David Lynch passed away yesterday. Many of Lynch’s films made me question what good cinema really is, what it means to consume art, and the individual understanding of art.
A devotion to bad art
My brother and I have a tradition of watching bad films. Not films that are so bad they’re good (like Con Air, for example), but truly rotten works with no redeeming qualities. Watching films like Sir Billi and A Dog and Pony Show does something to your mind that can only otherwise be achieved by abusing prescription medication. Some of these films are so nauseatingly boring that you actually begin to feel a sickness brewing in your stomach. Although there are moments of delirium where comedy emerges through poor editing or dialogue, I believe this practice offers a certain level of enlightenment about what good cinema actually is.
There may be some concern here about snobbery and what constitutes a “bad film.” Not everything needs to be a piece of art. For this experiment to work, bad films are those that either fail to achieve what they set out to do or make no attempt at achieving anything. For example, Troll is a cheesy fantasy comedy with puppets, music, and all kinds of unusuality. It achieves what it aims to: it’s funny, weird, and you can tell the crew cared about the work. Troll 2 (confusingly unrelated to the first one) is a painful mess of weak dialogue, bland sequences, and shoddy editing. Where one film tries and succeeds, the other doesn’t even try.
The label “bad film” is not necessarily an indicator of quality either: Show Dogs is a weak and ultimately boring film, but it does attempt to be funny (a dog dabs in it).
Watching three or four horrible films in a row and then watching Some Like It Hot really gives you a unique perspective on why it’s considered a masterpiece. The absence of artistic decisions in one film makes the decisions in another shine in comparison. Good performances explode off the screen and funny jokes hit you in the gut. In the same way the first deep breath after clearing a blocked nose feels better than having a clear nose forever, I think all art should have its foil.
Not understanding films
I watched Mulholland Drive in the theatre for the first time last year and, as you can expect from a Lynch joint, it was weird. The plot has several points where things seemingly make no sense, the performances range from beautiful to rigid, and characters appear and disappear with little context. The film is very powerful, and I think that being confusing is part of its appeal. When discussing the film with others, we all seemed to arrive at different conclusions about its true meaning. Later, I was reading reviews on Letterboxd and noticed the following:
me while watching the movie: what is going on, am i really that dumb, HELP, also the fuck is my mans billy ray cyrus doin’ here, are you lost sugar?
me after the movie ended: what kind of donnie darko mindfuck was this, let’s go to my old pal youtube, they will clear it out for me!
me after watching a 22 minute movie analysis video: THIS IS A MASTERPIECE. DAVID LYNCH IS A FUCKING GENIUS, also coughs i’m a genius for understanding it IMMEDIATELY OBVIOUSLY coughs what a fun lil’ movie
This doesn’t feel like an uncommon sentiment when experiencing non-literal art. The video Twin Peaks Explained has 3,100,000 views on YouTube. Twin Peaks is not a narratively difficult show to follow; the characters basically voice the reasons for their actions as they do them. What makes it difficult is the visual language being deployed. In this case, deliberate actions by the artist obscure what’s happening. If this choice of obstruction has been made, then surely the intention of the art is to leave the viewer in that state of confusion? I agree that Twin Peaks is confusing, but art should be consumed through the art itself and not through someone else’s interpretation of it. Watching someone ride a roller coaster and being told it’s fun isn’t the same as riding the roller coaster yourself.
The death of the author
This sentiment becomes further complicated when artists, after their work has been released and consumed by the public, tell us what the work really means. Tim Cain, the creator of the original Fallout game, recently said that it was not a critique of capitalism. Cain’s point was that Fallout was a criticism of war, not capitalism. While Cain may have intended to create a game that critiqued war, the interpretation by fans made it a critique of capitalism. War and capitalism are so intertwined that you cannot really discuss one without the other.
Cain’s opinion on what Fallout is about doesn’t really matter; Fallout is a criticism of capitalism.
This makes determining the messaging of a film very difficult. The Wolf of Wall Street isn’t remembered by all for its staunch attack on hedonism and greed but rather for its scenes of luxury and excess. Films that depict celebrations of violence realistically tread a fine line between exploring and untangling violence and simply depicting it to be enjoyed by others.
In this way like a tree fallen in a forest with no one to listen to it, that has been not been processed and consumed is not art. For a piece of work’s interpretation to remain fully in control of the artist it must remain locked away or uncreated.
To bring this back to Lynch, it’s worth watching his BAFTA interview, where he summarizes everything I’ve tried to discuss and more. Lynch’s work gave you a lot to think about without telling you what to think. It’s confusing, it’s messy and it’s the best.