David Lynch has always been a controversial figure in the film industry. His movies are both confusing and with a deep meaning and at the same time quite clear to understand. Even after being widely criticized, his work, Eraserhead, draw the attention of some major producers and in 1980 Lynch directed the movie claimed by many to be the peak in his career, the best movie ever made by the director.

The Elephant Man was released in 1980 and was nominated for more than 10 awards at different movie forums. The cast includes stars such as Anthony Hopkins and the director, Lynch, made one of his best works with so many influential elements that the modern day movie producers still mention that work as a piece of inspiration and great influence.

The plot is centered on a physically deformed person, based on the true events from London, described by several authors in the 19th century (far before the time of corrective cosmetic surgery). Merrick is that deformed man mentioned above -he is exposed at a freak show in London and there is no single person who considers him a normal human being. The owner of the show is cruel and demanding on Merrick, using him as an attraction and treating him as an animal.

However, a London surgeon sees Merrick and, from pure professional curiosity, takes him under his cover in the hospital he is working in. Gradually, Merrick reveals that he might be physically disturbed and deformed, but he is gifted with great mentality, pure mind and intellect that is hardly seen among normal people. He completes models, draws and writes and reads in the hospital, becomes part of the surgeon’s family and people slowly start to accept him as the way he is.

However, different circumstances prevail in the movie, the main character is exposed again in front of the audience of the public and when finally returned to his home, the hospital where the surgeon works, he has no life left due to an incurable disease. He dies at the end of the movie bu his life is an example -how to treat people, to appreciate them not only because of their capabilities, but to see deeper and turn to the common beginning of every man. A true masterpiece, the movie is more than an entertainment production -it is a work with dense moral lessons, a sparkle to show people their true nature.

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Which is what you may think about mine–

The first part to the Mulholland Drive plot is straightforward. Rita (Camilla) loses her memory (parady of Diane losing her mind) following a car accident and meets Betty, a hopeful actress arriving in Hollywood for a film audition. When the mysterious blue box is opened we are taken into the past and things get a little weird.

We establish Rita is in fact Camilla, a successful actress who had been in a relationship with Diane. Camilla falls in love with the director, Adam Kasher, but as she is a bitch flaunts her love affair in front of Diane in a callous act to make her jealous. Diane’s fragile mind causes her to go crazy.

That’s the simple set up – this is where things get weird.

Lynch – or Lynchy as we call him in the mob – says the key to understanding Mulholland Drive is the blue box. My theory is the blue box is a metaphorical symbol of the human psyche. Mulholland Drive is set in Hollywood – and the film represents the type of back-stabbing, selfish, ego-maniacs that live in Hollywood. The greed for money, fame and power drives people to be selfish and bitchy (Camilla flaunting love in front of Diane), and on the other side of the fence we see people’s fantasises, hopes and desires (Diane wanting to believe Camilla loves her, Betty’s naivety etc..). What Lynch is identifying here is the fickle characters Hollywood breeds and how the environment they live in makes them so desperate the high risk of failure gnaws away their minds. In Diane’s story we see how her character is drastically changed by life in Hollywood.

Psychologically we walk a tight rope between sanity and insanity. Arriving in LA with a dream of becoming a famous actress, Diane’s life falls apart when her lover, Camilla, not only breaks her heart, but also lands the role she craved would make her a star. In looking for revenge, Diane hires the bungling hit man Joe to kill Camilla – possibly offering him all the money she has. The plan goes wrong when there is a car accident. Diane falls deeper into despair and her hallucinations grow worse. She kills herself.

Betty is a reflection of how things were meant to be for Diane. Falling in love with Camilla and landing the role in the film after impressing at the audition. The first part of Mulholland Drive then is the fantasy, Diane’s ideal. The second part is the reality of the nightmare she lived in which drove her to insanity and the desire for revenge. Before arriving in Hollywood, she was a sweet, naïve young women. After experiencing life in Hollywood she becomes a desperate cut-throat who is prepared to kill.

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David Lynch’s movie, Eraserhead has been one of the most mysterious and confusing movies of all times. It is a surreal horror production that gained both a lot of hate and respect for Lynch since those who found the movie good actually loved Lynch art, but those who did not understand it claimed it was a waste of time both for the producers and the viewers. Released in March 1977, the movie was a whole Lynch creation -he produced in, directed it, wrote the script, designed the dvd packaging, and composed the music with extreme care and patience that took him more than 5 years developing the project.

The plot of the movie, or rather the sequence of interconnected actions in the movie, tells the story of Henry who is a printer living a small flat in the city. He marries a girl that has a strange, abnormally deformed baby who looks more like an alien creature than like a humanoid. However, Henry looks after the child after the mother runs away and this is when the strangest part of the movie comes in place. The main character goes to a variety of situations that the human mind cannot logically connect -his dreams merge with the reality (or rather the surreal world that Lynch created), factory workers are presented as organisators of social and natural order, people have no names but different expressions to define them. A mixture of bloody horror, satire, ugliness and abnormally unacceptable situations domite throughout the whole film till its end that, logically, thousands of poeple did not and will not comletely understand. And probably that was the idea of the author -noone to understand its original thought but everyone to invent an idea of the movie by himself.

The music of the movie is in a remarkable coexcistance with the actions in the movie, with both dramatic and slow swithes of the melody thus attracting even more the viewr’s attention. This made the soundtrack of the film Lynch’s favourite and most admired soundtrack among his for many film lovers and fans.

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Has there ever been anything so contentious as the ending of all-time TV great Twin Peaks?

David Lynch has really got it in the neck over the years for his handling of film endings; not only that, of course—fans have united, split into separate factions and protested about the meaning of his films to the point where finding the meaning is virtually impossible. Would we have been truly happy if everything was cut and dry in Twin Peaks? I doubt it. Having the ending on a plate would be a bit like reading a book which included detailed pictures of those all-important moments: we’d loose the mystery, and in doing so would have entirely missed the point.

Then there’s this: should Twin Peaks be re-made?

Much as I love it, I don’t think it should be, however many people get behind the cause—we all know that just because a million people think something (shell-suits) it doesn’t mean a thing. Personally speaking I have fond memories which I’d rather were left untarnished; I don’t want to see new faces acting out the old, or new dialogue replacing magical moments. And the ending, really, isn’t that important, is it? Because if we had that then there’d be something else that we’d want changing: it’d just go on and on forever, becoming something new, changing constantly, until eventually becoming something unrecognizable. And that wouldn’t be David Lynch then, would it? It’d be David Lynch listening to exactly what everyone thought, and if he’d have done that with

then it might have ended up as predictable and rubbish as any C.G.I. nonsense we see at the box office every week.

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While these comments are all true, not much was said about what Lynch did right, and this is where I come in with this article. Yes, some of the actors were badly cast and looked nothing like they are described in the book (Duncan Idaho springs to mind here) and the special effects were generally something to forget (the hilarious personal energy shields) but Lynch and his creative team did get a lot right.

With the talk of a new Dune movie coming out in the next couple of years, and with the high budget it will supposedly have along with the advancement in special effects since the 1984 version, there is a chance to take what David Lynch tried to do and use it as a guide of sorts that can show the new director both what not to do, but also, what should be done.

For example, some of the characters were very well cast. Max Von Sydow as Liet Kynes was inspired, as was the casting of Kyle MacLachlan who did a very good job as Paul Atreides. Jurgen Prochnow as Duke Leto Atreides was also a good decision as was hiring Francesca Annis to play Jessica. They all played their parts well in a confusing movie with a relatively poor script.

The look of the movie was also great. The whole appearance captured the Dune universe so well and Lynch should be applauded for that more than anything else. Everything, from the sets to the costumes were fantastic. They had a worn appearance to them and everything looked gritty and has elements of realism to them.

Here’s hoping the next Dune movie can take what was good about Lynch’s vision and apply it alongside better storytelling.

By the way, for all you geeks out there I found an amazing new Enigin Geek blog for you all to check out. It has some great writing and I have officially become a follower!

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I think that is what makes this film so good. To be able to create something that so many people can take in such drastically different ways is incredible, and the true meaning of creating art. I personally believe that it is quite a simple movie, and should be looked at as a whole rather than chronologically. It is a chopped up version of a real story combined with a fantasy sequence that is introduced because of the destruction of love and the main character going a little bit psycho. I know it is not as simple as that, but it is really not that much more complicated either. Anyways, I am sure that with a future post I will go into the meanings of Mulholland Dr…

Right now I am re-watching the series Twin Peaks, which never really ceases to amaze me. Having been introduced to David Lynch one day in art school by my teacher randomly turning on Eraserhead, the scope of what he does has never failed to impress me since. I look forward to many more updates!

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