WE LIVE INSIDE A DECODED DREAM:
using the gift of intuition to understand
the allegorical moving paintings
of David Lynch
by Gary W. Wright
After choosing the art life and becoming a painter, David Keith Lynch began creating short and dream-like films that he called ‘moving paintings’, given that they merged animation with painting. As time passed, the animated moving paintings disappeared and were replaced by entirely live action but equally dream-like and dream filled feature film moving paintings that gave audiences the impression of dreaming…without dreaming. From a distance, this dream-like and dream filled moving painting style of Lynch seemed difficult to understand. However, as Lynch noted in his own look at his art life, paintings, moving paintings, meditations, and creative processes, Catching The Big Fish: meditation, consciousness and creativity (2006), ‘…people sometimes say they have trouble understanding a film, but I think they understand much more than they realize. Because we’re all blessed with intuition-we really have the gift of intuiting things’ (Lynch 19).
Thus, using ‘the gift of intuiting things’, we could see that in the animated sight of six painted male heads and torsos becoming progressively more ill and then throwing up pink streams of vomit to the sound of a siren wailing disconsolately, Lynch implicitly roasted the sickly film art and falling fortunes of the five major Hollywood studios and of the Walt Disney Studios by the mid-Sixties in his first work of film art, the repeating one minute film loop and literal moving painting that was SIX MEN GETTING SICK (1967), and presciently anticipated the sickened dismay that all six of the major studios would feel after the helicopter crash that killed actor/director/writer Vic Morrow and child extras Renee Chen and Myca Le around 2:20 am in the early morning of July 23, 1982 on the George Folsey jr. produced John Landis set of the Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall produced and twilit and allegorical Landis, Joe Dante, George Miller and Steven Spielberg film, TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE (1983). With this intuitive gift, we could also come up with various interpretations of the second allegorical Lynch moving painting and the first to be dream-like and implicitly dream filled, THE ALPHABET (1968), a short work that mixed animated painting with colour film.
‘Please remember you’re dealing with
the human form.’
Curiously, this short moving painting began with a colour film shot of a beautiful young woman in a white nightgown-played by Lynch’s first wife, Peggy-lying on a bed presumably asleep with a white bedsheet drawn up to her waist as the voices of children chanted ‘A-B-C’ five times. When the chanting stopped, the film and the young woman disappeared and a surreal colour animated painting began that was filled with soft abstract imagery and hard geometric shapes through which moved upper and lower case letters of the English alphabet as a male voice sang, a colourful and surreal moving painting that was implicitly the dream of the young woman. When this dreamy moving painting ended, the voices of children again chanted ‘A-B-C’ five times. When the chanting ended for the second time, the dream disappeared and a cinematic nightmare began that saw the lovely young woman menaced by animated upper case letters of the alphabet while she spoke the ‘ABC Song’ sung by children in kindergarden. When the young woman finished speaking the ‘ABC Song’, she vomited up bright red blood on the white bedsheet, ending the moving painting.
Given that the moving painting started with the voices of children chanting ‘A-B-C’ five times, Lynch implied that he was roasting television and networks like ABC in THE ALPHABET. On the other hand, given that upper case capital letters menaced the lovely young woman before she vomited blood, in the end, Lynch also implied that he was worried that capitalism would sicken if not kill the free and pure spirit of his moving paintings. Last but not least, given that the letters of the alphabet could be combined into words that could explain and roast his moving paintings, Lynch also implicitly worried about the arrival of written reviews of his film art in THE ALPHABET. Curiously, given that this menacing alphabet also presciently anticipated the equally fearsome arrival of Alphabet Inc. and its all conquering Google, THE ALPHABET also ominously anticipated digital events to come.
Significantly, THE ALPHABET fittingly and presciently anticipated an equally prescient Lynch moving painting to come that would be released by Universal Studios. For the closing titles listed the moving painting as ‘…an H. Barton Wasserman Production’, evoking Lew Wasserman, the sinister gangster head of Universal Studios-kull wahad! A cinematic collaboration with Hollywood that Lynch inched closer to with the creation of the short allegorical moving painting, THE GRANDMOTHER (1970), a curious work that mixed animated painting with black and white and colour cinematography.
‘Matt! Matt!’
Curiously, the film was about two strange and abusive young parents who perhaps symbolized the iconoclastic young film artists of New Hollywood-and were played by Robert Chadwick and Virginia Maitland, respectively-and their abused son, Matt-usually seen wearing a black suit and bow tie and a white dress shirt, and played by Richard White-who all were grown in a Garden of Eden evoking setting in animated painting sequences. Curiously, Matt found and then used a magic seed to grow a loving grandmother-perhaps linked to Old Hollywood, and played by Dorothy McGinnis-in a spare bed in the attic of the family home. While Matt’s grandmother was just as unable to leave the attic to confront his parents and end the abuse as an Old Hollywood film artist was to help a young film artist, particularly one as uninterested in imitating New Hollywood as Lynch, she was at least a warm and loving presence that he could turn to for sympathy. Significantly, the helplessness of his grandmother caused Matt to use daydreams localized in a ‘theatre of the imagination’ to kill his nightmarish parents, the first time the wistful waking dreams of a character featured prominently in a Lynch moving painting. Soon after, the kindly grandmother died, leaving only her ghost in a rocking chair in a lonely graveyard to comfort Matt.
While the meaning of THE GRANDMOTHER remained elusive, Matt’s two nightmarish young parents anticipated an even more abusive and nightmarish father in two allegorical telefilmoving painting series and a moving painting to come from Lynch, three future works that featured a murdered daughter who haunted the living like the ghost of the grandmother haunted Matt. Just as significantly, it was never clear if THE GRANDMOTHER was a nightmare experienced by Matt or Matt’s nightmarish reality, an ambiguity that continued when Lynch collaborated again with sound designer/editor Alan Splet on Lynch’s black and white, live action, stop motion animation enhanced, dream filled and dream-like allegorical feature length moving painting, ERASERHEAD (1977).
‘I’ll do what I want to do.’
Curiously, the film began with the floating head of Henry Spencer-played by John ‘Jack’ Nance-superimposed horizontally from sinister left to righteous right over a small moon hanging motionless in space, implying that the moon symbolized the mind of Spencer. Then the camera point of view (POV) slowly moved onto the floating moon and then through a hole into the house of the Man in the Moon-played by Jack Fisk. The horizontally floating head of Spencer reappeared, he opened his mouth, a worm-like creature that resembled an umbilical cord with a head appeared in the midst of his mouth and then floated out of his mouth. The Moon Man pulled a lever, the worm-like creature was cut free from Spencer, and then fell through space and time into a pool of water.
The POV then returned to Earth and Spencer staring anxiously into the camera. He then turned and walked toward a concrete wall that looked like a theatre, and turning to his sinister left disappeared into some sort of tunnel. He then reappeared walking through a bleak and decaying industrialscape looking, in his black suit and tie and white dress shirt, like an older version of Matt in THE GRANDMOTHER with upcombed hair. Soon he reached his apartment building and took the elevator to his apartment on the second floor. Before entering apartment 26, Spencer was hailed by the dark, dangerous, sexy and steamy Beautiful Woman Across The Hall-played by Judith A. Roberts-in apartment 27-or was that 28?-who told him that his girlfriend had called on the common hallway phone to invite him to her parents for dinner. Soon Spencer was trudging through the now dark and still decaying industrialscape to the house of Mr. and Mrs. X-played by Allen Joseph and Jeanne Bates, respectively. Here he was met at the door by his girlfriend, the thin and wanly pretty blonde, Mary X.-played by Charlotte Stewart-whose age and hair colour linked her to New Hollywood film art. Thus, it was fitting that her name, Mary X., had the same cadence as Hollywood.
Here at the X. house, Henry discovered that Mary had given birth to a baby, leading to the marriage Henry and Mary. Back at Henry’s apartment, ERASERHEAD became the opposite of THE GRANDMOTHER, as it saw the young and poor couple struggle to deal with the premature, nightmarish and unnamed mutant baby of indeterminate sex who resembled the worm-like creature seen earlier and who was fond of manipulating and harassing its parents. This torment caused Spencer to reaffirm his link to Matt by retreating to his own theatre of the imagination that he used to deal with reality, hidden inside the innards of the radiator in his apartment. Here the Lady In The Radiator-played by Laurel Near-waited to love and comfort Spencer like the grandmother arrived to love and comfort Matt in THE GRANDMOTHER. Curiously, the Lady In The Radiator looked like Mary in a Marilyn Monroe wig and white dress with swollen growths on her cheeks, linking her to both New and Old Hollywood. Significantly, the latter link reminded us of the implicit link of the grandmother to Old Hollywood in THE GRANDMOTHER. However, unlike the grandmother, who only comforted but did not help Matt, the Light, virtuous and sweet Lady In The Radiator did her best to stomp away Henry’s troubles-symbolized by more worm-like creatures-on the stage in the theatre of the imagination in the radiator.
Significantly, late in the moving painting, Spencer also found himself in this theatre of the imagination, setting off the first extended sequence in a Lynch moving painting where the normal laws of time and space were abandoned. During this dreamy sequence, Henry tried, but failed, to embrace the Lady In The Radiator on stage in the theatre. Soon after, Spencer literally lost his head, which fell through time and space and was found by a street urchin-played by Thomas Coulson-and taken to a pencil making factory, where its brains were pronounced fine for use as pencil erasers by the pencil machine operator-played by Hal Landon jr. Using our intuitive gift, we could see that his curiously positive pronouncement implied the hope of Lynch that he could embrace a more commercial form of moving painting without falling prey to the carnal addictions of commercial success-implicitly symbolized by the Dark, dangerous and sexy Beautiful Woman Across The Hall-or sacrificing his commitment to his own quirky and indie approach to film art.
Indeed, the fact that the film ended with Spencer literally cutting his ties to his mutant baby, finding himself back in the timeless realm of the theatre of the imagination bathed in radiant light and embracing the deformed and Monroe resembling woman of his radiator dreams, the mysterious Lady In The Radiator, implicitly affirmed that Lynch felt that it was time for him to cut himself free from the implicit fear of capitalism seen in THE ALPHABET and his literally starving artist phase and embrace a more commercial but no less uncompromising style of quirky moving painting. Thus, it was fitting that a moody moon, worms and a character named Paul-played by Darwin Joston-figured prominently in ERASERHEAD, as they foreboded an equally uncompromising but more commercial Lynch moving painting to come. It was also fitting that soon after the successful release of ERASERHEAD, Lynch was indeed persuaded by actor/producer/writer Mel Brooks to abandon film art for film art’s sake for commercial Hollywood film art and team up again with Splet to create the surreal, dream filled and allegorical moving painting, THE ELEPHANT MAN (1980).
‘Oh, Mr. Merrick. You’re not an Elephant Man at all.’
Significantly, the moving painting began with a closeup of the face of a young and pretty brunette woman-played curiously by both Lydia Lisle and Phoebe Nicholls-in a framed photograph. This framed photo turned out to be that of the mother of the horrifically deformed and despondent but sweet, sincere, devout, educated, imaginative, artistic and intelligent Joseph John ‘the Elephant Man’ Merrick-played by John Hurt-who looked like the son of Spencer and the Lady In The Radiator. Then, after a surreal prologue that purported to explore the elephant linked birth of Merrick and also made it uncertain that what followed was a dream or a dream filled moving painting, we found ourselves at a freak show at a carnival in Victorian London where the adult Merrick was being displayed like a real life blockbuster beast. Of course, this carnival freak show linked the Elephant Man to film art, for it not only reminded us that the first films were exhibited at carnivals, but also evoked the allegorical and implicitly Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany bashing Tod Browning film, FREAKS (1932).
Here at the carnival we met Doctor Frederick Treves-played by Sir Anthony Hopkins-who resembled and was implicitly linked to Sir Ridley Scott. Indeed, the appearance of Hurt as Merrick affirmed the implicit link of Dr. Treves to Sir Scott, for Hurt played the doomed Kane in the allegorical, Ozian themed, implicitly Lucas addressing and eerily twilit Sir Scott film, ALIEN (1979). Soon we were following Dr. Treves through the carnival crowd and the corridors of the freak show house to see Merrick. Significantly, after being moved by Merrick’s plight, Dr. Treves spirited him away from the cruel and violent clutches of his unscrupulous ‘manager’, Bytes-played by Freddie Jones-to the peace and security of the London Hospital. As Bytes resembled and evoked both Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau-a link to the latter increased by his Justin Trudeau evoking boy helper, played by Dexter Fletcher-and Robert Silverman, an extra in the allegorical David Cronenberg film, RABID (1977), Lynch implied that the ‘terrible’ Elephant Man symbolized the ‘terrible’ Cronenberg.
In addition, the resemblance of the name of John Merrick to that of Ronald ‘Ron’ Merrick-played by Ronald Mlodzik-in the allegorical Cronenberg film, SHIVERS (1975), reaffirmed the implicit interest in Cronenberg in the film. An extra in the medical theatre audience who resembled Doctor Roger St. Luc-played by Paul Hampton-in SHIVERS during the presentation of Merrick by Dr. Treves reaffirmed the implicit interest in Cronenberg in THE ELEPHANT MAN. A sign on a building wall that stated PICKFORD WHARFS OFFICE that Treves walked by on the way to his first meeting with Merrick at the beginning of the moving painting that openly linked Merrick to Toronto film artists reaffirmed that Lynch was implicitly addressing Cronenberg in THE ELEPHANT MAN. The presence of the Merrick sympathizing Princess Alexandra-played by Helen Ryan-also reaffirmed the implicit interest in Cronenberg’s hometown of Toronto in THE ELEPHANT MAN, for Princess Alex reminded us that the Princess Alex was a popular live theatre in Toronto. The resemblance of Merrick’s sympathetic actress friend, Mrs. Kendal-played by Anne Bancroft-to Margot Kidder and Margaret Trudeau as well as to his mother and to the Beautiful Woman Across The Hall reaffirmed the film’s implicit in Canadian film art and film artists.
This implicit link was not surprising, as the early allegorical films of Cronenberg, from his first, TRANSER (1966)-released the same year as Lynch’s first moving painting, SIX MEN GETTING THE SICK-to THE BROOD (1979), had caused such negative comments and criticism that Cronenberg was treated with as much fear and loathing as Merrick at the time. So much so that only the year before Cronenberg had been implicitly linked to the gleefully violent Doctor John Leslie Stevenson aka Jack the Ripper-played by David Warner-in the allegorical Nicholas Meyer film, TIME AFTER TIME (1979)-a film that also implicitly linked his naïve and altruistic friend, Herbert George (H.G.) Wells (played by Malcolm McDowell) to Sir Scott, apparently for Sir Scott’s implicit support of Cronenberg in his allegorical film, THE DUELLISTS (1977). Indeed, the arrival of the callous, blockbuster loot lusting and Meyer linked London Hospital night porter-played by Michael Elphick-who brought equally callous paying customers to see Merrick in his lonely room at night affirmed the implicit interest in Meyer in THE ELEPHANT MAN.
Thus, using the gift of intuiting, we discerned that the slow discovery during Merrick’s stay at the London Hospital over the course of the film that ‘the terrible Elephant Man’ was actually a sensitive, artistic and truly human being who used his imagination to cope with reality like Matt and Spencer, his liberation from the cruel control of Bytes and the callous greed of the night porter, and his embrace by Dr. Treves, Mrs. Kendal and mainstream London society before his death at the end of the film implied the confidence of Lynch that Cronenberg was also a misunderstood but sensitive and truly human artist underneath his terrifying exterior, and his hope that Cronenberg would break free from the control of the Canadian government and blockbuster loot lusting Hollywood producers so as to continue to create fearless and idiosyncratic film art that would in time be accepted by Canadian, English and world audiences, an acceptance that would also lead audiences to lose their fear of the ‘terrible’ Cronenberg man and to embrace him before he died, in the end.
Fittingly, before the death of Merrick, Dr. Treves treated him to a Christmas panto in a real and live theatre of the imagination with a beautiful and helpful blonde fairy-played by Beryl Hicks-who evoked the Lady in the Radiator, a real theatre of the imagination enjoyed by many instead of the personal theatre of the imagination only enjoyed by Matt or Henry that implicitly symbolized the hope of Lynch that he had left the film student underground and was now in the mainstream with THE ELEPHANT MAN. Curiously, however, despite the high quality and success of THE ELEPHANT MAN that led to the film being nominated for eight Academy Awards, Lynch was implicitly roasted the following year as a naïve innocent being led to his doom by Evil and knowing Hollywood in the allegorical Lawrence Kasdan film, BODY HEAT (1981), a film that saw William Hurt’s naïve and implicitly Lynch linked Florida lawyer Ned Racine allow himself to be persuaded by Kathleen Turner’s Evil, duplicitous and implicitly Hollywood linked Matty Walker to murder her husband, Edmund Walker-played by Richard Crenna-for the life insurance money.
The following year, Lynch was implicitly linked to the wild and irrational character, Tarver-played by J. Don Ferguson-gunned down by his abused and Carrie Fisher resembling daughter, Telena-played by Marin Kanter-as he attacked a group of dead end and implicitly New Hollywood linked bikers at the end of the allegorical Kathryn Bigelow and Monty ‘Lafayette’ Montgomery film, THE LOVELESS (1982). The same year, Lynch was also implicitly linked to the earnest West German astrophysicist and intrepid alien hunter, Doctor Johann Hoffman-played by Otto von Wernherr-in the allegorical Slava Tsukerman film, LIQUID SKY (1982). Of course, LIQUID SKY and THE LOVELESS were both overshadowed that year by the TZ disaster, a shocking and enraging disaster which Lynch implicitly addressed in his next allegorical moving painting, inspired by the popular and allegorical Frank Herbert novel, Dune (1965), his first cinematic salvo in the dread allegorical Zone Wars and one that was ominously anticipated in THE ELEPHANT MAN by Merrick and his fondness for the 23rd Psalm, which anticipated the July 23rd disaster in 1982 in yet another eerie memory of the twilit future that haunted film art in the years before the TZ disaster.
Curiously, twilit memories of the future also haunted Lynch before the release of his moving painting version of Dune, for Francis Coppola implicitly warned quirky loner Lynch that the moving painting would be scythed down by dismissive audiences and scathing reviews like Mickey Rourke’s quirky and implicitly Lynch linked loner, Motorcycle Boy, was gunned down by police at the end of the twilit and allegorical film, RUMBLE FISH (1983), an implicit and prescient Lynch addressing intent affirmed by the film’s allusions to ERASERHEAD and THE ELEPHANT MAN complete with mostly black and white film stock. Memories of the Arrakian future continued when Cronenberg also implicitly and presciently warned Lynch that his attempt to exorcise the TZ disaster and bring harmony back to the Temple Theatre with his version of Dune would destroy him as surely as the implicitly Lynch linked John Smith-played by Christopher Walken-was killed trying to bring health and harmony to his fellow Americans with the extrasensory powers (ESP) he gained after a serious head injury suffered in a traffic accident version in the twilit and allegorical film, THE DEAD ZONE (1983), based on the allegorical Screamin’ Stephen King novel, The Dead Zone (1979).
However, the cinematic responses to Lynch and his dream filled moving paintings were not all pessimistic that year, as Michael Chapman implicitly hoped that Lynch would go on to greater success with his quirky moving paintings like the implicitly Lynch linked high school football star Stefan Djordjevic-played by Tom Cruise-went on to greater success in college at the end of the allegorical film, ALL THE RIGHT MOVES (1983), its small, steel mill dominated Pennsylvania town pointing the way to a small, lumber mill dominated Washington state town in a Lynch telemoving painting series to come. For his party, not content to have a film based on one of his novels implicitly roasting Lynch, King also implicitly and presciently roasted Lynch the following year in his allegorical novel, Thinner (1984), published under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman. Indeed, with its obsession with dreams and with all of its raucous allusions to Dune and THE ELEPHANT MAN, King implied that Lynch was a one hit wonder who would disappear after the failure of his version of Dune like the implicitly Lynch linked William ‘Billy’ Halleck-whose name evoked loyal House Atreides man Gurney Halleck of Dune-wasted away to nothingness after a curse that made him thinner and thinner no matter how much he ate was placed on him by a Fremen Naib and Merrick evoking leader of a roving band of gypsies.
Shortly before Hallowe’en of ’84, some two months before the next moving painting of Lynch arrived in the Temple Theatre in time for Christmas, James Cameron also implicitly linked Lynch to the doomed Kyle Reese-played by Michael Biehn-who died trying to free the world from blockbuster machinations and cleanse audiences, film art, film artists and the universe of the TZ disaster in the twilit and allegorical film, THE TERMINATOR (1984). Just the encouragement and inspiration that Lynch needed when he implicitly and sympathetically transformed Cronenberg from the terrible Elephant Man into the charismatic, indomitable and messianic leader of world indie film art and also took on Lucas and Tsukerman when he teamed up again with Nance, Splet, Frederick Elmes-co-director of photography on ERASERHEAD-and Freddie Francis-director of photography of THE ELEPHANT MAN-on his twilit, allegorical, dream-like and dream filled moving painting, DUNE (1984).
‘For he is the Kwisatz Haderach!’
Intriguingly, DUNE began with the same star filled expanse of space that began ERASERHEAD and ended THE ELEPHANT MAN, neatly linking the beginning of DUNE to the end of the last Lynch moving painting. Soon the head and shoulders of Virginia Madsen’s Princess Irulan appeared in this starswept sea of space, slowly fading in and out of existence like the head of the Cheshire Cat as she set the galactic stage for audiences. The appearance of the pretty Princess reaffirmed the link to THE ELEPHANT MAN, as she recalled Merrick’s equally loquacious mother floating in that star filled expanse of space at the end of THE ELEPHANT MAN, as well as Princess Alexandra in that moving painting. Soon we found ourselves with the princess-wearing a white wedding-style dress that evoked a similar dress worn by Margaret (played by Anne Carlisle) at the end of LIQUID SKY-in the crowded and bustling throne room of the Imperial Palace on the planet Kaitain with her father, Emperor Shaddam IV-implicitly linked to Robert A. Heinlein in the Herbert novel, and played by Jose Ferrer-who evoked Sir John Gielgud’s Carr-Gomm, the director of the London Hospital in THE ELEPHANT MAN, and resembled and was implicitly linked to Irvin Kershner, director of the Lucas executive produced and allegorical film, STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980). Indeed, the Emperor’s implicit link to Irvin and Lucas was affirmed by the arrival of his bald, extrasensory power (ESP) aided and Wicked Witch of the West evoking Bene Gessirit advisor, the Reverend Gaius Helen Mohiam-played by Sian Phillips-for she evoked the equally bald denizens of the allegorical Lucas film, THX 1138 (1971) and the ESP aided Jedi Knights of the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy.
While the throne room bustled, a spaceship slowly landed at the landing pad of the palace, a slow nighttime descent that evoked the equally slow arrival and nighttime descent in New York of the dimunitive spaceship carrying an alien drug addict at the beginning of LIQUID SKY. A fitting evocation of the alien drug and orgasm fiend of LIQUID SKY, for soon a melange spice addicted and aided, presciently and intergalactically dreaming and truly elephantine blockbuster beast of a once human Third Stage Spacing Guild Navigator left the spaceship and arrived in the throne room floating in a massive tank of melange, looking both like a massive version of the worm-creatures of ERASERHEAD and the Elephant Man in his freak show cage, accompanied by still human First and Second Stage Spacing Guild companions in full length black leather.
Significantly, the arrival of the Third Stage Spacing Guild Navigator and his entourage in the throne room was detected with ESP by Reverend Mother Mohiam and affirmed to Emperor Shaddam IV with the words, ‘…he’s here, my Lord!’ Of course, the words evoked Heather O’Rourke’s Carol Anne Freeling saying ‘…they’re here’ at the beginning of the Spielberg co-written and co-executive produced and allegorical Tobe Hooper film, POLTERGEIST (1982), implicitly linking the Navigator to Spielberg and the twilit and disastrous year of 1982. The Navigator’s implicit link to Spielberg was reaffirmed by the first words spoken by the Emperor to the Spacing Guild entourage, for the phrase ‘…we are alone’ also evoked the catchphrase ‘…we are not alone’ for the allegorical Spielberg film, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977). Last but not least, the Third Stage Navigator’s link to Spielberg and 1982 was reaffirmed by the fact that the Navigator resembled E.T. in the allegorical Spielberg film, E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL (1982). Thus, it was fitting that the Navigator and E.T. were both created by Carlo Rambaldi, openly affirming the link between the two.
Given the resemblance and implicit link of the Emperor and the Navigator to Kershner and Spielberg, it was also not surprising that Emperor Shaddam IV was soon confiding to the Navigator a plot to destroy the House of Duke Leto Atreides-played by Jurgen Prochnow-whose popularity threatened the peaceful corruption of the Emperor’s reign. This petulant plot involved luring House Atreides to a forbidding desert planet called Arrakis and allowing them to take over the mining of the addictive and expensive spice melange, and then wiping them out with Imperial Sardaukar terror troops and the soldiers of the House Harkonnen, led by the implicitly Tsukerman linked, gleefully depraved and Evil, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen-perhaps linked to Vladimir Nabokov in Dune, and played by Kenneth McMillan-and his equally twisted and implicitly Carlisle linked Mentat major domo, Piter De Vries-played by Brad Dourif-with the aid of the notorious and implicitly Lucas linked Atreides traitor, Doctory Wellington Yueh-played by Dean Stockwell. This pernicious plot reminded us that Spielberg was inspired by the success of STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and its movie tie-in merchandise to release E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL in the equally greedy hope that the film would also be popular and sell lots of movie tie-in merchandise, so that Spielberg could be as independently wealthy as Lucas. Thus, from the outset, Lynch implicitly linked the Evil Forces of DUNE to blockbuster loot lusting film artists like Kershner, Lucas and Spielberg.
Significantly, Lynch not only soon implicitly linked the Good Forces of DUNE to film art for film art’s sake film artists, but implicitly chose Cronenberg to lead them. For immediately after the Spacing Guild agreed to work with the Emperor and House Harkonnen to wipe out the Atreides clan, the action shifted to the castle of House Atreides on the planet Caladan. Alas for Lynch and cast, due to the fact that the Mexican stage hands at Churubusco Studios in Mexico City where DUNE was filmed would only create sets out of wood, the exterior model of the castle had to made out of wood as well to match the interior sets, as Ed Naha revealed in his insightful book, The Making Of DUNE (1984). Unfortunately, as a wooden castle was dumb, the sight of the castle shocked the audience at the opening night screening of DUNE that I attended in mid-December of 1984 at the Stanley Theatre in Vancouver right out of the state of suspension of disbelief so vital for a sly fi film like DUNE to work. Immediately the till then rapt audience became angry, cynical and detached observers, convinced that Lynch and company had failed them like Folsey jr., Kennedy, Landis, Marshall and Spielberg had failed them in the TZ disaster, like executive producer Lucas and Richard Marquand had failed them with the twilit, allegorical and implicitly Spielberg roasting trimax, STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983), and Lucas had failed them again by working with Kennedy, Marshall and Spielberg on the twilit and allegorical disaster, INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (1984).
As such, the angry audience probably did not notice that Caladan had a fitting Canada evoking cadence, for the Duke’s son, Paul Atreides-who looked like a club patron in LIQUID SKY, and was played by Kyle MacLachlan-was soon implicitly linked to David Paul Cronenberg. Indeed, Paul was a naturally powerful telepath like some of the psychic young people of the allegorical Cronenberg film, STEREO (1969), and the Good scanner, Cameron Vale-played by Stephen Lack-in the implicitly Meyer roasting film, SCANNERS (1980), affirming the implicit interest in Cronenberg in DUNE. A link that was made when Reverend Mother Mohiam arrived at Castle Caladan to test his humanity with the pain amplifying box and curiously initiate him into the ranks of the Bene Gesserit, for the increasing levels of imaginary pain that made it feel like Paul’s right hand was burning evoked the increased heart rate that Vale inflicted on yoga master Peter Tubbs-played by Graham Batchelor-in SCANNERS.
The sound amplifying ‘weirding modules’ developed by House Atreides reaffirmed the implicit interest in Cronenberg, as they evoked the memorable use of sound to enhance the telepathic mayhem in SCANNERS, memorable sound design that reminded us of the equal importance of memorable sound design to the moving paintings of Lynch. The resemblance of Paul’s father, Duke Leto, to Peter Kastner, a Toronto born and raised actor who played Peter Mark in the allegorical Don Owen film, NOBODY WAVED GOODBYE (1964), one of the rebel Sixties Canadian feature films that inspired Cronenberg to become a film artist, reaffirmed Paul’s implicit link to Cronenberg. In addition, the resemblance of loyal House Atreides retainers Thufir Hawat, Mentat Master of Assassins, and celebrated swordsman, Duncan Idaho-played by Jones and Robert Jordan, respectively-to Doctor Paul Ruth and an Evil scanner assassin-played by Patrick McGoohan and Denis Lacroix, respectively-in SCANNERS reaffirmed the implicit Cronenberg addressing intent of Lynch in DUNE. While unplanned, the resemblance of another loyal Atreides retainer, Gurney Halleck-played by Patrick Stewart-to Alfred Hitchcock was fittingly fortuitous. The possible link of Doctor Liet-Kynes-played by Max Von Sydow-to Sir Scott also affirmed the implicit in Cronenberg in DUNE.
The fact that the spice melange expanded the latent telepathic powers of young Atreides after arriving on Arrakis reaffirmed his implicit link to Cronenberg, reminding us that STEREO was obsessed with developing the latent ESP of humanity and that the synthetic and liquid drug, ephemerol, was used to develop or depress ESP powers in SCANNERS. The sight of the three ESP aided Reverend Mothers, Mohiam, Paul’s Glinda the Good and Jennifer O’ Neill evoking and Jean Simmons resembling mother, Lady Jessica, and his insightful and mischievous kid sister, Alia-the latter two played by Francesca Annis and Alicia R. Witt, respectively-suffering bad nose bleeds after Paul successfully transmuted the water of life and became the Kwisatz Haderach, the universe’s super being, also affirmed Paul’s implicit link to Cronenberg, for the bloody sight reminded us that victims of psychic assault often suffered nose bleeds in SCANNERS. The sleeping dreams and waking visions that revealed the past and the future to Paul also evoked similar visions that revealed the pasts and the futures of different people to Smith after a head injury suffered in a car accident gave him ESP in THE DEAD ZONE, in another affirmation of the implicit Cronenberg addressing intent of the moving painting. The desertscapes of Arrakis reaffirmed the implication that a Canadian film artist was being addressed in DUNE, for the desertscapes evoked the snowscapes of Canada.
Thus, using our gift of intuiting things, the fact that young Atreides survived the Harkonnen/Imperial sneak attack on Arrakis and the death of his father-a passing that evoked the passing of Cronenberg’s own father in 1973-and confirmed that he had mastered his creative powers and virility by learning how to control his ESP, ride the giant phallic sandworms of Arrakis-worms that evoked a much smaller animated worm seen frolicking in ERASERHEAD-and successfully swallow and transmute the water of life in order to become one with the universe forever and triumph as the messianic Maud’dib, the ESP aided Kwisatz Haderach, with the help of the perhaps Luc Besson linked Stilgar-played by Everett McGill-and the rest of the faithful and freedom loving Fremen tribesmen of Arrakis over the Evil Forces of Emperor Shaddam, Baron Harkonnnen, the Beast Rabban-the Baron’s implicitly Stanley Kubrick linked nephew, played by Paul Smith, an implicit interest in Kubrick affirmed by the film’s allusions to the allegorical Kubrick films, PATHS OF GLORY (1957), DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (1964) and SPARTACUS (1960)-and the Spacing Guild implied the hope of Lynch that Cronenberg would survive the TZ disaster and the death of his father and confirm that he had mastered his creative powers by fully unleashing the power of his idiosyncratic indie film art for film art’s sake and leading the serious film artists of the world and their grateful and admiring audiences to victory over crassly commercial and blockbuster loot lusting film artists like Kershner, Lucas and Spielberg and the rest of the members of the Hollywood Director’s Guild and over the top indie film artists like Tsukerman, as well as cleansing the way by exorcising the TZ disaster, leaving behind the Twilight Zone, ending the dread allegorical Zone Wars and bringing harmony back to audiences, film art, film artists and the Temple Theatre, like a real life Maud’dave, kicking off a whole new sunlit film art era. How fitting that the letters for ‘art’ appeared in scrambled anagram form at the beginning of the surname Atreides. How equally fitting that Kwisatz Haderach, the phrase for galactic messiah in DUNE, had the same syllable cadence as David Cronenberg. !Kull wahad!
Unfortunately, after initially flocking to DUNE, audiences soon abandoned the moving painting. The wooden Castle Caladan, sets and spaceships and the many changes from Dune, like the sound amplifying weirding modules, the Caucasian actors playing Fremen, the fact that Lynch allowed the Fremen to appear without hooded robes to show off their stillsuits, the lack of mention of the Butlerian Jihad and the appearance and disappearance of Hawat in the final showdown turned off old fans of the novel and possible new fans of the moving painting. The fact that Lynch appeared in a cameo as the head of a mélange spice harvester who was reluctant to abandon a valuable load of spice when his spice harvester was attacked by a sandworm on Arrakis may have also dismayed audiences, for it made Lynch look like he had made DUNE simply to amass blockbuster loot. As a result, DUNE was as much of a disaster for Lynch as the TZ disaster, INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM and STAR WARS: EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI were for Folsey jr., Kennedy, Landis, Lucas, Marquand, Marshall and Spielberg. Indeed, Lynch was so disappointed with DUNE that he no longer listed DUNE amongst his moving paintings (Lynch 59-60 and 179, and Rodley 116), and insisted that Alan Smithee be credited as the director of the expanded telefilm version of DUNE (1989).
However, despite the disappointment, when it all came together and it transcended the frustrating nightmare of its creation in Mexico City-a harrowing experience where everything that could go wrong did go wrong that was chronicled in The Making Of DUNE-DUNE was still the fearless and iconoclastic moving painting event of the year. Indeed, in its strongest scenes, like Reverend Mother Mohiam’s symbolic rape of Paul with her box that strangely initiated him into womanhood, the moving…without moving transportation of House Atreides across the galaxy from Caladan to Arrakis with the help of a Third Stage Navigator hidden away in his cosmic theatre of the imagination in a Heighliner spaceship, the sandworm attack on the spice harvester, the escape of Paul and Lady Jessica from the Harkonnens into the deep desert, Paul’s mastery of a sandworm that initiated him into manhood, Paul’s transmutation of the Water of Life that affirmed that he was the Kwisatz Haderach, the final knife battle with the fecklessly Evil Feyd Rautha-played by Sting and, last but not least, the sight and sound of Paul using his cosmically attuned imagination to cause rain to fall on Arrakis at the end of the film in an implicit affirmation of Lynch’s belief that Cronenberg had the power to transform anything he imagined into film art-DUNE easily succeeded in its fearless and determined quest to exorcise the TZ disaster and win back angry audiences to the cause of heady and uplifting film art-shai’halud!
This despite the moving painting’s lack of computer graphic imagery (CGI), which most other film artists immediately began to turn to and develop after the TZ disaster so as to create dangerous effects sequences digitally in order to avoid further set fatalities, a lack of CGI that became an idiosyncratic hallmark of the post-1982 film art of Lynch. The visionary moving painting was also quite prescient, as Cronenberg did go on to lead the world film art movement on to even greater success after the release of DUNE. With its psychically powerful Bene Gesserit sisterhood, its fearless female Fremen warriors-including Sean Young’s perhaps Bigelow linked Chani, the woman of Maud’dib’s dreams-and a female producer as De Laurentiis had passed on production duties to his daughter, Raffaella, DUNE also broke new ground for women, affirming that women would play a significant role in the dread allegorical Zone Wars, while reaffirming that women played a significant role in the moving paintings of Lynch. And how fitting that Paul’s Fremen nickname, Maud’dib, referred to the desert mouse of Arrakis, given that the Walt Disney Studio seized the twilit day and began its memorable and embattled rise to film art triumph the year of the release of DUNE with the twilit, allegorical and implicitly Spielberg supporting Ron Howard film, SPLASH (1984).
Not surprisingly, DUNE implicitly inspired more allegorical cinematic reflections on Lynch. Indeed, Lynch was linked to the implicitly Scarecrow linked Fred-played by Christophe Lambert-in the sympathetic and Ozian themed allegorical Besson film, SUBWAY (1985). Donna Deitch also curiously linked Lynch and MacLachlan’s tumultuous experience creating and releasing DUNE to the equally tumultuous romance of the implicitly Lynch linked Vivian Bell and the implicitly MacLachlan linked Cay Rivvers-played by Helen Shaver and Patricia Charbonneau, respectively-in the allegorical and fittingly titled film, DESERT HEARTS (1985). Deitch also implicitly hoped that Lynch and MacLachlan would recover from the failure of DUNE and go on to better things like Vivian and Cay, in the end.
Lynch was also implicitly roasted in the implicit form of the Lynch resembling and implicitly homosexual Francis Buxton jr.-played by Mark Holton-in the freshman allegorical Tim Burton film, PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE (1985). An implicit roast that implicitly infuriated Lynch, for he implicitly addressed PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE when he rejoined De Laurentiis, Dourif, Elmes, MacLachlan, Nance, Splet, Stockwell and Patricia Norris-costume designer on THE ELEPHANT MAN-and struggled to leave behind the DUNE disaster as well as the TZ disaster and get his dream filled and surreal mojo going again with his most indie and original moving painting since ERASERHEAD, the twilit, dream-like, dream filled and allegorical moving painting, the Ozian themed and CGI free BLUE VELVET (1986).
‘I don’t know if you’re a detective or a pervert.’
The Ozian imagery began immediately in BLUE VELVET, with the POV falling slowly out of a big blue and cloudless summer sky to the tune of Bobby Vinton’s version of the allegorical tune, ‘Blue Velvet’ (1963). For the gentle descent from the sky not only made clear that Lynch was abandoning the heady intergalactic mysticism of DUNE for a more down to Earth approach in BLUE VELVET, but evoked Dorothy’s farmhouse falling out of the sky and down onto vibrantly colourful and flower filled Munchkinland at the beginning of the allegorical and implicitly Wallis Simpson roasting Victor Fleming film, THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939). Indeed, the vibrantly colourful and florid land of Munchkinland was evoked when the POV settled down beside a white picket fence set off with bright red and yellow tulips. Ironically, however, this peaceful and dreamy opening shot also evoked the final shot of the camera rising up into a clear blue sky at the end of the murderous and nightmarish BODY HEAT, preparing us for more murderous mayhem to come.
The surreal, overlap dissolve montage of shots that followed, establishing the small town called Lumberton-whose woodsy name recalled the equally woodsy name of the small town of Hollywood, and the woodsy upbringing of Lynch as a result of having a father in the U.S. Forestry Service-also evoked the similar overlap dissolve montage of opening shots that established the setting and tone of some of the early allegorical films of Landis, particularly ANIMAL HOUSE (1978), THE BLUES BROTHERS (1980), AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981)-which began with a cover of ‘Blue Moon’-TRADING PLACES (1983) and INTO THE NIGHT (1985), introducing a snake into the Garden of Lumberton in a way that implied that this allegorical moving painting was addressing Landis. However, the blue sky and dreamy beginning also recalled the opening image of the blue sky in the Tour de France billboard that began PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE, a gleefully childish, silly and curiously homoerotic film that sympathetically likened the frantic quest of the sexually ambiguous and implicitly Lucas linked P. W. ‘Pee-Wee’ Herman-played by Paul Reubens-to recover his beloved stolen bicycle to the equally frantic quest of George Walton ‘G. W.’ Lucas to recover his film form and reestablish friendly relations with audiences. Indeed, Lynch’s implicit interest in the eccentric new director was reaffirmed by the fact that the name of Lumberton looked and sounded like Tim Burton.
The film’s implicit interest in Burton was reaffirmed by the arrival of the implicitly Burton and Scarecrow linked Jeffrey Beaumont-played by MacLachlan-back in town to watch over the family’s Beaumont Hardware store after the stroke of his father, Tom Beaumont-played by Jack Harvey-who shared Tim Burton’s T.B. initials. For not only was Beaumont’s hair as black as that of Burton, but a ‘Burton’ was hidden in the letters that made up Jeffrey Beaumont. Curiously, Mr. Beaumont suffered his stroke while watering the Garden of Eden evoking plants and flowers of the yard surrounding his wooden house, a scene that reaffirmed the film’s interest in PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE. For the house and its white picket fence recalled the red and white house and white picket fence of Herman, and that Herman watered his lawn after leaving his house at the beginning of the film. Soon Mr. Beaumont suffered a stroke and collapsed on the lawn, a supine state that evoked the sight of the legs of the Wicked Witch of the East sticking out from underneath Dorothy’s farmhouse in Munchkinland at the beginning of THE WIZARD OF OZ. This implied that Mr. Beaumont was a male version of the Wicked Witch of the East, whose death opened up the gates of the healing Ozian spiritworld dream, and set us up for the arrival of a male Wicked Witch of the West.
Curiously, while walking back through a field after his first visit with his stricken father in the hospital, young Jeffrey encountered a severed and Vincent Van Gogh evoking ear in the grass, a severed ear that turned out to belong to a husband, Donald James Watts-played by Dick Green-of a local singer and implicitly Dorothy linked singer named Dorothy Vallens-who sang onstage like a sad Lady in the Radiator at a real life theatre of the imagination called the Slow Club and like an equally sad Dorothy-played by Judy Garland-in Kansas at the beginning of THE WIZARD OF OZ, resembled the Beautiful Woman Across The Hall in ERASERHEAD, and was played by Isabella Rossellini-who was being forced into depraved acts of sado-masochistic sex by the Evil and implicitly Wicked Witch of the West linked drug dealing thug, Frank Booth-played by Dennis Hopper-in order to preserve the life of her husband and her son, Donny-played by Jo Jo Snipes.
Significantly, Vallens also resembled Diane Salinger’s Simone in PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE, reaffirming the implication that Lynch was responding to the first feature film of Burton in BLUE VELVET. The return of Dourif as a thug named Raymond also affirmed the implicit Burton addressing intent of the film, for his name evoked a dachshund named Raymond-played by a dachshund named Rusty James-in the twilit and allegorical Burton film, FRANKENWEENIE (1984). The film’s implicit interest in Burton was reaffirmed by Jeffrey’s romance with the sweet, Mary X resembling and implicitly Glinda the Good linked Sandy Williams-her name evoking Sandy Wilson and her then recent and implicitly Lucas addressing allegorical film, MY AMERICAN BOYFRIEND (1985), and played by Laura Dern-at a local diner to discuss the mysteries he had uncovered in Lumberton. For when Beaumont sat down in his chair, his head and upper body briefly blocked out the ‘Lum’ in ‘Lumberton’ on a sign on a store across the street seen out the window, openly linking him to ‘Berton’ for a second or two. Sandy also reaffirmed Beaumont’s implicit link to Burton, as she recalled Herman’s equally blonde and tenacious girlfriend, Dottie-played by Elizabeth Daily-in PEE WEE HERMAN’S BIG ADVENTURE. Thus, with our gift of intuiting, we saw that Jeffrey’s implicit link to Burton implied that Lynch wanted to teach the young, naïve and innocent film artist some serious lessons in the art of life and in film art and wake him up to how Evil both could be at times.
Curiously, while Jeffrey was haunted by nightmares that evoked the nightmares of Merrick and the prescient dreams and visions of Maud’dib, BLUE VELVET again lacked the dream worlds and dream people of ERASERHEAD. However, the film was as twilit as DUNE, as the Beaumont surname also evoked Charles Beaumont, one of the writers who wrote for the original Twilight Zone television series, affirming the twilit ambience of BLUE VELVET. Indeed, the link of BLUE VELVET to the Twilight Zone was openly affirmed by the return of DUNE vet Stockwell as the implicitly Lucas linked Ben, for Stockwell played U.S. Lieutenant Katell and Japanese Lt. Yamuri in the allegorical Buzz Kulik telefilm, ‘A Quality Of Mercy’ (1961), in the third season of the original TWILIGHT ZONE telefilm series. The arrival of Hopper-who played Motorcycle Boy’s father in RUMBLE FISH, a dishevelled character who evoked Bytes in THE ELEPHANT MAN-as the psychotic, impotent and black leather jacket clad Booth reaffirmed the film’s twilit ambience and Lynch’s determination to rid Mr. Beaumont, Vallens, Lumberton and Hollywood of disastrous twilit disease. For not only did Frank Booth’s name evoke TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE executive producer Frank Marshall, the presence of Hopper evoked his troubled and Adolf Hitler haunted character Peter Vollmer in the allegorical Stuart Rosenberg telefilm, ‘He’s Alive’ (1963), from the fourth season of the original Twilight Zone television series.
Of course, the insidious Frank Booth also evoked the equally insidious, chubby, implicitly homosexual and vaguely Lynch resembling Francis Buxton, jr., the arch nemesis of Herman throughout PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE, whose rotund form and hilarious love of money and Herman’s bicycle appeared to be Burton’s way of mocking the equally bloated and blockbuster lusting excess of DUNE. Indeed, Booth and Buxton shared the same F. B. initials, confirming their link-while a Burton evoking ‘Barton’ could be made from the letters comprising Frank Booth. And Sandy’s father, Detective J. D. Williams-played by George Dickerson-resembled Buxton, reaffirming the link of BLUE VELVET to PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE. Thus, with Beaumont’s victory over the troubled childman Booth, in the end, Lynch also implied his hope that Burton would grow up, take the Dark Side of Hollywood more seriously and make up for the childish nonsense of PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE with some more serious and uplifting film art that would free the world of film art from the twilit shadow of troubled New Hollywood film artists-literally, as Hopper was a troubled and haunted New Hollywood film artist best known for his allegorical film, EASY RIDER (1969). This implication that film art was being saved by the death of Booth was reaffirmed by the fact that his death led to the liberation and rescue of Dorothy, literally linked to film art as Rossellini was the daughter of Italian film director, Roberto Rossellini. Last but not least, the sight of the POV rising away from a happy, harmonious and healthy Dorothy after she embraced little Donny, in the end, and rising back up into the clear blue sky from which it fell at the beginning of the film also implied the hope of Lynch that he would be able to rise back up to headier cinematic heights with the success of BLUE VELVET.
Luckily for Lynch, audiences accepted this dark and tragicomic peace offering. Unluckily for Lynch, they also enjoyed the tragicomically twilit and allegorical Tim Hunter film, RIVER’S EDGE (1986), a film set in a small town in the Pacific Northwest that implied that Lynch killed his film art with DUNE as surely as Daniel Roebuck’s implicitly Lynch linked, Buxton resembling and troubled sadolescent Samson ‘John’ Tollet killed Jamie-played by Danyi Deats-a teenaged girl implicitly linked to the film art of Lynch. Curiously, however, RIVER’S EDGE linked well with BLUE VELVET, as Elmes also worked on it as cinematographer, and Hopper reappeared as the feckless and paranoid Feck. Unfortunately for all, however, jurors at the TZ trial that ended on May 29, 1987, a year after the release of BLUE VELVET found Landis and his four co-defendants-longtime producer pal Folsey, jr., first assistant director Dan Allingham, mechanical special effects supervisor Paul Stewart, and helicopter pilot Dorcey Wingo-not guilty of manslaughter in the TZ disaster, a verdict that no doubt displeased an ex-Eagle Scout from Arrakis like Lynch.
The same year, Sir Scott implied with the many allusions to BLUE VELVET and DUNE in his allegorical film, SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME (1987), that the decision of NYPD Detective Mike Keegan-played by Tom Berenger-to leave the dangerously wealthy and seductive New York socialite, Claire Gregory-played by Mimi Rogers-and return to his wife, Ellie-played by Lorraine Bracco-symbolized Sir Scott’s hope that Lynch would leave behind the urge to create more dangerously seductive and disastrous blockbuster beasts like DUNE, and return to his better and lower budgeted film art like BLUE VELVET. Indeed, the George and Ira Gershwin tune, ‘Someone To Watch Over Me’ (1926), was as important to SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME as ‘Blue Velvet’ was to BLUE VELVET, affirming the film’s implicit interest in Lynch. The following year, Terry Gilliam implicitly linked Lynch to the truly looney King o’ the Moon-played by Robin Williams-in his allegorical and implicitly Spielberg roasting animaction film, THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN (1989).
That same year, Martin Scorsese implied that it was time for Lynch to leave behind his angst over Paul Atreides and DUNE and get his moving paintings back on track in the Nineties like the implicitly Lynch linked abstract painter, Lionel Dobie-played by Nick Nolte-left behind his sorrow over his breakup with Paulette-played by Rosanna Arquette-and moved on to a new lover-played by Brigitte Bako-in ‘Life Lessons’, the first panel of an allegorical cinematic triptych called NEW YORK STORIES (1989). For his part, John Glen implicitly roasted Lynch in the form of Anthony Zerbe’s character Milton Krest in the allegorical film, LICENSE TO KILL (1989), starring an implicitly Lucas linked Timothy Dalton as the latest incarnation of James Bond.
As for Lynch, the Boy Scout from Arrakis openly alluded and responded to ALL THE RIGHT MOVES, BODY HEAT, LICENSE TO KILL, PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE, RIVER’S EDGE, SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME, THE DEAD ZONE and THE LOVELESS when he teamed up again with Badalamenti, Hunter, MacLachlan, McGill, Nance, Norris, Stewart, Witt, Frances Bay-who played Aunt Barbara in BLUE VELVET-Catherine Coulson-a camera and production assistant on ERASERHEAD-Dwayne Dunham-editor of BLUE VELVET-Tim Hunter-surprisingly, given that he was director of RIVER’S EDGE-Monty Montgomery-another surprise, as he was co-director and co-writer of THE LOVELESS-and Jonathan Sanger-producer of THE ELEPHANT MAN-and explored the effect of the murder of another teenaged girl on another Pacific Northwest town with another intrepid and MacLachlan played young Sherlock Holmes out to solve the murderous mystery, and perhaps came to grips with the fear of television implicitly expressed on one level in THE ALPHABET by bringing his twilit, dreamy and allegorical moving painting style to the television milieu that had given the world the original TWILIGHT ZONE television series, in the pilot moving painting for the dream filled and slightly CGI enhanced telemoving painting series, TWIN PEAKS (1990-91).
‘Harry, my dream is a code waiting to be broken.
Break the code, solve the problem.’
Significantly, the beginning of TWIN PEAKS underlined that Lynch was not happy with the outcome of the TZ trial, for the overlap dissolve montage of surreal snapshots to the tune of Badalamenti’s sad and wistful instrumental main theme for TWIN PEAKS that established the scenic and forested environs of the small town of Twin Peaks, Washington again evoked the similar montage of establishing shots that began the early films of Landis and BLUE VELVET-indeed, the opening image of a robin evoked the robins of Light of that latter film-immediately implying that Lynch was meditating on Landis and the TZ disaster in TWIN PEAKS as much as Hunter. Indeed, later in the series the sound of INTO THE NIGHT being openly alluded to in the memorable soundtrack by Badalamenti, ‘Into The Night’ (1990), a sad and wistful tune with lyrics by Lynch sung by the Lady In The Radiator evoking Julee Cruise onstage at another theatre of the imagination at the Roadhouse, affirmed the implicit interest in Landis and the TZ disaster in TWIN PEAKS.
Curiously, however, this montage of establishing shots to the tune of the main theme of TWIN PEAKS also evoked the montage of establishing shots of small town life to the tune of the main theme by Michael Kamen that began THE DEAD ZONE, implying that Lynch was might be implicitly addressing Cronenberg again or King in TWIN PEAKS. The shots of machines mindlessly sharpening saw blades, including blades with shark fin shapes, also evoked the allegorical Spielberg film, JAWS (1975), implying that Spielberg and his blockbuster machine film art was the actual target of TWIN PEAKS. At any rate, an implicit interest in the twilit and disastrous events of 1982 was affirmed when we met up with Nance’s Peter ‘Pete’ Martell. For Martell’s name evoked film artist Paul Bartel, linked forever to the fateful year of 1982 by his allegorical film, EATING RAOUL (1982).
This implicit interest in twilit film artists and the TZ disaster was reaffirmed shortly after we met Martell, on the fateful 23rd of February 1989-a day that evoked the July 23, 1982 date of the TZ disaster. For setting off to do some fishing, Martell soon discovered the body of the beautiful blonde teenager, Laura Palmer-played by Sheryl Lee, her surname evoking that of Myca Le-lying on a rocky beach wrapped in plastic like the body of Edmund Walker in BODY HEAT. Significantly, while the body of Palmer evoked that of Jamie in RIVER’S EDGE, the fact that the first name of Laura began with an ‘L’ and ended with an ‘a’, also implicitly linked her to L.A. This implicit link to L.A. was reaffirmed by Laura’s surname, for Palmer reminded us that L.A. was the city of the palm trees as well as of Hollywood and the angels. Thus, the implication was that beautiful blonde Laura Palmer symbolized Hollywood film art, and her death symbolized the death of blonde obsessed Hollywood film art since the TZ disaster.
At any rate, it was fitting that the star of ERASERHEAD found her body, for Laura haunted Twin Peaks like the equally blonde, dreamy and art linked figure of the Lady in the Radiator haunted ERASERHEAD. Significantly, Laura’s haunting presence reminded us that another Laura, Gene Tierney’s Laura Hunt, also haunted the allegorical Otto Preminger film, LAURA (1944), a film that was alluded to in TWIN PEAKS. For the name of Russ Tamblyn’s implicitly Lucas linked Dr. Lawrence Jacoby evoked an artist named Jacoby played by John Dexter in LAURA. The fact that the shocked and horrified reaction of Laura’s fellow teens and the rest of the people of Twin Peaks to her death was so different from the callous indifference of the teens of that small town in the Pacific Northwest in RIVER’S EDGE to the death of the Lynch film art linked Jamie also implied Lynch’s disapproval of that film.
Significantly, the mystery surrounding the death of Laura and the identity of her murderer were both eventually solved by the returning MacLachlan’s dream haunted and guided FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, his black suit and tie and white dress shirt evoking Henry’s daily uniform in ERASERHEAD. One of the clues that aided him was an upper case letter ‘R’ found under the ring finger of Laura, evoking the implicit fear of capitalism in THE ALPHABET. Curiously, while Cooper evoked NYPD Detective Mike Keegan in SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME, he had the same initials and quirky interest in ESP as David Cronenberg, reaffirming that Lynch was possibly addressing Cronenberg again in TWIN PEAKS. Indeed, the name of Dale Cooper also evoked that of Cameron Vale, the scanner with the greatest natural ESP in SCANNERS, while his use of ESP to figure out who killed Laura also evoked the implicitly Lynch linked Smith using ESP to hunt down serial killers and potential mass murderers in THE DEAD ZONE. A fitting evocation of King, for FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper also evoked FBI Special Agent Ellis Stoner in Thinner, implying that he actually might be linked to King.
Indeed, Cooper was as fond of fresh baked pies as Heidi Halleck, the wife of the implicitly Lynch linked Billy Halleck in Thinner, reaffirming the possibility that Coop was linked to King rather than Cronenberg. A distraught character in Thinner named Leda Rossington whose first name was an anagram of Dale also affirmed the possibility that Cooper was linked to King. The importance of the dreamy Red Draped Room-its wavy linked floor evoking the equally wavy lines of a television on the fritz, linking it to tv land-to the mysterious saga also affirmed the implication that King was linked to Cooper, for the Red Room evoked ‘redrum’ in the allegorical King novel, The Shining (1977), a link to the latter novel reaffirmed by the fact that the Great Northern Hotel near Twin Peaks evoked the Overlook Hotel. Last but not least, the sight of a distraught Leland Palmer-played by Ray Wise-throwing himself on the coffin of his daughter, Laura, as it was lowered into her grave evoked an equally distraught Tony Glick throwing himself on the coffin of his son Danny as it rested in its grave at the boy’s funeral in the allegorical King novel, ‘Salem’s Lot (1975), reaffirming the implicit interest in King in TWIN PEAKS. At any rate, Cooper was not implicitly linked to Lynch, as Lynch showed up in the series implicitly linked to himself as hearing impaired FBI Regional Bureau Chief, Gordon Cole, whose name was taken from a Lynch resembling Paramount Studios employee played by Bert Moorhouse in the allegorical Billy Wilder film, SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950), linking Twin Peaks to Hollywood and implicitly affirming that film art and its artists were being roasted in TWIN PEAKS.
Alas, while it was too late for Laura to be saved by Cooper or by Michael Ontkean’s Rod Serling resembling Twin Peaks Sheriff Harry S. Truman-the straight man of the duo who evoked Tom Skerritt’s Sheriff Bannerman in THE DEAD ZONE-it was not too late to implicitly blast Landis and insist that he was still a murderer despite the not guilty verdict in the TZ trial. For the eventual killer of Laura and of her lookalike brunette cousin, Madeleine ‘Maddy’ Ferguson-also played by Lee-turned out to be Bob-played by Frank Silva-the implicitly Landis linked Dark Side of Laura’s father, Leland, who was implicitly linked to Steven Spielberg given that Leland’s wife, Sarah-played by Grace Zabriskie-resembled Amy Irving, Spielberg’s wife at the time. It was also not too late to exorcise Bob and free Leland, telemoving paintings and audiences from his twilit grip, kicking off a whole new era of telefilm art in time for the Nineties. Alas, after the moving exorcism of Bob midway through season two, TWIN PEAKS quickly lost steam and its way. The fact that the series ended with Cooper’s Light Side trapped in the Black Lodge version of the dreaming Red Draped Room, and his Dark Side-perhaps inhabited with the spirit of Bob, and also played by MacLachlan-on the loose in the real world, implied that Lynch was still annoyed that King implicitly roasted him in Thinner. Indeed, Cooper’s Dark Side evoked the Bachman pseudonym of King, affirming the implicit meaning of the end of TWIN PEAKS.
In addition, Lynch also implied that he used the series to roast other film artists like Bigelow, Burton, Cameron, Daily, Gilliam, Kennedy, Kershner, Kubrick, Marshall, Reubens, Sir Scott, Aldo the mynah, Peter Bogdanovich, Sofia Coppola, Alfred Hitchcock, David Lean, John Milius, Roman Polanski, Martin Scorsese, William Shatner, Sandy Wilson and Zhang Yimou in the form of Dana Ashbrook’s Robert ‘Bobby’ Briggs, McGill’s Edward ‘Big Ed’ Hurley, Gary Hershberger’s Michael ‘Mike/‘Snake’’ Nelson, Kimmy Robertson’s Lucy Moran, Eric Da Re’s Leo Johnson, Piper Laurie’s Catherine Martell, Tony Jay’s Douglas ‘Dougie’ Milford, Victoria Catlin’s Blackie O’Reilly, Nicholas Love’s Malcolm Sloan, Harry Goaz’s Deputy Andrew ‘Andy’ Brennan, Wendy Robie’s Nadine Hurley, Waldo the mynah, Coulson’s Margaret ‘the Log Lady’ Lanterman, Madchen Amick’s Shelley Johnson, Don Davis’ Major Garland Briggs, Dan O’Herlihy’s Andrew Packard, Ritch Brinkley’s District Attorney Daryl Lodwick, Phoebe Augustine’s Ronette ‘Ronnie’ Pulaski, Ian Buchanan’s Richard ‘Dick’ Tremayne, Michael Parks’ Jean Renault, Richard Beymer’s Benjamin Horne, Diane Caldwell’s Julie and Mak Takano’s Jonathan, respectively, in TWIN PEAKS. This affirmed the implicit link of Twin Peaks to Hollywood, setting the stage for a trio of moving paintings to come that were openly set in Hollywood and the Greater Los Angeles Area (GLAA).
Significantly, TWIN PEAKS saw Agent Cooper visit the White Lodge version of the timeless dreamland Red Draped Room in his dreams at night. Timeless, indeed, for in one of these dreams he experienced the same dream that Laura had on February 22nd, the night before she died, a few nights after she was murdered on February 23rd. In this past and future dream, Laura and a dancing, dimunitive and implicitly Wilder linked Dream Man-played by Michael Anderson-imparted cryptic insights to help an old Cooper sitting in a chair solve the murder of Laura, the first time a character in a work by Lynch visited a timeless dreamland and interacted with its dream denizens since Henry visited the Lady In The Radiator in her radiator theatre of the imagination in ERASERHEAD.
Just as significantly, the implicitly Besson linked Phillip Michael ‘Mike’ Gerard aka the One-Armed Man-played by Al Strobel-the implicitly Cronenberg linked Tall Dream Man-played by Carel Struycken-and Hank Worden’s mysteriously jovial and hilarious but lovable waiter visited Cooper in dreams and reality, the first time in a Lynch work that dream characters were met in the real world. A noteworthy appearance of dreamworld people in reality that occurred again when Lynch implicitly switched from a memorably quirky meditation on the twilit death of film art in the Eighties to a memorably quirky meditation on the sunlit rebirth of film art in the Nineties when he teamed up again with Badalamenti, Bay, Dern, Dunham, Elmes, Fenn, Jones, Lee, Nance, Norris, Rossellini, Zabriskie and Lisa Ann Cabasa, Sherilyn Fenn, David P. Kelly and Ed Wright-who played Jenny, Audrey Horne, Jerry Horne and Dell Mibbler, respectively, in TWIN PEAKS-and returned to the Temple Theatre to implicitly address Coppola with the exultantly free, fiery, violent, twilit, Ozian themed, dream-like and CGI free allegorical moving painting, WILD AT HEART (1990), inspired by the allegorical Barry Gifford novel, Wild At Heart (1990).
‘If you’re truly wild at heart, you’ll fight for your dreams.’
Significantly, WILD AT HEART was not just Ozian themed, it was openly Ozian themed, with the beleaguered but lovable, Elvis loving and implicitly Coppola and Scarecrow linked lunk, Sailor Ripley-played by Nicolas Cage-and his beautiful, blonde, red high heels wearing and implicitly Dorothy linked sweetie, Miss Lula Fortune-who implicitly symbolized the film art of Coppola, and was played by Dern-plagued by Lula’s openly Wicked Witch of the West linked mother, Marietta Fortune-played by Dern’s mother, Diane Ladd-as they rocked and rolled and slowly revealed themselves to each other and to audiences on a fiery and passionate road trip down the Yellow Lined Road from the Carolinas to California. Significantly, the film’s many allusions to RUMBLE FISH and the twilit and allegorical Coppola films, THE OUTSIDERS (1983), and the equally openly Ozian themed PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED (1986), affirmed the implicit Coppola addressing intent of the film. The appearance of Cage as Ripley reaffirmed the film’s implicit Coppola addressing intent, for Cage was not only the nephew of Coppola, but had played Smokey in RUMBLE FISH and the implicitly Cameron linked Charles ‘Charlie’ Bodell in PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED, a character who loved to soulfully croon Fifties rock and roll classics as much as Ripley.
Thus, using our gift of intuiting again, the sight of Ripley loving, protecting and saving Lula from the Wicked Marietta and other assorted madcap mobsters and heinous hitmen like the implicitly Bigelow linked Perdita-played by Rossellini-and the implicitly Nikko the Monkey King linked, Booth evoking and perhaps Oliver Stone linked Vietnam vet, Bobby Peru-played by Willem Dafoe, who played the biker Vance in THE LOVELESS-on their star crossed country journey and marrying her in the triumphant end, implied the hope of Lynch that Coppola would fight off his critics and his doubts and not give up on film art despite all of his misfortunes at that point in his career. Significantly, Sailor succeeded in the end with the help of Lee’s floating Glinda the Good-who evoked the equally aerial and beautiful blonde fairy in the panto at the end of THE ELEPHANT MAN and looked like Sofia Coppola’s blonde and Goldilocks evoking Ann Chambers in FRANKENWEENIE-in another intervention by a timeless dream world character in the time plagued world of mortal men and women in a Lynch moving painting. Given that the final passionate smooch of S and his beloved Miss Fortune at the end of WILD AT HEART after he finally sang her the allegorical Elvis Presley song, ‘Love Me Tender’ (1956), evoked the final equally passionate embrace of Henry and the Lady In The Radiator at the end of ERASERHEAD, Lynch also implicitly reassured audiences that his work on commercial television had not diminished his commitment to his own quirky indie moving paintings and his hope that things would work out better for himself and his moving paintings, and for audiences, film art, film artists and the Temple Theatre in the Nineties.
Curiously, the return of Lynch in 1990 with another commercial Hollywood moving painting rather than a more personal and self-financed film art for film art’s sake moving painting like ERASERHEAD was an enthusiastic embrace of the dangerous and seductive Hollywood blonde that Hopper anticipated that Lynch would make that year despite the DUNE and TZ disasters. For Don Johnson’s implicitly Lynch linked Harry Madox gave up trying to escape the wicked and seductive clutches of Madsen’s deadly and Hollywood linked blonde Dolly Harshaw for the healing arms of Jennifer Connelly’s sweet and shy brunette, Gloria Harper, and embraced the Wicked Harshaw at the end of Hopper’s allegorical film, THE HOT SPOT (1990)-an ending that recalled also Henry’s embrace of the Lady In The Radiator at the end of ERASERHEAD. Hopper underlined his implicit intentions with allusions to BLUE VELVET and DUNE as well as ERASERHEAD, and the return of both Madsen from DUNE and Nance as a bank manager named Julian Ward.
Significantly, King implicitly affirmed that he was being roasted in the form of FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper by openly alluding to TWIN PEAKS and implicitly roasting Lynch again in the demonic form of the diabolically persuasive Leland Gaunt, proprietor of the Needful Things curio shoppe in the coffee and pie loving town of Castle Rock, in the allegorical novel, NEEDFUL THINGS (1991), an implicit roast of Lynch reaffirmed by the novel’s allusions to DUNE and WILD AT HEART. For his part, despite the failure of DUNE, Cameron also implied that he thought that Lynch was becoming a blockbuster menace, for he roasted Lynch the following year in the implicit form of Robert Patrick’s CGI enhanced liquid metal T-1000 Terminator cyborg in his twilit and allegorical film, TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY (1991). Indeed, Cameron underlined his implicit intent with all sorts of nods to TWIN PEAKS and WILD AT HEART, perhaps due to the implicit link of William M. Sheppard’s insidious Mr. Reindeer to Cameron in the latter moving painting. Bigelow implicitly agreed with Cameron, as allusions to BLUE VELVET, TWIN PEAKS and WILD AT HEART also featured prominently in the Cameron executive produced and twilit and allegorical film, POINT BREAK (1991), implying that Patrick Swayze’s doomed anti-establishment surfer and Ex-Presidents bank robber gang leader, Bodhi, was linked to Lynch.
With its allusions to BLUE VELVET, THE ELEPHANT MAN, TWIN PEAKS and WILD AT HEART and its use of Hopper as a barkeep named Caesar, Sean Penn also implied that he was sending a message to Lynch in his freshman allegorical film, THE INDIAN RUNNER (1991). And given that David Morse’s small town deputy Joe Roberts did not imitate Beaumont and gun down the Wicked Frank-that is, his wayward brother Frank, played by Viggo Mortensen-in the end, but instead let Frank go free, Penn implied either that a live and well Dark Side was necessary in order to be whole and make good film art, or that Lynch was not one to moralize as he had not had the courage to defeat his Dark Side. With its allusions to BLUE VELVET, DUNE and TWIN PEAKS and its Badalamenti evoking soundtrack by Howard Shore, Cronenberg also implicitly roasted Lynch in his allegorical film, NAKED LUNCH (1991).
In addition, with its many allusions to TWIN PEAKS and WILD AT HEART, Disney also implicitly toasted and roasted Lynch and his efforts to whip Hollywood into shape in the form of the cocky young lawyer with the FBI Regional Bureau Chief Gordon Cole evoking name of Gordon Bombay-played by Emilio Estevez-and his attempts to get a New Hollywood linked team of misfit kid hockey players into shape in order to beat the implicitly Folsey linked Coach Reilly-played by Land Smith-and his intimidating Hawks in the allegorical Stephen Herek animaction film, THE MIGHTY DUCKS (1991). Curiously, Zhang Yimou also implicitly roasted Lynch that year in his allegorical film, RAISE THE RED LANTERN (1991), perhaps for sympathizing with the plight of Chinese occupied Tibet in TWIN PEAKS. Last but not least, Mike Figgis also implicitly roasted Lynch in his twilit and ironically entitled allegorical film, LIEBESTRAUM (1991), a title inspired by the Franz Liszt composition, ‘Liebestraum’ (1850), which took its title from a German word meaning ‘love dream’, a word which evoked the loving cinematic dreams of Lynch.
‘Diane! This one’s for the road.’
Significantly, this loving dream began with Kevin Anderson’s young, earnest, sensitive, thoughtful and implicitly Cronenberg linked architecture professor, Nick Kaminsky, showing up in Hollywood cadenced Elderstown to watch over his ailing and hospitalized adoptive mother, Lillian Munssen nee Anderssen-played by Kim Novak-a circumstance that evoked the return of the equally young, earnest, sensitive and thoughtful Beaumont to Lumberton to watch over his ailing and hospitalized father at the beginning of BLUE VELVET, as well as the doomed Edmund Walker in BODY HEAT. Soon, Kaminsky met his old and implicitly Lynch linked friend, Paul Kessler, and his beautiful and beguiling young wife, Jane-played by Bill Pullman and Pamela Gidley, respectively-both of whom were linked to DUNE and TWIN PEAKS. For Paul looked like MacLachlan-particularly in TWIN PEAKS-and had a first name that evoked Paul Maud’dib in DUNE, while Jane evoked Joan Chen’s Josie Packard in TWIN PEAKS and had short auburn hair that evoked the red hair of the Harkonnens in DUNE.
Curiously, Kessler was a developer supervising the destruction of the Ralston Building, a heritage building with an unique cast iron exterior that was going to be replaced with a shopping complex. Significantly, the Ralston Building looked like the Bradbury building in BLADE RUNNER, particularly in nighttime rain shots, linking the building and the film to the twilit and disastrous summer of ‘82. Indeed, this implicit link was reaffirmed by the Figgis soundtrack, which sometimes evoked the Badalamenti soundtrack for TWIN PEAKS, and at other times evoked the Vangelis soundtrack for BLADE RUNER. Thus, it was no surprise to discover that there had been a twilit trio of murders at the Ralston Building decades earlier, when Bernie Sheredy’s Burnett Ralston III, the wealthiest man in Elderstown, killed his wife, Mrs. Ralston-resembling Marilyn Monroe with her blonde hair and white summer dress, and also played by Gidley-and her lover, Munssen, the Orson Welles resembling manager of his department store-also played by Anderson-when he discovered them making adulterous love, before killing himself.
Intriguingly, over the course of LIEBESTRAUM, Jane and Nick slowly fell in love, just as their previous incarnations had done decades ago. This swelling romance led to them making adulterous love in the Ralston Building as well, in the end-adulterous lovemaking that evoked the equally adulterous lovemaking of Matty and Ned in another allusion to BODY HEAT. Significantly, however, the two adulterous lovebirds noticeably escaped the murders that killed their previous incarnations, despite the fact that Paul had realized the two were falling in love, had tracked them down to the Ralston Building and had listened to them make love. Thus, using our gift of intuiting things again, we could see that in the successful closing lovemaking of Jane and Nick, Figgis implied his belief that Cronenberg had bested Lynch with his post-1982 film art and exorcised the twilit ghosts of the TZ disaster, and was now the true cinematic Messiah who would lead film art out of the twilight in the Nineties.
Intriguingly, Lynch implied that he was more irritated by the implicit roasts from Figgis and King than he was by the implicit roasts from Bigelow, Cameron, Cronenberg, Disney, Herek, Hopper and Penn, for Gidley returned as the doomed prostitute Teresa Banks and MacLachlan as the implicitly King linked FBI Special Agent Cooper when Lynch teamed up again with Amick, Anderson, Ashbrook, Augustine, Badalamenti, Bay, Coulson, Cruise, Hershberger, Lee, Norris, Prochnow, Silva, Stanton, Strobel, Wise, Miguel Ferrer-who played the implicitly Charles Beaumont linked FBI Agent Albert Rosenfeld in TWIN PEAKS-Mark Frost-co-creator and co-executive producer of, and occasional writer and director for, TWIN PEAKS-Gregg Fierberg-producer of TWIN PEAKS-Heather Graham and Andrea Hays-who played Annie Blackburn and indie Double R Diner waitress Heidi, respectively, in TWIN PEAKS-Chris Isaak-whose heartbroken and lonesome allegorical tune, ‘Wicked Game’ (1990), was heard in WILD AT HEART-James Marshall and Walter Olkewicz-who played James Hurley and Jacques Renault, respectively, in TWIN PEAKS-and Mary Sweeney-an editor on TWIN PEAKS-to implicitly affirm that TWIN PEAKS was addressing Zone War film artists by bringing the series to the big screen and complete a MacLachlan Trilogy in the twilit, dream-like, dream filled, Ozian themed and CGI free allegorical moving painting, TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME (1992).
‘This would look nice on your wall.’
Indeed, the film began with the credits superimposed over a background of television snow in a motel room. No sooner did the credits end, then the snow and the television were brutally destroyed with a blunt instrument by Wise’s Palmer, who then used the same blunt instrument to murder Gidley’s Banks, making it implicitly clear that Lynch did not like LIEBESTRAUM-and still did not like Spielberg, given that a snow filled television screen figured prominently in POLTERGEIST. The scene then shifted to some tragicomic adventures with new FBI Special Agents Desmond Cole and Sam Stanley-played by Issak and Keifer Sutherland, respectively-as they investigated the murder of Banks near Portland, Oregon, before shifting to HQ in Philadelphia as FBI Special Agents Dale Cooper and Albert Rosenfeld and FBI Regional Bureau Chief Cole-played again by MacLachlan, Ferrer and Lynch, respectively-struggled to come to grips with the puzzling appearance of the phantom of long lost FBI Special Agent Phillip Jeffries-played by David Bowie-who appeared to have one foot in the Black Lodge of the dreaming Red Draped Room and one foot in the real world. Significantly, the appearance of Bowie also openly linked the film to Landis via his role as English assassin Colin Morris in the twilit and allegorical Landis film, INTO THE NIGHT (1985).
Significantly, TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME then became the reverse of TWIN PEAKS. For instead of haunting the moving painting with the ghost of her presence, Laura Palmer-played again by Lee-filled the moving painting with her bewitching living presence in the final days of her life in Twin Peaks. Final days in which she also slowly realized that Bob, her nightmare rapist-played again by Silva-was really her father, Leland. Which was the problem with TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME, for the moving painting just reiterated the murderous and rapacious actions of the again implicitly Spielberg linked Leland Palmer-his link to Spielberg affirmed by the allusion to POLTERGEIST-and his again implicitly Landis linked Dark Side, Bob, rather than continued where things left off at the end of TWIN PEAKS. Thus, using our gift of intuition, Lynch implied that he was upset by the fact that Landis and Spielberg had reestablished themselves with audiences since the end of the TZ trial in 1987.
In fact, three of the last four of the twilit and allegorical films of Spielberg, EMPIRE OF THE SUN (1987), INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989), and HOOK (1991), had all been popular with audiences despite containing ominous implications that Spielberg had known of the illegal use of Chen and Le after hours on the Landis set of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE but had done nothing to stop their use on that fateful fatal night. Indeed, the fact that we saw Bob and Leland both rape and murder Laura over the course of TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME instead of simply finding out that Laura had been raped and murdered as in TWIN PEAKS implicitly affirmed how upset Lynch was that audiences had accepted Landis and Spielberg again. However, with the Light Side of Cooper consoling the immortal spirit of Laura in the Black Lodge of the dreaming Red Draped Room at the end of the film, Lynch implied his hope that the spirit of indie film art for film art’s sake and telefilm art for telefilm’s art sake in general was immortal and indestructible, despite the resurgence of Landis and Spielberg.
Last but not least, Lynch also implied his hope that the success of TWIN PEAKS and WILD AT HEART meant that the spirit of his own quirky indie moving paintings and telemoving paintings in particular was also immortal and indestructible and would continue to thrive despite Landis and Spielberg. For midway through the film Laura dreamed that she had entered and moved around in a painting given her by the mysterious and painting loving Mrs. Tremond/Chalfont-played again by Bay-whose surname evoked a widow named Mrs. Elaine Tremont who was featured in a newspaper article at the end of ‘Salem’s Lot in another affirmation of the implicit link of Coop to King in TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME. A painting-probably painted by Lynch-of a Red Room that turned in the dream of Laura into a painting of a Blue Room, then into a Blue Room and then into a Blue House-as blue as a Blue Rose-literally linking Laura to, and making her a symbol of, the moving paintings and telemoving paintings of Lynch. Thus, it was fitting that an angel-played by Lorna MacMillan-who evoked the floating fairy in the panto at the end of THE ELEPHANT MAN helped Cooper console Laura in the Black Lodge of the dreaming Red Draped Room at the end of the moving painting. For the angel implicitly reaffirmed the link of Laura Palmer to the City of the Angels and the Palms, home to the Hollywood studios and Lynch. The consoling and floating angel also evoked the consolation that the equally floating Glinda the Good gave to Sailor at the end of WILD OF HEART, reminding us that with a beautiful but wayward teenaged blonde living it up and then dying, in the end, TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME came across as a curious fusion of TWIN PEAKS and WILD AT HEART.
Significantly, while TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME lacked the coarse language of BLUE VELVET and WILD AT HEART, the moving painting exploded with even more sexual violence than BLUE VELVET or WILD AT HEART with Leland’s rape of Laura in her bedroom and the concluding rape and murder of Laura in the lonely abandoned rail car, in the end. The film also showed little interest in linear time, with Cooper meeting up with the spirit of the dead Laura in the White Lodge linked dreaming Red Draped Room in before he had even arrived in Twin Peaks to investigate and solve her murder. This implied that Lynch saw the White and Black Lodge dreaming Red Draped Rooms as timeless places with no past, present or future. Thus, the fact that Cooper entered the Red Draped Room after the murder of Laura in TWIN PEAKS or before her murder in TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME was immaterial, for all that mattered was that he had entered a dreamworld where time did not exist. More dreamworld characters also showed up in the real world to desperately warn and save Laura, including Mrs. Tremond/Chalfont and her grandson-played by Lynch lookalike Austin Jack Lynch in TWIN PEAKS, and Jonathan J. Leppell in TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME-and Gerard, the One-Armed Man-played again by Strobel. In addition, Annie Blackburn-played again by Graham-also showed up in Laura’s bed to tell her to pass on the message that the Light Side of Cooper was trapped in the Black Lodge of the timeless Red Draped Room-despite the fact that Laura would never meet Cooper in real life-a message that meant nothing until the dream haunted denizens of Twin Peaks returned to the small screen.
Alas for Lynch, after kicking off the Nineties so well with WILD AT HEART, TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME was not only curiously and disappointingly flat despite some movingly nightmarish scenes, but hated by just about everyone-perhaps especially due to the fact that it did not continue and clear up the ending of TWIN PEAKS. Not surprisingly, this caused Lynch and the film to be implicitly roasted in such allegorical films as the Burton film, ED WOOD (1994), the Cameron film, TRUE LIES (1994) and the Sir Peter Jackson film, HEAVENLY CREATURES (1994). For his part, Paul Verhoeven implicitly likened the rivalry between Bigelow and Lynch to the rivalry between two Las Vegas showgirls, Cristal Connors and Nomi Malone-played by the Fenn resembling Gina Gershon and Elizabeth Berkley, respectively-in the allegorical film, SHOWGIRLS (1995).
Indeed, the film’s allusions to WILD AT HEART, the live allegorical Lynch moving painting, INDUSTRIAL SYMPHONY NO. 1: THE DREAM OF THE BROKEN HEARTED (1990) and the twilit and allegorical Bigelow film, NEAR DARK (1987), and the presence of MacLachlan as Stardust Hotel Entertainment Director, Zack Corey, the man caught between Connors and Malone, affirmed the implicit Bigelow and Lynch addressing intent of the film. Lynch was also implicitly thrashed by Disney in the form of the implicitly Lynch linked Evildoer, Justice Frollo-voiced by Tony Jay-in the allegorical Trousdale and Wise film, THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (1996). Last but not least, King implicitly roasted Lynch again in his twilit and allegorical novels, Desperation (1996) and The Regulators (1996), the latter under his Richard Bachman pseudonym as in Thinner.
However, not all film artists implicitly arrayed themselves against Lynch at this low point in his life and film art. For Bernardo Bertolucci implicitly reached out to Lynch in his moving and thought provoking allegorical film, LITTLE BUDDHA (1993). Curiously, the film revolved around a twilit trio of children, Gita, Raju and Jesse-played by Greishma M. Singh, Raju Lal and Alex Weisendanger, respectively-who were believed to be three reincarnated aspects of a dead Tibetan Lama, a conviction that implied a hope that film art could be reborn in a harmonious new era in the tenth anniversary year of the release of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE. Of course, the film reminded us of Lynch’s interest in transcendental mediation, an evocation of Lynch implicitly affirmed by the film’s allusions to DUNE, THE ELEPHANT MAN, TWIN PEAKS and TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME and by the presence of Isaak as Jesse’s father, Dean Conrad.
In addition, Penn implicitly hoped that Cameron and Lynch would put aside their differences and work together as cinematic brothers in the allegorical film, THE CROSSING GUARD (1995), while Kenneth Branagh implicitly allowed Lynch a symbolic triumph over Cameron in the form of the triumph of the implicitly Lynch linked Prince Hamlet-played by Branagh-over the implicitly Cameron linked King Claudius-played by Derek Jacobi-in the allegorical and DUNE and THE ELEPHANT MAN evoking film, HAMLET (1996). Sir Scott also implicitly reached out to Lynch again in his allegorical film, WHITE SQUALL (1996).
For his part, Cronenberg implicitly roasted Lynch in the implicit form of the automobile accident and premature ejaculation troubled film/telefilm artist, James Ballard-played by James Spader-in the allegorical film, CRASH (1996). Not surprisingly, this latter implicit roast from Maud’dave infuriated Lynch most of all. Indeed, Lynch implicitly roasted Cronenberg and CRASH when he returned to painting…without painting again with Badalamenti, Bowie, Gifford, Nance, Norris and Sweeney on his most iconoclastic indie moving painting since BLUE VELVET, the allegorical, dream-like, dream filled, CGI free and BODY HEAT evoking moving painting, LOST HIGHWAY (1997).
‘You’ll never have me.’
Curiously, the sad, somber, lifeless, listless, despondent and depressed moving painting began with the sound of Bowie singing the theme song as the opening titles flew into the screen from the distance and the POV raced restlessly over a presumably lost highway at night. It was an ominous beginning, as Bowie played mysterious missing FBI Special Agent Phillip Jeffries in TWIN PEAK: FIRE WALK WITH ME, evoking the disastrous reception of that moving painting. Soon the opening titles ended, and we found ourselves at the L.A. home of the implicitly Cronenberg linked jazz saxophonist Fred Madison-played by Pullman-and his beautiful wife, Renee-played by Patricia Arquette, who played Dorothy in THE INDIAN RUNNER. An L.A. home whose location at 7035 Hollis affirmed the implicit Cronenberg addressing intent of the moving painting, as the address reminded us that Cronenberg’s first film, SHIVERS, was released in 1975. The presence of Arquette reaffirmed the implicit Cronenberg addressing intent, as her sister, Rosanna, played Gabriella in CRASH.
This implicit Cronenberg addressing intent was reaffirmed by the fact that Fred and Renee were soon drawn into a strange and violent world by mysterious videocassettes left on their front step in the mornings in unmarked manila envelopes. For the sight evoked the sight of Max Renn-played by James Woods-being drawn into a similarly strange and violent world by videocassettes in the allegorical and implicitly Sir Scott addressing Cronenberg film, VIDEODROME (1982). Indeed, a Trent Reznor instrumental called ‘Videodrones: Questions’ on the soundtrack of LOST HIGHWAY implicitly affirmed the moving painting’s interest in VIDEODROME, and, hence, Cronenberg. This strange and violent video world soon led to Madison being accused of killing and butchering Renee, a murder that evoked the murder of Joan Lee-played by Judy Davis-by her husband, Bill-played by Peter Weller-in NAKED LUNCH in another affirmation of the implicit interest in Cronenberg in the moving painting.
Found guilty of the murder of Renee, Madison was sentenced to death and put on death row. Severe headaches lead to Madison being examined by the Pierre Trudeau resembling and implicitly linked prison doctor Smordin-played by David Byrd-reaffirming Madison’s implicit link to Cronenberg and evoking the elder Trudeau resembling and implicitly linked Bytes in the implicitly Cronenberg addressing THE ELEPHANT MAN. Curiously, soon after this trip to the doctor, Madison transformed in his cell into the younger Pete Dayton-played by Balthazar Getty. Significantly, Pete Dayton resembled the implicitly Spielberg linked car crashophile, Vaughan-played by Elias Koteas-in CRASH, while his name evoked James Spader, who played the implicitly Lynch linked James Ballard in CRASH. Of course, this transformation into another person recalled the transformation of Good scanner Cameron Vale into Evil scanner Darryl Revok-played by Michael Ironside-at the end of SCANNERS, and the transformation of Rene Gallimard-played by Jeremy Irons-into John Lone’s Song Liling at the end of the allegorical Cronenberg film, M. BUTTERFLY (1991), reaffirming the implicit Cronenberg addressing intent of LOST HIGHWAY.
Released from prison due to this baffling transformation, Dayton turned out to be a talented car mechanic, a love of cars that implicitly reaffirmed his link to Vaughan in CRASH. Dayton was also discovered to have a young girlfriend named Shiela-played by Natasha G. Wagner-who looked like the twin sister of Holly Hunter’s Doctor Helen Remington in CRASH. Indeed, Shiela’s parent’s house was numbered 9532, a number that reminded us that CRASH was released in 1995 in an open affirmation that Lynch was replying to that film in LOST HIGHWAY. Significantly, Dayton soon attracted the attention of the beautiful but dangerous Hollywood and Lady In The Radiator evoking blonde, Alice Wakefield-also played by Arquette. Wakefield reiterated the film’s implicit interest in Cronenberg, as the bewitching blonde evoked Ballard’s equally beautiful blonde wife, Catherine Ballard-played by Deborah K. Unger-in CRASH, while the return of Arquette as Alice evoked the return of Davis as Joan Frost after the murder of Joan Lee in NAKED LUNCH.
Significantly, the film’s implicit Cronenberg addressing intent was reaffirmed by the arrival of Wakefield’s lover, the Edmund Walker evoking and porn/snuff film linked gang boss, Mr. Eddy aka Dick Laurent-played by Robert Loggia, who also linked the moving painting to Landis via his character Sal ‘the Shark’ Macelli in the twilit and allegorical Landis film, INNOCENT BLOOD (1992). For name of Dick Laurent evoked that of Dino De Laurentiis, the Italian producer who produced THE DEAD ZONE and who persuaded Lynch to create DUNE, a film that Lynch no doubt regretted making in part as it implicitly praised Cronenberg. Significantly, soon after we met Mr. Eddy/Laurent, he was seen brutally beating and furiously lecturing a tailgating driver-played by Greg Travis-in the rules of the road, a scene that implicitly made clear that Lynch was not too fond of being linked to the sadomasochistic crashophiles of CRASH.
Thus, with our gift of intuiting things, we could see that by having Madison transform into the younger Dayton, Lynch sarcastically implied that Cronenberg had regressed with CRASH. We could also see that Dayton’s transformation back into Madison after losing the love of the beautiful and mysterious Alice implied that Lynch ultimately believed that Cronenberg had lost his touch and his way in CRASH. Literally, as the moving painting ended with Madison then fleeing from the police all alone in Laurent’s stolen Benz down the lost highway screaming in furious and frustrated agony and perhaps trying to escape the situation by inducing a transformation back into Dayton. And then the POV began racing restlessly over a lost highway at night as Bowie again sang the theme song, bringing the moving painting full anguished circle.
Curiously, the ending of LOST HIGHWAY also allowed Lynch to implicitly triumph over Figgis, for it reminded us that Pullman played the implicitly Lynch linked Kessler who was defeated at the end of LIEBESTRAUM. The ending of LOST HIGHWAY also allowed Lynch to implicitly triumph over De Laurentiis in retribution for DUNE, for shortly before fleeing down that lost highway in Laurent’s stolen car Madison had teamed up with Robert Blake’s Satanic Mystery Man-another dream world denizen not restrained by the normal laws of time and space intervening in the affairs of mortal men and woman like Glinda the Good at the end of WILD AT HEART and Mrs.Tremont in TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME-to kill Laurent.
Curiously, Verhoeven implied that year that the triumph over the extraterrestrial Bugs equated with a triumph over the moving paintings of Lynch in his allegorical film, STARSHIP TROOPERS (1997), and affirmed that implication with all sorts of allusions to BLUE VELVET, DUNE and ERASERHEAD. Just as curiously, Depp implied his support for Lynch that year in his ambiguous and mysterious film, THE BRAVE (1997). For his part, Hackford also implied his support for Lynch that year in his allegorical film, THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE (1997), and underlined that support with allusions to SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME, TWIN PEAKS and WILD AT HEART. Indeed, by having hotshot young FBI Special Agent Cooper evoking lawyer Kevin Lomax-played by Keanu Reeves-move from Florida to a law firm in New York and eventually triumph over its Satan and perhaps Landis linked head, John Milton-played by Al Pacino-Hackford implied his hope that Lynch would also triumph over Landis and Satanic Hollywood and its blockbuster beasts with quirky moving paintings like LOST HIGHWAY.
As for the Eagle Scout from Arrakis, Lynch implied his hope that he could kick off a new film art era in time for the new millennium by implicitly forgiving and embracing Kennedy, Landis, Lucas, Marshall and Spielberg when he rejoined Badalamenti, Francis, McGill, Norris, Sweeney-now a co-writer and co-producer as well as editor-ERASERHEAD actor and production designer Fisk and Everett McGill-who played sturdy and stalwart Stilgar in DUNE-on his strangest due to being straightest and most normal film yet, the allegorical, dream-like, Ozian themed and CGI free moving painting, THE STRAIGHT STORY (1999).
‘A brother’s a brother.’
Curiously, THE STRAIGHT STORY began with a black and star filled expanse of space as at the beginning of DUNE, ERASERHEAD and THE ELEPHANT MAN. Of course, this expanse of space also evoked the star filled expanse of space that began each STAR WARS film, a fitting allusion given that Lucas returned that year with his first allegorical STAR WARS film in years, STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE (1999). Then the stars disappeared, and the camera slowly fell out of the sky like the farmhouse of Dorothy as at the beginning of BLUE VELVET, setting the slow pace of the film. Eventually, the POV landed to the left of a small white house that evoked Dorothy’s farmhouse. Beside the small white house was a woman sunning herself on a lawn chaise fittingly named Dorothy-played by Jane G. Heitz-affirming the implicit Ozian theme of the film. After Dorothy got up and left, the sound of someone falling was soon heard from inside the small white farmhouse. Soon we discovered Alvin Straight-played by Richard Farnsworth-lying prone inside his house, evoking the prone Mr. Beaumont laid low by a stroke outside his house at the beginning of BLUE VELVET. However, unlike Mr. Beaumont, Straight was not hospitalized for the rest of the film and saved by the exorcising and healing actions of a son or grandson. Instead, Straight healed himself.
Curiously, with his white cowboy hat and feisty and indomitable manner, Straight evoked Morrow’s equally feisty, indomitable and white cowboy hat wearing police Captain Franklin in the allegorical John Hough film, CRAZY LARRY, DIRTY MARY (1974). Indeed, the helicopter aerial shots of Laurens, Iowa that began THE STRAIGHT STORY after the credits appeared over the starry expanse of space evoked similar helicopter aerial shots of the California countryside that began CRAZY LARRY, DIRTY MARY. In addition, like Bowie in TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME and Loggia in LOST HIGHWAY, Farnsworth openly linked THE STRAIGHT STORY to the film art of Landis by way of his role as Jack Caper in INTO THE NIGHT, the most auto-biographical of the post-1982 films of Landis. Farnsworth also linked THE STRAIGHT STORY to 1982 via his role as gentleman British Columbian train robber Bill Miner in the allegorical Phillip Borsos film, THE GREY FOX (1982). Curiously, longtime Lynch friend, Sissy Spacek, who played Straight’s despondent daughter, ‘Blue’ Rose, reaffirmed the film’s link to 1982, for she played Beth Horman in the allegorical Costa-Gravas film, MISSING (1982).
Significantly, when a phone call informed Straight that his brother, Lyle-played by Stanton-had suffered a stroke at his place in Mount Zion, Wisconsin, the equally ailing and double cane wielding Straight set off from his home in Laurens, Iowa driving first a ruby red Rheds, and then an Emerald City green and yellow 1966 John Deere riding lawn mower with a hand-made wooden trailer attached and an ever present pack of Swisher Sweets in his breast pocket. The determined and obdurate veteran drove his riding mower east along the Yellow Lined Road to visit and patch up relations with his ailing and mysterious Great Oz brother in Ozian Mount Zion, Wisconsin, rolling along so slowly he qualified as a non-mutated and fully human Third Stage Spacing Guild Navigator as he appeared to be moving…without moving in one of the many wistful allusions to DUNE in the film.
Along the way, Straight met people linked to various twilit film artists and actors and reached out to soothe and heal all of them, such the implicitly Dante linked Laurens Ace hardware store owner/manager, Pete-played by Ed Grennan. He also met the implicitly Burton linked Steve and the implicitly Cameron linked Rat-played by Matt Guidry and Bill McCallum, respectively-amongst a group of Herman evoking cyclists. For their part, Danny and Darla Riordan-played by James Cada and Sally Wingert, respectively-evoked Marshall and Kennedy, while their friends, Johnny and Janet Johnson-played by Jim Haun and the fittingly surnamed Barbara Kingsley, respectively-evoked Spielberg and his wife, Kate Capshaw. For his part, their mutual friend, WWII vet Verlyn Heller-played by Wiley Harker-was implicitly linked to Cronenberg. Curiously, a firefighter that looked like a Lucas resembling English bobby-played by Peter Ellis-seen in Trafalgar Square in London in the allegorical Landis film, AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981), also linked THE STRAIGHT STORY to Landis. A significant link, for one of the last people that Straight met before he creeped into Mount Zion on his going somewhere slow journey was John Lordan’s Dan Akroyd resembling lonesome bachelor Priest, a good friend of Landis and co-star of the allegorical Landis film, THE BLUES BROTHERS (1980).
Thus, using our gift of intuiting without intuiting again, we could see that the mysterious and Great Lyle in his beat up house in Mount Zion, WI, was implicitly linked to Landis, allowing the film and the millennium to end with Landis and Morrow implicitly forgiving and reuniting with each other so that film art could be finally free of the Twilight Zone in time for the new millenia. For linked to the Zone the two brothers were, as over the course of the moving without moving painting we discovered that the Straight brothers had been raised on a farm in Moorhead, Minnesota. Of course, this twilit town evoked Agnes Moorhead and her appearance as the unnamed and harried woman fending off strange and dimunitive aliens from Earth in the allegorical Douglas Heyes telefilm, ‘The Invaders’ (1961), a famous season two episode of the original Twilight Zone television series. An ironically sweet and hopeful message that also implied that Lynch was committed to wiping the slate clean and starting over again on the straight and narrow himself in the new millennia.
Alas for Lynch, the good vibrations produced by THE STRAIGHT STORY did not last long. For Kubrick implicitly roasted Lynch as a well meaning but naïve film artist who would never be able to change or hold to twilit account the callous, corrupt and deadly Hollywood establishment that had killed not just Chen, Le and Morrow but higher film art with its CGI enhanced blockbuster beasts like the well meaning but naïve Doctor William ‘Bill’ Harford-played by Tom Cruise-was not able to change or hold to account the equally callous, corrupt and deadly New York establishment for the murder of the Laura Palmer evoking Amanda ‘Mandy’ Curran-played by Julienne Davis-in his last, twilit and allegorical artbuster, EYES WIDE SHUT (1999). Indeed, the film alluded to BLUE VELVET, LOST HIGHWAY, PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE, THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE, TRUE LIES, TWIN PEAKS and TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME-and even featured Isaak’s ‘Baby Did A Bad, Bad Thing’ (1995)-to implicitly affirm Kubrick’s interest in addressing Lynch. Bigelow also implicitly roasted Lynch again in the implicit form of chain smoking poet Thomas Janes-played by Sean Penn-in the twilit and allegorical artbuster, THE WEIGHT OF WATER (2000). Both of which implicitly inspired the Eagle Scout from Arrakis to reply to Bigelow and Kubrick when he rejoined Anderson, Badalamenti, Fisk, Montgomery, Sweeney-again a co-producer as well as editor-Scott Coffey-who played Teddy in LOST HIGHWAY-and LOST HIGHWAY cinematographer Peter Deming and returned to the twilit L.A. of LOST HIGHWAY to prove to the ghost of Kubrick that higher film art for film art’s sake was still alive in his next allegorical, dream-like, Ozian themed, DESERT HEARTS evoking and CGI free moving painting, MULHOLLAND DRIVE (2001), a film with the same ponderous pace and sense of inescapable menace as EYES WIDE SHUT.
‘This is the girl.’
Curiously, the film began with a surreal jumble of jitterbugging teens in Fifties clothing who faded away into a brilliantly lit, beaming and Lady In The Radiator evoking blonde centred between two elderly companions who evoked Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip-played by Naomi Watts, Jeanne Bates and Dan Birnbaum, respectively-who basked in the cheers and claps of a delighted crowd before fading away into a mysterious bedroom lit by a green bedside lamp with a red shade. Then the POV shifted to the sight of a black eyed and dark brown haired beauty who evoked the Beautiful Woman Across The Hall-played by Laura E. Harring-wearing earrings with a single pearl and a Wicked black dress being driven slowly through the nighttime Hollywood Hills along winding Mulholland Drive above the mesmerizing and twinkling vista of L.A. in the back of a black car-with the ominously twilit and disastrous license of 2GAT123-while the opening titles flashed on the screen.
Significantly, this nighttime ride evoked the sight of the implicitly Lynch linked Dr. Harford being driven slowly in the back of a taxi through nighttime New York and into the country to a castle like mansion where a strange and masked orgiastic party was being held in EYES WIDE SHUT. This implied that the latest beautiful brunette was linked to the film art of Lynch, an implication soon reaffirmed when her Dan Akroyd resembling driver-played by Scott Wulff-stopped the car and threatened to shoot her, reminding us of the murder of the implicitly Palmer linked Mandy Curran in EYES WIDE SHUT. However, the beautiful brunette was ironically saved when a speeding car crashed into the black car like an Ozian tornado, a surprise crash that we had been prepared for by the ominous and disastrous license plate that killed the sinister driver and his equally menacing companion in the front passenger seat-played by Billy Wright-and perhaps symbolized Lynch’s shock at being hit with EYES WIDE SHUT.
Wandering from the wreck in an amnesiac daze in her Wicked black dress with one pearl earring still in place like a lost, confused but still living Wicked Witch of the East, the beautiful brunette stumbled down the Hollywood Hills and into the streets below with one pearl earring. Curiously, she walked by a street sign reading Franklin 7400, neatly evoking Captain Franklin and the 1974 release date of CRAZY LARRY, DIRTY MARY, and then fell asleep in an apartment garden. Curiously, the next morning saw a series of men talk to each other on the phone about the missing dark tressed beauty, including Anderson’s mysterious Dream Man, Mr. Roque. Then a Wicked Witch of the West evoking woman-played by Bonnie Aarons-with a dirty face and hood that evoked the sunburnt vampires of the twilit and allegorical Bigelow film, NEAR DARK (1987), that implicitly linked her to Bigelow showed up to implicitly frighten the implicitly Landis linked Dan-played by Patrick Fischler-to death behind a Winkie’s restaurant.
Then the sun shone full on an L.A. condo building situated in a naturally lush and colourful garden, evoking the equally lush and full colour Munchkinland that swept away the black and white Dirty Thirties prologue when Dorothy and Toto arrived in the Oz at the beginning of THE WIZARD OF OZ. Here the mysterious brunette left her hiding spot in the front garden of the condo building and snuck into a condo just as its owner was leaving by taxi. Later in the morning at this condo, she met the blonde, sweet, innocent, naïve and implicitly Dorothy linked Betty Elms-played by Watts-the pretty and perky blonde with the Hollywood cadenced and resembling name already seen with the implicitly royal elderly couple at the beginning of the film. Curiously, Elms was a Canadian from Deep River, Ontario-a Canadian hometown that evoked the Deep River apartment building where Dorothy Vallens had an apartment in BLUE VELVET-who was staying at the L. A. condo of her Aunt Ruth-seen leaving the condo earlier when the brunette snuck in behind her back, and played by Maya Bond-in the hopes of landing a part in a Hollywood film.
Unable to remember who she was, the mysterious woman adopted the name Rita from a poster on the wall for the allegorical and implicitly Hitchcock roasting Charles Vidor film, GILDA (1946)-a film starring Rita Hayworth as the eponymous Gilda that constantly evoked the allegorical and Jack Warner roasting Michael Curtiz film, CASABLANCA (1942). As GILDA was released the year of the birth of Lynch, adopting the name Rita reaffirmed that the mysterious woman implicitly symbolized Lynch and his dreaming without dreaming moving paintings. The reproduction of the allegorical Johannes Vermeer painting, ‘The Girl With A Pearl Earring’ (1665), that hung on the wall of the bedroom of Aunt Ruth’s apartment reinforced that implication, reminding us that ‘Rita’ was first met wearing one pearl earring, and that Lynch was as a painter. Indeed, with her head wrapped in a towel after a shower the morning after the accident, the mystery woman looked like the turban wearing girl in the painting, affirming the link of Rita to paintings in general and to the moving paintings of Lynch in particular, making it fitting that ‘art’ was hidden in the name of Rita. The painting also affirmed the film’s implicit interest in Bigelow, as it was also alluded to in THE WEIGHT OF WATER.
Intriguingly, as Elms and ‘Rita’ met each other in Aunt Ruth’s apartment, Lynch also made the first of many allusions to the allegorical Landis film, SUSAN’S PLAN (1999), which revolved around a madcap plot by a bunch of twilit and implicitly film artist linked characters to kill Paul Holland-his name evoking the also implicitly Landis linked Doctor Alec Holland in the allegorical Wes Craven film, SWAMP THING (1982), and played by Adrian Paul. Indeed, Mulholland evoked Paul Holland, affirming the implicit interest of Lynch in SUSAN’S PLAN in MULHOLLAND DRIVE. Perhaps because he was disappointed by the presence of Lara F. Boyle-who played Donna Hayward in TWIN PEAKS-who not only appeared as Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Johnson in SUSAN’S PLAN and got away with the murder of Holland, in the end, but also spent most of the film wearing a Barbie t-shirt, openly and wryly linking her character to rampant commercialism and product placement. Indeed, the appearance of Watts as another Betty reaffirmed the implicit interest in SUSAN’S PLAN in the film.
The implicit intersection of EYES WIDE SHUT and SUSAN’S PLAN began when the young film artist Adam Kesher and his manager, Robert Smith-played by Justin Theroux and David Schroeder, respectively-met with producer Ray Hott-played by Robert Katims-the two menacing financiers, Luigi and Vincenzo Castigliane-played by Badalamenti and Dan Hedaya, respectively-and one Mr. Darby-played by Marcus Graham-in the conference room of Ryan Entertainment to discuss the female lead in Kesher’s next film, THE SILVIA NORTH STORY, only to have the Castigliane brothers insist that a young actress with the Camilla Bowles evoking name of Camilla Rhodes-played by Melissa George-play the female lead. Outraged by the suggestion, Kesher stormed out of the meeting and the building housing Ryan Entertainment.
Outside he met a valet-played by Daniel Rey-who handed him the keys to his grey Porsche, the same car driven by Holland in SUSAN’S PLAN, and openly affirmed Lynch’s implicit interest in SUSAN’S PLAN, as Rey played a gay hairdresser named Enrique who was a friend of Betty in that film. Driving home, Kesher’s day got worse when he surprised his wife, Lorraine-who resembled Natassian Kinski’s Susan in SUSAN’S PLAN, and was played by Lori Heuring-in bed with Gene, the pool maintenance man-played by Billy Ray Cyrus. Soon after, Kesher was fired and the film was shut down due to his refusal to use Rhodes. Going into hiding at the Park Hotel, Kesher met the Kubrick resembling and implicitly linked manager, Cookie-played by Geno Silva-affirming that the film was implicitly addressing Kubrick on one level land the convergence of EYES WIDE SHUT, SUSAN’S PLAN and THE WIZARD OF OZ in MULHOLLAND DRIVE. And of NEAR DARK and THE WEIGHT OF WATER, given that the arrival of Montgomery as the Cowboy not only helped Kesher but openly linked the film to Bigelow.
Curiously, Betty and Rita’s quest to discover the real identity of Rita progressed oddly but mostly in reality until the two visited a real live theatre of the imagination called Club Silencio late in the film and experienced a moving performance by singer Rebekah Del Rio. After that visit, things became just as dreamy and surreal as ERASERHEAD did after Henry stepped onto the Lady In The Radiator’s stage in her theatre of the imagination hidden within Henry’s radiator late in that film. Indeed, the normal laws governing time and space were jettisoned, and Rita slowly but surely transformed over the course of the rest of the film into a successful film star also named Camilla Rhodes, while Betty morphed into the bitterly disappointed and unsuccessful actress, Diane Selwyn-all with the help of a mysterious blue box that evoked the black human testing box of DUNE and the possible help of the mysterious and perhaps dreamworld linked Mr. Roque.
Thus, using our gift of intuiting things again, we could see that Lynch implicitly used MULHOLLAND DRIVE to counter Kubrick’s gloomy prognosis in EYES WIDE SHUT that film art was dead. Indeed, the transformation of the befuddled and amnesiac black haired beauty Rita into the successful film actress Camilla and of the sweet Hollywood blonde Betty into bitter Diane over the course of the moving painting implicitly affirmed Lynch’s conviction that film art in general, and his moving paintings in particular, were both alive and well, and that CGI enhanced blockbusters with their peroxide Hollywood blondes were dying. We could also see that in the sight of Betty transforming into Diane and losing a film role to Rhodes, Lynch also implied that he was dressing down Landis for using Boyle to play Betty in SUSAN’S PLAN and the casual, flippant and satirical violence of that film on one level as well as replying to Kubrick in MULHOLLAND DRIVE.
Indeed, the suicide of Betty/Diane, in the end, implicitly affirmed Lynch’s disapproval of SUSAN’S PLAN-how fitting that the name of Diane Selwyn was an anagram for ‘Weeny Landis’! Curiously, the suicide occurred after the Canadian actress hired the woefully inept and implicitly Cameron linked hit man, Joe-played by Mark Pellegrino-to kill Rhodes and after being terrorized by the Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip evoking Irene and her companion, who were indifferently released on her by the Wicked Winkie’s Witch of the West. Thus, Lynch implied that he was roasting Cameron as well in the film-and perhaps making a wry comment about how most of Bigelow’s films had died at the box office and addressing the death of Lady Diana in 1997. The presence of the implicitly Lucas linked Wally Brown-played by James Karen-also implied a gentle roast of Lucas and his STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy in MULHOLLAND DRIVE.
Significantly, a year after its thought provoking release, MULHOLLAND DRIVE became one of the first Lynch moving paintings to be released on DVD with an insert in the case that gave the viewer ‘…David Lynch’s 10 Clues to Unlocking This Thriller.’ Thus, Lynch openly acknowledged for the first time that his films were allegorical and filled with signs and symbols that, if interpreted correctly with the gift of intuiting things, would lead to solving the cinematic mystery and transcendent enlightenment. Allowing the Eagle Scout from Arrakis to make a brave new start in the new millennium, a new start that was no doubt influenced by five implicitly Lynch themed films that were released after MULHOLLAND DRIVE, starting with the allegorical and CGI enhanced Spielberg film, A.I. (2001).
Significantly, in this film Spielberg implicitly linked Lynch to Joel H. Osment’s odd android/mecha boy David in way that implied that Spielberg felt that Lynch was not quite a truly human film artist or human being. Indeed, as David the odd mecha boy tried to become human in order to please and reconnect with the surrogate human mother, Monica Swinton-played by Frances O’Connor-who had abandoned him at the beginning of A.I., and failed at both goals, Spielberg implied that Lynch was not only not a fully human film artist, but that he was doomed to never quite connect with his film art or with his audiences. The return of Hurt as Mecha creator Doctor Alan Hobby affirmed the film’s implicit interest in Lynch, reminding us that Hurt played the implicitly Lynch linked Racine in BODY HEAT. Significantly, this implicit dismissive cinematic snub from Spielberg was followed by another implicit one from Cronenberg in his allegorical film, SPIDER (2002).
Given that the film revolved around a delusional, memory haunted and implicitly Lynch linked child man named Dennis ‘Spider’ Cleg-played by Ralph Fiennes-who as a boy-played by Bradley Hall-killed his Good and gentle brunette mother-played by Miranda Richardson-when he became convinced that she had already been murdered by his father, Bill-played by Gabriel Byrne-and replaced by an Evil, blonde and Hollywood linked witch-also played by Richardson-Cronenberg implied that Lynch was also a delusional and memory haunted child man whose overriding obsession with the possibility of murderous and Evil wrongdoing in the TZ disaster had killed his Good and gentle film art and replaced it with Evil and Hollywood linked witchery, an implicit Lynch roasting intent affirmed by the film’s allusions to DUNE, ERASERHEAD, THE ELEPHANT MAN and THE GRANDMOTHER.
Curiously, Neil Jordan implicitly came to the long suffering Lynch’s defense that same year, allowing the implicitly Lynch linked, painting loving and down on his luck gambling thief, Bob Montana-played by Nolte-to triumph over the implicitly Cronenberg linked police inspector, Roger-played by Tcheky Karyo-and the implicitly Cameron linked transgender bodybuilder, Phillipa-played by Julien Mourel-at the end of the allegorical film, THE GOOD THIEF (2002), an implicit intent affirmed by the film’s allusions to DUNE, LOST HIGHWAY, MULHOLLAND DRIVE, THE DEAD ZONE, TRUE LIES, TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME and WILD AT HEART. For his part, Keith Gordon also implicitly mocked Lynch’s love of strange and surreal imagery, people lip synching to Fifties pop songs, and his obsession with murderous and bewildering mystery-All clues! No solution!-in his allegorical film art since BLUE VELVET in the allegorical film, THE SINGING DETECTIVE (2003). The same year Jonathan Mostow curiously and implicitly linked Lynch to the new CGI enhanced female TX Terminator-played by Kristanna Loken-in the twilit and allegorical film, TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES (2003)-this despite the fact that CGI was still absent from the moving paintings of Lynch! Just as curiously but fortunately for Lynch, Burton implicitly came to his defense in the symbolic form of Edward Bloom-played as a young man by Ewen McGregor, and as an older man by Albert Finney-in his sweet and sympathetic allegorical film, BIG FISH (2003), in a reversal from the more nasty implicit roasting he gave Lynch in ED WOOD. Ang Lee also implicitly sympathized with Lynch in the implicit form of Ennis Del Mar-played by Heath Ledger-in his twilit and allegorical film, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (1995). As for Lynch, he implicitly roasted and triumphed over Kubrick again and reflected on his life in moving painting art when he teamed up again with Dern, Harring, Kinski, Ladd, Stanton, Sweeney, Theroux, Watts and Zabriskie to wrap up both his Dern and Los Angeles Trilogies in inimitable style with the dream-like, Ozian themed and CGI free allegorical indie moving painting, INLAND EMPIRE (2006).
‘Cast out this wicked dream that has seized my heart.’
Indeed, after another surreal jumble of imagery that evoked the beginning of MULHOLLAND DRIVE and began with a black and white sequence implicitly set in the Eastern Europe of the ancestors of Kubrick and Spielberg and involving a woman being forced into prostitution before heading off into a colour sequence involving perhaps the same woman-played by Karolina Gruzska-in a hotel room watching a sitcom involving a family of rabbits on television, a Wicked Phantom-played by Krzyztof Majchrzak-who resembled and was implicitly linked to Kubrick arrived to confront another man in an opulent room straight out of the surreal ending of the allegorical Kubrick film, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968), or throughout the allegorical and implicitly Landis addressing film, BARRY LYNDON (1975), affirming the implicit Kubrick roasting intent of the film. Then the Wicked Phantom and the room faded away, and were replaced by the sight of the implicitly Glinda linked Zabriskie in an emerald green dress walking agitatedly over to the equally opulent L.A. house of aging and Desmond evoking film star Nikki Grace-played by Dern. Curiously, Zabrinda underlined that she was a person from the timeless dreamland who had come to everyday reality to help Grace by soon setting off a film long dream-like sequence that evoked the dream filled and/or dream-like endings of ERASERHEAD and MULHOLLAND DRIVE after the main characters of those films visited theatres of the imagination.
Soon Zabrinda used her magic to help director, Kingsley Stewart-played by Jeremy Irons-choose Grace for his new twilit and allegorical film, ON HIGH IN BLUE TOMORROWS (200?). Curiously, the appearance of Irons reminded us that he had played the implicitly Spielberg linked Rene Gallimard in M. BUTTERFLY, and the doomed twin gynecologists, Beverly and Elliot Mantle, in the allegorical Cronenberg film, DEAD RINGERS (1988), linking him to Cronenberg. Howver, the name of Kingsley Stewart also linked him to Spielberg, for the name evoked Sir Ben Kingsley and his role as Itzhak Stern in the allegorical Spielberg film, SCHINDLER’S LIST (1993), and his voiceover work in A.I. Signficantly, Kingsley’s last name Stewart also reminded us of Paul Stewart, the director of the allegorical telefilm, ‘Little Girl Lost’ (1962), from the third season of the original Twilight Zone series-an episode that inspired the creation of POLTERGEIST. The Stewart last name also evoked that of Paul Stewart, the special effects supervisor on the Landis set of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, who was one of the five co-defendants in the TZ disaster trial. Thus, Kingsley Stewart was also linked to Landis, who he resembled and acted like more than he did Cronenberg or Spielberg. Particularly when Stewart was with his partner, Freddie Howard-played by Stanton-as the tragicomic pair evoked Landis and his producer pal, Folsey jr. In fact, the use of Irons also affirmed the film’s interest in the twilit and disastrous year of 1982, as Irons was linked forever to that traumatic year by way of his character Nowak in the allegorical Jerzy Skolimowski film, MOONLIGHTING (1982).
All of which implicitly affirmed that a twilit cadence haunted the creation of Stewart’s new film and INLAND EMPIRE, a twilit cadence implicitly reaffirmed by the Morrow evoking title of ON HIGH IN BLUE TOMORROWS and by the fact that the film was a remake of a twilit and murder scarred film based on a Polish gypsy folk tale called ‘Vier Sieben’ (‘Four Seven’ in German). Thus, using our gift of intuiting things yet again, the fact that Grace slowly transformed into her character Susan Blue over the course of INLAND EMPIRE in MULHOLLAND DRIVE and VIDEODROME fashion and became one with the moving painting’s illogical dream within dream logic and eventually liberated the television watching lost girl-who evoked Cherie Currie’s television watching lost girl, Sarah, in the Dante directed third episode of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE-met at the beginning of the film from the Wicked Phantom in order to leave the timeless twilit dream and come full circle by returning to her house and the visit from Zabriskie’s Good Witch without any time having passed, healed, whole and harmonious in classic Dorothy, Sandy and Lula fashion in the end, implied the hope of Lynch that he had triumphed over the pessimism of Kubrick and freed film audiences, film art and the Temple Theatre from the TZ disaster, at last.
At any rate, Cronenberg implied that he was roasting Lynch yet again and INLAND EMPIRE and THE GOOD THIEF in his allegorical film, EASTERN PROMISES (2007), an implication affirmed by the presence of Watts as a London midwife named Anna Ivanovna. As the Wicked Phantom was also alluded to in the implicit form of a suicide bomb victim referred to in the closing credits as the Black Suit Man-played by Suhail Al-Dabbach-at the end of the twilit, CGI enhanced and allegorical Bigelow artbuster, THE HURT LOCKER (2008), Bigelow also implied that she was roasting Lynch and his ability to keep on going despite one cinematic disaster after another in the symbolic form of the equally indestructible bomb disposal expert, Sergeant William James-played by Jeremy Renner-and affirmed her implicit intent with allusions to DUNE. As for the Boy Scout from Arrakis himself, the irrepressible Lynch revealed that he was his most quirky creation in the allegorical BlackandWhite film, LYNCH (one) (2008), which followed him along as he created INLAND EMPIRE. A quirky character who made one wonder again why he hadn’t just taken advantage of his name and reputation after ERASERHEAD to secure indie financing for his moving paintings and avoid Hollywood, given how happy and alive he was creating the indie INLAND EMPIRE. Then it was off to implicitly roast Cronenberg again and several other Canadian and American film artists when he returned for some seriously crazy clown time as executive producer on his daughter Jennifer Chambers Lynch’s surreal, CGI free and allegorical moving painting, SURVEILLANCE (2009).
‘David, grow up!’
Indeed, the return of Pullman as the Cooper evoking FBI Special Agent Sam Hallway immediately confirmed that the Lynches were blasting Cronenberg again as in LOST HIGHWAY. A pivotal station wagon with the license plate 97A525 openly confirmed the link to LOST HIGHWAY, as the moving painting was released in 1997. The many allusions in SURVEILLANCE to Cronenberg’s then recent twilit and allegorical film, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (2005), reiterated that the film was roasting Cronenberg. The appearance of Michael Ironside as police chief Captain Billings reaffirmed the film’s interest in Cronenberg, as Ironside began his film career as evil director-linked scanner Darryl Revok in SCANNERS. The appearance of Kent Wolkowski as a befuddled and pouty teenager named David also underlined that the Lynches were addressing Cronenberg in SURVEILLANCE, and also implied that the Lynches thought that Cronenberg was but a lost boy.
However, while addressing Cronenberg again as in LOST HIGHWAY, there were important differences between the two moving paintings. For unlike Madison/Dayton in LOST HIGHWAY or Viggo Mortensen’s Tom Stall/Joe Cusack in A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, Hallaway did not transform back into a good character after spending some time as a bad character over the course of SURVEILLANCE. Instead, he was slowly revealed over the course of the moving painting to not be a good guy FBI Special Agent, but the gleefully insane and unrepentant serial killer that Captain Billings and his fellow officers were looking for in their small and no doubt Hollywood linked town.
His female partner, Elizabeth Anderson-played by Julia Ormond, who played Doris Side in INLAND EMPIRE-was also revealed to be his equally gleefully insane partner in serial killing crime over the course of the moving painting. It was also noticeable that the two serial killers not only fooled Captain Billings and his fellow officers with their FBI Special Agent schtick, but also killed the Cronenberg linked Billings and his officers-officers linked not only to Cameron, Folsey and Landis, but also to Ivan Reitman-at the end of the moving painting. Thus, using our gift of intuiting things, the implication was that Hallaway symbolized Lynch pere and that Anderson symbolized Lynch fille in SURVEILLANCE. Indeed, a song by Lynch called ‘Speed Roadster’ on the soundtrack that later appeared on his cd, CRAZY CLOWN TIME (2011), affirmed the importance of the moving painting to Lynch and that daughter and father had teamed up in SURVEILLANCE for a gleefully demented symbolic slaughter of all of the American and Canadian film artists that had driven them the most crazy in order to truly cleanse the Temple Theatre and lead audiences out of the twilight-kull wahad!
For his part, Antoine Fuqua implicitly linked Lynch to ex-U.S. secret agent Mike Banning-played by Gerard Butler-and had him fight to liberate the White House, and, implicitly, film art from the CGI enhanced blockbuster beast in the allegorical film, OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN (2013), and implicitly affirmed his intent with allusions to TWIN PEAKS and WILD AT HEART. Curiously, with its allusions to BLUE VELVET, DUNE, ERASERHEAD, INLAND EMPIRE and LOST HIGHWAY, Joss Whedon implied that the renegade AI, Ultron-voiced by Spader-was not only linked to Lynch but in need of being defeated by the assembling Avengers in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced super satirical film, AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON (2015), a film that saw the implicitly Cronenberg linked Vision-played by Paul Bettany-destroy the last robot Ultron, in the end. Indeed, the implicit link of twin siblings Pietro ‘Quicksilver’ and Wanda ‘Scarlet Witch’ Maximoff-played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen, respectively-to Riley and Emily Lynch implicitly affirmed that Lynch was being roasted in AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON.
As for Lynch, he curiously returned again to Twin Peaks as if to finally exorcise the TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME disaster and implied an interest in joining the odd subculture of the dread allegorical Zone Wars perhaps best described as Cinema Garite when he teamed up again with Amick, Ashbrook, Badalamenti, Beymer, Bowie, Coffey, Coulson, Cruise, Davis, Del Rio, Deming, Dern, Dunham, Fenn, Ferrer, Frost, Getty, Goaz, Hershberger, Kelly, Lee, MacLachlan, Marshall, McGill, Olkewicz, Robertson, Stanton, Stewart, Strobel, Struycken, Tamblyn, Watts, Wise, Witt, Zabriskie, the twilit trio of Brent Briscoe, Patrick Fischler and Robert Forster-who played Detective Domgaard, Dan and Detective McKnight, respectively, in MULHOLLAND DRIVE-Frank Collison-who played Timmy Thompson in WILD AT HEART-and Michael Horse-who played Deputy Tommy ‘Hawk’ Hill in TWIN PEAKS-on the dream-like, slightly CGI enhanced and allegorical telemoving painting series, TWIN PEAKS: A LIMITED EVENT SERIES (2017).
‘Mr. Hastings, are you the author of an online journal
or blog entitled THE SEARCH FOR THE ZONE?’
Curiously, the series began with the older and implicitly King linked Light Side of FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper-played again by MacLachland-trapped with the implicitly Cronenberg linked Tall Dream Man-played again by Struycken-in and struggling to leave a black and white theatre of the imagination never seen before rather than the colour Black Lodge of the dreaming Red Draped Room. This black and white theatre of the imagination evoked early black and white Lynch moving paintings such as THE GRANDMOTHER, ERASERHEAD and THE ELEPHANT MAN, implying that it symbolized his cinematic roots. Then the POV switched to reality and the implicitly Bachman linked Dark Side of Cooper-now indigenous looking with dark skin, long black hair and black leather jacket and played again by MacLachlan-still on the violent rampage in the real world, which caused the world of dreams to interact with the real world more in the new series than in TWIN PEAKS or TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME.
Soon Coop found himself back in the Black Lodge of the timelessly dreaming Red Draped Room, which perhaps symbolized television. This Cooper managed to escape with the help of the implicitly Besson linked One-Armed Man, Phillip Gerard-played again by Strobel-and the older but still eternal spirit of the implicitly film art and moving painting linked Laura Palmer-played again by Lee-and the anguished and equally eternal spirit of the implicitly Spielberg linked Leland Palmer-played again by Wise. Then it was off to another world never seen before, a kind of purple lighthouse floating in space which perhaps symbolized the new world of digital and CGI enhanced film art, in order to take the last step towards the real world with the help of an eyeless woman named Naido-played by Nae Yuuki.
Alas for Cooper, he then found himself in the real world trapped in the body of a Las Vegas based Lucky 7 Insurance agent named Douglas ‘Dougie’-HellOOOOOOOO!-Jones, but wearing the familiar black suit, tie and dress shoes and white dress shirt of FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper. This half Coop and half Jones manifestation forced ‘Dougie Cooper’ to undergo a tragicomic and strenuous journey over the course of the rest of the series before he finally freed himself from the identity of Jones with the help of healing cups of rejuvenating coffee and some damned good cherry pie-of course!-and faced down his Dark Side. Curiously, Cooper’s struggle to free himself from Jones also implied and interest in exorcising Gary W. ‘Gardevil’ Wright, for only after leaving behind an implicitly Greater Toronto Area linked Greater Las Vegas Area and several characters that evoked Gardevil and his ‘insightful’ website could Cooper triumph over his Dark Side.
Indeed, the CN Tower evoking tower of the Stratosphere Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas affirmed the implicit interest of the series in Toronto, while the Mississauga evoking Vegas suburb of Rancho Rosa where Jones lived and the resemblance of Dougie’s wife, Janey-E-played by Watts-to current Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie, affirmed the implicit interest in Zone War film ‘scholars’ residing in Mississauga in TWIN PEAKS: A LIMITED EVENT SERIES. The fact that the Arthurian streets of Guinevere, Merlin and Lancelot Court featured prominently in Rancho Rosa and the Excalibur hotel and casino was seen in Las Vegas also affirmed the implicit interest in Wright in the series, as the names reminded us that the eerily twilit, prescient and allegorical John Boorman film, EXCALIBUR (1981), inspired and even anticipated Gardevil. The resemblance of Lucky 7 Insurance boss Bushnell ‘Battlin’ Bud’ Mullins-played by Don Murray-to John Tory, the current Mayor of Toronto; the resemblances of LVPD Detectives D. and T. Fusco to Rob Ford, the last mayor of Toronto, and his brother Doug, elected Premier of Ontario in 2018-played by David Koechner and Larry Clarke, respectively; and the resemblance to Gardevil of a determined and dimunitive Munchkin assassin named Ike ‘the Spike’ Stadtler-played by Christophe Zajac-Denek reaffirmed the implicit interest in GTA film art, film artists and film ‘scholars’ in the series.
In fact, the presence in Twin Peaks of Amanda Seyfried and Caleb L. Jones as the implicitly Sarah Polley linked Rebecca ‘Becky’ and Steven Burnett, respectively, openly affirmed the implicit interest in the GTA and its film art, film artists and film ‘scholars’ in TWIN PEAKS: A LIMITED EVENT SERIES. For Seyfried played the troubled and implicitly Polley linked prostitute Chloe in the allegorical Atom Egoyan film, CHLOE (2009), and Jones played Syd March in the allegorical Brandon Cronenberg film, ANTIVIRAL (2012), both created in the GTA. An implication reaffirmed by the resemblance of Twin Peaks Deputy Chad Broxford-played by John Pirruccello-to Canadian film artist Denis Villeneuve. Of course, the brief appearance in Twin Peaks of the legendary biker Wally Brando-played by Michael Cera-also openly affirmed the implicit interest in Canadian film artists in TWIN PEAKS: A LIMITED EVENT SERIES. The fact that Audrey-played again by Fenn-was discovered to not only still be living in Twin Peaks but surprisingly married to a bibliophilic character named Charlie-played by Clark Middleton-who resembled a more handsome and virile triplet brother of spikin’ Ike and the poor ol’ bibliophilic Gardevil reaffirmed the implication that the Boy Scout from Arrakis was interested in Toronto and its film artists and in exorcising its Zone obsessed film ‘scholars’ throughout TWIN PEAKS: A LIMITED EVENT SERIES.
Last but not least, the fact that a Buckhorn, South Dakota character named William ‘Bill’ Hastings-played by Matthew Lillard-resembled CBC television personality, Jonathan Torrens, and that Hastings was accused of killing the town librarian and was also killed real dead for being the writer of a blog devoted to revelations about the Zone that evoked the dread allegorical Zone War obsessed blog of the poor ol’ Gardevil reaffirmed the implication that Lynch was addressing Gardevil on one level in the series. In addition, the presences of Jennifer J. Leigh and Tim Roth as Chantal and Gary ‘Hutch’ Hutchens, respectively, also affirmed the implicit interest in Canadian film art and film artists in the series, as the two hillbilly assassins evoked Cameron and his latest wife, Suzy Amis. Last but not least, the inclusion on the soundtrack of the allegorical and Lynch re-mixed Muddy Magnolias tune, ‘American Woman’ (2015), which evoked and mocked the allegorical Guess Who tune, ‘American Woman’ (1970), reaffirmed the implicit interest in Canada and its art and artists in TWIN PEAKS: A LIMITED EVENT SERIES.
Finally releasing all of these implicitly Canadian and GTA film art linked characters, the newly restored FBI Special Agent Cooper left Las Vegas and returned to Twin Peaks to triumph over his embodied Dark Side and the even more Evil spirit of the implicitly Landis linked Bob-played again by Silva-with it, with the help of an attentive Gerard watching over Coop in the Black Lodge version of the dreaming Red Room and the Forceful Green Rubber Glove of Destiny (YoW!) ably worn by Jake Wardle’s Freddie Sykes in the real world, in the end. Significantly, this concluding triumph evoked the triumph over the equally nightmare linked Wicked Phantom at the end of INLAND EMPIRE, and implied that Lynch also used the new series to release any ill feelings he might have felt toward King. Indeed, the sight and sound of a world weary and deafer than ever FBI Regional Bureau Chief Gordon Cole-played again by an equally world weary Lynch-tracking down Cooper throughout the series and helping him in his triumph over his Dark Side implicitly affirmed that Lynch released King on one level at the end of the series. The increased horror content of TWIN PEAKS: A LIMITED EVENT SERIES compared to TWIN PEAKS also affirmed the implicit interest in King. Alas, the increased horror content, overall grimness, listlessness, lifelessness and lack of the irresistible and quirkily upbeat charm of TWIN PEAKS also made the reboot less enjoyable and memorable than
Curiously, Agent Cooper’s Dark Side also evoked Johnny Depp throughout TWIN PEAKS: A LIMITED EVENT SERIES, reminding us that Depp played the implicitly Lynch linked Raphael in his film, THE BRAVE. Indeed, Lynch alluded to THE BRAVE in the series, particularly when Cooper’s Dark Side beat the big and intimidating gangland boss, Renzo-played by Derek Mears-in an arm wrestle, implicitly affirming his Depp addressing intent, for the boss evoked Marlon Brando, who played the sinister McCarthy in THE BRAVE. Thus, Lynch also implied that he was not pleased that the mega-successful and wealthy actor/director/writer and symbol of commercial Hollywood film art had linked himself to the far less successful and film art for art’s sake Lynch, and was triumphing over and exorcising Depp with Cooper’s triumph over his Dark Side. Last but not least, the fact that CGI realized or enhanced dream people and creatures helped Agent Cooper defeat his Dark Side-including Joy Nash’s Senorita Dido in that black and white theatre of the imagination-and then track down the older and reincarnated Laura Palmer in the amnesiac form of Carrie Page-in fact, an alternate universe version of Palmer, due to the fact that Cooper saved her from being murdered on February 23, 1989, and played again by Lee-also implied the hope of Lynch that CGI had indeed freed film art from the TZ disaster and kicked off a new era of film art, in the end. Or did it, given that Cooper and Page/Palmer’s trip back to the Palmer house in Twin Peaks, WA and the series itself ended with the two standing in the darkness in the street outside the Palmer house with Cooper uncertain as to what year it was and Page/Palmer suddenly screaming in terror?
At any rate, Sir Scott also implicitly allowed Lynch in the implicit form of the triumph of odd and cigarette smoking Mecha-Replicant man Agent K-his letter designation reminding us that Lynch’s middle name was Keith, and played by Ryan Gosling-at the end of the Sir Scott executive produced and implicitly A.I. addressing Villeneuve film, BLADE RUNNER 2049 (2017). For his part, King implicitly reaffirmed that Cooper was an implicit roast of him by implicitly roasting Lynch again in the Twin Peaks reboot and petulantly dismissing him and his moving paintings as being as insubstantial, in the end, as the implicitly Lynch linked Scott Carey in his allegorical novella, Elevation (2018), and affirmed his implicit intent with allusions to Badalamenti, MULHOLLAND DRIVE and Thinner. All of which implicitly affirmed that, right to the end, in order to understand and truly appreciate the dream-like and dream filled moving paintings and telemoving paintings of Lynch and those who roasted him important it was to intuit things with the gift in order to truly succeed at cracking the dreamworld and ensuring that we live inside a decoded dream.
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