Lama wrote: >>Michael, how can you "enjoy" it if you didn't "GET" it? Lynch is NOT high-minded. Lynch is NOT a magician. Lynch is the biggest one-note-rip-off ever given a blank check. You were TAKEN, Michael! Wake up! Like I said, "You asked for it."<<
Thanks Lama for the comments, Yes, I did indeed ask for it. I never said Lynch was a magician or high-minded, although I wouldn't necessarily agree that Lynch is the biggest rip-off merchant at work today. There are plenty more people doing linear, standard, formulaic Hollywood stuff which is pretty dire too. I take issue with Lama's rhetorical question about enjoying something without getting it. Is he saying that something cannot be enjoyed without being understood? There is a lot of art out there that I 'enjoy' (appreciate, if you prefer) without knowing the ins and out of formal theory, art history, artistic technique, latest fashions in art appreciation etc. There's a lot of music that I feel good listening to, in all fields of music that I am pretty sure I enjoy, regardless of whether I 'get it' or not. And if we enter the fields of literature and theatre we have our friends Borges, Cortazar and Beckett, to name but three authors who can be enjoyed, although I wouldn't like to swear that I 'get them'. In fact, fantastic fiction, especially of the Latin American variety, is probably the genre that I read most and enjoy most. 'Getting it', at least to the point of being to explain it to another person would be very difficult but I insist that these works have long brought me pleasure. Is Lama saying that all these and other artists/writers, and let's not forget Joyce's Finnegans Wake, who have long been considered 'difficult', 'obscure' and/or avant-garde are merely fluff, rip-off merchants or empty pseudointellectual shells? (pajas mentales for my Hispanic friends) Is it fair of me to include Lynch in this illustrious company? I do not mean to 'elevate' him; I do so merely to throw a few more names into the pot. Lynch's films, most of the recent ones anyway, excepting the Straight Story, are not standard Hollywood fare and DO require a little more effort than the pap served there as a rule. Whether there is anything 'there' worth investigating is another question. Maybe the emperor HAS no clothes, but we keep going to the cinema in case he finds some. Maybe some people don't need anything more than there is now, and are happy to judge Lynch's films on a different criterion than other films. I reserve my right to indulge myself as I see fit and if my choices seem ridiculous to Lama, then so be it. No hard feelings. Mike, falling asleep in the cheap seats. BTW, you forgot to mention the scene in the restaurant where the guy collapses after seeing the figure in the parking lot. What was that about? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. Click Here
