Overall, not for me, based on what I've seen. I do like the one he shot with the Lumiere Brothers camera, and can appreciate bits and pieces here and there, but...Crap.

However, I like that Lynch will take risks, as he sees fit. I think we live in a rather conservative world all told, in which a lot of people looking to forge "careers" are in the habit of looking over their shoulders much of the time, afraid of what others might think if their art deviates too much from expectations, whatever those may be. Everybody wants to be on the winning side, sooner or later. Regardless of whether a given work of art wets my whistle (such work often doesn't), I think it would be a mistake if atypical artists censored themselves too much in an effort to fit in and appease would-be tastemakers or "bourgeois respectability."

But either way, in Lynch's case, he's carved out a niche for his work and he's pretty popular, among cinephiles and even very casual moviegoers.

He hasn't just carved a niche out for himself - as noted he carved one out for Tarantino as well, and everybody from the X Files to Broadchurch has ripped off Twin Peaks. Many a career has been spun out of his idea threads. He's also one of the few living directors whose style is distinctive enough to become an adjective: "Lynchian" - (as cringey as that coinage is, critics sure got a lot of mileage out of it). We got some "Tarantino-esque" filmmaking going on for a while, but that's just twice-recycled hipster David Lynch with no heart.

For someone with a reputation for being singular and weird, he's been very influential on mainstream culture.

Not crap, with waffles for Mullholland Drive. That movie sucked and I got no idea why so many people like it. Then again, I am not much of a fil guy.

Jimbo wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 2:43 pm Not crap, with waffles for Mullholland Drive. That movie sucked and I got no idea why so many people like it. Then again, I am not much of a fil guy.

Big Lynch fan here. Surprised how many times it's cited as people's favorite, or people liking it in spite of Lynch.

I like Mulholland Drive, but it's far from being my favourite work by him.

The star-making performance from Naomi Watts is surely a factor. It's a very pretty film too, and notably more erotic than Eraserhead I would say. And the story is beguiling in that it is fairly comprehensible until it isn't; it poses a riddle. I can see how it could be the one to catch the popular imagination.

Like a lot of Lynch stuff it's self-referential so it's a film about films, actors playing roles, and the manipulative nature of the medium itself. That idea of being two characters and living in two realities. Seems to sum up a lot of his recurring preoccupations. Probably not a bad place to start?

On the other hand, for Jimbo I guess not. Blue Velvet then?

Wouldn't say Mullholland Drive is that hard to follow, in terms of its narrative arc. For me, its central flaw has a lot less to do with it being quasi-incoherent or too cryptic/weird and much more to do with the manner in which its disparate elements are chosen and more importantly integrated. In the latter sense, I don't find it that convincing as a whole--on a technical and aesthetic plane it feels inordinately cobbled together for such a revered movie. Some people don't mind this at all and if anything find it liberating and oneiric, but for me it just comes across as slapdash.

DaveA wrote: Sun Dec 12, 2021 2:49 pmon a technical and aesthetic plane it feels inordinately cobbled together for such a revered movie. Some people don't mind this at all and if anything find it liberating and oneiric, but for me it just comes across as slapdash.

I’ve read that Mulholland Dr was originally intended to be a series like Twin Peaks, with a cumulative run time of around 10 hours. I think that filming began with this intention, and some network executive hated it and pulled funding. It was sort of rescued as a film by a French company - this led to a sort of gutting and compressing that makes the movie seem disjointed and incomplete, because it is.

It makes me wish it could have been fleshed out. The movie is full of the beginnings of several narrative threads that have potential but no follow through.

BeyondThePale wrote: Sun Dec 12, 2021 4:43 pm It makes me wish it could have been fleshed out. The movie is full of the beginnings of several narrative threads that have potential but no follow through.

Twin Peaks: The Return is 18 hours long and it still could fit that description, I'd say it was by design.

Aren't Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway basically the same?
(not a bad thing)

Bernardo wrote: Mon Dec 13, 2021 7:38 am

BeyondThePale wrote: Sun Dec 12, 2021 4:43 pm It makes me wish it could have been fleshed out. The movie is full of the beginnings of several narrative threads that have potential but no follow through.

Twin Peaks: The Return is 18 hours long and it still could fit that description, I'd say it was by design.

The Roadhouse scenes that have little if any relation to the rest of the plot feel like a very explicit indicator that it was by design.