wants to hijack movie audiences and take them to the lesser realm of gallery installations and home-sketchpad-digital whimsies. It's the next passage that absolutely kills us: White's next volley is to charge that Inland's digital video images " like crap." We don't fully agree, although there is something to say about the general inferiority of dv to film, but fair enough. Why not? Every tactic White has so far used to relegate it to minor status won't wash and, judging by White's inability to meet a work of art on its own terms when it steps outside the boundaries of "pop" (except in special cases, like late Godard), we suspect this a move designed to get the critic off the hook of analytical responsibility. The paragraph's worst presumption, however, is that the film "must" not be taken seriously. But unlike White, who we guess doesn't know himself, we haven't made such presumptions. And we still haven't gathered a consensus as to what Lynch's fan base collectively thinks about it. But are his devoted followers not perturbed by the "obvious silliness" of the rabbit family? We're not sure how obvious it is in the first place, since this very odd - even for Lynch - element of Inland seemed to us more unsettling than anything else. As to whether Lynch "depends" on a devoted audience, our cynicism isn't so advanced as Armond's to believe Lynch wouldn't do (as he has done) whatever he wants according to his singular artistic temperament. Inland's complete disregard for convention is related to but far afield from the Orphic genre-bending nightmares of Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive and a critic that can't spot the former's radical aesthetic departure needs to get his or her (but his, really, we're talking about Armond) eyes examined. The first warning signs arrive when White states Lynch is "repeating himself." Those who think Lynch is merely treading over the same comfortable ground (if ever comfortable in the first place) with Inland must have, we can imagine, hallucinated a more linear, less experimental narrative while viewing the film so it could compute. It seems designed to confound newcomers as much as to delight devotees. Still, Inland Empire must be taken in a relaxed attitude as Lynch's in-joke, a psychotic, Bosch-like doodle. As Dern's Nikki disintegrates into her newest film role as Sue, the adulterous murder mystery may possibly reflect back on Nikki's own professional and private crises. (These viewers are not perturbed by obvious silliness such as the rabbit-like characters who pop up here.) The film's gloomy title is an art-student's invitation to project: Come visit unreachable, far-off places journey through someone else's egotistical labyrinth. Lynch obviously depends on a devoted audience that is interested in his continuing oeuvre and the twisting of his mind. ![]() it's clear that he has no shame about repeating himself. Since Lynch is releasing Inland Empire himself. As we'll see, that position is incredibly shaky. As he does so often when confronted with cinematic experiences beyond his reassuring "pop" island, White flips the mirror around to ostensibly gauge a general critical reaction and then position himself in stubborn opposition. That means the most fascinating thing about Inland Empire is the degree to which Lynch's personal cosmology (deliberately disturbing, if not off-putting figures and devices) has become an accepted-and expected-part of contemporary film culture.Īh. We've already seen similar sketches in such recent Lynch films as Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway. Then White makes his true critical intentions known: It starts off harmlessly enough, likening the film to a sketchbook - not a bad comparison given Inland's disparate, fragmented, piece-by-piece assemblage. We still haven't seen Mel "Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world" Gibson's Armond-approved (we know that much) epic Apocalypto, but we've been familiar with David Lynch's shape-shifting Inland Empire since feasting our eyes on it at the New York Film Festival and are well-equipped to counter AW's muddled review.īecause this take on Inland and Lynch's new artistic direction exemplifies White at his boorish, self-righteous worst. We have a whole year and career's worth of reviews to sneak up on, tackle, and pound into tender, black and blue pulp, so our desperate sprint to surprise Armond at the corner of 20 begins now. On the eve of the new issue of the New York Press Armond Dangerous will take it upon itself (ourselves?) to not fall too far behind our man's weekly output.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |