Date: Mon, 03 Jun 1996 12:26:58 -0400
From: Michael Betancourt <mwb2-AT-mosquito.com>
Subject: Re: David Lynch


A little earlier in this discussion someone said that the fantastic and the
want-to-look surrealist have a certain quality of cannibalism to the works
(William?). And at this point it seems appropriate to point out that this is
very much the case with Lynch. Not only does his work do this to other
filmmakers, but he also does it to his own (earlier) works. Much of the
"surrealist" visuals in Twin Peaks are taken from Eraserhead, which in turn
takes them from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Metropolis and M, all of which
have specific sources for his images; and from German Expressionism in
general for the rest. Blue Velvet draws itself from the same sources, but
has much more taken from Douglas Sirk and/or Fassbender. Lynch is not a
filmmaker who works with "new" material; what he does is take things from
other filmmakers and use them for the same purpose, often with only
superficial changes. This doesn't make the films less than intersting, but
it does prevent him from being "surrealist" if anything he can hope for,
it's fantasy.

[Even Dune (which so far has been left out, for good reasons) has visuals
drawn from an earlier source. In its case, they are taken from the (if I
remember rightly) British editions that were released in the 70s.]

I see nothing wrong in widening the range of surrealist film beyond those
few who were working in the early years; however, we should not rush to
include those who do not work to create a vision, but borrow instead from
those who came before.

-- Michael Betancourt
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