The cinema thread

[Fuuma]

3 good points in his paper imo:
1) lynchian means 'irony of the banal', it is a major influence on the whole generation of tarantino etc.
2) the naive expressionist tone that accounts for the feeling one has that lynch's movies actually reveal something deeply true of the world...
3) ...despite the dynamics of his movies is not that the plots become clearer as they progress, on the contrary. they become more obscure (which is a good definition of what the fantastic genre is like, cf todorov, caillois...)

but he misses other structural features typical of Lynch like the taste for analogical constructions (which is the link between 2 and 3)

maybe we should move this conversation to the cinema thread ?

You guys really missed the point of the Lynchian construction:
1) Take something banal and simple that anyone can understand (i.e. doubt about a partner's fidelity)
2) Add multiple layers of phantasmagorical imagery, that is like a ping pong game of echoes regarding 1)
3) Make sure the whole musical+psychosexual imagery+weird montage package appeals to the mind of a teenager that thinks of himself as "deep" and "intellectual" while also ensuring that the whole edifice is so simple as being accessible to anyone with a half-functioning brain
4) Have a bunch of people stuck in that mindset go crazy about the shitty film.

[BSR]

You guys really missed the point of the Lynchian construction:
1) Take something banal and simple that anyone can understand (i.e. doubt about a partner's fidelity)
2) Add multiple layers of phantasmagorical imagery, that is like a ping pong game of echoes regarding 1)
3) Make sure the whole musical+psychosexual imagery+weird montage package appeals to the mind of a teenager that thinks of himself as "deep" and "intellectual" while also ensuring that the whole edifice is so simple as being accessible to anyone with a half-functioning brain
4) Have a bunch of people stuck in that mindset go crazy about the shitty film.

say that to foster wallace, i'm only commenting his paper, not lynch's work. hmmm, well, he's dead so let's rather talk about Lynch next time you come (i don't disagree entirely with your view, Lynch is certainly overestimated but still, given the state of the contemporary american film industry, he is close to a genius).

[Fuuma]

say that to foster wallace, i'm only commenting his paper, not lynch's work. hmmm, well, he's dead so let's rather talk about Lynch next time you come (i don't disagree entirely with your view, Lynch is certainly overestimated but still, given the state of the contemporary american film industry, he is close to a genius).

Well some of the "echoes", in fact mostly analogies, can be entertaining, making him better than people who make movies about paranoia by having some guy uncover a big government conspiracy (i.e. action movies or whatever) but he's still entirely in the mold of mainstream American cinema in that he makes movies addressed to teenagers (of all ages). He also uses the Ayn Rand strategy of making you feel intelligent instead of making intelligent work.

[BSR]

Well some of the "echoes", in fact mostly analogies, can be entertaining, making him better than people who make movies about paranoia by having some guy uncover a big government conspiracy (i.e. action movies or whatever) but he's still entirely in the mold of mainstream cinema in that he makes movies addressed to teenagers (of all ages).

you are talking about an american movie maker, what would you expect? even cassavetes falls into this category.

[Fuuma]

you are talking about an american movie maker, what would you expect? even cassavetes falls into this category.

Thank god for french cinema making movies about 30 something with cool jobs, 3 days beards (well for the men) and unresolved sexual tensions between a group of friends, so much more rewarding (oh wait, fuck!!!).

[BSR]

Thank god for french cinema making movies about 30 something with cool jobs, 3 days beards (well for the men) and unresolved sexual tensions between a group of friends, so much more rewarding (oh wait, fuck!!!).

i never implied that today's french movies were any better. a few exceptions though: laurent cantet, jacques audiard, the group from la lettre du cinema (bozon etc) and some old fellows (alain cavalier, brisseau -the last one is good-). alexis would also tell you that grandrieux is good but it's not my cup of tea. and of course we have besson and hazanavicius .

@rilu: very simple actually. in lynch's movies the technical aspects (construction, staging etc) are (sometimes) really great, and thus his work is a good object of analysis. but if you do your analytic job properly you'll most of the time find out that what these movies convey (their meaning?) is either a boring postmodern description of the identity crisis or a set of very basic moral statements (this is exactly what Foster Wallace says: Lynch movies are about "evil"... wtf is "evil"? it is 'moraline' for teenagers).

[BSR]

^ hmm, i just don't see why the interpretation would be limited to these two topics only. instead of a "boring postmodern identity crisis", i find it much more interesting to look for the dialectics of self and the other (which doesn't have to do anything with identity crisis) in them, or the criticism of Hollywood in general... funny, i've never taken Lynch's movies to be about any of the two topics you're mentioning here :p

that's because you did not make your analysis job properly

seriously, what is 'the dialectics of self and the other'? I have no idea what you are talking about.

and criticism of hollywood in his movies is super dull: the sad reality of actors and actresses that don't become stars, the producers who are evil and rule the world... (in Mulholland Drive). come on, his critic of the industry is shallow and does not bring anything new to the table since Sunset Boulevard, and on top of that (but that would be long to demonstrate properly) there is no link between the formal aspects of his work and its so-called critical dimension.

on the other hand i truly admire his capacity to film fantasies and nightmares (he seems to have some ability to transpose some unconscious primary processes on screen, whence the analogical structure of some of his movies)

[Fuuma]

i never implied that today's french movies were any better. a few exceptions though: laurent cantet, jacques audiard, the group from la lettre du cinema (bozon etc) and some old fellows (alain cavalier, brisseau -the last one is good-). alexis would also tell you that grandrieux is good but it's not my cup of tea. and of course we have besson and hazanavicius .

@rilu: very simple actually. in lynch's movies the technical aspects (construction, staging etc) are (sometimes) really great, and thus his work is a good object of analysis. but if you do your analytic job properly you'll most of the time find out that what these movies convey (their meaning?) is either a boring postmodern description of the identity crisis or a set of very basic moral statements (this is exactly what Foster Wallace says: Lynch movies are about "evil"... wtf is "evil"? it is 'moraline' for teenagers).

1) French cinéma: Cantet is also one of my favourites. Others I like: Des Pallières, Denis, Dumont, Godard (hey he's still active), Odoul (well haven't seen much), Desplechin for that bourgeois intellectual fix and, of course, Marchal.
2) Lynch: Right on, he takes his cues from hard boiled (roman noir) archetypes and his aesthetic from adolescent angst. It is very basic stuff but he's good at presenting it. He's basically "cool".

[BSR]

1) French cinéma: Cantet is also one of my favourites. Others I like: Des Pallières, Denis, Dumont, Godard (hey he's still active), Odoul (well haven't seen much), Desplechin for that bourgeois intellectual fix and, of course, Marchal.
2) Lynch: Right on, he takes his cues from hard boiled (roman noir) archetypes and his aesthetic from adolescent angst. It is very basic stuff but he's good at presenting it. He's basically "cool".

I forgot Kechiche who can be very good as well (to me la graine et le mulet is a masterpiece), in some ways comparable to Cantet. I hate Dumont. Godard, well, he is in his own league. I hope Rozier will make another movie as well, at last.

agreed, Rilu: this is the part that i find interesting. but his work is not rigorous by any mean and can't focus only on the exploration of the unconscious (except maybe his last movie which is probably the best even if it contains wtf moments, cf the rabbit stuff)

[Chant]

he seems to have some ability to transpose some unconscious primary processes on screen, whence the analogical structure of some of his movies.

Mimicking is not transposing. He has no ability at all.

[Fuuma]

Mimicking is not transposing. He has no ability at all.

I don't think he is mimicking either, he's not representing some sort of primary process but how popular culture perceives and represents them.

[BSR]

Mimicking is not transposing. He has no ability at all.

[525252]

ah how did we get onto this topic again?

to be honest i don't really get the point of this thread

Oh that's right, yep, well all I can add is: David Lynch, art school porn star

[Faust]

say that to foster wallace, i'm only commenting his paper, not lynch's work. hmmm, well, he's dead so let's rather talk about Lynch next time you come (i don't disagree entirely with your view, Lynch is certainly overestimated but still, given the state of the contemporary american film industry, he is close to a genius).

Hmmm

[sam_tem]

faust, merz and any other russian folks, calling on you guys here

any good recommendations from the Mosfilm library up on youtube?

http://www.youtube.com/user/Mosfilm