David Lynch presents 'A Thinking Room' | Hacker News Reader

David Lynch presents 'A Thinking Room'

wallpaper.com

172 pointsandsoitis59 comments

I always wanted to do an art installation where you would act out the part of Moses speaking to God on mount sinai. You would go through a curtain into a type of waiting room, where you would be outfitted with sandals, and a staff. Then you go through a second set of curtains out of the dark into a seeming mountain set, similar to the one from the burning bush scene in the ten commandments. And the art installation, playing the part of God, commands you to go and free his people. Then you exit via a long twisting slide into a ballpit.

To top it off, you could do worse than asking Bob Walkenhorst of The Rainmakers to be the inaugural Moses.

The Rainmakers' 'Let my people go-go' [0] remains a masterpiece.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTEIjM3BkLo

For the folks new to Lynch movies don't forget to watch his possibly the strangest of movies: Eraserhead. I have watched it more than 5 times and everytime I watch it I learn something new.

And btw this scene from his movie is just gold: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UozhOo0Dt4o

The short "What did Jack do?" is also strange, even by his standards.

I am propably wrong on this, and counter examples are very welcome. But to me it seems like he’s the only person in Hollywood who makes films that show dreams how they actually subjectively feel to us when we are dreaming. Not just the “picture perfect narrative but with a pink tint” but all the strangeness that dreams involve, like something mundane being incredibly scratch without a clear reason why. characters simultaneously being different people, or someone in a dream clearly being someone yet looking different. And of cause all the strangeness of realizing you are in a dream yet still dreaming. The mix of absurd control and at times complete lack of control.

Try https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry_Mansion_(film)

Although I can't understand the intention behind these exhibition designs, I must say the images are quite interesting.

What it does to you is often more important that what the artist's intention is

Yeah, exhibits like this are basically the old adage of “people won’t remember what you told them, but they will rememember how what you told them made them feel”, but with the expectation that you will indeed focus on the latter.

Not doing so would render most of this type of art in general feeling flat.

I find Lynch’s works to be very puzzling to unpack. Most analyses which I find compelling have his intentions as a director conveyed within each scene independently, and not really within the larger narrative.

Whereas most works seem to have a thesis and then explore them on different levels, Lynch seems to just throw out ideas in different scenes.

I would love to unpack what parts of twin peaks were Lynch’s design and what parts were not

Lynch's work tends to operate on dream logic. And that's how dreams often work - there can be coherent ideas - some random, and some related to concerns in the real world - and there can also be just bizarre, insane, inexplicable stuff.

It’s a bit like the automatic-writing quality of Bob Dylan lyrics (or especially text he’d write for his album covers) but in film form. Similar deal where the “text” is obscure and seems full of puzzles, and you can make connections and draw some conclusions—and certainly a tone, themes, and even a point or message may be communicated clearly—but you can’t count on everything lining up and making logical sense.

I have the impression that we are observers suddenly thrust into the dream and we, like a detective, must piece together the puzzle. This allows everyone to walk away with a different view which is a far cry from linear plots where everything is wrapped up, concluded - roll credits. Lynch makes you think about his work after they conclude.

I know some people who hate his works for this reason. They want a neatly packaged story that doesn't require them to think.

I love surrealism, dreamscapes and many forms of nonsense and randomness.

I loath anything that feels like it is on the edge of making sense. I hate searching for hidden meaning in something that doesn't actually have a legible hidden meaning. I suspect some of Lynch's work fits in that category.

I'm on the engineer spectrum and I just accept that others rate things that I never will enjoy. Maybe I should learn the appeal of tarot? I vicariously enjoy being around my friend that watches movies non-linearly. I don't understand another friend who watched a popular old movie thousands of times and applied their smarts to analysing it multiple different ways.

I don't think I fit your stereotype for people that want a nice linear packaged story they don't need to think about. But maybe I'm overthinking.

I do enjoy trying to understand what smart friends intensely direct their thoughts towards: so I would enjoy talking with a friend who loves Mulholland Drive.

> I hate searching for hidden meaning in something that doesn't actually have a legible hidden meaning.

Like dreams, no?

It's not about being a pretentious savant who can analyze his films for deeper meaning but enjoying them for defying the expectations. And you can draw any conclusion you like - from hating it to watching it 1000x and writing a thesis on it and everything in between.

> Like dreams, no?

Not really because I don't try to analyse my dreams.

I often have AAA vivid dreams in SciFi, fantasy, or outré settings: I absolutely love my stunning inner dreamlife, but I rarely read any meanings into what I see.

> but enjoying them for defying the expectations

I don't get that pleasure. Even though I do enjoy some freaky movies! For me good surprise breaks and makes its own logical consistency.

I want either sense or nonsense: a half-mixture just annoys me.

> I have the impression that we are observers suddenly thrust into the dream and we, like a detective, must piece together the puzzle. > ... > I know some people who hate his works for this reason. They want a neatly packaged story that doesn't require them to think.

As someone who isn't particularly into his work, this feels like a false dichotomy to me. There's a middle ground between dream-like sequences that are intentionally ambiguous to the point where the directory refuses to elaborate on a single definitive explanation and everything being blatant and obvious to the point where no thinking is required, and I'd argue that trying to figure something out that does have a single definitive explanation but isn't obvious is far more similar to what a detective would need to figure out. This isn't to say that there's anything wrong with anything Lynch does or with the fact that people enjoy his work, but I think it's unfair to dismiss people who don't feel the same way as not wanting to think at all.

> They want a neatly packaged story that doesn't require them to think.

Or they want something with substance, not just dreams-via-film where even the creator doesn't have any answers or a plan.

Anyone can fill in the blanks. It's not really 'thinking', IMO.

Random stuff: David Lynch on what lead him to cast the set decorator, Frank Silva, as "Bob" in Twin Peaks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37P0ukg4io0&t=40s

Lynch is a huge proponent of meditation and even has a foundation promoting it https://www.davidlynchfoundation.org.

His ideas and imagery come from there, I would guess. He said somewhere that it's like diving deeper down to catch the bigger fish. So we end up with quite strange, but very detailed and interesting imagery and set of characters.

It's also not completely random. There is some loose internal logic and Lynch knows what it is, I feel, but he refuses to explain it. It's part of the fun to try to decipher it.

The furniture pieces have some art deco motifs, and look like they would fit into the Twin Peaks universe well. Specifically thinking of Naido's place or fireman's castle on the purple ocean from The Return https://backtotwinpeaks.com/twin-peaks-articles/supernatural...

The idea of places and even furniture, specifically, hosting spirits is also common in Twin Peaks. here I was remembering Josie being stuck in a wooden knob and log lady's husband spirit going into a log.

David Lynch is not just a fan of meditation, but of the organization Transcendental Meditation (TM). TM engages in many similar questionable practices as Scientology, including recruiting early career celebrities. Jerry Seinfeld is another famous member. I consider it a cult.

Well TIL! I only knew about it generally from watching Lynch's stuff, but had no idea it was a cult.

If the similar practices are many, perhaps you could share with us a selection of them? Celebrity endorsements isn't really exclusive to cults.

You imply harm is being done. Who is harmed, and how?

Are you saying that their claims that they can teach people to levitate are true?

https://www.npr.org/2016/06/13/481845003/a-childhood-of-tran...

There are plenty of online resources about the cult aspects of TM if you actually look.

All religions have claims of supernatural happenings; almost all religions request donations from their followers.

Cults are distinct from normal religious organizations. What makes the TM-as-promoted-by-David-Lynch a cult?

The link talks about a religious organization that asked for money on a regular basis from followers. Who is being harmed there, and how? People willingly donating their money to religious organizations is not alone evidence of abuse.

They aren't exactly passing the collection plate around. It's much more transactional:

"So you had to have a special kind of paste before you went to go practice your Yogic Flying, and the paste cost, like, $150, and the Yogic Flying cost thousands of dollars to learn, and then your badge to get into the dome to practice the group meditation cost $100 a month."

"It cost thousands of dollars because Maharishi said that Americans don't value things unless they pay a lot of money for them."

The sutras name the same claim, it's not meant to be literal afaik.

You obviously cannot levitate but you may be able to convince your brain you are. Meditation is an avenue to do that.

It costs a lot of money to participate, similar to Scientology. On the whole it seems more benign than the latter though, but I do think you can spend a lot of money on it.

Also, a cool documentary, not about TM but somewhat related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urMxgevzd4c

> Whereas most works seem to have a thesis and then explore them on different levels, Lynch seems to just throw out ideas in different scenes.

Many interpretations come to the exact opposite conclusion: that Lynch starts with a specific idea and then visits it in a different way in each scene. They may seem different, but there is an underlying theme. At least, if those interpretations are right.

Here is an example for Inland Empire:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkk9GWonTyg

Try to ignore that person's overconfidence, he does actually make a good case for his interpretation, I think, showing that the film can be seen as boiling down to one clear main message. (I don't agree with all of his points, but I do think he is on to something.)

> I would love to unpack what parts of twin peaks were Lynch’s design and what parts were not

Reading Mark Frost's books can help there, as likely Lynch's influence on them is minimal. But it is still hard to unpack, Twin Peaks was really a joint project.

I’d agree, his works tend to treat consistent themes and messages throughout, as I read them. On that level they’re almost hyper coherent, clear, and focused.

Being "puzzling to unpack" is the point. His works often try to put the audience into a state of awe, confusion, wonder or other emotional/unconscious mind experiences... which is only possible if he can first subvert your rational conscious minds attempts to pack it into a simple, logical explanation or story. With Lynch, just when you think it's about to make sense, he will take an abrupt turn and completely derail that.

Most shows seem to gradually reveal the underlying story/truth as they progress. Twin Peaks is the total opposite of that- it starts out kind-of straightforward, and gets progressively harder to make sense of the more you watch. The owls are not what they seem.

> There is a theory that Lynch himself doesn’t always know what is going on in his stories. He shoots this down. “I need to know for myself what things mean and what’s going on. Sometimes I get ideas, and I don’t know exactly what they mean. So I think about it, and try to figure it out, so I have an answer for myself.”

> Audiences, however, must do their own figuring out. “I don’t ever explain it. Because it’s not a word thing. It would reduce it, make it smaller.” These days he rarely gives interviews, not even during the hugely hyped return of Twin Peaks last year – a show that is still debated as either the best or worst TV of 2017. “When you finish anything, people want you to then talk about it. And I think it’s almost like a crime,” he explains. “A film or a painting – each thing is its own sort of language and it’s not right to try to say the same thing in words. The words are not there. The language of film, cinema, is the language it was put into, and the English language – it’s not going to translate. It’s going to lose.”

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jun/23/david-lynch-got...

It's the difference between listening to someone explain a dream to you and having a dream.

I can totally believe that he does not really know what every single hint and stuff in his movies means, that he has a broader general idea and just loves to confuse people in a way. When I was young his movies just blew me away, sadly I think they would not do it in this way today anymore.

I am a big fan, but I think it's silly to hunt after every single detail and thing and try to find out "the truth" about what he really meant by it. Just enjoy the movies, have your own thoughts about it, and accept the fact that you will never know. It's a ride, just enjoy it.

Twin Perfect has over five hours of Twin Peaks explanation on YouTube ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AYnF5hOhuM (there are follow on videos too).

As a long time Twin Peaks viewer and Wrapped in Plastic subscriber, it all resonated for me. The thesis there is extremely comprehensive and full of examples and the most compelling version I've found.

It may spoil it for some, and if you prefer to leave mysteries untouched ... don't watch it, but it also enriched my subsequent rewatches of many Lynch films.

Lynch embodies the magical spell of art in such a free and aggressively personal form, it's amazing. And for him, that tends to come at the expense of ordinary narrative intelligibility. But it's not only intelligibility between his art and the recipients of his art; it is also between his art and himself. It's not compatible with a cold, purely analytical approach, but rather with one that is necessarily driven by sensitivity and intuition. Trying really hard to really "decode" it is in fact undoing it, as you won't be able to appreciate what it truly is, artistically; instead, and not without lots of work and head-scratching that will get zero confirmation from him, you'll be scrutinizing the bare minimum of linearity and conventionality that you were able to dig up and rearrange, all of which takes a rather functional role in the whole thing, and even then, it'll be so far removed from the experience of the film and its aesthetic essence, that you might as well watch something else. It's like laying eyes on the most beautiful, weird, intricately built, inspiring sculpture, and focusing on taking it apart so you can see what's inside, only to destroy its true form and value.

> Lynch seems to just throw out ideas in different scenes.

Well, that's what he does. He basically adapts his dreams into film. He can't explain much because even he doesn't have the answers.

I don't find that a particularly impressive approach to creating art, but he certainly has his fans.

It's possible the product he offers is precisely this; he throws things together randomly, carefully avoiding anything making sense, effectively making interesting noise, so that higher IQ people (i.e. vs a marvel movie) with time to kill can indulge in the leisure of trying to make sense of it.

> a single armchair is surrounded by thick curtains made of blue velvet — a nod to Lynch’s 1986 film Blue Velvet.

I feel like Lynch might disagree with this. He pretty consistently dissuades people from trying to explain his works.

Also:

> Lynch was adamant that his new foray into design exists separately from his film career.

From what I've seen, I've more gotten the sense that Lynch doesn't like people asking him what the "correct" interpretation of his work is, which is slightly different than opposing the personal act of interpretation, or discussing it.

Sometimes the essence of something is just 'to be'.

lead me to a different thought, from something I watched recently: "Art for No One". I wish I could submit Jacob Geller's video of that title, but rules are rules.

art for no one is quite "to be", though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oqO3FXSecM

- "Believe it or not, Eraserhead is my most spiritual film."

- "Elaborate on that"

- "No."

Exactly this. He's never (as far as I know at least) thought it's somehow bad to discuss how his work might be interpreted. He just doesn't like the idea that there's somehow a definitive interpretation of his work that he owns.

Many artists do feel that all interpretations are equally valid and that they don't want to stomp on that. But when Lynch expands on this, he often connects it to mystery. Most of his works have a strong sense of surrealism but there's enough realism there too to also sense that there really is a central and consistent thematic logic that connects everything. It's not just randomly surreal. Often there is explicitly meta-textual layer at which a real deeper narrative is there; usually critiques of Hollywood and modern culture.

Lynch's philosophy is that mystery endures, and that we naturally dwell on the mysterious. His mysteries become a gift to the viewer/reader, and the vividness of his strokes make them dwell for decades. I still dwell on so many aspects of Twin Peaks. If he simply gave his own interpretation or explanation, that would be that, and the gift would vanish like owls in the night.

It is pretty clear that his movies are meant to explore the existence of psychological phenomena and are not a statement in of themselves. In that way, I don't think they are meant to be interpreted.

I don’t believe that’s true. Lynch uses characters as abstractions — they represent a concept, which when you understand them add up to a ‘statement’:

* Twin Peaks is an meta commentary about the lack of balance on the small screen (our desire for sex and violence). Interestingly this ended up being a meta-meta-commentary when the network forced them to reveal the killer of Laura Palmer prematurely. Laura Palmer is balance, Dale Cooper is the audience, Bob is our desire for sex & violence, …

* Mulholland Drive is about the casting couch and the destruction of the Hollywood dream for women. Rita is the casting couch, the cowboy is Hollywood, …

* Lost Highway appears to be a comment about plagiarism (namely other directors plagiarising David Lynch). But it also has a similar theme to Twin Peaks as a meta commentary about film — the shots of the road are meant to look like film, the vehicles are meant to represent movies, …

etc.

He always talks about being “true to the idea” — so all abstractions and all surreal elements must be true to the underlying concept. It’s up to us to work out what the underlying theme is (that links all of the abstractions together).

Very interesting take, thank you!

Of course, my favorite David Lynch movie is "The Straight Story" - what a heartwarming tale!

Lynch has said that his interest in making movies came out of painting, which was the first art form he had an interest in. He had an epiphany where he saw making movies as making moving paintings. Some of the most surreal scenes in his movies/shows are just that, combinations of elements that produce feelings in the viewer in the same way a painting might. Watch that scene in Twin Peaks: The Return in the Fireman's Theatre where someone floats up into the air and there are all sorts of other things going on. It's like a framed painting where there are all these moving elements that combine to create something phenomenal.

I guess he just also very much enjoys being the madman [0] . It is fascinating to see the childish fun he has in all the things he is doing.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqZpi8zAqe0

On the other hand Lynch has always been a bit of a troll, and despite his aloofness he is aware of his own celebrity. I could see this chair being a way of saying "yes this exhibition is by that David Lynch, the filmmaker."

Lynch has repeatedly hinted that there’s a correct interpretation to all of his works. He just wants you to have the joy of finding it yourself — which is why he refuses to explain any of it.

Personally, as a massive David Lynch fan, I love the fact that he does this. I must have had half a dozen interpretations of Mulholland Drive over the years — all of which I like even though I’m fairly sure I know the ‘correct’ interpretation.

And the red curtains outside the exhibit (https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/XjDqSXDkvQBVceLropEs3C-768...) are obviously a nod to the red room in Twin Peaks...

> known for cult films like Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire and Wild at Heart

Really? No, really? Not Twin Peaks? Not Lost Highway? Not Eraserhead, not The Elephant Man? Not Dune?!

If you somehow end up here without having ever watched Mulholland Drive. I encourage you to watch it! It's my favorite movie.

> ... a single armchair is surrounded by thick curtains made of blue velvet — a nod to Lynch’s 1986 film Blue Velvet.

Or, you know, it just means the curtains are fucking blue! (for anyone who gets the reference).

great reference

Lynch has very unique tastes, so it is very possible that he likes the material and the color and there is no other reason for it. But he is also a very funny man with a good sense of humor, so it can also be a joke from him specifically to have people argue about the curtains.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com