulholland Drive? Probably not. I also don’t really want to. It’s a dream of a movie – and one I look forward to having again. It’s not only Lynch’s best movie – but one of the very best movies I have ever seen.