David Lynch: King of Misfits
David Lynch
King of Misfits
If you have ever watched a David Lynch film you might have had a sensationally dull and confusing experience, or on the contrary you might have had an enlightening journey, along the way finding a appreciation for the absurdity in our daily lives (which is no doubt ultimately confusing). Lynch can be a bit of a marmite director: it’s a love/hate thing. Although there is scarcely someone who talks of Lynch as a parody, or as anything short of legitimate. At times his work can feel alien, brining a quirky humour to it or on the other hand something totally disturbing.
The components are glued together by the hand picked style of music Lynch employs. His ability to paint the frame with a buttery smooth sonic style has got me thinking, how do you write music for the surreal? Or, how do you create something relatable for the audience with a soundscape that is jarring but feels familiar. One that begs you to ask yourself questions and most importantly, places you in the world that the director is trying to create.
Who could forget this brilliantly fun (but very weird) scene from Lost Highway?!
Lynch has his pitfalls, like any other filmmaker, but I think it would be difficult not to label him as one of the most visionary and distinctive of those in the last half century. His uncompromising body of work has seen successes and failures but has also made it’s marks in classic cinema, TV, art, music and literature. There is a universality attached to Lynch, he understands creativity and is even vocal himself in several areas of art. This is an important element of being an effective storyteller, something which probably lends to his very Lynchian style - in that he has his own fingerprint within many creative layers of his work.
He is a director who lends space and time to the scene, letting the actors pull us into their moments. And he is certainly effective at drawing the viewer in to an immersive world. See Naomi Watts’ audition scene in Mulholland Drive for example, which in it’s weird meta-sort-of way seems to go beyond the acting realm (below).
Don’t watch this one with your parents!
Thematically he is fairly consistent in exploring the absurd, dream like nature of humanity. Painted on a backdrop of dream-pop tunes and a humbled white-picket-fence-suburban-dream aesthetic. Splattered with moments of horror, fringe humour, abrupt and violent outbursts, hidden sexualities and hypnotising soundscapes - It’s hard not to feel perversely curious about the mesmerising worlds he creates.
Personally, this focus on the ordinary has always grabbed my interest. The occasional weirdness born from the seemingly mundane are the moments that have stayed with me over the years. From the dream come to life in Mulholland Drive, pretty much anything to do with Bob from Twin Peaks or the infamous chicken from Eraserhead. Lynches bi-partisanship lies in his focus on the multilayered nature of experience. The humanlike elements, observed and highlighted through his peculiar scope, can be seen in illuminating new ways. In Lynches world, things seem stranger than normal and normal things seem strange. He has an ability to play with the fears and desires of the audience, perhaps in ways that you never thought was possible. If done right, his work can have a profoundly lasting effect and worms it’s way into your subconscious.
Sometimes I find his stories don’t necessarily follow the typical three arc structure but rather bathe in the moments between characters, really letting the scene breathe. It can be jarring to begin with especially if you’re used to a different cinematic style or tempo. I found that watching Lynch for the first time you naturally seek to solve unfinished plot points and character arcs. However, Lynch tends to leave these as ideas that float in an out of the pseudo-linear story telling, letting the audience bask in the potential definitions and conclusion of such arcs. Ultimately, those who seek to ‘complete’ the story by ways of Lynch's style of storytelling could be missing the point.
Eraserhead (1977)
I admire Lynch's introspection. Open to criticism but unabashedly avoids defining the meaning of his films. Although, at times it can teeter between experimental genius and confused and undirected. It’s still hard to deny his steadfast vision defines his work which has carved out his Lynchian following. And it doesn’t stop there. Writing books on film and meditation, painting and sculpting, writing and playing music; he embodies what it means to be a contemporary artist.
From his low budget struggles on Eraserhead where he would build his own sets, record his own sounds and write his own music up to the recent return of Twin Peaks, where his influence (and even his much desired moments of comic relief reprising his role as Gordon Cole) is ingrained throughout. It would be fair to say he has always maintained his artistic and stylistic sensibilities.
Eraserhead was disturbing, sometimes shocking but bizarre and compelling enough to get his name out there. Noticeably as his works became more personal they importantly began to feel more personal. He creates an environment in which the real and the surreal coincide, blurring the lines between what is real. All laced with slick swing jazz, brooding synths or an occasional seductive female voice.
Arguably however, Lynch’s crowning achievement in film is the aforementioned L.A dream, Mulholland Drive. The product of a failed TV Pilot, the film follows the forgotten past of a Hollywood Femme Fatale which I always found it to be one of his most absorbing stories - albeit occasionally horrifying.
Still not the worst thing to be found behind a diner.
It provides a self reflection on how film can blur our own perceptions when trying to conduct the narrative of our own lives. In the way that Tarantino would employ a specifically curated soundtrack to create cool, slick moments; or Scorsese craft an era-defining soundtrack playing with moods and style; Lynch provides his own take that brings the soundscape to another level.
By blending meticulously selected tracks or even just a musical phrase with his own music (and usually that of his musical buddy and long time collaborator Angelo Badalamenti), the scores have Lynch’s own sonic fingerprint interwoven with the story. It is said that only half of the film has been seen if one were to view without prior knowledge or context of Lynch’s musical choices which incite chunks of meaning, grief and mystery.
Twin Peaks for example, his seminal 90’s mystery/fantasy/thriller, is possibly the most brilliantly devised of all his works. Bold from the pilot episode, which focussed on the handling of grief in a small town (population 51,201 to be precise) following the discovery of a washed up dead prom queen. It’s a bleak starting point and creating this heavy sense of bleakness is only aided by the thick hypnotic synth that layers the main theme.
The music never really amounts to more than a willing dream, soft synths and mesmerising repetition. Despite this, it never feels fatigued. On the contrary it becomes a moment of much needed clarity, providing a grounding point in the sonic landscape. It quickly begins to define themes and characters, reminiscent of new wave influences.
In the later season of Twin Peaks the finale of each episode had it’s own performance from the likes of NIN, Eddie Vedder, Sharon Van Etten and Chrysta Bell. With the rest of the series draped in smooth swing jazz and littered with moments of avant garde sound design, they all played a part in creating the atmosphere throughout the series. Neatly closing each chapter with an oddly fitting performance, suturing all of the appropriate themes and thematic development within.
Surrealism flourished, quirky humour with supernatural dangers but overall void of the hardcore activities (sex and violence is limited, which adds to the oddness), promoted Twin Peaks to become a welcomed return to TV. Like most of Lynch’s work, I think his return in the last few years displays the epitome of what he has explored throughout his filmography. Ultimately Twin Peaks is a facade, the picturesque and seemingly quaint town is a guise for the undercurrent of supernatural evil, debauchery and malevolence and an evil lurking spirit and cosmological mysteries.
And like most things when it comes to Lynch, all is not what it seems.