STACK June 2016 Issue 140

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visit DVD&BD FEATURE
34 JUNE 2016
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If you're an adventurous viewer who's eager to leave the comfort zone of generic
Hollywood blockbusters, let STACK point you towards strange and exciting new
frontiers in cinema – from the grindhouse to the arthouse and beyond. By Scott Hocking
[Note: Some titles discussed may not be available on DVD and Blu-ray, so please check the JB Hi-Fi website.]
WHAT TO EXPECT
Lynch’s work traverses the cinematic
spectrum – gothic, noir, horror, farce, mystery-
thriller, surrealism and eroticism. His films are
distinguished by a potent marriage of sound
and image, and a digression from traditional
storytelling. That’s really a polite way of saying
they don’t make a lot of sense. And yet they
do – Lynch’s movies may not follow logic as we
know it, but they always obey the rules of their
own bizarre world/premise. What’s baffling in
a conventional sense can be perfectly cogent
within the Lynchian universe.
“It's better not to know so much about what
things mean or how they might be interpreted
or you'll be too afraid to let things keep
happening,” is the director’s philosophy.
Lynch’s films frequently feature omniscient
puppetmasters; mystery men who are in some
way pivotal to the plot and the fate of the
characters, while remaining on the periphery.
Eraserhead’s scarred ‘Man in the Planet’; Twin
Peaks ’ dancing dwarf, aka ‘The Man from
Another Place’; Mulholland Drive’s creepy
tramp behind Winkies; and the most sinister of
them all, Lost Highway’s impish ‘Mystery Man’,
who can take a phone call from himself.
His movies are full of mystifying motifs
that may or may not be significant to the
central mystery. Theatres, stages and stage
microphones, and deformity are all recurring
motifs in Lynch’s films, while heavy velvet
drapes (usually red) and art deco design is
essential to the aesthetic.
Lynch’s films always concern something
rotten lurking beneath the veneer of Americana,
whether in a small town (Blue Velvet, Twin
Peaks) or a big city (Mulholland Drive).
His characters are a weird mob; some will
experience an identity crisis so severe as to
transform into entirely different characters
during the course of the film, like Lost
Highway’s Fred/Pete and Mulholland Drive’s
Betty/Diane. And his villains transcend the
profile of the average psycho.
WHERE TO START
Eraserhead (1976) is Lynch’s first film. It’s
also his strangest and most inaccessible, so if
you plan to start from the very beginning, you’ll
probably be bidding Lynch farewell before you
even get to know him properly.
A better entry point is Blue Velvet (1986),
the movie that pretty much introduced Lynch’s
unique brand of moviemaking to a wide
audience. The discovery of a severed ear
plunges amateur sleuth Jeffrey Beaumont
(Kyle MacLachlan) into a small town mystery
involving a masochistic nightclub singer
(Isabella Rossellini) and “a very dangerous
man” in the form of the nitrous-sucking Frank
Booth (Dennis Hopper in psycho overdrive).
It’s a groundbreaking film for Lynch in that it
introduces the seedy underbelly of America
and the psychosexual milieu he would continue
to explore in later films. Moreover, Blue Velvet
features all of Lynch’s trademark themes
and obsessions grafted to a
traditional thriller narrative – this
one does actually make sense.
“It’s a strange world” notes
Blue Velvet’s protagonist, and
things are about to get a whole
lot stranger. Wild at Heart
(1990) is Lynch at his most
playful – a raucous road trip
with lashings of ultra-violence
and absurdity. It’s also the
director’s homage to The Wizard of Oz,
complete with an appearance by the Good
Witch. Seriously. Made back in the days when
Nicolas Cage was a good actor, Wild at Heart
features one of his best performances as
fugitive Sailor Ripley, who channels the spirit
of Elvis in a snakeskin jacket. A demented
Diane Ladd and a sleazy Willem Dafoe, as
the dentally-challenged villain, provide further
incentive to check this one out.
BEGINNER’S
GUIDE
#3 - DAVID LYNCH
WhO is DAVID LYNCH?
Painter, filmmaker and architect of the abstract and absurd, the
surreal and nightmarish, this cult director’s baffling and brilliant
visions defy the laws of traditional storytelling and polarise viewers.
Considered to be one of the great auteurs of modern cinema, Lynch
is best known for the films Blue Velvet, The Elephant Man and
Mulholland Drive, and the groundbreaking TV series Twin Peaks.