ITs a Herzog movie!!! So if you are not familiar with him, you will hate this. My Son, My Son is Brilliant, unconventional and funny. Werner Herzog is my fav Director, and definitely not everyones taste. I am also a Lynch fan, however no where near to the point of a Herzog fan, I'm just sick of all the confusion, and Herzog not getting credit, not like IMDB is a creditable source. teehee you hobos
H.W.
I'm well versed in the films of both Herzog and Lynch...
With that being said, I don't think you have to be more familiar with Herzog than Lynch. This movie IS Lynchian. It's Lynch's typical "Ed Wood with a straight face" approach to filmmaking.
Now, I don't know anything about the production of this film, but I wouldn't be surprised if Herzog approached Lynch and said, "Show me how to make movies like you do." From what I know about Herzog, this seems exactly like a thing he would do.
Ed Wood with a straight face? What´s that? Like McLaghlan´s deadpan acting in Dune & Blue Velvet? Besides, I think Wood DID have a straight face making his fillums to begin with; this man wasn´t just fooling around making Plan 9 or Glen Or Glenda. These were serious artistic statements.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
Wood was just a readily accessible example, as he's considered by many to be a "bad" filmmaker. (I personally have a lot of respect for Wood. His ambition outweighed his resources and talent. And whether it was intentional or not, "Glen Vs. Glenda" IS an art film. Part mockumentary, part sureal nightmare.)
What I was getting at was that Lynch has knack for Brechtian devices. Take Blue Velvet for example: most of the scenes between McLaghlin and Dern are very stiff, very contrived. These scenes are unrealistic because Lynch is calling to attention the fact that their optimism and naivity is unrealistic. (This is driven home at the end of the film when we see the very fake robin. It adds a layer of irony to the happy ending.) Now compare the acting in these scenes to the acting that takes place in Dorothy Valens' apartment, which is much more fluid. Even the music changes. When the two teenagers are off to solve a mystery, a la the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew, the music is predominately synthesized jazz. However, when things intensify, the music switches to a much more organic symphonic score.
Long story short, Lynch often incorporates what may be "corny" or "cheesy" on the surface to drive a point home. This is seen once again in "Mulholland Drive." Compare how over-the-top Watts acting is when she's new to town and wanting to break into show business compared to much later on when her world is unraveling.
The best example of Lynch's habit to call attention to the artificality of film/television is probably "Twin Peaks," which serves as a criticism of the prime-time soaps that were popular at the time.
"He´s considered by many to be a "bad" filmmaker".
There´s no need for the quotation marks around "bad" when describing Wood as he was, of course, gloriously inept on just about all fronts... but while calling Glen Or Glenda an "art film" seems kind of problematic and would likely lead into a swamp of semantics, Wood most certainly was serious about its subject matter and the whole thing was a risque, bold polemic. And an entertaining film because of all its bizarre aesthetic choices. Wood may have been a hack, but he sure wasn´t a phoney.
"Lynch has knack for Brechtian devices. Take Blue Velvet for example/-/".
By what you say, we´re largely in agreement on Lynch then - that´s the way I see it/him as well; I was just initially puzzled over the exact implications of the Wood remark. As for Brecht though, Godard´s work is also widely regarded a Brechtian - more so than Lynch, of course - but the difference seems to be that Godard is mostly very much intent on reminding the viewer frequently that what he sees, is film, not reality. I don´t agree that Lynch does the same; at any rate, his revelations in terms of artifice & un/reality, as best exemplified in Club Silencio perhaps, work in different ways and have different implications. He definitely asks us to accept the worlds he creates, as real. Even if they´re not. I guess that has a lot to do with the essentially subjective pov a lot of his stuff tends to be told from.
"When the two teenager are off to solve a mystery, the music is predominantly synthesized jazz".
That is Lynch´s usual music of choice when depicting relatively mundane, daily routine goings-on - the less intense parts of Twin Peaks & FWWM as well as the film noir set-up in the second, huh, movement, of Lost Highway, are all supported by similar moods music-wise. I don´t think there was any such stuff in MD or IE anymore though.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan