David's World
David Lynch turns 66 today. He's a great director, but considering how unconventional his approach is, it's amazing he's had a career at all.
I noticed him with his first feature, Eraserhead. The original funders thought he was making a short, but his visual style played longer onscreen than on the page. It took years to complete and introduced a lot of themes and stylistic quirks he'd revisit throughout his career. It's a film of no known genre. In many ways, he's never topped it.
It was not well-reviewed in the trades, but became big in midnight showings. It also caught the attention of Mel Brooks, who helped Lynch get a big job directing The Elephant Man. (Word is Stanley Kubrick got his own copy of Eraserhead and screened it regularly)
The Elephant Man did decent business and Lynch was nominated for an Oscar. He also got a shot at something really big--Dune. The result is generally considered a disaster, and Lynch himself swore he'd never work again without complete control. But producer Dino De Laurentis also funded Blue Velvet, which received rapturous reviews and still packs a wallop. (I could show you a scene, but I'd rather show Roger Ebert getting angry about it.)
Lynch moved into TV, producing Twin Peaks, which was the coolest show on the air for a short period before it fell apart, both in popularity and plot. He continued making films, some winning awards, some even making their money back (eventually)--not only the bizarre Twin Peaks movie, but Wild At Heart (Palme d'Or at Cannes), Lost Highway and The Straight Story (as the title suggests, his most straighforward, "normal" movie).
Then he worked on a TV pilot that didn't sell. He got some money to turn it into a feature, and the transformation was astounding. When I was waiting in line to see Mulholland Dr. someone drove by and shouted "that's the worst film I ever saw." I thought it was the best film of the year. Lynch does that to poeple.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:11 AM
4 Comments:
You imagine Lynch watching Roger Ebert's reaction to Blue Velvet and thinking "nailed it."
I still like Dune. I think it captured the mood and feel of Herbert's books better than the SciFi channel adaption.
Of course, the purpose of a film adaption may not be to capture the mood and feel of the book. The novel of Dune as not an action packed sci-fi thriller, but it certainly can be adapted into that kind of a movie. Lynch chose not to do so, and lingered on the enormous sense of foreboding in the book.
But I have to admit, it is a frustrating film if you haven't read the novel, because the storytelling is sketchy.
I love the look of Dune, but it fails as a story. (Since I'm not a big fan of the novel, maybe that means he got it right.)
Still, Lynch is a real filmmaker, so there's still something there, even if the whole thing doesn't add up. It reminds me of Kubrick's The Shining. I don't think much of it, it didn't get freat reviews, and Stephen King thought it didn't work. But then to make up for the failure, there was a made for TV version which was much worse.
My nephews who had never seen it scoured St. Pete video stores looking for "The Shining," finally found it, and when we loaded it . . . there was the guy from "Wings."
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