Let ambiguity and nihilism reign supreme!
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Let ambiguity and nihilism reign supreme!
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I'm watching the new Twin Peaks now. But with 18 55-minute episodes, it's a lot to watch and I hope I can cancel my Amazon-Showtime free trial in time. 7 days to watch 18 hours. Julie Muncy, a Wired writer, has a piece in Polygon about intentionally crude effects and new technology used in the series. Frankly, I think the straightforward noir-soap scenes, are better and more important than any of the surreal effects, though they are necessary Lynchian embroidery, of course.
Watched John Krasinski's new monster movie A Quiet Place today. Miraculously simple and effective - the word-of-mouth hype I've been hearing was justified.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 04-25-2018 at 08:49 AM.
A little research can't hurt since we're talking about the continuation of something that began 25 years ago."An academic definition of Lynchian might be that the term 'refers to a particular kind of irony where the very macabre and he very mundane combine in such a way as to reveal the former's perpetual containment within the latter.' But like postmodern or pornographic, Lynchian is one of those Potter Stewart-type words that's definable only ostensively --i.e., we know it when we see it. Ted Bundy wasn't particularly Lynchian, but good old Jeffrey Dahmer, with his victim's various anatomies neatly separated and stored in his fridge alongside his chocolate milk and Shedd Spread, was thoroughly Lynchian. . ."
-from "David Lynch Keeps His Head," in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace, 1997, which I thought it might be time to get out and read again.
By the way ~ Kazuo Miyagawa
Floating Weeds
A retrospective is being held of the cinematography of Kazuo Miyagawa (1908-1999), whose contribution to the world's lensing is unbelievably important, it turns out (Ozu, Mizoguchi, Kurosawa, Ichikawa). It's at MoMA and the Japan Society in New York. See this MoMA announcement:
https://www.moma.org/calendar/film/4955?locale=en
I finished TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN (2017). Learned a word. Tulpa. http://twinpeaks.wikia.com/wiki/Tulpa
This is pivotal for the whole plot of Dale Cooper's multiple personalities. The series could be calledTulpa-ing. More than the "irony" of the "macabre and the mundane" the focus seems to be on the spiritual and the paranormal.
Ending of Twin Peaks: The Return explained.
Photo: Suzanne Tenner/Showtime [Vulture] Sheryl Lee and Kyle MacLaughlan in TPR, E.18
Even somebody like me who doesn't look for "meanings" of things might need help following "The Return," and that's why I looked up "tulpa," which seems like a key concept in the plot concerning multiple characters, most notably Dale Cooper and and his new avatars all played by Kyle MacLaughlan. But, it turns out, there are multiple other "tulpas," which are defined on that website as "conjured duplicates of individuals." They appear in Dale's case to be more like messed up or garbled clones.
You will find a Vulture piece by Devon Ivie based on a book by Mark Frost called Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier, itself a sequel to the Times bestselling Secret History of Twin Peaks. I think she (Ms. Ivie) notes that the newly reborn Cooper, when he picks up who he thinks is the 25-years-older Laura in Odyssa (Texas, though it's left vague), goes over some kind of space-time-spirit zone at a certain mileage point, which may be where things go wrong with finding Laura's mother in Twin Peaks.
Cinemabon and others seeking the "meaning" of all or parts of Twin Peaks: The Return might be helped by consulting a fan or reference website called Twin Peaks wiki.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 04-28-2018 at 07:27 PM.
These conjured duplicates in Lynch's films at least since (and perhaps most memorably in) Lost Highway partake of very old traditions of character splitting, alter egos, and doppelgängers (a term made famous in the 19th century and still widely used). Stevenson's "Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1886) is a key work in this tradition. In cinema, the convention goes back to Melies, who doubled himself 9 times for "One-Man Band" (1900).Originally Posted by Chris Knipp
Yes, perhaps ambiguity is right. But perhaps fragmentation and even incompleteness are words that come closer to characterizing the series as a piece of narrative. I don't think the word "nihilism" applies here. In Lynch's diegesis, there are characters who are invariably sympathetic and guided by the desire to do good. There is a clear "good side" to root for and a degree of optimism that they may prevail.
I was thinking the same. It occurred to me that surrealism is not the art of nihilism. There is hope in it and in Lynch's world.
Nihilistic?
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 05-05-2018 at 06:53 PM.
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