1175 Inland Empire

[Michael]

OTTH won't destroy the magic at all. Just give it another shot. It may just surprise you to see how conventional Lynch can be when he wants to. I'm glad it was cut, but it has its moments. I love the very last shot, for example. I must get a screen capture of it to put on my desktop. Btw, how did you get through it fifteen times? I'm always tired after it. It's like waking up from the strangest dream or finishing a great red. You have to stay a minute and reorient yourself.

15 times. Yes, I end up tired but also rejunevated at the same time after each trip. There hasn't been anything good playing at theaters in months and IE keeps the fire of my faith lit in todays cinema so I keep going back wandering through IE. Why not? It's big, gorgeous...the culmination of everything I love about cinema and beyond. And it keeps getting better. Not meaning to sound melodramatic but if there is one director whose death would destroy me completely, David Lynch would be the one.

[jorencain]

Has this been posted yet? Michael, and anyone else, you may enjoy this article. I think it's a great help at attempting to read the film, without giving any definitive reading.

[Michael]

Very interesting essay, jorencain. Thanks for posting that. I like how he connects IE to Lynch's other films from The Grandmother to Mulholland Dr.

For me, all of his films branch off backwards from IE. It's a bastian of who Lynch is and what he does. He's at the top of his game as much as Fellini was with 8 1/2, it's a solid gold best-of greatest hits.

[John Cope]

Just wanted to return for a moment to the soundtrack Jean-Luc spoke of earlier. I recently picked it up and I can't recommend it highly enough; it really rejuvenated my own interest in the film. I've only seen IE twice and had problems with it both times. I saw it in first run release and was baffled by it (and I say that as a devoted Lynch fan of close to twenty years) and ultimately left ambivalent. When I watched it again on video a few months back I felt a distinct chill toward it which was absolutely not what I expected. Having said that I automatically just assumed that this was going to be one of those particularly difficult films I'd have to resign myself to struggling with and I set it aside for the time being.

The soundtrack though gave me what the film so far has not--a very direct, almost palpable experience which I could assess or in some sense weigh out. For me, that was needed I think. Anyway, as J-L mentioned there's a terrific wide range of cuts on the soundtrack and I would go so far as to say it's the very best of the collage albums Lynch has been producing since Lost Highway. It all holds together very well with Little Eva balanced out against some awesome Lynch drones. I could listen to this all day and probably will. What's best about it though is that it's made me interested in returning to the movie far earlier than I had anticipated.

[depositio]

OTTH won't destroy the magic at all. Just give it another shot. It may just surprise you to see how conventional Lynch can be when he wants to. I'm glad it was cut, but it has its moments. I love the very last shot, for example. I must get a screen capture of it to put on my desktop. Btw, how did you get through it fifteen times? I'm always tired after it. It's like waking up from the strangest dream or finishing a great red. You have to stay a minute and reorient yourself.

I agree that OTTH presents facets of IE in a more conventional register. There is a lengthy monologue in OTTH which outstrips even the one other moment in Lynch's work after the "In heaven" number in Eraserhead that I consider noteworthy on a dramatic (rather than purely formal or stylistic) plane: Sissy Spacek in The Straight Story.

[Anonymous]

I've wandered into INLAND EMPIRE at least 15 times already and every time it felt less "too long" and less "frustrating". Every flaw becomes flawless. Everything in the film seems to congeal more and more every trip. Even it makes more sense that Laura Dern calls the bunnies. Or her receiving the recorded applause in the blinding light. Whether I've submitted to the gorgeous madness of the film, perceiving the whole empire as a normal world now... I don't know. INLAND EMPIRE is thoroughly a masterpiece, the greatest thing to ever come out of cinema in ten or twenty years. Maybe ever.

I love you! (Interestingly, over these 19 pages, you have gone through a bit of a cycle with this film - initially being devastated (in a good way) by it, then having doubts about it's length and it's stature next to MD, and now....

I have an inkling that some of the movie deals with the "process" an actor goes through in taking on a role and performing it, but I'm sure that doesn't provide a tidy answer for everything in the film. Honestly, I have no idea what's going on in the film and I'm more than happy to keep it that way. Even in grad school for film studies, I resisted the "interpretation" of films. Now--especially when I'm not required to perform interpretation in any way, shape, or form (except for the rare instance of reviewing something)--I appreciate being able just to accept a film as it gives itself to me.

Yeah. Just let it wash over you like a tidal wave. I learned to do this with Satyricon, LOL!

I'm very much enjoying reading this whole thread, particularly to see if opinions have changed for the better, or for the worse.

[Cde.]

This film is a total masterpiece. I find it to be less of a brain-frying 'mind-fuck' and more of a deep and endlessly inviting mystery. Certainly it's quite chilly at times, but there's a warm human core at its center, even if its buried behind endless holes and threads that lead to nowhere.

I think it supports several different interpretations at the same time, all contradicting each other. All of them are true, all of them are false, and following any individual idea to far only furthers your confusion. There is no absolute truth in here, only a mess of loose ends and contradictions. Just like in life. IE is post-modernity that helps bring us closer to the truths of life, rather than obscuring them.

[Nothing]

I don't really see how Inland Empire can be considered a 'golden greatest hits' when the rough DV imagery is so lacking in the golden artistry of his earlier work. And then there is the randomness of it, the rambling, indulgent way it was made. Whilst films such as Fire Walk With Me or Lost Highway may seem incoherent at first glance, there is a fully considered structure and intent behind it all. It seems that, following the success of the actually quite poor Mulholland Drive (the last 3rd of which came about independently from the rest), Lynch felt encouraged to leave more up to 'fate' and 'chance'. Personally, I'd rather see an artist in full control of their material. Yes, the Nina Simone finale is cool.

[MyNameCriterionForum]

I don't really see how Inland Empire can be considered a 'golden greatest hits' when the rough DV imagery is so lacking in the golden artistry of his earlier work.

Or, perhaps it's a case of form and content existing in perfect inseperableness?

And then there is the randomness of it, the rambling, indulgent way it was made. Whilst films such as Fire Walk With Me or Lost Highway may seem incoherent at first glance, there is a fully considered structure and intent behind it all. It seems that, following the success of the actually quite poor Mulholland Drive (the last 3rd of which came about independently from the rest), Lynch felt encouraged to leave more up to 'fate' and 'chance'. Personally, I'd rather see an artist in full control of their material.

Perhaps the porousness of the film is too much for some people, but it may be what the subject needed. If you say the film is "unfinished" or poorly structured, I would point you to many great works of art that have survived the weight of similar criticisms -- in fact, that have survived more healthily than their more staid, predictable counterparts. All works of art are "completed" in the audience's heads anyway, whether as simple as a Ziggy panel or as generally "incomprehensible" as Finnegans Wake.

And an artist always chooses what they do, even if it involves "randomness" or "happy accidents" (as Bob Ross - and someone else, can't remember who - was fond of saying).

[Nothing]

None of the words you use relate in any substantive way to the text. Firstly, you suggest that the switch to amateurish digital video has created a perfect fusion of form and content - in what way? Then you say the film is 'porous', meaning what, and refer to a "subject", which is what? Yes, sure - a woman in trouble, Hollywood hypocrisy, domestic violence, mental illness, rabbits, the usual Lynch tropes - but these are random themes that emerge along the way, rather than a subject. Lynch himself admits he didn't know where he was going when he started work on the film, that it surfaced out of DV experiments for his dubious website. Nor did I say it was unfinished or poorly structured, as there is nothing to finish and the word structure implies that a design existed in the first place.

Essentially, you're using stock post-modern arguments and comparisons to Finnegans Wage to prop up a lazy, indulgent film. Whilst you're welcome to spend the rest of your life watching a slowed down, repeated 8mm loop of a fat man taking a shit, I, personally, still appreciate the substantive quality difference between work that has been fully considered / shaped and work where the artist has introduced randomness, or 'chance-processes' into the scheme of things and/or becomes so enraptured in the process that s/he loses sight of the end result. In other words, I'd rather listen to Beethoven (or Ligeti) than Cage. And I hope that Lynch can get over this love affair with haphazard digital experimentation and make full use of his proven ability once again.

[Tommaso]

Firstly, you suggest that the switch to amateurish digital video has created a perfect fusion of form and content - in what way?

You mix up two things: just because digital video may be an 'amateur' medium, Lynch's handling of it is almost diametrically the opposite of amateurish (just like Jarman's use of Super 8 was). Every shot of "Inland Empire" appears to me as perfectly considered and crafted as anything else in Lynch's works. It may look 'rough' because of the medium, not because of Lynch's use of it; and the 'roughness' of course makes sense in a film that among other things criticizes the 'more real than reality'-approach of commercial Hollywood filmmaking.

Lynch himself admits he didn't know where he was going when he started work on the film, that it surfaced out of DV experiments for his dubious website. Nor did I say it was unfinished or poorly structured, as there is nothing to finish and the word structure implies that a design existed in the first place.

Not necessarily. A structure or a design might emerge in the process of creation, it need not be pre-considered to be finally there. With the same argument you could dismiss much of the work of Godard and Rivette, for example, and lots of experimental filmmaking in general.

I, personally, still appreciate the substantive quality difference between work that has been fully considered / shaped and work where the artist has introduced randomness, or 'chance-processes' into the scheme of things and/or becomes so enraptured in the process that s/he loses sight of the end result. In other words, I'd rather listen to Beethoven (or Ligeti) than Cage.

Yes, but that's only your personal approach and preference, and that's perfectly okay. But you miss the point if you evaluate a work of art by an aesthetic standard that is just not applicable to it; the question is whether Beethoven or Cage (whom I both like, incidentally) have succeeded in their works according to the aesthetics they themselves worked from, and in both cases for me the answer is an emphatic 'yes'. And the same for "Inland Empire", of course.

[Anonymous]

None of the words you use relate in any substantive way to the text. Firstly, you suggest that the switch to amateurish digital video has created a perfect fusion of form and content - in what way? Then you say the film is 'porous', meaning what, and refer to a "subject", which is what? Yes, sure - a woman in trouble, Hollywood hypocrisy, domestic violence, mental illness, rabbits, the usual Lynch tropes - but these are random themes that emerge along the way, rather than a subject. Lynch himself admits he didn't know where he was going when he started work on the film, that it surfaced out of DV experiments for his dubious website. Nor did I say it was unfinished or poorly structured, as there is nothing to finish and the word structure implies that a design existed in the first place.

Essentially, you're using stock post-modern arguments and comparisons to Finnegans Wage to prop up a lazy, indulgent film. Whilst you're welcome to spend the rest of your life watching a slowed down, repeated 8mm loop of a fat man taking a shit, I, personally, still appreciate the substantive quality difference between work that has been fully considered / shaped and work where the artist has introduced randomness, or 'chance-processes' into the scheme of things and/or becomes so enraptured in the process that s/he loses sight of the end result. In other words, I'd rather listen to Beethoven (or Ligeti) than Cage. And I hope that Lynch can get over this love affair with haphazard digital experimentation and make full use of his proven ability once again.

A slowed down, repeated 8mm loop of a fat man taking a shit? Wha....did Lynch do a new film then?

I adore Cage.

[MyNameCriterionForum]

None of the words you use relate in any substantive way to the text.

Your text or Lynch’s? I was responding directly to what you said.

Firstly, you suggest that the switch to amateurish digital video has created a perfect fusion of form and content - in what way?

I’m no less specific than you were in referring to the “golden artistry of his earlier work” or the “randomness” and “rambling, indulgent” qualities of the Inland Empire. What do those words mean? I think you’re being obtuse.

Then you say the film is 'porous', meaning what

“Porous” means full of holes.

and refer to a "subject", which is what? Yes, sure - a woman in trouble, Hollywood hypocrisy, domestic violence, mental illness, rabbits, the usual Lynch tropes - but these are random themes that emerge along the way, rather than a subject.

Oh, I see, because they weren’t planned, they’re not real? They don’t exist? You've lost me.

Nor did I say it was unfinished or poorly structured, as there is nothing to finish and the word structure implies that a design existed in the first place.

Your argument that Blue Velvet and Lost Highway – directly in comparison to Inland Empire – were “incoherent at first glance” having a “fully considered structure and intent behind it all” leads me to believe that you think the latter is “random” and left too much to “chance”. Sounds to me like you’re saying Inland Empire has a problem with structure... but since you don’t believe a structure can exist without intention, you’re in a quandary when someone suggests otherwise -- in other words, it's a convenient way for you to elude the discussion.

Essentially, you're using stock post-modern arguments and comparisons to Finnegans Wage to prop up a lazy, indulgent film.

I don’t even know what “post-modern” means, nor do I trust anyone who uses that word. Also, I did not compare Inland Empire to Joyce; I used Finnegans Wake as one end of a scale of examples when talking about how art is perceived by an audience.

Whilst you're welcome to spend the rest of your life watching a slowed down, repeated 8mm loop of a fat man taking a shit

Maybe we saw two different films, because I don’t remember any of that in Inland Empire.

I, personally, still appreciate the substantive quality difference between work that has been fully considered / shaped and work where the artist has introduced randomness, or 'chance-processes' into the scheme of things and/or becomes so enraptured in the process that s/he loses sight of the end result.

How long did Lynch spend filming and editing Inland Empire? You think it wasn’t “fully considered”? It’s no less fully measured than Eyes Wide Shut or That Obscure Object of Desire.

In other words, I'd rather listen to Beethoven (or Ligeti) than Cage.

Well, I’d rather listen to Satie, so where does that leave us?

[Magic Hate Ball]

I really love the cinematography in this film. It has a very raw feel, it cuts into your eyes like razor blades. When Nikki/Sue looks outside the set and sees the lawn, all blown-out, or when the Polish lady visits, and Lynch pushes the camera almost up her nose, or one of many other strange moments, it's terribly nightmarish. It's a violent form of filmmaking, almost traumatic on the corneas...

[Cde.]

I think the DV format, far from hindering the film, gives it a dark, hazy, and yes, ugly feel which is perfectly suited for the material.

[Nothing]

As far as the comments on the cinematography go, truly, this is in the eye of the beholder. The precendent for these 'raw' effects was already established in, er, your uncle's christmas holiday video. Honestly, if this thing had been submitted to festivals without the names of Lynch, Dern, Irons or Studiocanal attached to it then it would've been very lucky to premiere at the Moldovan Festival of Extreme Underground Cinema.

Your text or Lynch’s?

Lynch's.

I’m no less specific than you were in referring to the “golden artistry of his earlier work”

It would take far too long.

or the “randomness” and “rambling, indulgent” qualities of the Inland Empire.

randomness: when Lynch began the film, he didn't even have an overall concept. The film was assembled in the editing room after a rambling two year process and it is my feeling that the pleasure of this process became more important to Lynch than the quality of the end product (hence indulgent).

“Porous” means full of holes.

Except that you were using the word in a positive context...

Oh, I see, because they weren’t planned, they’re not real? They don’t exist? You've lost me.

The film has a series of subjects, shifting from scene to scene, but not a subject.

How long did Lynch spend filming and editing Inland Empire? You think it wasn’t “fully considered”? It’s no less fully measured than Eyes Wide Shut or That Obscure Object of Desire.

There's always going to be a balance to strike between forward planning and attentiveness to on set possibilities. For example, in Lost Highway, one 'happy accident' resulted in the 'whacking' effect used when Pete suffers dizzy spells (the lens being partially removed whilst the camera is rolling) - a moment of inspiration still very much contained within the whole. Kubrick was renowned for the depth of his planning (how else could you recreate Vietnam or New York City on the outskirts of London) - it's just that he liked to shoot 100 takes of every set up and then, if it wasn't absolutely perfect in the rushes, he'd go back and shoot another 100 takes (replacing the actors and reshooting whole scenes if necessary). One old story goes that hundreds of crew members and extras were waiting for hours to shoot some of the 'New York' exteriors on Eyes Wide Shut. At 2am, Kubrick finally appears, looks at the sky for a moment and then says, "No... the moon is in the wrong place." And that's a wrap for the day.

Lynch's production process on Inland Empire is actually far more comparable to Wong Kar-Wai, a filmmaker I find consistently indulgent. The basic idea being that you shoot a load of stuff, hours and hours of improv, and then you work it out almost entirely in the editing room. But Lynch takes it even further here, not having even a basic narrative or outline at the beginning of the production. Yes, on paper, this might sound exciting, but in actuality it's just a mess. There are a couple of great bits, some good bits, a lot of bad bits, an incohesive whole. Far better films have been shot in 1 or 2 weeks, let's be honest (some Fassbinder, for example).

I think the problem, unfortunately, stems from the website. Lynch opens the website and, suddenly, he can take a piss and people will pay $20 to see it. He can read the weather, or eat some panties and it's automatically a work of genius (okay, the panties were pretty good...) With Inland Empire it seems that Lynch now believes that he doesn't have to make the effort. He can bum around with his video camera for two years, hanging out with his friends, literally making it up as he goes along, rarely even bothering to light stuff properly and, again, because it's Lynch then it's bound to be great... Sadly not.

[MyNameCriterionForum]

I’m no less specific than you were in referring to the “golden artistry of his earlier work”

It would take far too long.

So it's okay for you to be vague and use words that "mean nothing" but none of the rest of us can? Righto.

“Porous” means full of holes.

Except that you were using the word in a positive context...

Oh, I see, because they weren’t planned, they’re not real? They don’t exist? You've lost me.

The film has a series of subjects, shifting from scene to scene, but not a subject.

Seriously, do you wear a monocle and come from the 19th Century or something?

Lynch's production process on Inland Empire is actually far more comparable to Wong Kar-Wai, a filmmaker I find consistently indulgent. The basic idea being that you shoot a load of stuff, hours and hours of improv, and then you work it out almost entirely in the editing room.

Lord knows what you think of Malick.

[Nothing]

Malick? Probably the greatest living American filmmaker next to James Benning.

[MyNameCriterionForum]

See? It's not so hard for us to agree on something (except the Benning business, I mean, c'mon...)

[Mr Sausage]

And then there is the randomness of it, the rambling, indulgent way it was made.

Which is how the majority of Lynch's films are made. Anyone who would accuse one of Lynch's films of being indulgent, but not another, is under a serious delusion about Lynch's artistic aims. Here's a man who constructs movies out of random day dreams written down, and out of random and unreflected ideas that just come to him on the set (ie. filming Frank Silva by the bed in the Twin Peaks pilot, something he admits just came to him randomly and which he shot because he just wanted to). His whole creative process, from Eraserhead to Inland Empire, is to indulge his dreams and fantasies. David Lynch is not in any sense a restrained, reasoned filmmaker, so you'll understand how ludicrous I think you're being by singling out Inland Empire as "indulgent" or "rambling." It's a redundant criticism. And that's to say nothing of the fact Lynch cut fifty minutes from the movie, most surely the action of a man uninterested in the end product.

Lynch himself admits he didn't know where he was going when he started work on the film,

Definitely not the first time he's admitted that.

structure implies that a design existed in the first place.

No, it doesn't.

But Lynch takes it even further here, not having even a basic narrative or outline at the beginning of the production.

Yet the only thing that matters is whether or not you have one at the end. You'll no doubt say IE doesn't, but that's alright, because if your history in this thread is any indication, you won't back it up with a single bit of analysis or argument, so it will happily be ignored.

[Nothing]

whoopsy, I missed this:

A structure or a design might emerge in the process of creation, it need not be pre-considered to be finally there. With the same argument you could dismiss much of the work of Godard and Rivette, for example, and lots of experimental filmmaking in general.

The issue is specific to Lynch, ie. Inland Empire demonstrates that he isn't best suited to this working method.

Yes, but that's only your personal approach and preference, and that's perfectly okay. The question is whether Beethoven or Cage (whom I both like, incidentally) have succeeded in their works according to the aesthetics they themselves worked from.

There's a fat man and a shit waiting for you (otherwise known as 'Douglas Gordon's' The Searchers installation in 29 Palms). Have a happy seven years.

Then, this:

Which is how the majority of Lynch's films are made. Anyone who would accuse one of Lynch's films of being indulgent, but not another, is under a serious delusion about Lynch's artistic aims.

This is factually incorrect. Whilst there is, as I already acknowledged, a degree of controlled experimentation involved, all of Lynch's previous feature films had very precise scripts (and conventional shooting schedules). You can find many of the scripts online.

Sure, in the case of Wild at Heart the non-linear structure was discovered in the editing room. Mulholland Drive was written in two stages, due to factors outside of Lynch's control (this is the deep flaw in that particular film).

Incidentally, Lynch has said he is rarely/never inspired by dreams, although I don't see the relevance of this to what we're discussing.

Sure, some might say that all of his work is 'weird', making Inland Empire the ne plus ultra simply because it is the 'weirdest', and the longest, but I find this to be a superficial reading.

And that's to say nothing of the fact Lynch cut fifty minutes from the movie.

Try fifty hours (seriously).

Yet the only thing that matters is whether or not you have (a narrative) at the end. You'll no doubt say IE doesn't

What Lynch (unfortunately) learned from Mulholland Drive is that he can book-end almost any combination of unconnected sequences within an "it was all a dream" framework, and, hey presto, whether originally intended that way or not, through 'the ultimate in dream logic', all of it can suddenly be interpreted =as the fractured imaginings of a single personality. Which it is, I suppose - that being Lynch himself - but he certainly did not have 'Nikki' in mind when he was shooting Rabbits, or 90% of the other sequences later rammed together to make Inland Empire. And it shows.

Look. If we're talking about Greatest Living American Directors, I would have to include Lynch. Fire Walk With Me surely vies with Satantango and Lessons of Darkness for the title of "best film of the 90s". But, as with Scorsese and Friedkin, I have little if any expectation for his present output. Since the formation of the cult-like website, and the actual cult that is the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace, and his addiction to shooting everything himself on a DV camera, it's a shame, but he really seems to have lost his way.

[Mr Sausage]

This is factually incorrect. Whilst there is, as I already acknowledged, a degree of controlled experimentation involved, all of Lynch's previous feature films had very precise scripts (and conventional shooting schedules). You can find many of the scripts online.

Actually that is how his scripts are written. In fact they're often cobbled together from various ideas he's written down (often on Bob's Big Boy napkins while having a coffee) over the course of years, until Lynch gets a feeling about them and puts the fragments together. Whether he's using a whole script from the start, or writing it as he goes along, the process is exactly the same, and not bound to come out any different whether the words or the editing structures it.

Incidentally, Lynch has said he is rarely/never inspired by dreams, although I don't see the relevance of this to what we're discussing.

Incidently, Lynch uses the term "dream" to mean conscious or unconscious fantasies (he calls his movies, for example, "places to dream"). But I did specify day-dreams in my intial post.

Are you just being difficult when you say you "don't see the relevance" of filming one's unedited dreams and fantasies to the discussion of self-indulgence?

Sure, in the case of Wild at Heart the non-linear structure was discovered in the editing room. Mulholland Drive was written in two stages, due to factors outside of Lynch's control (this is the deep flaw in that particular film).

Mulholland Drive was written the way it was, actually, because Lynch was not happy with the final product and wanted to do more with it. Far from being a flaw, the best sequence in the movie, Club Silencio (to say nothing of the lesbian sex scene--although that already has its own thread) was part of the reshoot, and was inspired solely by hearing Rebekah del Rio sing Crying in the studio one day. But this hardly matters, because as I said, Lynch's films are not written the way you assume they are written: like a regular screenplay. They are, to repeat myself, cobbled together out of various ideas Lynch has had floating around for years, either in his head or stored in folders. It's not a start-to-finish, pre-planned structure with his scripts. It's a slow accretion of material until finally Lynch comes out at the end with what he feels is a unified whole. This is exactly the process through which IE was made, the only difference being it was filmed simultaneously with its writing.

Try fifty hours (seriously).

I think you know I'm talking about the "Other Things that Happened" on the second disc of the DVD, fully edited scenes that Lynch didn't feel were necessary to the movie. If he were really as unconcerned with the whole as you say, he would hardly have left out those scenes (some of which were very good).

What Lynch (unfortunately) learned from Mulholland Drive is that he can book-end almost any combination of unconnected sequences within an "it was all a dream" framework, and, hey presto, whether originally intended that way or not, through 'the ultimate in dream logic', all of it can suddenly be interpreted =as the fractured imaginings of a single personality. Which it is, I suppose - that being Lynch himself - but he certainly did not have 'Nikki' in mind when he was shooting Rabbits, or 90% of the other sequences later rammed together to make Inland Empire. And it shows.

There are no unconnected sequences in Mulholland Drive, with the exception of those written initially for the pilot which naturally are not developed. Everything after the opening of the Blue Box, tho' non-linear, has a clear causality, and maintains the imagery and symbolism of the previous part (the lamp, ect.). The beauty of Lynch's work is that dreams are never "just" dreams. They are very profound things, not plot devices, and they neither explain everything nor can be explained away.

Lynch did not merely tack on the last half hour of the movie to the original pilot; in reality he shot new footage for the first two hours (which was originally ninty minutes, since pilots must share time with commercials), and reshaped the original thing. It was a total overhaul.

he really seems to have lost his way.

If you think so then I don't see how you can have understood any part of Lynch's career, since he's still doing all of the same things he always did (for example, he's been doing TM since before he made Eraserhead; and he's been pursuing odd visual projects, like his book of spark plugs and dental equipment, well before he began using his website as an outlet for those things he'd have done anyway). An exception is of course the switch to DV, but complaining about that is as reasonable as saying Lynch lost his way when he turned from B&W to colour. It's just a different texture for Lynch to play with.

I suggest you read Lynch on Lynch.

[MyNameCriterionForum]

Lessons of Darkness for the title of "best film of the 90s"

You're making it harder and harder for me to disagree with you.

[godardslave]

David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace

I do have to agree this organization does seem like one gigantic fraud, not to mention a huge waste of money.
Seriously, "an ocean or unified field of consciousness that through meditation will lead to world peace", this is the worst sort of psuedo-science.

[MyNameCriterionForum]

Have you guys heard his CD? It's great, it really makes a lot of sense. I was surprised at the lack of New Age piffle on it.