Twin Peaks

[John Bailey]

Ian I'd go one further and say it's worth viewing all of Lynch's
output as one work. Watching Twin Peaks again and doing a fair bit of
reading, I'm getting into how things like electricity and fire and
wind have particular significance in the series and then bam,
realising some of this stuff was there from Eraserhead on. I think
this is where I was going with my initial comment about Lynch's
trajectory going beyond Pynchon's, because while both have distinctive
voices in their work P tends to try something very new with each work,
whereas Lynch has been building and building the same alternate
universe for more than 40 years.
Despite being a longtime fan I'm only really now beginning to get a
proper handle on Lynch's aesthetic philosophy - heavily influenced by
various Eastern spiritualies - and why a self-confessed happy-as-Larry
fella who has meditated twice a day for longer than I've been alive
could produce such utterly horrifying and abject art. I've been
holding out on watching Inland Empire because I thought I didn't get
him well enough to care about a 3 hour film shot on digital video that
most people said was a hard slog, but now I'm all primed.

On Fri, Jun 9, 2017 at 10:10 AM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com> wrote:
> Lynch is one of our great living artists.
>
> Eraserhead? The work of a bold and innovative newcomer, smashing the door
> frame as he bulls his way onto the scene.
>
> Elephant Man? An unmitigated masterpiece in the "classic" Hollywood mode.
>
> Dune? An underappreciated, supremely ambitious Gothic science fiction epic.
>
> Blue Velvet? A disturbing restating of Lynch's career-thread thematic
> obsessions, only coupled to a bold new contemporary-by-necessity dynamism,
> creating yet another (paradoxically speaking) novel archetype.
>
> Wild at Heart? Lynch plus Barry Gifford equals ferocious, playful,
> rockabilly Grand Guingol.
>
> Lost Highway? Okay... this one isn't so hot. But man, what a soundtrack!
>
> Twin Peaks (and Fire Walk With Me)? Lynch hijacking the zeitgeist with his
> peculiar worldview, and succeeding (mostly), paying incredible artistic/pop
> culture dividends.
>
> Mulholland Drive? The magnum opus of the singular David Lynch "genre". His
> greatest accomplishment.
>
> The Straight Story? Lynch does Disney... and it somehow works.
>
> Inland Empire? Formally and creatively, perhaps Lynch's most mature and bold
> statement to date, combining the deep, psychosocial surrealism of his early
> short works and Eraserhead with the off-kilter cultural commentary of his
> later masterpieces. Most definitely his most misunderstood/underappreciated
> work, because it is his most difficult.
>
> I'm a fan.
>
> Jerky
>
> On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 6:25 PM, Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> I think it's paramount to view Lynch's work as art. Primarily visual art,
>> but also meant to be experienced in the theater, in a hot medium, as McLuhan
>> always likes to say. I haven't seen Inland Empire yet, but I will leap at
>> any opportunity to catch in a theater. Colette loves it after multiple
>> viewings, and she is a Lynch scholar.
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 1:55 PM, jesse gooch <jlguuch at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> MD was amazing. So well done. Acting was great from everyone involved.
>>> Great balance of all of the different Lynchisms.
>>> Inland Empire was difficult for me, I enjoyed it, but not in the way that
>>> I did most of his other stuff. Disconnected is a great way to describe it
>>> Rich. Seemed like a really long collection of interesting images and scenes.
>>> Definitely worth watching if you enjoy the guy’s work though.
>>>
>>> On Jun 8, 2017, at 12:16 PM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I think what gets me about Mulholland Drive is ultimately how sad it is,
>>> beyond all the freaky horror. and considering when it was released, even
>>> more so. it resonates. as much as I like Lost Highway, that film doesnt have
>>> the human tragedy element that MH has (I refuse to think about Robert Blake)
>>>
>>> as for Inland Empire, I found it way too abstract and so disconnected,
>>> granted Lynch strengths but he really pushed the limits of one's patience
>>> there (and it's a long flick, too)
>>>
>>> rich
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 10:00 AM, Thomas Eckhardt
>>> <thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, 8 Jun 2017 09:41:51 -0400
>>>>  rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Fire Walk with Me was surprisingly good. didnt expect that after the
>>>>> disappointment of season 2.
>>>>>
>>>>> with that said I believe Mulholland Drive is the pinnacle of Lynch's
>>>>> work
>>>>>
>>>>> rich
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> One of my favourite movies. I watched it in Hollywood when it came out
>>>> and drove along Mulholland Drive the very next day.
>>>>
>>>> This was a few weeks after September 11. A strange time...
>>>>
>>>> Ebert has a nice review.
>>>>
>>>> What about "Inland Empire"? Have not seen it yet but plan to.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l