Look David Lynch. I respect that you’ve made a career by confusing people and by pretending to be smarter than them. I also like that you’ve advanced the careers of odd looking character actors in the hopes of making scenes more dreamlike.
Really, congrats.
But you’re getting to be a cranky old man. If someone wants to pay you to watch your weird little films on a cell phone or a DVD or a flipbook, just smile and take the money. Short of inviting every potential viewer to sit and watch it in your personal viewing chamber, there is no “ideal” viewing experience.
There’s just content and people. People want the content, we give it to them.
True, some stuff works better in the cinematic environment, but moving forward not only will you see peeps shooting protected for TV, but also with more closeups for the ipods.
But Mr. Lynch your stuff is going to be confusing regardless of the venue of consumption.
M. Night Shyamalan said in a speech:
“If you tell audiences there’s no difference between a theatrical experience and a DVD, then that’s it, game’s over, and that whole art form is going to go away slowly,” Shyamalan added. “Movies will end up being this esoteric art form, where only singular people will put films out in a small group of theaters.”
M. is right, to a degree. I think we’ll continue to see the spectacle movie more and more. Where you HAVE to se it on a big screen. That’s also driving a lot of the IMAX stuff right now too. Adults will continue to flee the multiplexes and wait for DVD, and the kids will go to the theaters to hang out, make out, and get out of the house, but otherwise download and consume anything and everything on their own terms.
David Hockney is one of my favorite artists. And in his book That’s The Way I See It, he talks a lot about how most people experience artwork. His contention is that most paintings are never viewed in person — they are seen and experienced through books and posters. So he started creating artwork that made great posters.
Posters in the film and tv world are DVDs and downloadable media. You just need to create visuals that will play well on a 320×240 window.
If you’re doing anything else, you’re being a cranky old artist.
31 Comments
January 5, 2008 at 4:25 am
Kent. Absolutely. Artists are in control of what they make, but not how it gets reproduced and delivered. That’s just reality. The thing is, paradigms are shifting so fast that old cranky folks are going to start appearing younger and younger….sigh. Maybe the Ninja can help us keep our minds flexible….or kil us if we can’t adapt.
January 5, 2008 at 9:00 am
Right on. There’s this lingering myth of control that folks like Lynch (and lots of the big Hollywood businesses — Disney, etc.) would like to hang on to: you’ll experience our products OUR way. But technology renders that conceit moot. If you want to *truly* control the experience, you need to work in a different form — e.g. prose fiction, where the story is apt to have the same effect whether you read it on paper or from a screen, or else something like installation art, which the viewer knows doesn’t translate to a screen very well. Or else you can make sculptures like Richard Serra’s, where even the audience looking at it in books knows that it’s nothing like standing next to it in person.
January 5, 2008 at 12:37 pm
[...] UPDATE: Kent Nichols of Ask A Ninja thinks that David Lynch is a tool. [...]
January 5, 2008 at 12:54 pm
If Lynch is such a postmodernist, I’m surprised that he hasn’t bothered to read Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.
“[F]or the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual.”
http://tinyurl.com/yqrqg
January 5, 2008 at 1:05 pm
What Lynch is saying, essentially, is that there is a substantive difference between seeing a film on a telephone and seeing a film in a theater (presumably). I’m not sure how you could possibly object to that assertion.
Pretty much everything else you opine about it this post is an argument against extrapolations of Lynch’s logic that you have made. You are, in essence, either arguing against a “straw man” or simply arguing against yourself.
David Lynch does not need to pretend to be smarter than you.
January 5, 2008 at 1:19 pm
@Jackson great quote.
@Chester granted most people are smarter than me.
Lynch is saying though that it’s invalid to experience films, and presumably his films, in any other way than he intended.
That’s elitist and condescending to his audience and the audience in general.
When you make a film and put it out there for the world to consume, it ceases to live in the beautiful walled garden your mind and and intentions. People embrace it and interpret it and experience it on their own terms.
He’s essentially saying those that ignore the original context of the work will miss out on it’s true meaning.
But I think there is no one true meaning. He had an idea about what he created and what it means, and then we watch it and come to our own individual conclusions.
And Lynch should be the one totally embracing that indiviual interpretation, since he refuses to put chapter markers and commentaries on his movies.
But this new way, this new technology is perhaps too individual for him. It gives too much power to people to watch and participate in his work in ways he never dreamed of.
January 5, 2008 at 1:30 pm
An artist can create art for whatever medium he or she wishes. It’s cool that Hockney is creating art that is meant to be viewed the way the majority of the people are viewing it, but that doesn’t mean that every artist needs to conform to that standard, and that if an artist creates a work with a certain intent in mind – seeing it in a theater vs. squinting at it on an electronic device, for example – it should reflect negatively on the artist himself. I think Night has a point with the glamor of the theater, but it’s kind of dishonest to dismiss Lynch’s intent in this instance. He is one of the few traditional filmmakers who is working entirely in digital now, so he’s hardly a cranky old artist in that regard.
Artistic freedom doesn’t necessarily mean creating art that the greatest number of people can consume – it means creating the art you want to create. Suggesting Lynch is cranky because he adds visual nuance that may not appear on a smaller reproduction – I realize you were baiting a bit, but still. We haven’t killed the artist that much yet, to demand of our creative types that they must conform to what we want them to be, or the medium in which we want them to work?
I’m by no means an artist or an art critic (and I like Lynch most of the time, but hardly think he’s all that and a bag of chips), but your argument seems unnecessarily iconoclastic.
January 5, 2008 at 2:06 pm
You’re blowing this out of proportion– quit putting words into his mouth.
Lynch is commenting on the idiocy of saying you can “watch a movie on your cell phone.” You can put it there, see it, sure, and watch it go by, but if you go talk to people about it who have seen it on a large screen, you’ll quickly realize that you missed a lot– your eyes scan over a small field completely differently than they scan over a large field.
A lot of the “sale” of “movies on your cell phone” is our current fascination/obsession with hoarding and converting our media and enjoying it anywhere with anybody– this boundless freedom is inherently good. But it reveals new contexts as well as old ones– I don’t want to sit in a movie theatre to watch a cool YouTube clip any more than I want to stare into my cell phone to watch Ben Hur. Those experiences fucking suck– that’s Lynch’s point.
January 5, 2008 at 2:22 pm
@salsa no I’m not. Lynch is someone people aspire to. Increasingly, what he’s outlining is becoming quaint and outmoded.
Fine for “artists” but not fine for those who want to reach audiences.
And Lynch is famous for being a champion of creating insular films that may or may not have a larger meaning. He has a track record of taking positions of alienating his audience rather than embracing it.
January 5, 2008 at 2:38 pm
I love watching movies in theaters. The people who chew popcorn with their mouths open. The people who talk on their phones. The people UNWRAP GODDAMN CELLOPHANE BOXES RIGHT BEHIND ME WHILE I’M TRYING TO HEAR THE DIALOG.
Yeah, movies. Experience the magic.
January 5, 2008 at 2:48 pm
@kentnichols, I am not a David Lynch fan by a long shot and don’t generally agree with him, but he’s talking about the experience of watching a film.
You’re talking about how much you don’t like his prissy vibe and confusing films and TV shows and his general point of view, and that his movies will still suck on small screens. Cool– no problem with any of that! We agree on a lot.
But if you’re being bombastic, don’t expect not to have your bluff called. Like this bit of garbage:
“There’s just content and people. People want the content, we give it to them.”
You forgot “And they’ll like it”!
You grant his whole argument anyway with your flip mention that “some stuff works better in the cinematic environment.” Dude– that’s his point.
January 5, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Since Lynch did not do what Hockney did — purposefully make his art (and the message in his art) portable to smaller and lower-fidelity media — Lynch’s point remains firm.
You can question the wisdom of making art which is meant to function on the big screen, and you can debate whether the artist’s intention should have anything to do with the way an audience receives a piece of art.
What you’re doing, though, is castigating the architect of a palace for failing to design with the scale-model market in mind. (Even if it’s a crappy palace.)
January 5, 2008 at 3:06 pm
@salsa right, sure spectacle films will always be more at home in the big screen, but Inland Empire?
Very few films for adults really even need the theatrical experience. Something like Into The Wild needs to be seen on the big screen.
But does Juno?
If Bruckheimer was saying that his films only should be seen on the big screen, it’s a little more understandable.
January 5, 2008 at 3:15 pm
@Dan Meh. I’m just pointing out the obvious, adults don’t go to the theaters anymore.
They are cocooned in their home theaters avoiding what @Jim is talking about.
If you’re making films that aren’t about spectacle and aren’t about adults, your stuff better work well on DVD and other smaller formats because that’s how everyone will experience your work.
To say otherwise, is tilting at windmills.
January 5, 2008 at 8:14 pm
I have not seen the the DVD “Inland Empire”, from which this is taken, so FWIW here’s my take:
What strikes me about this clip is that I don’t know what film Lynch is referring to, so to me it’s taken completely out of context.
If he’s talking about something like, let’s say “Lawrence of Arabia” I’d have to agree with him. Seeing it on a phone is just not the same experience as seeing in 70 mm.
But if we’re talking about content created for the medium (your citation of Hockney is a good example) then that’s different.
As one who enjoys being entertained in any medium and as one who is also platform agnostic, I could really give a rat’s ass what art snobs have to say about how I consume my media.
This is a tip of a digital divide, IMHO, when you consider that for some people watching something via their phone is their only means of access to news, information and entertainment.
BTW, I’m not trying to be a Lynch apologist, Kevin. He’s being an asshat and some of your comments ring true to me.
January 5, 2008 at 8:15 pm
I think David Lynch hilariously stabbed crappy internet entertainment on the internet, especially on youtube. The internet needs to go high def, and leave behind horrible flash video. There is no way anyone should watch Blue Velvet on a cellphone.
January 5, 2008 at 11:26 pm
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January 6, 2008 at 1:50 am
I already read some bullshit, but here it’s more than that.
How can you say there are no diffrents between watch a movie on a cellphone and in a theater ?
David Lynch works on the sound. A David Lynch’s movie is a visual AND a sound experience. How can you watch Eraserhead on a cellphone ? People are crazy with download, and shit encoding format. And i’m tired to meet people who listen music in mp3 120k on a poor pc system, and watch movie with large pixel, bad sound, on a pc screen with bad color and lightness. And these people have something to say about what they seen or listened.
NO you have nothing to say, because nobody works for these kind of experience.
Star Wars exist on a big screen, with big audio syste, and not on a cellphone, and this is the same for old expressionist movies like Nosferatu.
To end my comment, David Lynch is a genius, you don’t seem to understand his movie, what can explain why you say so many bullshit. you understand nothing about art, cinema, and music. And i’m sure that you think that watching a painting on a trading card is exactly the same to be in a museum.
poor guy
January 6, 2008 at 4:53 pm
@fred
January 7, 2008 at 9:36 am
Kent,
What the heck is wrong with you? You’ve totally mis-interpreted this video! There’s a red curtain behind him. That means he’s in the “red room.” It’s all a dream! What he’s saying isn’t real!
And what about the character of the microphone. You totally ignore the microphone in you’re analysis. The microphone hovers quietly and listens intently… not speaking… not judging. It is a symbol of us, the audience. It hears for us so we don’t have to.
…or maybe not. Sorry, I watched this movie on my phone.
January 7, 2008 at 6:02 pm
I don’t think much of David Lynch’s latest output, but TV and movies today would be very different if he had never existed. Everything from the appalling Ally McBeal to the Sopranos have all been influenced by Lynch. Don’t confuse his art with his opinions on a phone.
I like Lynch. I want an iPhone. Some movies are better on a big screen. Some are fine on a tiny screen.
January 7, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Kent wrote:
>Lynch is saying though that it’s invalid to
>experience films, and presumably his films,
>in any other way than he intended.
He’s certainly saying that watching a movie on a 3×2″ screen provides a cinematic experience that is piss-poor when compared to the experience of seeing it on a large screen. And, again, I don’t see how anyone could possibly disagree with that.
But I don’t see him saying much else besides that. I don’t hear him saying that customers don’t or shouldn’t have the absolute right to view content as they please. So, again, I think that part of your objection is you arguing with words that you have installed in his mouth.
Keep in mind that Lynch — in the video — is railing against watching movies on a cellphone screen. So when you write “sure spectacle films will always be more at home in the big screen, but Inland Empire?”, you’re changing his words. He’s not — in the excerpted video clip — decrying the watching of movies at home on, say, a 50″ screen…he’s complaining about people watching them on a 3-6″ screen…and probably doing it while they are sitting on a crowded train or while they’re pounding out mileage on a treadmill. I, for one, think watching “spectacle films” and “artsy” films on a 3-6″ screen is a bad way to watch them.
Your argument would be far better directed at the director of, say, I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry voicing the same thoughts…but I’m not sure such a pairing of “artist”/thoughts exists, in which case you are, again, either arguing against a straw man, or, as you might say, “tilting at windmills”.
(Which I think Lynch is actually doing himself, as I don’t know anyone who would actually choose to watch his or any other “serious” movie on a cellphone.)
In one of your follow-up comments, you clarify yourself and say that Lynch’s attitude is “fine for ‘artists’ but but not fine for those who want to reach audiences”…and then go on to basically say that Lynch is well-known for being someone unconcerned about reaching a vast audience…because, well, he’s an “artist”.
So…if the attitude is fine for an “artist” to take, and Lynch is an “artist” (albeit one you apparently don’t like much), then why are you arguing with Lynch on this topic? He doesn’t care about getting his work out to widest audience possible. And if, for example, he had the contract power and inclination to prevent his movies from being distributed for 3″x2″ screens, how is that not his right, as the creator of that art?
Does that mean civil rights have expanded to include…”Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and platform-agnostic artistic content delivery”? If directors should release their films in all resolutions and aspect ratios, does that mean that painters should issue their paintings accordingly? Is any given painter a “tool” for not selling his paintings in an aspect ratio that I, as a consumer, want to buy it in?
I imagine your point — and I mean this as honest summary and not rhetorical ploy — is not that Lynch is obligated by law or morality to release Inland Empire on iTunes, but that, if he is interested in getting all of his movies out to the widest possible audience, he would embrace any and all delivery mechanisms.
The problem with that argument is that I think it’s safe to assume that Lynch is fairly unconcerned about gaining the widest possible audience, and certainly not at the cost of compromising the quality of his work in ways that he, as an artist, feels are significant.
That he feels this way perhaps makes him a bad businessman, but it certainly does not make him a bad artist and, in my opinion, does not make him a “tool”.
January 8, 2008 at 10:14 am
No one’s mentioned why they would watch a full-length movie on a phone.
Don’t you know anyone with a TV and DVD player?
Where are you while watching your phone, hogging a table at Starbucks, smiling to yourself while watching your hand?
January 10, 2008 at 4:17 am
Charlie, with all due respect, there are still some people in this world in which their mobile phone is their only means of communication and entertainment. The digital divide exists. Like in some countries that Starbucks gets their product from. Just sayin’.
January 10, 2008 at 2:31 pm
[...] e kentnichols [...]
January 11, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Oh no, are we gonna have to battle? Since you replied all I’m doing the same. Anyone who wants out of this, just say so.
> If someone wants to pay you to watch your weird little films on a cell phone or a DVD or a flipbook, just smile and take the money.
Spoken like a true producer who cares nothing about the art form or experience Lynch is interested in preserving.
> there is no “ideal” viewing experience.
“Ideal” is subjective, but…are you kidding me? Watching ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ (as an example) on an iPod nano is just as worthwhile as watching in a dark theater on a huge screen with surround sound? And don’t say that “worthwhile” is subjective because this point is pretty black and white, citing specific examples (I wouldn’t make the same claim about some amateur YouTube skateboard home video).
> There’s just content and people.
That’s like saying there’s just food and a desire to eat. Why sit at a candlelit table with a view and some amazingly prepared cuisine when you can microwave a can of soup and eat it on the couch?
> not only will you see peeps shooting protected for TV, but also with more closeups for the ipods.
And your point is what? That this will improve the viewing experience? That because of the limitations forced upon productions to revise how they shoot for this tiny technology that content and the experience will improve?
> But Mr. Lynch your stuff is going to be confusing regardless of the venue of consumption.
Can’t argue with that. Irrelevant, but I agree.
> Posters in the film and tv world are DVDs and downloadable media.
Apples and oranges. Posters are two dimensional images with limited ability to simulate the 3rd dimension that cater to one sense. Motion pictures have greater flexibility in exercising the 3rd dimension and cater to sight and sound as well as offering a vastly greater depth of information.
November 15, 2008 at 9:49 pm
err, I pissed myself when I saw that iphone commercial. He’s damn right, and he’s not suggesting that handheld video is a sucking form of content, he’s just making the point that seeing a film on a phone is effectively a “spoiler”.
He’s not a luddite, he shot his last film on DV.
Just the same, I’m a digital fucking ninja, I was hacking at 12, but also, I wouldn’t recommend the appreciation of photographs viewed on a VGA screen. Yes, 60mm hasselblad photos are the bollocks. I produce records. I have been known to put inside the album cover alongside the copyright info “if you want to listen to this on shit equipment, it’s your loss. My bass requires full 20Hz to 20kHz response, and will break cheap hifis. You have been warned.”
Again, home theater is getting amazing, the Japanese are working on 24 channel sound, and 7K frame video. That’ll hit the street in 2012. Yes, movie theaters were great when TV was black’n'white. Black’n'white movies were great when the radio was the only form of wireless.
LaHaine is a great film. It’s black’n'white, and it was made in the 90s. All rules have exceptions, david lynch has made a career from the paradoxical and mysterious. You don’t think that he knew that film would probably be watched on a computer in shit res, or on a phone? He used TV style close-ups. He runs a site with streaming snippets. Fuck’s sakes. The man *is* smarter than you are, and you fell into his contention trap. LOL. N00b. Welcome to good ol’ flame war territory. Go watch black hawk down. On your phone.
November 15, 2008 at 9:49 pm
oooh moderation. Integrity please.
November 15, 2008 at 9:50 pm
if you please, delete this post, and if you would like, bullet the fucks. F•••
November 15, 2008 at 9:51 pm
On your fucking phone LOL. Off I go to chew my asbestos cork.
November 15, 2008 at 11:03 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs-mDAlfpUA
Listen to the glove puppet LOL.