awp92@campus.swarthmore.edu (Andy Perry) (09/20/90)
Cristophe, you are completely right when you say that much of Wild at Heart is meaningless. I think that's the point (if there is one--I give Lynch the benefit of the doubt because Blue Velvet had a definite point which was incredibly successfully achieved). I refer you to page 46 of _Alice_Doesn't_ by Teresa De Lauretis, a truly amazing book. De Lauretis says that in current cinema "Language becomes more and more incidental, as music used to be in silent cinema, often simply redundant or vaguely evocative, allusive, mythical. [Many references nowadays] serve solely to alude, refer to--not engage--a symbolic order, an abstract code....[For the viewer, such codes are] no longer intelligible. But it doesn't matter. What matters is once again the spectacle, as in the earliest days of cinema. Contradiction, paradox, ambiguity in the image as well as in the textualized overlay of sound, language, and image no longer produce distancing effects by baring the device of cinema and thus inducing rationality and consciousness. THEY ARE THE SPECTACLE, the no longer simple but excessive, "perverse" pleasure of current cinema." (I apologize for editting the passage. I don't have the book with me, only some notes I took.) Anyway, I think this passage can be taken in one of two ways. Either it is a scathing diagnosis of Wild at Heart, or (and I want to believe this) it is a summary of what Lynch is trying to get us to see through his film. I mean, Wild at Heart is this trend taken to extremes. It is as wonderfully exciting to watch and hear as it is completely without any meaning at all. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Andy Perry; Swarthmore College AWP92@campus.swarthmore.edu OR AWP92@swarthmr
rfink@eng.umd.edu (Russell A. Fink) (09/29/90)
I recently paid a whopping 99 cents to see Wild at Heart at a local cinema. I found that it appeared to be a dull, dragging movie with little plot and direction. Many people really hated this about it. But, now, revert to your highschool English teacher's frame of mind. "Wild at Heart is full of symbolism, in that it shows ..." I hated the word "symbolism" for the longest time, but when faced with answering a very challenging question, such as that about this movie, I need to point it out. Wild at Heart drags, because the lives of Sailor and (blonde girl) drag. The movie is in of itself its own symbolism. Also, look at the references to the supernatural -- witches, the Good Witch of the East -- to see the mentality of the characters. Wild at Heart is one of those movies that relies on you to supply some imagin- ation and try to put yourself in the characters' shoes. What would you do if someone tried to kill you? What would you do if you were pregnant in a small town? What would you do if one person, the one who is with your daughter, is the only threat to exposing the fact that your life was a lie? This movie is, in my opinion, an attempt at putting some level of audience participation into the cinema. You are almost REQUIRED to place yourself in the shoes of the characters (male OR female), and ask yourself, "what would I do if I were *?" For this reason, although I hate Twin Peaks, I feel the director has created a masterpiece of personal insight. So go back, preferably by yourself and with a renewed state of mind, and give it another try. -- //===== //===== Russ Fink =============== // //____ rfink@eng.umd.edu // // University of Maryland //===== //===== College Park ============
awp92@campus.swarthmore.edu (Andy Perry) (09/30/90)
In article <1990Sep28.215959.22091@eddie.mit.edu>, rfink@eng.umd.edu (Russell A. Fink) writes... >...revert to your >highschool English teacher's frame of mind. "Wild at Heart is full of >symbolism, in that it shows ..." I hated the word "symbolism" for the >longest time, but when faced with answering a very challenging >question, such as that about this movie, I need to point it out. > >Wild at Heart drags, because the lives of Sailor and (blonde girl) >drag. The movie is in of itself its own symbolism. Also, look at the >references to the supernatural -- witches, the Good Witch of the East >-- to see the mentality of the characters. You use the word "symbolism" in a way which is strange to me, so I will respond to both the term and the substance of what you're saying here. First, a symbol is a reference, a (linguistic?) device in which something is made to stand for something else. If you read my posting carefully, you will see that the idea of referentiality is one of the things I think the movie is about. For one thing, most of the reviews I read asserted that the film referred to many different genres (road movie, musical, ghoul film, horror film, sci-fi, sitcom) when empirically what it did was switch between them as structures within which to operate. I am not contradicting these reviews. I agree that the film referred to these genres. But that fact is fascinating to me. What does it mean, in terms of what constitutes referentiality? But that is a tangent mostly unrelated to your post. The main point I wanted to make is that I don't really see any invitation to live through or sympathize with characters in this film, or even to take them as anything more than caricatures. I don't see much of an attempt to relate our points of view to those of the characters (unless, of course, you count the flashbacks). In _Blue_Velvet_, on the other hand, there was a direct relation between the viewer and Dennis Hopper's character. Hopper repeatedly said things like "Now it's dark, I like it when it's dark." Lynch emphasized that this was meant to implicate the audience (which sits in a dark theater) by intercutting scenes with extreme close-ups of candle flames sputtering, and by beginning the epilogue with an extreme close-up of lightbulbs burning out. >This movie is, in my opinion, an attempt at putting some level of >audience participation into the cinema. You are almost REQUIRED to >place yourself in the shoes of the characters (male OR female), and >ask yourself, "what would I do if I were *?" For this reason, although >I hate Twin Peaks, I feel the director has created a masterpiece of >personal insight. So go back, preferably by yourself and with a >renewed state of mind, and give it another try. In my opinion, the film is trying to bring up questions about what exactly it is that constitutes cinematic pleasure, and the difference between referring to cultural codes and actively engaging them. Lynch's last film was also about cinematic pleasure (the fact that Hollywood makes horrible things fun to watch when they shouldn't be). That film used audience participation to implicate the viewer morally, the way Hitchcock used to. Here, I think, he has something else in mind. Rather than engaging in some from of practical solution to a problem you and I seem both to see (the passivity of many viewers), he is merely pointing out the problem. (I.e., I think he's made a film which emphasizes the assumptions about a passive audience in mainstream film, rather than making a film which, as you see it, tries to draw the audience into more active engagement with itself.) Andy Perry; Swarthmore College AWP92@campus.swarthmore.edu OR AWP92@swarthmr