Lynch Snapped Like A Twig
File under: Deranged Devotees
Somebody in Seattle is fed up with David Lynch and his TM™-shilling "happy, happy, joy, joy" schtick:
Lynch's performance with the fans was more of his trademark golly gee willickers New Age hoakum where critical acumen is verboten and negative thoughts and reactions are ... negative? Isn't it kind of hypocritical to hate Hate? More so than the desire not to have any Desire? So instead of having open, honest reactions to all the negative, disturbing stuff life throws at you, just think happy thoughts and live a life of bullshit positive affirmation and feel-goodery. Thanks, Lynch. Your advice worked out and everything's great now...A repressed hippie moron who is afraid of bad thoughts. We couldn't have said it better ourselves.
Since Lynch apparently lives in some kind of "Genius" bubble, he should avoid stories that involve characters simulating actual human beings. He should stick to what he does best: his distinctive art direction, the meticulous lighting (that makes you realize how much you take light for granted) and all those textured, layered sound effects, and just leave the story telling to people who aren't repressed hippie morons who must not think bad thoughts.
posted by guruphiliac @ 7:30 PM
10 Comments:
The writer (Matt Silvie) does a disservice by putting Lynch's private opinions and his movies into one big pot, stirring them together and boiling both at the same time as if they were one.
Because Lynch's movies just don't have any of the "gee willickers New Age hoakum where critical acumen is verboten and negative thoughts and reactions are ... negative" which Lynch may well be following in his private life.
Lynch's movies aren't that easy to understand. But they are real works of art.
Happy to agree with you Blade. Matt Silvie sounds very young and very jealous! Suck it up Matt and maybe one day you'll be able to do something as creative as many of Lynch's movies.
Also I don't much agree with Lynch about TM but think he's a hell of a guy for standing up to say what he believes, being willing to take a lot of flack from the jackasses who bray at his feet!
"So instead of having open, honest reactions to all the negative, disturbing stuff life throws at you, just think happy thoughts and live a life of bullshit positive affirmation and feel-goodery. Thanks, Lynch. Your advice worked out and everything's great now..."
That really surprises me to hear that about Lynch. I just watched one of his movies for the 1st time, Nadja, a vampire flick, and would never have imagined he was one of those "don't think neg. thoughts" kind of people. It doesn't jive with the film. Perhaps he's one of those really depressed geniuses who needs to take extreme measures to keep himself afloat? In any case, the artistic quality of the movie was awesome, if not the story line.
Many poeple don't get Lynch's movies at all because they don't understand the genre. Lynch's movies are to mainstream movies as poems are to short stories. If you are expecting to read a short story, and instead you get something like T.S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land', you are in a similar position to someone who is expecting a regular movie and you get handed 'Mulholland Drive'. You may be disappointed -- that's totally understandable -- but you would be very wrong if you think you have been handed a piece of crap.
There's a reason why so many of Lynch's fans are film-makers: they understand film as a poetic (rather than a purely narrative) art, and they can appreciate it. In short, they are artists themselves, and appreciate the art. Therein is a high compliment to Lynch, not, as Matt Sylvie seems to think, an insult to him.
There is no TM hoakum in any of his movies that I have seen. There is only one connection I can find to the themes of his movies and his metaphysical beliefs: both Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway can be read/understood as having a theme of a nightmarish retribution suffered by a perpetrator (whether in some dreamy afterlife or the few moments before death) for a major crime committed in life.
I'm looking forward to seeing "Inland Empire". I'll be greatly delighted if it is anywhere close in quality to Mulholland Drive. But I'll only really appreciate it when I can get it out on DVD and look at it a few times.
blade said:
Many poeple don't get Lynch's movies at all because they don't understand the genre.
I'm not sure if you were referring to my comment when you posted this. I have no major complaints about the story, I agree that the film was very poetic. I was just wanting a short story at the moment rather than a poem. I noticed in Nadja, there are some allusions to his spiritual search, like when Cassandra at the end is commenting on life in america as having lost its spiritual core. Since I had read the NYT article , I had some idea of where he was coming from. In any case, it's probably unfair to peg him as a simplistic TMer filled with bullshit positive affirmation feel goodery. It's hard to say what is really going on in people's inner lives. How can we really know that when we barely know ourselves? And I am speaking for myself.
Durga, no I wasn't referring to you when I said people don't get Lynch's movies at all. More referring to Matt Silvie and others who think they are crap. BTW, I haven't seen Nadja yet.
It is a bit of a mystery to me why he is following the Maharishi, but his films seem divorced from that. On the other hand, I don't find it mysterious why he meditates.
blade said: BTW, I haven't seen Nadja yet.
Watch Nadja and let me know what you think if you see it any time soon.
Btw, it sounds like you are in the film industry. Is that correct? And, I did order a little book on deep meditation and a CD on nidra yoga from AYP. The nidra yoga has proved to be a powerful tool for getting me out of worry states. I'm not so good at meditation, though, but I'm trying.
Durga said:
>> Watch Nadja and let me know what you think if you see it any time soon.
I will!
>> Btw, it sounds like you are in the film industry. Is that correct?
No, just a guy who thinks everyone is entitled to my opinion. :) I'm not even that much "into" "art movies", but Mulholland Drive impressed me greatly, and I watched it a few times. So when I hear that Lynch's movies are crap, I have an informed contrary opinion. :)
My theory on Lynch: much of his work, including his masterpiece Twin Peaks, have to do with a nightmare world of the occult, secret societies, black lodges, etc. that lies just beyond the realm of normal perception. His proximity to the Maharishi organization, which acts in many ways as a REAL-LIFE Black Lodge, seeps into his consciousness and nightmares. But he is not aware enough to understand that he is living in the Maharishi's Black Lodge, which in his mind is perceived as a "force for good and enlightenment" in the world.
What can I say? The TM organization is always silly, but to refer to it as a black lodge (whatever that means) is kinda silly. It's always pretty up-front with its agenda, in my experience:
http://www.globalgoodnews.com/world-peace-a.html?art=1169669215115945
http://www.davidlynchfoundation.org
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