inland empire

yes, yes, a fine movie.

  Awepittance said:

lynch's movies are like motion picture Rorschach tests

 

anybody claiming to derive a concrete objective meaning out of Inland Empire is projecting their own subconscious imagination onto the movie

well said, narrows it down pretty good imo.

that's what I think. He has progressively trusted more in intuition rather than deliberate calculation. allowing ideas to rain out of the psychic cloud rather than consciously choosing them, trusting his subconscious will create a cohesive narrative on SOME level. This method also allows more latitude for the viewer to assemble the parts according to their own unique perspective.

I think you can find some of the same wisdom sometimes in just allowing yourself to free write whatever comes to mind with perhaps a loose structure. Later analysis will reveal a connection that wasn't apparent initially and sometimes even offer valuable personal insight.

I just loved the ridiculously dark sounds that went with the movie, when your sub is booming so loudly your chest tightens up in fear without actually having a clue whats going on or what might happen. after the first hour me and my friends just stopped thinking of it as a film and more as an album of music you have on while you sit off and socialise.

  messiaen said:

I just loved the ridiculously dark sounds that went with the movie, when your sub is booming so loudly your chest tightens up in fear without actually having a clue whats going on or what might happen. after the first hour me and my friends just stopped thinking of it as a film and more as an album of music you have on while you sit off and socialise.

I haven't seen Inland Empire but I think this is a great point. I have said for years that when all is said and done the thing I think of most highly about Lynch is his sound design. I think that is where he really shines, he's freaking brilliant at understanding the way sounds and moods interact, and the way a disturbed mind filters sound.

  tv_party said:

that's what I think. He has progressively trusted more in intuition rather than deliberate calculation. allowing ideas to rain out of the psychic cloud rather than consciously choosing them, trusting his subconscious will create a cohesive narrative on SOME level. This method also allows more latitude for the viewer to assemble the parts according to their own unique perspective.

I think you can find some of the same wisdom sometimes in just allowing yourself to free write whatever comes to mind with perhaps a loose structure. Later analysis will reveal a connection that wasn't apparent initially and sometimes even offer valuable personal insight.

True, but you can find a deeper meaning of pretty much anything of you try hard enough. If you show a university student a poo with a stick in it he/she will be able to interpret the shit out of it this fantastic piece of art.

I'm not dissing Lynch. Not at all. I love his movies, I love the atmospheres he creates and so on, but I don't pay too much attention to the story in his movies, because as messian mentioned Lynch's movies are more like nerve-racking and exciting experiences even though they don't always make sense. The atmosphere alone in his movies are enough to tell stories. These stories won't mean the same to everyone but that's the beautiful thing about it. No one experiences his movies the same way which is also why Lynch himself tells his fans that their interpretation of his movies are just as correct as everyone elses.

Lots of good posts here. I agree. I tend to look at his more recent movies as abstract art. You can appreciate them purely for the form, light, color, and sound; or you can interpret them as much as you want. I enjoy reading people's crazy theories about what his movies are communicating. You don't see such a diverse range of theories and discussions about many other filmmakers.

  patternoverlap said:

You don't see such a diverse range of theories and discussions about many other filmmakers.

Star Wars is about incest and shaven Wookies

  Squee said:

  patternoverlap said:

You don't see such a diverse range of theories and discussions about many other filmmakers.

 

Star Wars is about incest and shaven Wookies

LOL very true

Lynch's films stay with you. There're so many films that I watch and when it's done then that's it. I don't think or talk about it. Pretty much anything I can think of by Lynch I've thought about and discussed in depth with friends. Whether it's about a certain sound (and I agree with Lumpy, the sound design is awesome) or a particular unsettling piece of dialogue, if I'm thinking about it then it's pretty much a success in my eyes.

I won't claim to understand what the hell is going on in Inland Empire, I think it's most likely to be several stories at once, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy the film. I hate when people don't like a film because they don't get it... Surely it's possible to enjoy the film on a purely visceral level. That's Lynch: visceral.

10 people watched Inland Empire with me, and 5 of them at the end of it were disgusted by how pathetic of a film it was, i ended up discussing what they thought made the film so bad and dull, and basically they literally couldnt imagine how you could enjoy a film that doesnt have a story. the idea to them was as alien as music that is completely silent.

  messiaen said:

10 people watched Inland Empire with me, and 5 of them at the end of it were disgusted by how pathetic of a film it was, i ended up discussing what they thought made the film so bad and dull, and basically they literally couldnt imagine how you could enjoy a film that doesnt have a story. the idea to them was as alien as music that is completely silent.

I have had similar experiences. I would argue that it does have a story. There are characters and plot points. Maybe that story is very nontraditional and doesn't follow any linear timeline. Maybe the subject matter is ambiguous but that happens in other art forms as well. What amazes me is that people who read all sorts of crazy books and enjoy art with abstract elements can have so much trouble with a movie that does the same thing. They want their movies straightforward and mindless.

i loved him cooking Quinoa in the additional 'More Things That Happened" (sorry if this was already mentioned).

i am not sure i agree that Lynch is not making sense in his work; he's quite purposeful in what he does. heck Eraserhead took several years to complete; he was quite avidly particular.

Time space phenomena is much in my opinion what he's exposing in I.E.. lavishly interlaces multiple dimensions of past present and future in almost a cubist fashion. i felt as though he was trying to re-create a communication similar to Picasso's fascination with dimensional simultineity.

well I'm going on something I read from an interview with Laura Dern and maybe something else from him where IF I remember correctly stuff was really not planned out too much in advance with this one and he was letting his intuition run wild. who knows if he even knows what it means really and I don't mean that it doesn't make sense. I personally couldn't formalize it into a coherent structure upon reflection, but I still appreciated it as an experience that I felt was a worthwhile use of my time and excuse to eat popcorn. saw it twice in the theatre.

Watched part of IE tonight for like the 50th time, and it just keeps getting better. What amazes me is how jam pack filled with images, sounds, emotions, colors, conversations and movement there is in the film. I always think of it as kind of long, drawn out and minimal in most parts, but it's really not. It's such a magical surreal collage.

What I really find brilliant is how Lynch is able to take very short snipets of mundane conversation, and make them extremely eerie & akward by injecting them into long, drawn out scenes where the expressions and theatrics are extremely out of place with the dialogue. (bbq scene & "look at me & tell me if youve known me before", the scene with the polish guys after the first rabbit scene "im looking for an opening!" etc) This kind of thing that Lynch does creates quite a bizarre effect, and I fucking love it.

After watching the hobbit, i would absolutely love to see lynch explore the possibilities of 48fps, that would be truely mindblowing. its upsetting to see such fantastic visual intensity wasted on complete average hollywood shit like avatar and the hobbit.

What I don't understand about Lynch is why he cannot get an actor to be good to save his life. I have this theory that David is autistic and he doesn't actually understand human interactions, which is why his actors are always so stilted. I mean, his actors basically act how David Lynch does in real life. Maybe it's on purpose? I'm not feelin it.

All of his movies seem to be a few fucking fantastic scenes coupled together with a bunch of nonsense and scenes that would have been good if it weren't for the terrible acting. Like that room of girls for instance; seriously, why does she randomly show her tits and say strange things? I guess you could argue that it was supposed to be surreal, but surreal and stupid are two different things. None of the interactions make any sense and it sounds like everyone is reading directly from the script. Not that Inland Empire was a bad movie; I definitely enjoyed it, and have seen it twice. Maybe I just don't get it or something. The face was cool, the donkeys were amazing.

Side note, Billy Ray Cyrus blames Lynch for everything bad in his life.

  On 12/31/2012 at 9:54 PM, gmanyo said:

What I don't understand about Lynch is why he cannot get an actor to be good to save his life.

I guess you never saw Twin Peaks then...

I don't buy it re: Elephant man and the straight story.

Naomi Watts was seriously good in Mulholland Dr. ...Dennis Hopper? Even Nic Cage was great in Wild at Heart. Lynch seems like he needs a chaperone at times, but I think he inspires people.

  On 12/31/2012 at 10:00 PM, oscillik said:

  On 12/31/2012 at 9:54 PM, gmanyo said:

What I don't understand about Lynch is why he cannot get an actor to be good to save his life.

I guess you never saw Twin Peaks then...

 

Or understood any film by Lynch. I've not seen such an intense performance in a long while since Laura Dern after

  On 12/31/2012 at 9:54 PM, gmanyo said:

why does she randomly show her tits and say strange things?

because she's a prostitute and is showing her wares to the rest of the harlots on the Hollywood strip.

great film. Really struggle to get past the 2 hour mark sometimes though. Just so fucking Random, love it.

MD i can follow a lot easier

  On 12/31/2012 at 10:00 PM, oscillik said:

  On 12/31/2012 at 9:54 PM, gmanyo said:

What I don't understand about Lynch is why he cannot get an actor to be good to save his life.

I guess you never saw Twin Peaks then...d

Ah, that is true. Twin Peaks was pretty good. The acting was strange in that one too though, it just worked. I feel like outside influence on that project actually helped Lynch.

  On 1/1/2013 at 1:12 AM, mcbpete said:

  On 12/31/2012 at 10:00 PM, oscillik said:

  On 12/31/2012 at 9:54 PM, gmanyo said:

What I don't understand about Lynch is why he cannot get an actor to be good to save his life.

I guess you never saw Twin Peaks then...

Or understood any film by Lynch. I've not seen such an intense performance in a long while since Laura Dern after

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

being stabbbed and realising here life is little more than a romantic fallacy

 

  On 12/31/2012 at 9:54 PM, gmanyo said:

why does she randomly show her tits and say strange things?

because she's a prostitute and is showing her wares to the rest of the harlots on the Hollywood strip.

 

I know she was a prostitute, but in that particular scene showing her tits wasn't as much of a problem as how awkward she was in delivering her lines. As a prostitute you're supposed to be good at conversing to get dudes to fuck you, not good at silencing everyone else because they feel so awkward. Much of that movie feels like a dinner conversation with distant relatives. If Lynch thinks he's making some really clever enigma of a movie that I just don't get, fine, but this does not mean your actors have to be bad. He tiptoes a fine line between freaky cool and laughably bad, and in my opinion he crosses it frequently.

I don't really care much about the plot or meaning of Lynch movies, especially Inland Empire since you probably couldn't get two lynch fans to agree even on the largest points. While I will admit that after reading explanations of MH it made more sense, it didn't change my opinion of the movie much. I enjoy his films for the surrealist aesthetic, the feeling that I get from watching the movie, and when the acting is bad or when the scenes get too ridiculous it removes me from what's happening in the movie and I lose the feeling. I have the same problem with Harmony Korine, and his movies aren't surrealist at all.

I think we can all agree that

POLLY HAD A RED SHIRT

and that

SUSIE RIPPED HER SHIRT OFF

COMPLETELY

Is 'The Straight Story' any good?

Apologies I don't remember typing that shite up there - got a little too much into the New Year spirit last night.

(and yes Straight Story is lovely, sweet little film)