Kasia Taras
Alchemy. About the Art of Cinematography
To Each His Own David Lynch - A Thing About a Generation
It's difficult to write about such a creator as David Lynch. First and foremost due to the facts that he escapes any interpretations, that he is marvelously unpredictable and once in a while treats his viewers with some kind of twist, which act is great people's privilege, just to mention Luis Bunuel's statements and films - Lynch seems to be artistically close to him. Both Lynch and Bunuel provoke a viewer, who thinks he is dealing with a grand masterpiece, the capacity of which he is not able to take in; then it turns out that the filmmakers have just played with his longing for a story, with his desire to organize and catalogue everything. In how many ways was An Andalusian Dog interpreted, how were Lost Highway (1997, cinematography by Peter Deming) or Mulholand Dr. (2001, cinematography by Peter Deming) read...? If we mention playing with a viewer and his (so human) thirst for understanding (a man created myths in order to understand), another great artist has to be brought up - namely Wojciech Jerzy Has, who played like no one else both with his character, Alfons van Worden, and with the ones concerned about his awkwardness and craving for rationalization. Bunuel, Has and Lynch all repeat the same - that cognition is limited and sometimes one needs to be carried with the story, pardoned for his disobliging admiration.

Still from "Mulholland Drive"

Still from "The Straight Story"
Fortunately, the present article is not an encyclopedic entry. Thus, I can confess to which David Lynch's creations I simply surrendered.

It may turn out that I wrote an article describing the generation's experience - it was David Lynch (together with Mark Frost) who showed the generation growing up in the 90s that a TV series can be art. Before that, we'd only been taking in Calling 07 (07 zgłos sie) and remonstrating Dynasty and Escrava Isaura, when suddenly Agent Cooper, who appreciated good coffee and cherry pie, appeared. (There weren't any Internet message boards back then, so we were exchanging sheets with recipes for pies during school breaks.) I remember that even if not many of us were truly interested in who had killed Laura Palmer, the backyards were empty every Friday at 8pm (if I recollect the time correctly)... And that hypnotic music (used on holidays to wear out audio equipment, or bore an accidental listener, played on camping sites from radio cassette recorders). Twin Peaks (1989) had everything a good film needs: a well-defined and credibly played character, an intriguing plot and some basic qualities, like solicitude for disturbing nuances, for example a bellboy much too old to be called a “boy". These nuances made people perceive this TV series not only as a story of a pedant's adventures in the land of freaks; for Twin Peaks is a story about evil and degenerations which can be found on mythologized and idealized (both in films and in literature) American province. It was written about Sam Peckinpah, and then about Oliver Stone, that they portray the abdomen of America. David Lynch (in cooperation with Mark Frost) achieved the same. In a TV series!

Still from "Twin Peaks"

Still from "Twin Peaks"
Another manifestation of David Lynch in my life carries the stigma of generation's experience as well, as it is also connected with the 90s, with this beautiful and rich in good cinema decade having no comparable successors. In 1990 David Lynch received the Palme d'Or for Wild at Heart (cinematography by Frederick Elmes). The film does not need to be refreshed, though it is good to mention the fairy appearing in the final part of this love story. (And it seems unimportant whether it is postmodernism or not - it is simply good cinema, not affected by any key-word). I remember those voices of outraged critics and frequent visitors of film festivals shouting: “How could something like this be awarded?!" And this “something" is so beautiful! Beautiful because it gives hope that evil will be punished, good rewarded and love, initiated on a rubbish dump and celebrated against everybody, will prove to have its meaning. Doesn't it sound familiar? Like a fairytale? Why, it is a fairytale! And how it was told! (So maybe there is something postmodern about it? Only a real postmodernist could play with viewers' desires, with their film knowledge and expectations in such a way.) And it pleases that the jury at the significant film festival noticed and appreciated a fairytale. Such a “scandal" will be repeated in 1994 when Pulp Fiction will be awarded with the Palme d'Or. These two verdicts stigmatized the decade, the time when we were able to admit that we like simplicity and that the cinema is also there for amusement.

Still from "Wild at Heart"
The article was supposed to be about "my" Lynch. "My" Lynch is different. I rate highly Blue Velvet (1986, cinematography by Frederic Elmes), as it is difficult not to be lured by Isabella Rossellini's charisma; I am scared of The Lost Highway, I read Mulholland Dr. as a great tribute to one of the greatest films of all times - Sunset Blvd. by Wilder, supposedly David Lynch's favourite film. But I like it most when David Lynch shows that in the world of his characters there is Somebody who watches over everything and restores order. Anyway, the longing for rules, an award, a punishment was already suggested by him in the story about Lula and Sailor. That is why I value highly Straight Story (1999), so wonderfully shot by Freddie Francis. A tiny man looking for forgiveness and reconciliation travels across the USA on a lawn-mower while we observe this fragile silhouette passing colourful fields in the background; we feel that Somebody takes care of this space and everything that happens within it, and then we realize that we were given a moment of orderliness and harmony.

David Lynch as one of few moralist of the modern contemporary cinema? My David Lynch is for sure.

On the set of "Blue Velvet": Dennis Hopper, Isabella Rossellini, David Lynch