Filmy bits (was: mulholland drive)

[John Lundy]

Bails,

I don't think I've ever seen a Pynchonian film, and I'm not sure what the 
criteria would be given that the discussions on this list show that there's 
no monilithic view of what his art ultimately represents.

Can't believe you didn't like Wild At Heart, although these things are 
largely a matter of taste and I think often come down to when you saw the 
movie, who was sitting beside you and how you felt generally at the time. 
 There's a scene in it where Laura Dern and Nick Cage are driving through 
the desert and Dern tries to find some music on the radio.  All she can 
find is gloom and doom and bad news and the petty minutiae of everyday 
dolor.  She becomes panic-stricken and twiddles the nob in a frenzy.  When 
she finally finds a song they stop the car in the middle of nowhere and get 
out and dance.  It struck me at the time, and still does, as a really 
life-affirming gesture.  I think we need some of that at the moment (not 
you personally, Bails).

2002 for MD.  I'll have to get me one of them thar pirate DVDs.  It's sad 
when commercial interests drive a man to breaking the law, but they're not 
leaving me with any option are they?

JL

On Friday, 26 October 2001 11:24, John Bailey 
[SMTP:johnbonbailey at hotmail.com] wrote:
>
> Mulholland Drive isn't released here (and won't be till 2002!) but I've 
had
> ambivalent reactions to Lynch's stuff. Loved Eraserhead, Elephant Man, 
Twin
> Peaks & Lost Highway. Couldn't stand Wild At Heart, Fire Walk with Me. 
Very
> very mixed reactions to Blue Velvet, but I will admit it is a brilliant
> film. Lost Highway suddenly made total sense when I heard someone 
involved
> in the film (can't remember who) describe it as an attempt to show a
> psychotic episode from the inside, and I think that it possesses a very
> measured and definable logic in this regard, and does an excellent job at 
> tracing certain workings of psychosis. When I look at it from this angle, 
> the disjointed, contradictory, circular nature of the film doesn't seem 
as
> arbitrary or even, well, wanky as it could have.
>
> As for Pynchonian films, it depends, doesn't it, on how you define
> Pynchonian? I reckon I could even put a good case forward for Sleepless 
in
> Seattle, if you want. But seriously, though I know plenty of people here
> would disagree vehemently, Magnolia always recreates in me some of the 
same
> reactions I have when reading Pynchon stuff, mainly due to the multiple
> storylines, heap of references (some quite obscure), excessive characters 
> and overall empathy for the fucked-over in this world, as well as this
> desperate nostalgia and a yearning to find a way out of the mud that 
doesn't
> require a transcendant and exclusory salvation.
>
> I'd also recommend Chris Marker's Level 5, Raul Ruiz' Les Trois Couronnes 
du
> Matelot, I think if I go on I'll just start listing films that I like, so 
I
> won't. But I will say that I found no redeeming features in Buckaroo 
Banzai.
>
>
> >From: "peter culley" <pjculley at home.com>
> >To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> >Subject: mulholland drive
> >Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 10:13:41 -0700
> >
> >I am surprised by the general enthusiasm, on this list and elsewhere, 
for
> >David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive".  Though its combination of anemic 
satire
> >and soft porn is at least slightly more coherent than the dire "Lost
> >Highway" it still seems to me that Lynch is being hailed simply for not
> >being able to finish his scripts. "Mulholland Drive" was very clearly
> >worked up from the remains of an abandoned TV show, and the seams show
> >through in a glaringly slapdash way.  Was "The Straight Story"-- easily 
his
> >best and most subversive film since "Blue Velvet"-- in which the 
linearity
> >of the material held his mannerisms in careful check, discussed on this
> >list in such glowing terms?  Any film which people urge you to see again 
if
> >you hated it the first time automatically falls under suspicion.  Life 
is
> >too short, and Lynch is no Jacques Rivette.  I'd be very interested,
> >though, in which films (besided "Buckaroo Bonzai" list-members consider 
the
> >most authentically Pynchonesque.
> >
> >pete c
>
>
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