Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by vocalion (A) on February 21, 2004 at 20:43:25

In Reply to: David Lynch = wierd for wierd's sake...the only film that he made that is worth a damn is... posted by TWB on February 19, 2004 at 09:39:43:

All "downhill" movement? More of a lateral movement, I think, and one that is the logical (excuse the pun) extension of Lynch's style in 'Elephant Man'. That film was partly about the power of dreams (or more accurately, nightmares). In that film, Lynch seized upon a strange opportunity. The implication was made in the film that the Elephant Man's (then pregnant) mother was so thoroughly frightened "to the core" by being knocked over by an elephant that she somehow transmited the horror of the experience onto the growth pattern of the fetus (perhaps borrowed from the theme we saw in 'Dune', where men's power to manipulate physical phenomena with the mind had grown to epic proportions). This theoretical "power of the mind" has almost always been the subject of Lynch's films, in one way or another. Most of his films mix wakefulness and dreaming on the part of the characters to some degree, while 'Elephant Man' questioned the power of dreams and the absurdity of (supposed) reality. It's all good stuff! So, remember this when watching a Lynch film: "Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream... Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily - life is but a dream."