March 22, 2006
Last month I wrote about Room To Dream, a free DVD from Avid about David Lynch's digital filmmaking process, including a scene from a project that may or may not be Inland Empire. It arrived while I was at SXSW, and having watched it, I'm hesitant to say it's worth your 30 minutes (even though I know that no amount of naysaying will keep Lynch fans like myself away from it). Half of the disc is an interview with Lynch, interspersed with behind the scenes footage. It's pretty underwhelming, although it is interesting to watch the man on set, especially when he genteely loses his temper at a grip: "Geez, man, finesse it!"
But then there's the scene itself. I wish I could be a Lynch apologist and posit that it's out-of-context, or unfinished, or even boundary-pushing in its form; but the fact of the matter is that the scene is pretty terrible. Yen put it best when he said that it looked like a director who's worked on film for his whole career picking up a DV camera for the first time. It's poorly shot and, even more surprisingly, considering that Mary Sweeney was involved, terribly edited. It comes across as a very unfunny self-parody.
I don't quite understand it; Lynch proved with his brilliant Rabbits web series and his Playstation commercial from a few years back that he could work just fine with the digital medium. I'm hoping this isn't actually a scene from Inland Empire - in fact, I'm pretty sure it isn't, even though it features Inland cast member Kristen Kerr (who is also the lead actress in Ramzi's upcoming Black Dahlia film). Why would a filmmaker who's so secretive release a first glimpse of his new feature on an infommercial? Perhaps he's just messing around with a few stray ideas on DigiDesign's dime. For that matter, I don't know if Avid will gain much crossover through this promotion; it probably won't appeal to anyone other than Lynch fans (who are likely to be disappointed), and it doesn't hold a candle to Walter Much's endorsements for Apple.
If the scene is from Inland Empire, then I really do hope it will be saved by either context or further refinement. Or complete excision.
Posted by David Lowery at March 22, 2006 08:07 PM
Comments
Last night I wrote a post about this too (it'll go up in a few days, while I'm out of town). As Meat Loaf would say, "You took the words right out of my mouth."
Posted by: Paul at March 23, 2006 09:33 AM
Oh, good lord, how I hope that's not from INLAND EMPIRE. Consider me majorly underwhelmed if it is...
Posted by: Aaron at March 23, 2006 01:23 PM
Wiley Wiggins links to a similar reaction. And check out the Lynch commercial he links to a few posts down. God bless YouTube!
Posted by: Ghostboy at March 23, 2006 02:51 PM
I think the whole thing is a joke. I bet Mr. Lynch thought it'd be funny to turn in something really bad just to see if those Avid folks would bite it, knowing it would be an informercial at best. And they sure ate that shit up! Literally.
Posted by: Yen at March 23, 2006 04:14 PM
That scene was bad, but even Lynch's worst work contains some really interesting stuff. I think what he was doing with (correct me if I'm wrong) the auto-image stabilization feature, but deliberately (I presume) was cool. If he can use that effectively in INLAND and not just to be 'weird,' more power to him.
I personally don't believe this scene is from INLAND.
Posted by: DH at March 23, 2006 05:39 PM
Meant to say (where did it go...?) the image-stabilization stuff was neat and hopefully will be put to good use in the feature.
Posted by: DH at March 23, 2006 05:41 PM
interesting..i expect my dvd to arrive any day now. now i'm really curious/scared to see what's on it..
Posted by: brad at March 23, 2006 06:30 PM
The latter half of your post just got lost in some stray tags, DH. It's fixed. I agree that there's always something interesting about his work, but in this case, it ain't enough. I didn't notice any auto-stabilization artifacts...but then again, having never used that feature on a DV camera, I may not know what to look for.
Posted by: Ghostboy at March 24, 2006 12:47 AM