My biggest source of confusion comes from looking at the movie as a whole, before taking any details into account. In class, someone mentioned something about the director hating when people try to explain his movies. I refuse to believe that means he's making movies just for the sake of making movies, but if there is no explanation how can there be meaning. By watching this film I really feel like it means something, that all of the visual and narrative aspects are purposefully there to tell me something, but I'm completely missing the point. Whenever I try to figure it out, the harder I think the less sense it all makes. Am I supposed to accept the movie as a lovely ball of confusion and move on, or do I try to figure out an explanation the may or may not exist?
The confusing effect the film created was more genuine because it extended to the characters as well. In most of the beginning, the characters are all trying to figure out what's going on (not what happened, not what's going to happen, but what is happening in the present), either to find out Rita's identity, or what's going on with Adam's film. As the audience we get more information than the characters, but we are no closer to any kind of answers.
I can say for sure I liked the overall effect of the film. Of all of the movies we've watched this semester this one was the most enjoyable ride once I stopped using my brain. This wasn't the first film that made my brain feel like it was short-circuiting, but when it was all over I could honestly say I really liked it, even though I couldn't explain what happened in it or really why I liked it so much.
This was so different from anything I'm used to that even though it is squarely outside of my comfort zone, it was almost refreshing to come across something like this. I think what I'm getting at is that even though I didn't completely understand other movies, I could find something, anything to make sense of. I feel like this film offers no way to find get out of the mess of confusion the viewer finds himself stuck in.
The reading was very helpful for me to come to that conclusion. At first it confused me about things I didn't even know I was confused about, but that probably has more to do with the film itself than the article. At one point, it seemed to suggest that attempting to approach this movie logically wouldn't be very effective. Once I said to myself, "it doesn't make sense, just go with it," things were slightly easier to understand (and by that I mean I went from understanding nothing to only getting vague shadows of ideas).
Many of the plot lines the article discussed were things I hadn't noticed or felt were very important. For example, When Betty doesn't meet with Adam after her audition and then finding Diane's dead body in her apartment, I didn't see those as huge turning points in the film, and I don't understand how Betty's life ended when she didn't meet with the director. now that I think about it I'm not sure if the meeting didn't happen because he chose the other girl or because she had to leave to help Rita. Either way, I don't see how her life ended there. And I'm REALLY confused about the body in Diane's apartment. There is absolutely no way to put this movie into any kind of chronological order or even determine if everything we see actually happened (although arguably none of it happened because it's all fictional), but Diane's suicide was in another reality or timeline and I have no idea how that dead body fits into the storyline in the first half of the movie.
Is the "heinous absurdity of the entire entertainment industry" and the article calls it being critiqued because the cliches are so over the top that they're ridiculous? Lots of people were laughing the more intense a style got (especially at the really happy beginning with Betty and the old lady or with the detectives investigating the crash or later with the cowboy--at that point even Adam didn't take it seriously when he found out the meeting place). Or is it that they're all so generic and useless by now that really any story can be told through the Hollywood cookie cutter styles?
I think I need to watch this movie a few more times. And I think I need to watch it all the way through before I really get it, because we stopped just as everything went from a little confusing to really confusing and that really screwed up my chances of having a clue.
Wow, I really rambled on, sorry about that.
I think we have a lot in common because like you, I strongly rely on logic when watching a movie. I am always trying to find the underlying meaning behind the movie's plot. This movie was insane to watch yet very enjoyable. I loved how you stated that as the audience we get more information than the characters, but we are no closer to any kind of answers. I find this very strange in formulating my ideas around the time sequence of events, character identity, and underlying meaning or symbolism to things. We as the audience see more than the characters yet it is scrambled set of puzzle pieces with no picture to follow in solving it. We just cannot put the pieces together to fit!
ReplyDeleteInstead of trying to analyze characters and plot for this film, it may be helpful to look at the way this film is put together, like you begin to comment on in the end of your blog. Your right some of "the cliches are so over the top that they're ridiculous" but why is that important. To me it doesn't seem like Lynch agrees with these cliches. You mentioned that there is no way to put this film into chronological order, and I think this is another important aspect to consider. The characters themselves present little meaning but the craft and style of the film may give insight to a greater interpretation.
ReplyDeleteI think the reason he doesn't want his movies to be explained is that having an explanation would contradict what his films do. This one is confusing and we're constantly trying to figure out the answers to all the questions because he keeps throwing them around in a way we can't get. If we all had an explanation, we wouldn't really care about the questions because we'd skip the process going to the conclusion in some form of reasoning. Without a known purpose, the film challenges our thinking, putting things into a perspective you might not normally look at.
ReplyDeleteWhat I really like about this entry is that you look carefully at your own movie-watching habits, and your own cognitive process--struggling with the ways you try and make sense of things, and describing how this movie does and doesn't open up for you when you suspend that for a little while. My take on Lynch is much the same--I don't really know what it all means and I don't really want to (though I think this particular movie has more to do with Hollywood cliches and images than anything else). But I love the way it always makes me feel--like I've just waken up from some really weird dream.
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