Episode 30: For he is the Kwisatz Haderach

Cambridge. I'm Shawn is a Weird Way media podcast. Love Latter Street from your. Hello and Welcome to Cambridge And with Sean, a podcast by two quote unquote weird guys talking about the quote unquote weird things that they like. Today we are going to be talking more David Lynch, and this time we are focusing on the stuff he did.

In the eighties. My name is Ronnie. You might know me as E Sclevator over on YouTube and Instagram wherever. And this is my very good friend. Mark Bigley, I host Wake Up Heavy and the Chasing Chevy Chase podcast.

Man, you're doing a great job of getting that whatever narrator voice or whatever it's called. Well, I've been working on it. Yeah, and to do the whole episode this way. So I think you're making fun of me. That's what I think has happened to talk like that.

Thank God. You know how you can never really tell how you time? I'm not? Yeah, this time, you're not making fun of me? Well you just you wait.

Once we get deep into this conversation, you have plenty of opportunities. God tell me about it. Mm hmm. This is one of my favorite eras for David Lynch. I mean, I feel like the nineties is great, but the eighties is what really when I started to build my relationship with Lynch.

So and I think you too, yeah, And it still is the period of time that I think I hold closest to my heart the three films, not just the three films, but also my relationship with him, which bloomed in the eighties. Really by the end of the decade. In eighty nine, I was like all in. And at the end of the eighties we had this news about this crazy new show that was going to be premiering in nineteen ninety. So that decade will take off with a bang and kind of fizzle out.

For me, this is my David Lynch period. These three films are three of my absolute favorites. And then just my history, my personal history with discovering things and watching stuff over and over again. I don't know how many times I watched Erase Your Head on VHS during the eighties, you know, which we already talked about, but that was a big part of it. There's only three movies to talk about, but they're pretty instrumental in my love of his work.

For me too, this is where I first realized the true artistry of David Lynch. The movie Erase Her Heead taught me a lot about the risks he was willing to. Take as a director. Blue Velvet and Dune and the Elephant Man showed me like, oh, this person really understands how to tell human stories. Even through this what seems to be eccentric, otherworldly lens behaviors that you don't see every day, but are translated through the Lynchian lens as being so normal that they're abnormal.

These three movies actually define that for me, everything that I love about anything that came after these films is based on. What is in these movies. What is so successful about these movies. A good balance here that he tends to tip a little bit in the nineties toward a little bit more toward it gets crazy. I mean, yeah, yeah, that's and I maybe we've discussed this before, but yeah, there are some examples in the nineties where it's kind of like the self editing has kind of stopped.

Yeah, you get a lot of and this is a phrase that people throw at him. You get a lot of weird for weird sake. Some of the more interesting human storytelling aspects fall by the Wayside, which is interesting because Twin Peaks is almost all that, like, all human story wrapped in weirdness. Yeah, and then it kind of falls off in some of the season two films, well in some of the feature films from that era. Yeah, it's kind of odd too, because you're talking about the eighties.

I think a lot of people wouldn't say necessarily peak Lynch because the first two films from the A are kind of work for hire jobs, not personal stories, like Blue Velvet Is, you know, and one of the films is kind of reviled, which is understandable, and I mean he had a lot of bad feelings about that movie, but they both represent elephant man and Doune represent well, maybe more elephant man, you know, that human aspect, which I think people tend to forget about, and it came up a lot when he died. How human and humanistic and emotional his stories were. The weirdness and the strangeness and the surrealness takes the forefront in a lot of people's minds. But even the strangest movies in an Empire, Mulholland Drive, they're very human stories.

They are yea and for me the most human story is the Elephant Man. I My knife is full. I've already talked about the Elephant Man, and I went back and listened to our first episode to see if there was really anything, you know, because we were pretty quick on those first couple of episodes with our ideas, because we were bringing two or three or more per episode, and I'm like, no, I think I pretty much covered most of it. Yeah, you know, let's start with you an elephant Man, and then we'll just go in order. Here.

I'm gonna just real quick piggyback off of what you said about these being very human stories and how some of that gets overlooked in his later films and later projects, because I think audience expectations for lynchy and weirdness overshadows his ability to tell. Real human stories. And for me, so much of his talent really shows through when he is fenced in. This is a work for higher film. He had certain expectations he had to meet.

It was a way for him to establish himself as a film director beyond just being a cult movie maker and get him seen by the powers that be in Hollywood. And I think that that he may have differed in this opinion, But I think that that really worked to his advantage, and my feelings about done differ from his feelings about that, And a lot of this is going to be talked about here with The Elephant Man speaking about working within parameters when he goes on and makes the straight story for Disney and he has to meet those particular kind of expectations, man, he just shines the Elephant Man in Looking back, I get a little bit mixed up on what I saw. What was my first David Lynch movie. Sometimes I feel like it's Dune, sometimes I feel like it's Eraserhead, and sometimes I feel like it's The Elephant Man.

And I can't quite remember what came first, but when I was rewatching clips from The Elephant Man recently, I think it was The Elephant Man. I'm leaning more toward that. But I first saw this film when I probably wasn't ready. To see it. It was one of the scariest things I had ever seen on the screen.

And this is a kid who had already had experience watching scary films like Alien and Jaws and stuff like that. But I took this film so seriously, even though it's filmed in black and white, things that kids you know, growing up black and white is whatever, even though it was black white, even though there were surreal moments, even though John Merrick in the movie has this extreme deformity and looks otherworldly how he's portrayed on through the Lynchean lens. All the moments in this film affected me in such a profound way as a kid. I didn't really realize that until I was in my twenties and watched it again a couple of times, I think with you, and realized how much it affected me, and how much it affected in a positive way and also in a cautious way.

The human dilemma and the way humans treat other people. All that served me in an advantageous way, as opposed to me seeing it and being too scared to ever watch it again, or me seeing it and thinking, oh, that's ridiculous, or me seeing it and dismissing it as weird cinema or whatever. My first memories of The Elephant Man are not the film itself, and we've talked about this a little bit before. My first memories of both Eraserhead and The Elephant Man is seeing the poster art and just being utterly intrigued and drawn in by the grainy, black and white imagery of both of those films, and believing that that was what defined David Lynch at that stage in my life, like knowing that this is a director's stylistic choice.

At such a young age, I was even aware of that beyond what Lynch gave us with that movie. I mean, I had no idea who Anthony Hopkins was. I had no idea at that stage in my life, and I had no idea who John Hurt was until my dad told. Me, Yeah, that's the guy. That's the guy from Alien, you know.

Yeah. I was blown away by those performances. Yeah, the performances are all top notch. Yeah, the I think, gosh, I don't know if I had seen I mean, i'd seen the commercial for Magic years prior. That's scared the living shit out of me.

But I don't if I had seen something like I remember seeing Audrey Rose on TV pretty young. I had probably maybe a minor connection with Anthony Hopkins and John Hurt. I don't think I had seen Alien by then, but I had that picture book, you know, which I think I talked about on the same episode as Elephant Man. So I knew him only from those pictures in that picture book. I don't think it dawned on me until I was probably renting this on VHS or something and had seen Alien by then, like, oh shit, this is that guy.

I remember, and I noted this on that first episode. My confusion as well, did the interest in him come first or did the movie come first? And I'm pretty sure, and I'm even more sure now that I had probably read at least one book about him before the movie came out, because I remember thinking, Oh, they did a really good job on this makeup. Yeah, did you know later on in life? Not until fairly recently actually did I discover that Lynch had attempted to create the makeup himself.

Yep. I've never seen a picture of what he attempted to do. It didn't work out, and I kind of have a feeling it would have looked more like what the Lady in the Radiator looks like, because he described the Elepha man's face as atomic explosions had gone off all over his head exactly, and that's basically what the lady in the Radiator. Radiator is is an atomic bomb that has gone off. So I don't know it probably wouldn't have been as accurate and clean looking as what they achieved with actual makeup effects artists.

It probably would have been more impressionistic and might have been interesting in that regard, But we're dealing with a historical figure here, and it is. Yes, it takes liberties the film does, but you know, more true to life than something anything else he would work on in his life. I mean, yeah, he wanted to do a Marilyn Monroe movie at some point but never got to it. So you know, most stuff is fictional work that he's been into. So I kind of am glad that it's accurate, very accurate makeup and the performance that John Hurt gives under all of that is so incredibly moving ough Man.

And you know that's one of the complaints of the film is that it's not melodramatic but purposefully sad and manipulative and stuff. And I get that when I watch it these days, like pulling at the heart strings and stuff. Man, if there is not a movie that I can think of that makes me as emotional as The Elephant. Man, there's only a few that really do it to me. But The Elephant Man, from beginning to end, is a relentless attack on my emotions.

And you know, I can talk about how devastating Old Yeller was for me as a kid and stuff like that, but nothing quite matches The Elephant Man. And we're going to talk about Lynch's treatment of quality of acting, especially when we get to Dune and Blue Velvet. But here you get to see. Almost Okay, So when I read that book, The Biography of David Lynch, that each chapter is written by a biographer, and then each subsequent chapter is him commenting on those things. Gosh, I can't remember the name of the book right now, but he.

Mentioned the discovery The Elephant Man is his first moment where he realizes he can't do everything that happened with the makeup, him trying to create the makeup and realizing that he's working with a production company and other people that are maybe a little bit more talented than he is in this regard, and also more discerning in what will work on screen and what won't work on screen, especially when we're talking about a realistic character. And I think that that was an important moment for him as an artist, realizing, Okay, I can do most of this stuff, but I do need to step back every once in a while, let people work their magic, and he I feel in this film influences the actors a little bit less than in other films.

We get to see these actors really do their best. I feel like in some films, even when you have amazing actors like Naomi Watts and Dennis Hopper and significantly talented actors that he works with in the future, I feel like he has a heavier hand in directing the way that they say aligned than he does in The Elephant Man, and so therefore we get these incredible performances. One of the most haunting performances is Freddie Jones. You know, Freddie Jones appears in Dune too, and I remember having every time I would see his face on the screen, it would be unnerving, is the best way to put it. Yeah, And partially.

Because of his performance in The Yelp but Man, and that probably influenced the way I saw him in Dune. But the way Freddy Jones does what he does, it's just magical to me. Definitely an underrated actor in his time. Dad to one of my favorite actors currently. Oh wait, you see the data Toby Jones.

Oh shit, that's right. Oh my god, thank you for reminding me of that. I'd totally forgotten about that. That's incredible. Toby Jones is amazing.

Love Toby Jones. Imagine having Freddy Jones as a dad. I don't know that, I want to. Maybe that's why Toby Jones is so good. Oh man, thank you for reminding me of that.

Him is the carnival guy in that movie. And then of course the janitor you know that brutalizes. They call him John Merrick throughout the film, but his name was Joseph Merrick. Yeah. Yeah, those are the parts that are really really hard for me to watch.

Pretty much why I don't watch it very often these days. It infuriated me when I was a kid sitting in the theater. As I have said before, I did see this in the theater and was absolutely gunning for it to when every category was nominated in for the Oscars that year. That scene of them breaking into his little room there and it just man, I skipped through it. These days, actually, it bothers me, so it's hard to watch.

From what I've understand, those things didn't necessarily really happen to him, and even the stuff in the Carnival is over dramatized. A lot of people said that he was just fine there. He wasn't brutalized and beaten and stuff like that, so which makes me feel good these days, But of course when you're watching it on screen, it's hard to remind yourself of that. That's actually one of the things that makes David Then such an important filmmaker is he's willing to question what we perceive as seemingly. Okay, how do you mean?

He says that behind the scenes, even in the history books, do we know how things really were? Well, do we know what's really going on behind closed doors? I don't know that that's really the case here. I think he was using Treves's book, and I think Treves made a lot of these things up. That's my understanding of how this works.

I mean, that's the criticism is of Treves. The doctor that Anthony Hopkins plays really pushed some of this stuff forward that didn't actually happen. I don't know that it's David Lynch kind of manipulating the story. I think he's using the biography that Treeves wrote as the source material for this, and so, yeah, you're going to put stuff like that in there, because not because it's manipulative, but because you're thinking, oh, you know, this is how people like this get treated, people with deformities, people that appear differently, and it makes sense that that would happen, and you would think, oh, this is Victorian England, and of course people back then are going to brutalize people that are even slightly different, let alone enormously, very obviously different.

If that stuff wasn't in the movie, I'd probably be a lot happier watching it. His life was probably pretty rough as it was just looking so different than he did. And I don't know. It serves a purpose whether that stuff really happened to John or Joseph Merrick. It serves a purpose that even if Lynch was not taking information from that book and was just trying to make a movie that was trying to make a point about how we treat deformities or otherness.

I believe that what Werner Herzog calls as the ecstatic truth sometimes necessary exaggeration of truth in order to make a greater point or to even get closer to truth telling that it seems like this movie serves an important purpose, and that is we've got to be careful about how we judge others, and that will always resonate with me. Even if some of those scenes are fictionalized, I feel like it serves an important purpose. I have not watched any footage of stage productions of The Elephant Man, or seen any other retelling of this story elsewhere, nor have I read any literature the story of John or Joseph Merrick. It's Joseph lives with me through this movie. The lessons there are important.

I've only seen little clips of some of the play adaptations, and generally they're not in makeup. Actors are not in makeup. They might contort their body a certain way. But you know, I know David Bowie did it. I think around the time the movie came out.

Actually he was performing it on stage in England. And I think Bradley Cooper was recently in an interesting in a performance. And I believe that they use the same source material, the Trees biography. You would think that someone would revise it based on a truer version of this man's life and his journey, because that's just what we do with material that is. Of interest to others.

It might not be the same, it might not be on trees. I don't know. Consider the fate of this creature's poor mother, struck down in the fourth month of her maternal condition by an elephant, a wild elephant struck down on an uncharted African mile. The result is played to see Ladies and Gentlemen, The Terrible Elephant Man. You and I are old enough to have experienced the last legs of freak shows at circuses and carnivals.

By the time I was a kid, and freak shows were still the Big President Fair would still have freak shows. The living animals that were featured were animals that had deformities, but there were no humans in those freak shows that I saw at the fair, except for I think there were some deformed fetuses in jars if I remember correctly. Most of the quote unquote freaks that were exhibited were either fake or they were animals that were okay, they just had an extra leg or something. I was affected enough to not want to buy the movie The Elephant Man to not want to walk into those spaces anymore, even though I would be super excited about finding vintage booklets and materials at flea markets and stuff like that about freaks and the movie freaks.

It's still a movie that I appreciate. I definitely from watching The Elephant Man had a clearer understanding of what people do to other people or other animals, that kind of mistreatment. Even though parts of The Elephant Man were exaggerated or fictionalized, I feel like the lesson is what we are left with, and that's a good one. We got to be careful of how we treat others. I was thinking earlier in regard to the movie.

I think that for the most part, Joseph Merrick was described as, you know, well spoken, and of course everybody is surprised when he starts talking in the film, and it's like, oh, we thought he was an idiot, you know, and mute and everything else. And he's so well spoken, and the accent is pretty uppercrust English acts, And I wonder if that's accurate, because it would put a different tone on the film if you had a Cockney accent. Yeah. Oh, I am no one animal, I am a human buying. Yeah, I wonder.

This might actually spur some deeper investigation for me. At least read a book about him. Yeah, read it. The more you know, watch The Elephant Man. People, if you can if you can handle it.

It's a beautiful film in all respects. It got totally asked out on the Oscars. Stupid ordinary people want everything. That is so weird. If this movie came out today, I think it would have had a different reaction at the Oscars.

Yeah, it'd probably be called Oscar bait probably. Sure. I didn't realize that ordinary people got all the awards. Yeah, that was the year of ordinary people. That is so odd to me.

Which is a great movie, but yeah, it's not who I wanted to win. Mm hmmm. I like that you were old enough to be like, is it gonna win? As I mentioned on that first episode of ours, that was the first time I paid attention to the Oscars in any way, shape or form. And I remember watching the ceremony actually, and that was probably the first year I had done that.

Man oh man, was I disappointed by the end of that. If I cared about that stuff back then, I would have been disappointed too. That's rough. What would David Lynch's next movie have been if he had won Oscars for The Elephant Man? Would it have been Dune?

Though? What would it have been that would have been interesting? Would he even have been offered return of the Jedi. What would Lynch's trajectory would have looked like. Is it better that he.

Didn't He might have been he might have gotten the blank check thing from the studio and been able to do something like Blue Velvet earlier. Yeah, that's true. I mean Blue Velvet had probably been written by this time. I think it was actually yeah, I mean by the time of Dune. I should say not by the time of the Elephant Man.

I know he had had those ideas floating around well before the film was made. Yeah, Journey, when the storm hits, set off the atomics, I want an opening through the entire shield wall. Still going. Do we have wm sign? So we have Worm Sign, the lext of which even God has never seen.

I'm not saying it's a good thing, or it would have been a good thing to him not do Dune, because let's get into that one. That's one of my favorite movies. You and I differ from Lynch on our perceptions of this movie. Well, I love this film, and I know that Lynch felt like he was aced out of a lot of editorial decisions in the studio had the final cut, and he regrets all that. But I still think that even the different versions of the film that have been released over the years.

I like all of them. I can't say I like all of them. I'm a fan of the feeling that the movie gives. So his feelings about the film really don't have anything to do with the quality of what is on the screen when you watch it. It's more, this was a horrible experience for me, and I don't like reliving it, and I don't like talking about it.

It's not so much I didn't get to do this shot or I didn't get I'm sure there's part of that in there, but he refused to talk about it because it was a painful experience. It was a long shoot, took years to make, so he started working on this shortly after Elephant Man, so pre production was long, the shoot was long, and yes, it was uncomfortable during the shoot because Dino di Laurentis was there the whole time and monitoring everything, and this was a big budget movie for them. Everything about the production of the film was negative. It offered negative energy for Lynch, so that's in part why he had such strong feelings about it. Probably never watched it after the premieres and things like that that they had to sit through.

You know. I can understand that, but knew nothing about any of that back then when the film came out. I don't really care about it now actually, because it doesn't have any effect on my feelings for the film. So I saw this in the theater, and I saw it because I had loved Elephant Man so much, and this was the next movie by this guy. I was fifteen, going on sixteen.

It came out, I want to say late. I think it was a December release in eighty four, so I was almost sixteen. I absolutely loved it from beginning to end. I do recall thinking, boy, is a lot of inner monologue going on in this film, you know, and having kind of the opening set it up, this voiceover from the princess and laying everything down. It's a dense book, man, I mean it is.

There's a lot going on, you know. And we've seen Hodowski's Dune and that would have been a disaster too. That's a fun thing to watch, like what could have been That movie would have bombed so hard it's not even funny. Yeah, if he had been able to make his version of this, and of course the fans would have been even more up in arms because it wouldn't even have been recognized as the book's story, which I'm going to get into room regards to Lynches. When I saw this movie when it ended, I was like, that's my kind of science fiction.

Yes, this is like in the year thirty thousand something. I'm like, yeah, set this stuff super far in the future. So all of this technology makes sense. So all of this time travel, you know, I mean not time travel, space travel, space travel through faster than the speed of light. With the Guild navigators, all this stuff, it all makes sense.

And just the weirdness of the locals. The production design of this film is just ridiculous. I was fifteen going on sixteen, like yees, Star Wars and that's a you know, that's kids stuff. This is like real sci fi. We're gonna have fun chat here in a moment about the kid stuff aspect.

I've always loved it. Un ironically, this has been one of my favorite movies. And I don't care what he thinks about it. I mean, I do I understand why he thinks the way he did about it. I had a lot of fun with it, and I'll just say this, I'm pretty sure.

I bought the paperback the movie tie in paperback, surely after it came out. I didn't read it until I was in my twenties though. I just always kind of was like, I know the reputation of this book, I don't feel like scratching my head the whole time. When I actually read the book, I was like, well, what was the Why were people so upset? Everything that's in the movie is in the book.

Yeah, of course a lot of stuff is left out. It's super super dense, and all the political stuff and all the you know, you don't need that in a movie. That's why books and movies are different. Now, he did create some stuff for the film as well, but I love that. I love the stuff that he created for them.

Oh yeah, I love it. I've always loved it and I always will. It's a good example of how the artist ultimately has a relationship with their audience. The artists can't necessarily have control over their relationship with their audience and the material once it's been released into the world. Artists do this all the time.

There are times where artists change their work, you know. George Lucas and artists have the right to do that. If David Lynch had the power enough to take this away from us, I think that he's still even though he disliked his experience, I don't. I still think he wouldn't have done that because he understands what it's like to make something and release it to the world and it belongs to somebody else too. It's moments like this where I think the powers that be that David Lynch is not George Lucas.

Imagine if David Lynch had the power to remove the original versions of Dune and change it completely, and like George Lucas did with the original trilogy, and then make the original version of Dune unavailable just because of his own feelings. I'm so glad that is not the case with Dune, because I love this movie too. He would never do that. And this is the one thing that I love about David Lynch, and I've read it in numerous interviews. I've heard it in numerous interviews.

Everything that happens to a film, and that includes meddling producers and meddling studios and or the MPAA in the case of Wild at Heart and other films that had to have things trimmed out. Everything that happens to a film, even when it's beyond his control. That was supposed to happen, and that is like his big thing. It was supposed to happen. It was supposed to be this way.

So he never does director's cuts, he never does commentaries. I'm thankful for that. Very rarely were even cut scenes available. They've been made available since in I mean, there's the whole missing parts of Twin Peaks that have been made available, but they've never been inserted into a Firewalk with Me, I should say, in Blue Velvet too, right, they've never been inserted into the film and releases a director's cut, because what came out is the director's cut exactly for better or for worse. And in the case of Doune, it's for worse.

In the case of Blue Velvet, I think it's for better. In the case of Eraserhead, I think it's for better, even though I would still love to see those things that were deleted. According to folks that I trust, there's a release of Wild or there's scenes from Wild at Heart that were released on a like a foreign DVD. People go in and create fan edits of these things, and one's been done for done because there was the extended TV version that was released that Lynch removed his name from. People have taken that stuff and the original Dune and put it together into a really cohesive movie.

I think his three hour original cut of the film probably would be a lot better than what we got, but we'll never get that. But yeah, I appreciate the fact, even when it's studio meddling, even when it's producers saying change this, change that cut, this cut, that it's how the movie ultimately was supposed to be, and then that's it. That's what you get. One of David Lynch's greatest strengths as an artist is understanding that reality. I don't think he would be bothered by people liking this because so either again, once it's out there, it's yours, it's not his inn and you can interpret erase your head any number of ways, it doesn't matter.

That's what you're supposed to do. That's why he doesn't do commentaries. As soon as you finish a film, people want you to talk about it, and the film is the talking. The film is the thing. So you go see the film.

That's the thing. It's a whole thing, and it's there and that is it. Your interpretation of Mulholland Drive is perfectly fine and valid. It might not be his, might not be what he intended. It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter because it's yours and how we perceive. You know, it's like looking at an abstract painting. If the artist were to say, no, that's not what it is to the audience member, the person looking at it, that's taking away that perceiver's right to interpret. And David Lynch has always understood that that people are going to perceive something, perhaps to diferently than him. Who was he to say to try and influence that.

I got to respect David Lynch for understanding that. Yeah, oh, absolutely be wrong again with the eraser Head, he's famously said, I have never read, never heard anybody's interpretation that matches mine. And that's totally fine. That is and that's exciting and it makes sense. This is part of the weirding wig.

My experience with Dune was similar to yours. I saw it in the theater, I fell in love with it right from the get go. And this is also somebody whose idea of science fiction was like, I'll take anything. I love the reruns of the Star Trek TV show that I watch. I loved Star Wars and Dune was just another cool thing that I could just get lost in.

And with Star Trek and with Star Wars, I would just get lost and looking at the backgrounds. I love that and Dune still to this day. I could just watch it with the sound off and just stare at the scenery and stare at the set design, and stare at the costumes. My god, those costumes are amazing. Yeah, the miniatures in the movie.

Miniatures, God, it's beautiful. Some of the special effects are wonky, but who cares. I love that too. I mean that's I'm also really into being able to see the hand if you can see the matte painting border, I he that's so cool. You can which you can at mini shots, yes, or the hand drawn nature of the I forget what they're called.

But the shields, yeah, that they wear, that they turn on, that you can get through slowly, so much more interesting than the recent movie. It's like these big, clunky, square animated things that they drew over the frames of the film. And I'm like, I love that. I love it too. Interesting.

Because we grew up in a certain era at least for me, I will always prefer being able to see the hand, to be able to look at the layers of something and think, Okay, I can identify the ways that this thing has been made. Even though I may not understand the labor involved, I can understand. I can kind of see what's happening and see how it was made. And I love miniatures. I love the special effects, and I really appreciate the set design in this movie and.

The prosthetic effects on the baron and oh my god, the giant alien creature and the quarium thing. Not alien, not alien, There are no aliens in the Dune world. You're right, you're right, You're right. My bad. The mutated creature, and that is the Guild Navigator.

I was just watching a video where someone was talking about how disturbing that scene is. Oh yeah, when I see that creature, it just takes me to. Erase her head. Oh totally. The tactile quality of it.

There's nothing otherworldly about it, even though it's something we would never see in the real world because of its texture and its organic shapes, and it feels like it exists even though it's a puppet. Yeah, I mean, but it does exist in that scale. It is a giant puppet with a vagina mouth that. We've talked to thank you with a syphiletic vagina mouth. Yeah yeah, and the spice cloud emanating from its mouth.

That's why it is the way it is. It's because it has consumed so much spice. It has mutated into that creature that used to be a person. It's so incredible. It's so incredible.

Those guys that wheel it in are going through that process basically, and that one guy's hit skull is cracked open and stuff is using out. There's ooze all over the floor when they're making the building and they're sweeping it up. I love that. I love those details, the plastic bag costumes, they're all in that old microphone that he uses as a translator. It's just like, the fucking thought of this stuffy It's amazing.

That scene in particular really was like, oh my god, what is going on with this? David Lynch has never shied away from giving us blemishes in all the various forms, right, Doune does this spectacularly. Nothing about this movie feels unrealistic, even though it's science fiction. So what I love about Star Wars. It feels like a lived in universe.

The machines are there's nothing clean about Star Wars, but in Dune everything is more polluted and more lived in. And I absolutely. Love that the fact that the Baron has this acne problem that is so difficult to watch these mutated people. I love that the reality of having to sweep up that fluid is like, that's so real, and David Lynch doesn't shy away from showing us that that's an opportunity to get weird, you know. But it's also that's exactly what it would be like if that thing came in and left the wood on the floor someone asked to clean that shit up.

Now. Dune also was one of my first experiences as a kid recognizing people in the film and seeing actors show up again, the main one being Paul Smith from Pop By the movie, you know, showing up as Rabond, the Beast Rabonds Raban. Yeah, I was starstruck because I recognized that as being Bluto. I was super excited to see him play this other character. I already knew who Sting was because my dad loved the police, and seeing that person in this film, I didn't know who Kyle McLoughlin was.

I didn't know who Brad Durroff was. I recognize Freddie Jones from The Elephant Man, and I was having these moments of It was one of my first experiences having moments of being like, oh, I know who that character actor is, as opposed to oh, I recognize that star. Well, you wouldn't have known Kyle maclaughlan. This was his first film. This is his first film.

Yeah, exactly, Brad Dorrif. Yeah, I don't know if I would have known him from anything prior. Might have seen One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, but I doubt I would have made that connection his character and that and the one and this. I didn't see One flew over the Cucko's Nest until later, and that's how I was like, Oh, cool, that's Brad durap Like because of. Doune, I know who Brad Duraf is.

Now. I didn't make the connection although I hadn't watched The Eraserhead by this point. But even after this, and even after watching Blue Velvet and racer Head Jack around the same time, I didn't know that that was all the same guy. Yeah, I didn't know that Jack Nance was playing all these two. I thought Eraser Ahead was a one off for everybody in it, exactly me too, finding out like, oh wait, I don't think I recognized it until I saw a barfly and I was like, that's a fucking guy for me.

Racer Head, Yeah, I think it was you that pointed out, well, he's also in these other movies, and like, how did I not notice that? Yeah? I spent so much time with these movies, I don't know who I would have recognized. And you know, Patrick Stewart's in it, I wouldn't have known him from anything at that point. I think it was one of his first roles.

Anyways, Jurgen proc now, No, hadn't seen dos Boots, so I don't really know who he was. You know, I kind of maybe recognized his face, but Dean Stockwell and Stockwell didn't know yet. Yeah, but then you start seeing them later on. It's the same thing, like with Brad Dorp, It's like, Okay, I recognize that guy, how do I recognize him? And often tracing it back to Dune, Dean Stockwell, especially Linda Hunt too.

I mean Linda Hunt I knew because I think I had seen the Year of Living Dangerously on TV. I saw that later than Dune, so it was like, oh my god, that's cool that lady's in this movie. I feel like Dune for me. At least, was the first experience of identifying character actors for being badass, like being memorable, interesting people that I look forward to seeing in other things. I hadn't had that real experience until that movie.

There's the Mind, the Killer, and there's the Little Death that brings totleliteration. Let's talk about the toys. I knew nothing about the toys back then. I have the picture book, and is the only merch that I purchased, because well, in the book itself, I didn't even know there were toys. I was completely taken in by the toys.

I didn't have many of them, but every time I saw them on the shelves, I was like I had a sandworm and I had Baron Harkonen. I probably would have been, you know, because I was beyond that stuff at that point. Yeah. I don't know where I would have encountered them, because I wouldn't have been going to toys or ut or anything for any good reason. But if for some reason I had and I had seen those, I probably would have been pulled in by some of that because they were pretty interesting.

They are really great. I mean, you know, I know that the studio wanted this to be the next Star Wars, so making toys make sense. But I mean, come on, these are disturbing characters. They're fascinating and they're fantastic, but they're also gross and beard and it's like having a toy of the Xenomorph. Covered in pustules.

And they should have done a crossover with operation with the Baron on the table and you could pop all his boils. Oh my god, that would have been amazing. I mean, the fact that they made an action figure of the Baron is really bold and cool. I'm sad I don't have it anymore. They used to have those little electronic devices that I think you could build as a kit, maybe for airplanes or something toys that would like spin around on a little thin wire.

He should have done something like that for him, because I love that scene when he's just going crazy and that after his stuff is unplugged and he's flying around like a maniac. They should have made a hard cone and acolyte with the heart plug that you could undo. And oh gosh, I wish I had this sense enough also to think about Halloween costumes based on these characters, and maybe this existed. I know there were lunch pails, but I don't recall there being costumes. The toys and the marketing to children of this film is utterly perplexing and incredibly interesting.

And there are a lot of these Dune collectibles, especially the toys that I kind of drool over on eBay every once in a while, but I haven't been in the bullet on in some of them. But and I was tempted by the Super seven Dune reaction figures, but didn't bite the bullet on those either. Well, I got the Baron and Paula trades nice. That's pretty much it. I didn't really have much interest in many of the other ones.

They were pretty basic. Well, the Baron is incredible, and the Beast Drabon action figure was amazing too, and the Sandworm was very cool too. It didn't make sense in scale with the action figures and also didn't really have any articulation except for one pivot point, and it's basically just. A sculpture for your desk. Cool stuff.

They even made a bunch of vehicles too. Yeah, the sand Roller, sand Tracker, sand Crawler, and the Spice Scout. They should have made a little David Lynch character. They should have. I mean he's in it.

Yeah, for the vehicle, there needs to be a David Lynch action figure. But that's a whole other conversation. There was one thing that really struck me as odd when I was watching the film the first time, and that had to do with the box the pain Long City puts his hand in, which has been repeated in the current version of the film. You know, it's a pivotal scene in the story. Suss out if this is the quizats headerack or not.

I was sitting there going, man, I'm having some serious deja vu. I have seen this before. Mmm. There is a scene in Phantasm that was taken from the book Doune that is exactly the same. Oh, my god, that's so.

That's right. The protagonist in that film puts his hand in a box, feels pain, and when he pulls his hand out there's nothing wrong. And they even say, you know, fear is the mind killer. My god, that's right. I will play both clips side by side for your enjoyment.

At this time because I have them, and I discussed that when I talked about phantasm on the very first episode of Wake Up Heavy. Put your hand in the box. What's in it? Just put your hand in the black box? Okay, but what's in it?

This thing really hurts. Don't fear, Michael, I can't get my hand out. Don't fear. You need bt my hand. Don't fear.

It was simpler reflection. Fear is the killer. That's what grandmother wants. You to learn. Boy, that really hurt.

It was all in your mind. Put your right hand in the box. What's in the box? Hey, stop, put your hand in the box. I must not fear it.

Fear's the mind in the killer's death, the total obliteration. Fear. I'm for me, for me. Enough, take your hand out. If the box would look at it, young human.

I love that connection. Dune does a lot for me as just a fan of visual spectacle story aside. Like I said before, I could just watch it with the sound off. It's delicious. It's a feast for the eyes.

The new Dune movies are good. I'm not gonna say that they're bad or they're less than They're really good and they're interesting, and I like what's happening with them, and maybe it's just nostalgia, but they don't give me the same visceral pleasure that Lynch's done. Does not even close really for me. They're fine, but if I'm going to watch Dune, I'm going back to this one. Yeah, me too.

This sort of says a lot about what we deem as quality, because the New Dune movies are very well made. They're great filmmaking, and they're visually spectacular, and the acting is all good and all that stuff. So what's good doesn't mean doesn't necessarily define resonance. Oh no, I mean yeah, they don't resonate with me at all. I mean they're kind of empty.

Part of that is, I think Dune's problem because so much is crammed into two hours and seventeen minutes, which is why we have so many inner monologues. You know, everybody's talking in their heads. But I love that aspect, just like I love the original Narration and Blade Runner. You know, you never had an issue with that. It's kind of funny if you sit there and start thinking about it.

Oh well, now he's talking in his head. Now she's talking in her head and that's like it works for me. And the way you can delineate each family, I mean the her Conan's and their gross grew living spaces that are basically just like cells, like there's no roofs on anything, and you know, their gross bodies and their gross habits and milking a cat to save your life and what the fuck does that mean? And yeah, you know the heart plug. All this weird stuff that is a lot of it is Lynch is doing.

I don't know that he's described as having these gross pestules in the book or not. I know he's big and that's why he has the flotation device. But some of the other stuff I think is invented by Lynch. As far as the acting, some of it's a little bit wonky, even from Kyle MacLachlan, a little stilted and stuff. Yeah, that's actually gonna be something that I want to talk about a little bit.

In regard to Blue Velvet and the way that David Lynch directs actors. I believe that Dune and Blue Velvet we really get to see this. I'm using air quotes quality of acting blossom and my wife and I talk about it all the time with David Lynch, it's almost like he's directing them to act badly at times in order to create tension, in order to create character definition, in order to create a kind of realism. I'm going to say mannered and not badly. This is where it gets funny because the mannerisms, or the stylistic choices of the way the mannerisms come out of the body of the actor.

It's almost like he's choosing at times the worst take in order to create a more believable situation. And we're going to talk about Blue Velvet in the second especially with the dad in the hospital, David Lynch was willing to choose a take that's uncomfortable, and that's that mannerisms that you're talking about, and also probably what the actor may not have been wanting the director to choose. Sometimes the acting comes off as using air quotes again as bad acting. But David Lynch is choosing curious what you think is bad acting, because I don't pull that out of any of the later films. Well, bad is fluid.

We're going to talk about that in a little bit. And I believe he starts to direct actors in this way in Dune and especially in Blue Velvet, where other directors would shy away from allowing awkwardness, allowing odd or unrealistic or unexpected reactions. And this is where some directors might deem an actor's choice as being bad or not up to par, whereas David Lynch is saying, yes, that's exactly right for this, and that's what I'm talking about. You know, I feel like some. Directors are afraid of that awkwardness, whereas David Lynch is not.

They might even deem it as bad acting. All right, I want to see some examples because I'm having a hard time see some examples. I'm serious, I don't know what you're getting at. I need to see what you're talking about here. It's hard to identify particular examples because they happen a lot in David Lynch's movies.

There's a willingness to let the actor be more vulnerable than they would normally be, is the best way to describe it, or let there. Be an uncomfortable moment when another. Director would avoid it because of a perception of what good acting should be or believability should be. And I feel like David Lynch fearlessly lets us see actors be vulnerable, or be awkward, or be weird or slightly stilted or unnatural in the situation when other directors wouldn't let us have that. Yeah, I've mentioned it before, but the moment when we see the father in the hospital at the beginning of Blue Velvet and he's sort of sputtering awkwardly, a different director would have chosen a different take.

I've never looked at that scene that way. And the guy's had a stroke so he can't talk. I mean, there's this awkwardness to it. Well, it's uncomfortable, but there's tons of uncomfortable scenes in David Lynch films, I mean, and that's what in Hallmark. Yeah, but I don't see that as like, oh, that was a bad take, let's use that one because it's weird.

I don't know. Let me be clear here, David Lynch doesn't think it's weird. David Lynch thinks that it's reaching a certain kind of performance, and that's what makes him. Such a powerful director. Other directors might say that was stilto, that was awkward, that was weird, but David Lynch sees through all of that and says, this is the moment that is the most vulnerable and allows that to be in there.

I mean the woman at the beginning of The Straight Stories a great example of this. Everything about her performance is awkward. There are moments like that throughout all of David Lynch's films. These are things that other directors looking for the perfect take, the quote unquote perfect take, would probably not choose that performance, or maybe even not choose that actor. I'm going to take the other side and say he's directed them to perform that way.

I mean, I've seen tons of clips of him instructing people on how to say a line. I'm going to go and say this isn't maybe an accident, not that he wouldn't use accidents, because I'm not going to argue that point at all, but I'm going to say I think that that actor laying in that bed with thing on his head gave the performance that David Lynch wanted. And I completely agree, not that it was an accident, though, not that it was like oh, quote. Unquote bad takes are never accidents because the director is asking them to do it a particular way. It works or it doesn't work, and I think David Lynch just has the wherewithal and the foresight enough to be like, this performance that's awkward or stilted or strange or different is exactly what I'm looking for and that's what it should be, and whereas other directors would not choose that.

And that's what I'm talking about, this sort of determination of quality acting that David Lynch sets aside for his vision, and other directors fall victim to that. I think that's what makes David Lynne such a great director, having the vision for a particular performance that is unexpected. All Right, I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm agreeing with you, I know, I'm just we're saying the same thing. Actually, I think so too soon.

Spectacular love it. I don't even have any real complaints about the film or anything that I wish it did differently. It's a spectacular movie. I don't want it any different. And I don't even watch the other versions because I prefer this was the one I saw in the theater and I fell in love with it that day.

People have tried to push like there's a fan at it that is supposed to be really good, and I'm like, I really don't care. Yeah, because for better or for worse. This is the film that got released. That's someone I'm gonna watch, and it's a kids movie. I mean, it's PG.

Thirteen. So I can ask you why you consider? Do you a disappointment? I sold out? It was a slow dying the death and a terrible, terrible experience.

What kind of beird do you like? Heine Can fuck that shit? Perhaps blue ribbon, moving on the blue velvet, then Heineken fuck that shit? Perhaps blue ribbon. I mean, how many times did we say that to each other when hanging out in our youth?

Well, it wasn't my youth. I was already an adult by them, early twenties, going to parties, You and I hanging out, I think we said that to each other hundreds of times or to other people. Yeah, So I could have gone to see this in the theater, and I know I considered it, And why I didn't, I don't know to this day. It came out in I think late summer of eighty six and I was seventeen. I could go see you rated our movies by myself.

My sister went and saw with a friend of hers and was really like, oh my gosh, you know, this is kind of a scary movie mark, And I don't know, I don't know why I didn't go see it, because I'm pretty sure I had at least attempted Eraserhead by that summer. That was when I was working at the Wicker factory here in town and talking to that guy that worked in the warehouse about David Lynch, and so it was definitely on my mind. So I didn't get a chance to check it out until it came out a year later at the earliest on video. Okay, remember, folks, we're old. So stuff took forever to get released.

The anticipation, the waiting for it to be released on video, if you missed the movie in the theater, that year of waiting was so intense. Yeah, I mean, you might have a re release in the theater if it was a big movie, something like Blue Velvet is most likely not going to get a re release six months later or anything like that. You know, it was a big deal. It was like, oh, David Lynch is back to doing his own stuff here, this is a cousin to Eraserhead. A lot of people were kind of describing it as and we've got this dark, very dark story, very darkly sexual story.

I rented it when it came out and almost had the same experience I had the first time watching Eraserhead. I didn't make it all the way through, and that had nothing to do though with the movie. This time, it wasn't like, you know, I'm uncomfortable with this, I don't know what I'm watching. It's weird. It's given me creepy feelings, which is what happened with the Eraserhead.

I think I just fell asleep. It was the summer. I was home alone, and I put it on and laid down on the couch and fell asleep, and then just never finish it. I had to take it back, you know, in the next day or then within the next day or two at least to the video store. Didn't get a chance to finish it.

But it's stuck something about it. Stuck. Saw enough of it to kind of feel those connections with the eraser Head. And then when I finally did watch it, you know, I was completely taken with it. And the things that were intriguing for me were those connections with the eraser Head and motifs like exploding light bulbs.

You know, why why is that in both of these films? Why is this stuff in both of these films, And that's when I was like, Oh, this guy, this director really has things that he likes. He likes shooting stuff the same way he likes telling these weird stories, having people do weird things. The Chicken Walk one example, the other chicken work. What's that that's kind of interesting?

One thing that always stood out in my mind when he's walking down the streets and there's a guy that has taken his dog out for a walker to go potty or something, and they're just they look like they're frozen in the street, and it is always intrigued me. The same with the man in yellow at the end of the film in Dorothy's apartment when he's been shot and he's just standing there. It's so unnerving and he's still alive. So these are all examples of the kind of directorial choices that I'm talking about. No other director would say that's what needs to happen here, because that seems unnatural to the normal minded.

Well yeah, Hollywood film director Lynch's ability to give us these moments that are like, what the hell is going on? Why is that person saying that? In that way it allows us to perceive more reality in this oddball situation. That's what surrealism is. Super reality.

Huh, hyper reality. Yet, and this is the thing what David Lynch accomplishes as a surrealist that other surrealists don't accomplish as well, is that with Blue Velvet, especially more so than Eraserhead. Even though Eraserhead's environment is very believable, the industrial the apartments and the darkness and all that stuff. With Blue Velvet especially, he starts to open the doors of what's behind the scenes, of suburbia, of normal people don't take what you see in front of you for being what it really is. Well, that's clear from the first scene, in the first shots of the film.

You are taken on this bucolic journey down a Middle American street and then you go underneath the surface to where the roaches live. I mean, he spells it out for you at the beginning of the movie, and the cop covering it up, it's further solidifying. Oh, you don't need to worry about this. The cop covering it up, not covering up, but like telling Kyle McLoughlin to not worry about it. I've got this taken care of kids.

You just go on your way regarding the oh yeah, that type of friendly I've got this, you don't worry about it. The friendly nudge toward avoidance. I can't help but think about on a daily basis, and partly because of David Lynch's ability to pull back that curtain a little bit and say, you know what, maybe what you're seeing isn't exactly the truth. I love this film, but it's one of his films that I have a hard time rewatching. It gets super intense, it's sexually violent.

There is a lot of sexual violence in this film, and it is disturbing, and it's supposed to be disturbing. I mean, that's kind of the point I oh god. I mean I had it on a laser disc, so god knows how many times I watched it. I know that after renting it that first time, I rented it on VHS a number of times, which is the most horrible way to watch this film. It's widescreen and you lose so much of that imagery when you watch it that way.

But what option did we have at that point? So I saw it a ton, even to the point where I thought there were some stylistic choices in the movie, and when I finally saw it on laser disc, I was like, Oh, that was just because it was pan and scam. There were these pans in the film that I thought were directorial choices, and I'm like, oh, that was just them transitioning from one scene to another and getting the stuff into frame, and so it kind of was like, oh, well, that's weird. I thought that was a style choice and it absolutely was not. We're of the era where we know, like, for me, what was it in late nineties when I first discovered pan and scan as not being a stylistic choice, being something that we were path to endure watching this movie on television and then suddenly realizing that that's what they're doing.

That was a huge revelation for me. Yeah, I discovered that much earlier and it always irritated me. And that's why I didn't buy stuff on video because I want the widescreen edition of this. You know, that became apparent to me around this same time, you know, when I got a laser disc and I was like, oh, Lynch and Scorsese and Kubrick, they meant you to see it this way, not this way. As far as Blue Velvet goes, I don't really have a problem watching it these days, I don't watch it a lot, but I'm kind of thinking that the next time.

And I've been holding off on this because of the subject matter. I keep telling Cleo, we've got a lot of David Lynch we need to watch, especially when he died back in January. We haven't watched most of it. We've watched Eraserhead, we've watched Dune, and we've work on our way through Twin Peaks, the original run of Twin Peaks. She's now my age.

When I first saw well, actually I hadn't seen it yet. Yeah, this will be kind of a rough watch with a young lady, so I'm not pushing it real fast. But you know, I mean everything Lost Highway, Mulhollan Drive, they're all darkly sexual. So fire Walk with Me is my Barkley sexual a human part of life that's really uncomfortable. And he got criticized for this, in particular by Roger Ebert, who thought that he was exploiting Isabella Rossolini in this you know, which she just completely poo poos and was you know, I'm nobody forced me to do anything.

I wasn't willing to do, and we'll get into that later. But yeah, I mean, I don't know how many times I've seen Blue Velvet, that ride of going through this dark, dark world with this character Colin MacLaughlin that you can relate to Jeffrey Beaumont. I think, yeah, okay, you know, I get it. This guy's uh, he's supposed to be the good guy, but is he really a good guy? He was kind of a bad guy too, and he's doing the same thing, you know, just like Frank says, you're like me in the film, and you're like, oh, yeah, you know, we all have these light and dark aspects.

I identified a lot with Coyle mcgl Yeah. I identified a lot with col M maglow because sometimes my curiosity, especially as a twenty something, would get me into problematic situations. You might begin that curious journey with good or excited intentions. The stupidity of youth. It's so honestly portrayed here.

And what's also interesting about this is how untethered it is for both he and why am I forgetting her name or a Durn Laura Durn's character. This is also something that's interesting to me too, is these kids' kids, these children basically who are driven to explore these dark things and Kyle or Jeffrey goes off the rails with this the danger right around the corner. They don't know enough yet they think they do. This problem of privileges was really what sticks with me. Let's just do this, Let's just find out.

How bad can it be? Yeah? The parents being so dismissive. That is what's so disturbing about this film is that where are the tethers? Are there?

Really in life? They tell Jeffrey not to go up to Lincoln, and he does. They're looking out for him and whatever. The old lady she says, Oh, I wouldn't go there, don't go to Lincoln. There's that sting when they show the street sign for Lincoln.

He's going against the grain. He is drawn towards the darkness, just like Frank Booth obviously was. It's spelled out like I just said that line. You know, you're like me. Yeah, We've talked about deleted scenes, and I'm glad that most of these scenes are deleted.

I think this is again a good example of Lynch self editing. Where we see Jeffrey before he goes back home. We have a couple of scenes with him. Megan Malali is his girlfriend, and at one point he is watching a guy and a girl make out and it's turning rough. You're given the implication that he is getting ready to date rape this girl, and Jeffrey is watching intently while this happens, and then something stops this guy from doing it, And I don't think it's Jeffrey.

To me, that's like too early of a tell of his dark side, and I'm glad it's not in there. That is the character. I mean, that's obviously the way this character is written. That's the point of him. Of Jeffrey, he is writing both lines of this world, the light in the dark, much more so than Laura Durn's character, whose name I can't even remember at the moment.

Laura Durn's character is named Sandy. He does the same stuff to Dorothy that Frank does to Dorothy at her behest. But still you get that punctuated throughout the film maybe kind of makes you look at yourself while you're watching it, absolutely as it should. Is this stuff titillating to me? Or is it disturbing?

I mean it's both right. It's a real powerful commentary on the male drive to be interested in this type of thing, to want to take this kind of imagery in as a fantasy. It allows us to as men, ideally question why we're interested in or turned on by something is what it should be doing. And I think that's the point that Ebert missed. I agree, this is a condemnation of this stuff.

This is not a glorification of the abuse that this woman is receiving. Isabella Russellini substantiates that by saying, you know, I'm acting in this role. This is what the purpose of this role is. Right, Lynch knew what he was doing. If you were to just watch it as exploitation.

Cinema, then you you're going to be misinterpreting what's really going on. And again Lynch would have to be a okay with that. The misinterpretation is and he's not spelling it out directly exactly. Frank Booth is an awful person, but he's also a charismatic character, so that appeal for bad guys in films muddies the water. As a viewer, I think it's pretty clear that this is an awful, evil person and what he's doing to this woman is horrible.

Has kidnapped her kid and husband, and is her husband even alive at this point? Nobody knows who knows what kind of relationship she had with her husband. I mean, she could be a woman that has suffered a history of abuse from her dad and her family members to her husband, and it's all she knows. We don't know any of that. There's no way to tell why she seems to enjoy this violence towards her.

I mean, she is a masochistic character. A lot of Ebert's reaction to lynch films just kind of always makes me, man, you really missed the fucking point of this. Yeah, I know she lives in an apartment building that is real close to your house. It's also close to the field where you found the year. It's a strange world, isn't it.

You talked about Frank's charisma. I think this is another success in this movie on David Lynch's part, which is question the theatricality of evil. That Dean Stockwell lip syncing scene does a similar thing that the scene in Boogie Nights with Alfred Molina. They're there for the drug deal and the kid is popping the popper caps things and it's building this tension the theatricality of the artificial welcoming arms of evil. Oh this is fine, Oh this is interesting.

But then at the same time, everything about it is menacing just slightly beneath the surface. That to me is done so so artfully here. And even though there's a theatrical slightly unbelievable aspect to some of this, it's so real. It is so real, the tension just beneath the surface. I've been in situations where.

This could go very badly, but everything about this seems like it should be fine, but something could happen at any moment, and that is so artfully done here. Well, that whole set up, those women and that man sitting on the couch in the background, God, the clown paraphernalia that's around, the colors, that salmon that's used in that. It's all off putting and uncomfortable, and you are on edge during that. And then when it's repeated later on, when they're at the refinery or whatever, when they've taken Jeffrey out to basically beat the shit out of them, and he puts the tape back on, and then that girl gets up on top of the car and is dancing. You're like, what the fuck is going on here?

Not out of the realm of possibilities. I mean, these are all things that could happen at some methed out drug party that you stumbled upon. If you've ever lived in a bad neighborhood. Yeah, this weirdness is totally believable. It's so artfully done.

And really uncomfortable and Frank's Crony's, Jack Nansen, Brad Dorith again and their little weird eccentricities and ticks. It's completely off putting and uncomfortable. And that feeling that I got from a racer head, you know, that made me stop it halfway through the first time. And it's like, oh, but I'm really at this point now that I'm you know, eighteen or whatever, I can live with this and I can enjoy it. The uncomfortableness really heightens the experience.

Now, before it just made me want to stop watching it, but now I'm like, oh, yeah, let's see what's next. It's an absolutely terrifying movie. Oh yeah, And it's an important commentary on what's beneath the surface of privilege. What's beneath the surface of suburbia, what's beneath the surface of men? And what's in their hearts.

Jeffrey could be another Frank Booth. He has that aspect to him. Is he going to choose to walk into the arms of light or darkness? I don't know. If you're a detective, Bernard, it's for me to know on you to find out.

The scene that Ebert had the problem with was when Isabella Rossellini ends up at Jeffrey's house. Is it Jeffrey's house or her house? I think it's her house. She's walking naked on the front lawn. So interesting to find out years later that this was an experience that Lynch had as a kid, actually happened to David Lynch when he was a Yeah, and horror him, Yeah, scarred him.

And tells this story in The Art Life, which is a wonderful documentary that the essential viewing David Lynch a little kid, he and his brother encountered a naked woman who had obviously been attacked in some way or another, who was confused and scared and crying. I mean, if this happened to me as a kid, I can only imagine how traumatizing that would have been. Scarring. That's why he used that scene and not that you even really need that context to feel the way that you really should about what's going on in the film. But it does sort of help, like, oh, yeah, this is not salacious.

This woman is in danger. She went to a safe place or what she thought was a safe place to get finally get the help that she really needs. She gets it, she ends up okay by the end of the film. Maybe maybe, Yeah. That's part of what makes this such powerful storytelling is that most of us have had some sort of experience that was shocking within the context of normalcy.

One an achievement that he's able to make here. I like all of David Lynch's movies, but he doesn't quite accomplish this as well, even in Twin Peaks for a season of Twin Peaks and in fire Walk with Me and Mulholland Drive, he's getting there that it enters into a bit more of a surreal space. This movie carries with it a kind of grit and terror that is believable. Yeah, this is much more grounded in reality than the later examples like you just mentioned. I mean, Twin Peaks gets out there with the whole Black Lodge and all that stuff, but there is still that human, very human idea of a young woman being brutally raped and traumatized and killed and killed.

Yes, when you start really thinking about each film, like Man, this is about what women go through in Hollywood, in the case of Moholand Drive, in regular life, in like Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks, it's sad and disturbing. Sometimes it's right across the street from you. Yeah, that is the terror that we live with. And David Lynch, I think, is one of the directors that really is able to articulate that that should do something to help us get away from this type of behavior. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to do that.

That's what tales should do for us. The storytelling should provide us with lessons of how to not be just like Grim's fairy tales and folklore, and we're supposed to learn from all this. That's the part that I struggle with the most, is the human inability to learn from the tales we tell each other. So have you watched the deleted scenes from Blue Velvet? I still have not.

Oh man, it's really interesting and again I I'm glad they're not in the film. There are quite a few. So on the latest blu ray editions. You will get the deleted scenes, which is again unusual for Lynch, but he did finally make them available. They change things.

Both sets of parents and the deleted scenes take on these negative connotations, like his mom is a bitch in the deleted scenes, and you don't get that in the scenes that are now in the film proper, and it really skews the movie a different way, like she is not a pleasant person interesting, and then even her parents like her mom too. There's a scene, a dinner scene and I want to say that Laura Dern's boyfriend that she's currently seen that she basically leaves for Jeffrey. They're all there at the table and it's just a weird dynamic. Again, it changes the tone of the film. And then there's some extra stuff like when they go to meet up with the Dean Stockwell character of his places above a bar, which you see that's the fuck that shit paths through ribbon before they walk in.

But then there is a scene in the bar that is just one of those kind of weird for weird sake scenes that's completely unnecessary. It doesn't really add anything to the story except to say these guys are awful or whatever. Then there are scenes at the Slow Club that are cut. There's like a guy performing with some dogs on stage for some reason, and again, you know, weird for weird sake, doesn't really do anything to propel the story along. So it makes sense that they're gone.

The scene with Jeffrey that I talked about earlier, and then the scenes with the parents really skew the movie in a more negative way that I think is better that they're gone. You get to discover Jeffrey's issues a little more slowly, which I think benefits the film. And then also not having everybody be so na negative clouds this already dark movie. That would also be too much, Yeah, too much on the surface in front of you, rather than right underneath the facade, which is what this movie's all about. Like what's been the surface?

Wow? Okay, wise choice in Lynch taking that stuff out. Yeah, we're supposed to feel weird, but we're not supposed to know exactly why until a certain point. It would have played the cards a little too soon if those scenes had been in there. They're interesting to watch.

I feel so different about his mom, and even the goofy Ant I think is more caustic in them. It really changes the whole dynamic of the movie, the feel that you get just from those scenes, And I'm like, I'm glad they're not in there. I don't want his mom to be a negative impact on him, you know, you use the word dismissive, and they're just sort of there, which works to me better. For me, Even though they're there, I still have this feeling of unease with them. The fact that that's not something I can articulate is much better.

If those scenes were left in the film, I'd be able to say, oh, well, that's why, right. That would have worked against the building up of dread that we get as audience members. That would have just been like, Okay, everything's messed up. Then, okay, it's not hidden, it's on the surface. Everybody's this way here.

Yeah okay, well yeah great. That's why the film fire Walk with Me works better as something that you watch after watching the first season of Twin Peaks. Yeah, that's I know that. Maybe it wasn't planned. I mean, I don't know.

Maybe it wasn't planned. Maybe it was planned. He just wanted to tell more of Laura's story, and the only thing you could do was to prequel it, and I'm glad that the prequel came out after that. Wasn't stuff that was like supposed to be done first. It came later, just as the movie did.

I'm glad it worked out that way. And for anybody listening to this where you haven't dove into Twin Peaks territory, do approach it by watching the first two seasons first, and. Then watch the movie fire Walk with me. Yeah, don't do chronological. Don't do chronological, chronological, chrondological.

There's a blast from the past for you folks. No, a little throwback. Now, are we gonna do this in chronological order? I'm going to chrogeological order or whatever that word is. Chrondological?

Well, this is good. I'm glad we talked about eighties Lynch and worked our way through this and ultimately allowed ourselves to brilliantly interpret these hard to interpret things. None of the films from the eighties really need interpretation. They are pretty straightforward. That is so true.

The difficult of interpreting Lynch's work doesn't really start until the nineties. Then it gets a little bit more difficult. I want to say this because it always made me laugh the obviously fake robin at the end of the movie. Yeah, and I always thought that was kind of a goof and I have sent Actually, I think it was the passing of Lynch that brought this up. Where there is no sarcasm in David Lynch's repertoire.

Absolutely, that is supposed to be, yep, the example of a better world. It's not done tongue in cheek. That robin at the end of that film, obviously fake bird eating that bug is a sign of good things. Yep. And I love knowing that because I always took it as well, Yes, here's a robin, but it's obviously fake and ha ha ha.

Yeah, no, he's not doing that. He's not nudging and winking at you. This is supposed to be a sign of things are going to be better. There's no simile in David Lynch's work. Yeah.

The metaphor is to be read straight for everything that happens, every turn, every choice, every line an actor delivers. It might seem like sarcasm, it might seem like tongue in cheek. The metaphors are great metaphors, and sometimes they are just as they are. Things are just as they are. The dark is the dark and the light is the light exactly.

The robotic bird is the robotic bird. I did get a chance to finally see this on the big screen. Was so delighted when I was in England and got to go to that David Lynch fest at the Scala. They showed The Alphabet, the Grandmother, eras her Head, and blue Velvet all in one fell swoop and I was so proud of myself. I'm like, oh, I've seen all of his films on film in the theater.

Now. I haven't seen everything since then on the big screen, but stuck with a lot of it for a good while there. And obviously I didn't know about many of the other short films. I think The Alphabet and The Grandmother were the only ones I was familiar with at that time, so I kind of was like, oh, I'd seen them all. Owning that short Films DVD, I realized, Oh no, there was a lot of other stuff that I have not seen, not that any of that was really shown theatrically anyway.

I think the last spelm I saw of his in the theater was Lost Highway. Yeah, I think for me too, because I did not see the holand Drive in the theater, and I regret that. And I don't know that there was any opportunity to see Inland Empire in the theater here. Not here, There was in Los Angeles, so I remember seeing posters of it down there, and I will say, seeing a gigantic billboard sized poster Inland Empire, that beautiful font. That he uses for that, it gave me such joy.

But I did not see it in the theater. When I finally watched it on home viewing, I was kind of glad I didn't go see it in the theater. I don't know how that information would have translated so well to the big screen being shot mostly on video. We'll talk about that at some point. We certainly will.

Well next time we talk. I may have gotten myself an original L JN. Baron Harkonen through eBay. Depends on how anxious I get between now and then, so I love to think about it more. I know that is one thing I hate about the New Dune films.

They say har coonin incorrectly. I know Harkin, and I'm like, yeah, is that the right way? Now? From what I understand, Frank Herbert was on set during the making of David Lynch's Dune, and he said it was harconin. I don't know why they're saying it that way.

I don't like it. I don't like it. And uh, we didn't talk about Alicia Whitt in Dune, who I absolutely love. Oh yeah, every time she shows up in a movie, I think of Doune. I actually met her once.

I didn't realize I. Met her once. A friend of a friend of a friend was talking to her. She was there and at some club in Los Angeles, and she was very nice. She's a good actor.

She is. She's good in that, she's good in her appearances and Twin Peaks, which we'll talk about in Twin Peaks the Return, and she's fantastic and long legs. Long legs, Oh my gosh, what a performance in that. I don't think she's gotten any accolades for that. She should have.

That was incredible. Yeah, someday she got accolades from viewers. But no one's getting awards for that movie. Shame. Really, it's a good one.

Well, all right, Mark, until we meet again, have fun, stay quote unquote weird, and keep collecting. I will, all right, I'll keep doing all three of those things, Kiddo, something. Aprin and I kissed the name. That you saw. And darling there.

Read again, Write from the Star, Love Leader, straight. From your hard. A menu, every lid. And our kissen name that you saw. And land there.

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Yeah fuck that ship, pas Foo ribbon