Scan barcode
fraserjam's review
3.0
Very convincing thesis and arguements. Doubtful tho about its thoroughness considering the simple grammar and vocab errors you can see on a number of pages. Makes you doubt the validity of the central piece itself.
wmbogart's review
Wasn't able to get onboard with the central premise here. I think the Bardo lens makes sense, but it's a little difficult to square that with the nonlinear structure of Lost Highway in particular. The characters transition to a new state, but that state is often predetermined in the film's sequencing. Nochimson pulls from the Tibetan Book of the Dead and claims the transition of these characters to a "lower" state is based on their failures to see the liberating potential of visions and existence beyond the "marketplace" (a lower, surface level reality, as opposed to the "palace" of existence beyond cultural/material constraints). Given what these "transitions" entail in Lynch's films, I'm not sure I blame them! There's a line about the typical Lynchian paradox where "actions already have consequences" but I have some pretty serious misgivings about that worldview and how Lynch applies it.
I think the framework works best with Inland Empire, where the optimism of a more fulfilled reckoning with an existence beyond the marketplace is realized after the ordeal, even if there's some moralism to get there. I have trouble seeing these "negative" examples of failures to move beyond in some of Lynch's other films as positive. The "here to here" journey is a throughline in his filmography, and I've never read Blue Velvet or Wild at Heart as insincere in the triumph of the final "here" where a domestic stasis is revived, albeit with the sinister undercurrents still lurking underneath or outside it.
I'm not sure the quantum mechanics aspect of this book is necessary. I wasn't convinced by it anyway. The general infighting among Lynch scholars (particularly in the endnotes) is always fun! Some of the vaguely sex-negative writing (although this is present in the films too) is not so fun. The interview with the professor that warns against misappropriating quantum theory is very funny after reading what I'd describe as exactly that.
I think the framework works best with Inland Empire, where the optimism of a more fulfilled reckoning with an existence beyond the marketplace is realized after the ordeal, even if there's some moralism to get there. I have trouble seeing these "negative" examples of failures to move beyond in some of Lynch's other films as positive. The "here to here" journey is a throughline in his filmography, and I've never read Blue Velvet or Wild at Heart as insincere in the triumph of the final "here" where a domestic stasis is revived, albeit with the sinister undercurrents still lurking underneath or outside it.
I'm not sure the quantum mechanics aspect of this book is necessary. I wasn't convinced by it anyway. The general infighting among Lynch scholars (particularly in the endnotes) is always fun! Some of the vaguely sex-negative writing (although this is present in the films too) is not so fun. The interview with the professor that warns against misappropriating quantum theory is very funny after reading what I'd describe as exactly that.
adamz24's review
3.0
On the one hand, commits abuse of concepts from quantum physics on an absolutely criminal scale. On the other hand, if you can get past the aforementioned abuse, the book contains largely perceptive, intelligent readings of Lynch's three most recent films that do not rely solely on ideas of "dreams" or "fantasies" or "fugue states" or FUCKING LACAN (looking at you, Zizek), and don't seek to normify and realify (realistify?) fundamentally surreal movies that demonstrate little care for conforming to conventional logic. As in, Nochimson approaches the movies and their narratives critically while leaving their distinctive structures and qualities intact, without first modifying them to fit some conventional realist framework; as if unconventional, avant-garde art exists solely so that critics may discover the conventional realist narrative its unconventionality obscures, and then discuss that conventional realist narrative.
The book also contains an interesting interview with Lynch and a bunch of useful informational nuggets. Hence the reluctant three stars, despite the hideous attempt to use quantum mechanics to find ways to explain Lynch's films without primary recourse to Lynch's essentially mystical (I think) reliance on concepts and ideas from Hinduism and Buddhism (to her credit, Nochimson doesn't ignore Lynch's worldview and the rather obvious relevance of it to his art; she discusses it frequently in this book and, in one of her earlier books, adopts a Jungian approach, which certainly is better suited to reading Lynch than fucking Freud or Lacan).
The book also contains an interesting interview with Lynch and a bunch of useful informational nuggets. Hence the reluctant three stars, despite the hideous attempt to use quantum mechanics to find ways to explain Lynch's films without primary recourse to Lynch's essentially mystical (I think) reliance on concepts and ideas from Hinduism and Buddhism (to her credit, Nochimson doesn't ignore Lynch's worldview and the rather obvious relevance of it to his art; she discusses it frequently in this book and, in one of her earlier books, adopts a Jungian approach, which certainly is better suited to reading Lynch than fucking Freud or Lacan).
maudettehornsby's review against another edition
3.0
it's far from the worst take (the worst take being "they're dreams! they're nightmares! they're not supposed to make sense!" which refuses to engage with david's films on any scale and ignores the fact that eraserhead and INLAND EMPIRE are really his only movies that lack a formal structure and semi-coherent narrative) but this book reminded me how much i hate hearing people talk about daddy lynch's movies and i really just don't buy the central premise