Elephant Man:C/D?

(sorry for obv 'joke')

(are amateurist and phil masstransfer secretly the same person? they both like "the tall guy"...)

Martin, can you translate this into Americanese?

I can't believe this is all we have archived on Joseph (John) Merrick!

MILEY THYRUTH

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsGkq2W0Yy8

TWURRRRK

video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2M04q2fHKY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2M04q2fHKY

what a great film. saw it for the first time last night and I disagree with criticism that it was mawkish. Some parts are truly tearjerking and the acting is excellent. The decision to film in b/w makes it feel a lot older than it is and the few moments where Lynch allows himself to tip into surrealism work better for it.

It's really a special, often painful film. My daughter loved it. We were amazed at how much information on Merrick existed, and in particular how accurate the make-up was.

Finally watched it, fucking great, surprised by the stunning surrealistic sequences, just amazing. Felt so close to Lost Highway & Mulholland Drive despite being made 17-21 years earlier. also whoa, "Sonny Jim"!

I really liked that it was just a really tight period drama, maybe his most conventionally structured film (though I still haven't seen The Straight Story), it's just a great Oscar sorta movie, not surprised it was nominated 8 times

The Straight Story might be rated G but I wouldn't call it conventionally structured the way the Elephant Man is. It is certainly linear.

Sonny Jim has been common in english language parlance for a couple hundred years, at the very least

Straight Story is awesome, watch ASAP

I will, have a copy at home. only Lynch I haven't seen

xp ah gotcha

well, there's Dune too. is that worth checking out at all? Never read the book

I hated it, many people earnestly love it. Only you can decide.

well then the OCD completist in me demands I see it. i'll wait for the video store to open

I’ve posted a couple of times about this, but I fall asleep every time I try to watch it, without fail

Straight story is amazing

137 minutes

fuck me running

re: Dune - my opinion as a scifi dork and a Lynch dork breaks down like this:

The book, regarded in some circles as "the greatest science fiction book ever written" is, in fact, pretty ponderous and boring. There are a lot of interesting ideas in it, but that's about as far as it goes. It (and its fans) privelege the "worldbuilding" aspects above things like narrative, characterization, writing, etc. That being said, it is not at all necessary to read the book to enjoy or understand Lynch's adaptation, which is generally much looser and weirder. It is not entirely successful as a film, and it's certainly not a faithful adaptation (not that I care). It has pacing problems. It also has some absolutely bonkers characters and setpieces and some fantastic designs, as well as a kind of dreamier/more abstract vibe than the novel generally does. It's worth seeing, I like it a lot, even with its failures it's not his worst film by a longshot.

Straight Story is great.

or, as I said a few years ago

I feel like the film's underrated because it splits the difference between Lynch's sensibility and the source material, which results in some jarring narrative leaps and shifts in tone. These things don't bother me so much when stacked against the film's best moments - the Baron, the opening sequence with the emperor, the worms, "fear is the mindkiller", the creepy sister etc.

Dune movie is basically a summary of a story which cannot be sufficiently summarized without losing something in translation. If you've read the novel, you'll be able to fill in the narrative gaps, but if you haven't, you can probably expect to get lost somewhere along the way. It's great to look at, though.

even with its failures it's not his worst film by a longshot.

do you mean it's his worst film but not as bad as everyone says it is, or that there's a film by him you like less? thanks for the info though, I will check it out - didn't know Lynch had any input re: aesthetics or sensibility on it.

Dune is better than Wild at Heart and probably Lost Highway, is what I was getting at

Damn

I'm probably in the minority there in terms of Lost Highway at least, but the parts of Lost Highway that I hate I hate *way* more than anything that's in Dune, and Wild At Heart is just a total mess in my opinion. Lynch pairing up with Barry Gifford was a bad idea imo.

Yeah, I can hang with that. A recent rewatch confirmed that Lost Highway is Lynch's worst by some distance. An 'all style, no substance' Lynch film actually sounds great to me on paper, but he was asleep at the wheel while he coasted down that particular highway (time-traveling movie critics, feel free to borrow my excellent play on words for your review).

Tuomas has made impassioned arguments - several times - that Lost Highway is one of his best, better than Mulholland Drive (which he considers a "rehash" of ideas from Lost Highway) etc.

Lost Highway rules, wtf!

as usual Tuomas is hilariously wrong but just thought I'd throw that caveat out there

xp

I do wind WaH pretty unpleasant to watch though it features some great sequences

LH basically feels like a faux-Lynch film made by someone who doesn't really understand what works about Lynch.

I haven't seen it for a while, but I always liked Lost Highway, to the best of my recollection. There's got to be a nice little list of movies where one character inexplicably becomes another character halfway through.

The only thing cringey to me about LH is the mid-90s shock-rocker influence that creeps in here and there (peaking/cratering w/ the Manson appearance)

I’ve warmed to the Gifford films a lot over the years so dune is my least fave by default

I’m a fan of lost highway these days, loads of the new twin peaks has strong lh vibes imo

i agree with that, re: nu Peaks.

my lynch film rankings move around a lot in my mind, but Wild at Heart is the only one I hated on first viewing.

There's got to be a nice little list of movies where one character inexplicably becomes another character halfway through

if we allow for a bit of explication this list gets *really* long and contains a bunch of canonical classics - Vertigo, Seconds, Wizard of Oz, etc.

might be good for a thread...

Double Life of Veronique is the GOAT for this imo

The Hot Chick ftw.

Being John Malkovich involves several characters becoming another character lol

Straight Story is wonderful and the Lynchian aspects are very underrated. the sublime, simple truth of the ending, which i think is just a question from Harry Dean Stanton, is very Zen. the opening is very Lynch as well, it starts with a weirdly positioned shot of the outside of a rural house and you just hear the people inside conversing, distantly, almost abstractly, for about a minute or two, the camera hovering above like a separate entity. yet at the same time, the movie has a LOT of heart.

I seem to recall a scene with the camera moving down an air conditioning vent.

Sissy Spacek watching the thunderstorm

The Robert Blake sequences in LH are an embarrassment: leaden self-parody.

you want self-parody, check out that jail movie his daughter made.

Lost Highway is a dry-run for Mulholland Drive imo. it's also my least favorite of his. Wild at Heart I love though, and as I said on another thread, its style and the dynamic of their relationship is very of this moment / in line with current cultural aesthetics. 6 or 7 friends of mine say it's their favorite movie full stop.

Something about the final act of Lost Highway reminds me of Out Of The Past so I love it for that. Wild At Heart always felt like Lynch being 80s Lynchian without any filter and it gets wearying. Both these films pale in comparison to what came before them in the filmography.

(yes, including Dune)