primarily i want to discuss lynch's admiration and devotion to america. he left europe within a couple days after expecting to study there for years, there are many statements made by him about his fascination by small town america, most of his movies always have so many elements of the american lifestyle and culture. there are about a hundred other things i can name about lynch and america but i will leave it at this.

personally, i got into lynch because i loved the surreal, abstract, dark and poetic style of his directing and writing. only later did i notice the recurring american culture elements. this kind of turned my perspective a little bit away from my former negative view on america. i never knew oddities, abstractions, art and especially subconsciousness and surrealism could be so compatible with the culture.

he merges art with the culture, seen by very many people as primitive and incapable of being merged, he tries to find and express sophistication in the culture, which is also very rare in this day and age.

my other topic of discussion is lynch as a conservative/right wing. as many of you probably know there is a whole book written about this, and the promotion of capitalism is definately seen through his movies. the wikipedia page on surrealism even says that lynch can be seen as a surrealist however his being right wing does not permit him to be called so...or something along those lines. kind of stupid but whatever. in response to this i would say that however much that stuff is portrayed, it doesn't imply anything about its promotion. it is simply a portrayal on american culture, which happens to be conservative. to back this there is eraserhead, implying against industrialization .in twin peaks there are many implications on the promotion of environmental issues. also in an interview of the straight story, he said that he is not even interested in politics. he also said something like...politicians strive for good society but never seem to find a middle ground, so i think he is on a more liberal level.

Lynch makes the ordinary extraordinary, or removes his stories just slightly enough from reality to makes them compelling.  I feel very "at home" watching them.  They are progressive American Gothic- postmodern gothic- and inspired visually by the abstract Expressionist painters, Lynch's favorites being Bacon and Pollock.  

 American culture didn't come out of thin air.  It was imported from Europe, including the gothic movement- the fear of industry, the sublime aspects of nature/the body, and a reverence for mysteries- but evolved in America as the country nurtured its own dark history.  I think Lynch may have been looking for an aesthetic of strangeness in Europe that he realized was in his backyard all along!  There is darkness in the decline of culture, like any other decay that Lynch finds beauty in. 

I would find it hard to call Lynch "conservative" or "right wing" because of his participation in the Peace Palaces, and his love of the organic.  I mean, he's kind to ants....
 

ahhahaahaha!!!!  Hilarious.

 By the way, I definitely wouldn't put - Gothic - in a Lynch sentence. It's like dipping broccoli in your java...

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

"Every day holds a new beginning and every hour holds the promise of an Invitation to Love." 

Yes, this was good. Especially the thing about help in the neighborhood. Made me smile.

However I find this nuance more interesting because mainstream american movies almost never take place in hick towns or whatever... Maybe I'm wrong. I'm italian and most of the american stuff that gets here is always about big city lives such as the New-Yorkers or people (getting mad) in LA. Got that? Lynch has explored very often how life is elsewhere and that's cool for Europeans, so that you have a whole picture of the continent.

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

Well, if America has its own Gothic cinematographic genre, I absolutely didn't know. 

There is gothic architecture, gothic music and gothic literature. A plain example of gothic novel is Frankenstein. That is basically "horror" "ghosts" "satanic" etc. If you meant gothic as an adjective, which means smthg characterized by gloom and mistery and the grotesque, so okay. But if you want to take examples from cinema and other stuff, if a real gothic genre exists I can assure you it has some features and clichés that have very little in common with Lynch or Coen.

So, basically, if you want to define them as "gothic" I am cool, but if you want to define them as American Gothics, then explain me what this American Gothic in cinematography is.

The only American Gothic I knew is a painting by Grant Wood, but I guess we would go really off topic...

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

Yeah, I just took a class on Gothic literature and incorporated it into my Art final, which was about DL and his style/inspiration.   

I suppose you could use American Gothic interchangably with Southern Gothic.  (I mention the other Gothic, because it is it's mother. The original, Gothic style of art and writing from Europe was carried over to America on the first ships and was the basis for early American writing/art. This was a time when critics thought there was no way America could affect that style, because the New World lacked the background for it.)  

There's nothing more archetypically gothic than beautiful surfaces hiding dark things (ie. Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive) and secrets, which America is rich with, and that can be applied to film or any other medium.      

Tee hee, Angel! Kind to ants. I wouldn't take that to be necessarily anti-conservative or anti-right wing either. As you know he was exploiting those ants to his own ends as artistic merchandise later to be peddled in ritzy hoity toity art galleries frequented by the hoi polloi. So there's another way of looking at that. Don't forget those dead and tortured bees either. Hmmmm...

As a lot of people in Hollywood used to be, Lynch used to be pretty politically mum. In the old days. I would take him at his word that he's still not overtly interested in politics or politicians. Years ago he said something nice about Nancy Reagan which some took as a big "aha" - he's a Republican. Tsk tsk. I don't think that was a logical conclusion to draw.

I know it's hard to remember NOW, but there were many, many years where politics didn't have a heckuva lot to do with making movies. There were directors and actors who made films; musicians who made music; and through it all, it was possible there'd be no mention of US politics. Back then, even everyday people might go days on end without discussing politics. I think that was true about David Lynch back in the good ole days.

This next part is purely conjecture.  I have no way of knowing if it's the TRUTH, but it makes sense to me.  And so... 

Then there was September 11, 2001 and I believe David Lynch was shocked, as was the world. And I believe he thought that he should do something -- WHATEVER he could -- to help the world. And I think his personal belief in the curative powers of TM (®) led him to believe it was also the solution to the most grave issues facing the world. And I think that's why he sought a personal ($1,000,000 cha- ching) meeting with his holiness, someone whose wisdom he appears to value above all others. And I believe that was the point of transformation from what had been a personal philosophy into what has become what could be described as proselytizing missionary work on behalf of the Maharishi's operation in order to raise $7,000,000,000 to bring about world peace.

Is that liberal? Is that conservative? I don't think either political term aptly describes this type of fund raising. It's hard to imagine any mainstream American poliitician from either side of the aisle hopping on this train.

There was a small news item from election day 2004 that cited David Lynch at his polling place saying, "Go Kerry!" That sounds logical to me. Well, John Hagelin wasn't running in '04 and we really do have a two party system when it comes to Presidential elections.

But, as is often the case with complex individuals, they may hold some strange and seemingly contradictory positions at the same time. You think you can pin down what they'd be likely to believe knowing certain background material -- father who worked for the agriculture department, parents who were longtime members of a given church, growing up in Big Sky country, Eagle Scout and stuff like that -- but then you have the random abstruse factors thrown into the mix and bingo - ICONCLASM strikes.

People change. People evolve. Even Americans.

As for capitalism, a very wise young man was recently asked if he believed in capitalism. "I thought it was a foregone conclusion," he replied. And I agree.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Okay, rainbow you convinced me.

I just wanted to state that I don't like when people distinguishes David Lynch's works into an existing genre. That's the whole thing. We could say, by now, that his works have a gothic quality, but we shouldn't say he is a Gothic director, what do you say?

I went here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Gothic and read about Southern Gothic. Actually I was impressed with the similarity with what you said about Lynch's films and the way there is a contrast between beauty and horror and how they can be found in the same element.

But let's not forget Romanticism comes first....

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

  Now THAT was funny!!!! 

Although I'd expect the exchange to go the other way since David Lynch doesn't curse.

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Oh, my..

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

Gee, I hate banks!

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)