I’m eagerly awaiting the release of David Lynch’s new film Inland Empire (official website here), coming to these shores on April 27.
There’s an interesting feature on Lynch, and his art, at New Statesman, though the author, Alice O’Keefe, seems more than a touch sceptical of the truth of this claim:
On a personal level, however, Lynch’s reluctance to analyse or take responsibility for his own output becomes much more problematic. When I ask whether the content of his work ever worries him, he counters: “Do I have a problem? Maybe I do. But these things aren’t in my head. They come from outside. I have this feeling that for the longest time the idea wasn’t there, and then – boom – it is there. I didn’t ask for it, I don’t know what happened, but there it is.”
This is surely disingenuous; to some extent, his work must reflect his own tastes and preoccupations. Yet he insists that art “can have all kinds of horror in it, and you are separate from it. You can be pretty normal and show a lot of abnormality and be separate from it.” It feels oddly like listening to a criminal explaining that society made him do it, or a schizophrenic blaming his actions on the voices in his head.
I’m not inclined to agree totally, and Lynch’s perspective makes some sense to me. I think he’s disclaiming the role of the aesthete or the auteur, and insisting on a sort of documentary perspective, however filtered and mediated. Lynch’s films, for me, have always been about the real not the surreal. His own art might throw some light on all this, and perhaps it’s worth a trip to Paris to see it, as you have to navigate an annoyingly flash intensive website from Fondation Cartier.
Over the fold is the French trailer for Inland Empire, which is longer than the American one.
It’s not surprising, this is a man that was a single father and denied it had any influence on Eraserhead. But as he said
and this always seemed all I needed to know.
I’ve only seen Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart and didn’t like them.
Funnelling wierdness has always struck me as an all too pedestrian achievement. A great artist will subjugate the creative/destructive forces to their own vision to produce tragedy rather than freak-show.
Looks pretty good. Not as good as Pirates of the Caribbean 3 however – the new trailer is up on YouTube.
Nah it’s always clearly been his vernacular WBB and you have to take that on its terms. The Straight Story is a lovely watch and deliberately so.
What if life is tragic freak-show, wbb?
Im partly with Wbb. Twin peaks was a complete waste of everyone’s time – he clearly had no idea how to finish it, so TEH WEIRDNESS became the ghost in the machine.
Boring.
However, Mulholland Drive was a masterpieice, IMHO. (That was Lynch, wasnt it?)
Well, exactly. But Lynch leaves out the tragic bit and so it all tilts to the misanthropic end of the spectrum. For me.
Great, something so weird no one can figure out what it’s about or why I should go and see it.
Pass.
Bien sur, Lefty E!
(See the titles at the end of the trailer.)
Love Lynch – tragic freak shows indeed.
Naomi Watts said the same thing about Mulholland Drive, as Laura Dern about Inland Empire (actually I reckon Lynch pays them to say that).
I fully expect to have no idea what IE is about at first watch, doesn’t really matter…looking forward to great eye candy and food for thought.
No tragedy in Lynch? I thought Mulholland Drive was a great tragedy.
Gee, how did that sure-fire strategy miss?
What’s your beef with the cows?
Boom boom…