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8/28/2008
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Hey! I think Mr Lynch is one of my three favorite living filmmakers, along with David Cronenberg and Werner Herzog (so looking forward to his new Lynch-produced movie!) However, without meaning to be overly negative, maaan, it seems to me that there could be some benefit in discussing where Lynch possibly made an artistic misstep, in amongst the Top Five Best Stuff lists. Clearly very few of the Gazetters are shy in denouncing his TM publicity drive (something he clearly believes is better for the world than making movies so hats off to him I say) and in particular the whole of Inland Empire (which I found pretty magnificent, with reservations.) So how about individual scenes that just don't work for you, either in terms of their technique or the context of the rest of the movie? My "bottom five" would be:
1. Laura Palmer's death scene in FWWM. Sorry, but I find it really tacky; the OTT music, the mouth dripping with theatrical blood. The choppiness of the editing. Like a bad 70s exploitation flick. Luckily the beautiful final scene makes amends, IMO. Plus it contradicts the version filmed for the S2 pilot...I prefer the movie's idea(s), just not its execution.
2. The colour-saturated "hotel corridor" scene toward the end of LH where Pete sees Alice acting like a whore, and mocking him in that ludicrous baby-voice (Patricia Arquette's only unmagical moment in the film.) Maybe I'm just not Goth enough but it looks and feels like a poor Nine Inch Nails/Marilyn Manson video. Appropriately...
3. The similarly corridor-themed finale to IE, where Nikki walks around and around, seeminlgy FOREVER, to no great artistic effect. Although from the moment she meets The Phantom to the very end of the movie, things are gobsmackingly good.
4. The "Dream of the Robins" speech in Blue Velvet, delivered by Laura Dern. With the reedy organ music playing. It may have felt right and seemed naively subversive at the time but in retrospect it looks dated and cheesy beyond belief. I have a similar problem with some of the earlier Diane/Rita conversations in MH, but at least their apple-cheeked "innocence" is genuinely subverted by the end of the film.
5. The first scene of the last episode of TP (after the lovely Andy/Lucy moment.) The dialogue and the acting is terrible (Cooper snapping his fingers as the great detective puts the final piece into place - "GHOSTwood". Honestly. And the linking of 12 rainbow trout to a circle of 12 sycamore trees. Err...is that the best they could do?) When I first saw it I thought: 'oh dear, Lynch has decided to do it by numbers, the writers and the actors have completely lost interest, even the music doesn't quite work as it usually does'. But yet again, a victory is snatched from the jaws of defeat and the rest of the episode left me feeling like I'd just watched television drama being transformed forever. I think Lynch is so interesting because of his flaws, which arise from his magnificent obsessions. Does anyone else have a gripe about any individual scenes they would like to get off their chest? Or shoot me down for being a know-nothing ignoramus?!
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