The highlight of this film for me was the outstanding actors who could so easily and realistically switch from a highly emotionally laden moment to light-hearted comic situations and lines. I thought it all very lifelike yet it still had the fantastic Hollywood glamour of ye olde day without taking anything away of the credibility. That’s all it takes for me to love a film! What was the most interesting to see though was the constant play with truth and lies in a fabulous fury of drunkenness and how this slowly unfolded and messed with people’s minds. However, I did find that if they’d left out all the music in the film the actors would’ve been even more compelling and the situations more gripping.

I would’ve very much loved to see this on Broadway when it first appeared on stage though.

Some kick-ass quotes I’d like to always and forever remember and possibly use it in every day conversations. Like you know, “Want some coffee?” “Sure thing, monkey nipples!”

He was blonde, had the face of a cherub and we all laughed.

They dance like they’ve danced before.
It’s a familiar dance, monkey nipples, they both know it.

Oh yes. Completely mind-boggling! The images in this film are astounding and I cannot stress for whoever likes kitsch, strange and strong colour combos and a world of marginality and surreality this is a definite must-see!

Also Bobby Kendall is a dreamboat.

I’m not much of a Bill Viola fan since I don’t agree with his theories and explanations but I can appreciate some of his work such as this… So here’s a short explanation of this Viola video:

The work juxtaposes images of animals, both wild and domestic, and natural environments with human activity as it takes place in an apartment and during a fire walking ceremony in Fiji. Documentary-style footage is combined with staged events. Despite the piece’s lack of a traditional narrative, it bears some relationship to nature works. The credits indicate that the work is divided into five named sections, but the beginnings and endings of these sections seem deliberately blurred. The juxtaposition of images, along with the title, suggests some comparison between human and animal behavior, but no single or clear relationship is defined.

via New Television Workshop

So seeing as I love animals so much and that this owl’s eyes PIERCE into my soul I’d pretty much do anything to see this entire thing. So why is it that even though this kind of medium should be relatively cheap but still costs 40 dollars on Amazon? Sigh, I’ll never understand this world…

I don’t know much about stop-motion animator and film-maker, Jan Švankmajer, but I do know I love him! His version of Alice In Wonderland (simply called Alice) was one of the most used videos in my VCR when I was a child and to this day it’s without a doubt my favourite version too (it even ranks higher than the book for me, sorry literature lovers!). Since then I’ve discovered more and more films and videos online made by Jan. They’re utterly stunning and I highly recommend you to check it out. His entire work has an eerie yet beautiful, surrealist feel to it and speaks far more to your imagination than any current computer-made animation does. The video above is one of my favourite shorts, but I also highly recommend you to check out both Alice and Faust. I believe they’re on YouTube (but if you look hard, you might find a better HD version elsewhere). Another short film you need to see is Down To The Cellar and is (surprisingly!) posted on YouTube in quite good quality. So check it out before it gets taken away!

This wildly in love couple embarks on a road trip to Los Angeles, fleeing Lula’s momma, who thinks Sailor knows a little too much about her history. This trip quickly turns out to be a freak-filled Lynchian hell. Heads are blown off, pretty girls are covered in blood, rape-scenes are seen, in short; this isn’t a film for sissies. I’m not the hardcore violent fan so what do I love about this story? The early maniacal happiness of Lula and Sailor’s, I answer gleefully! They’re the love-heroes of camp with their white trash accents, skimpy outfits and falsely deep conversations. Another thing I love are the delicious freaks that only David Lynch can depict. You encounter a schizophrenic, you see Mrs. Fortune descending into madness, and you come across a boot-legged woman who looks like she stepped out of a comic noir.

I’m a fan of all things camp and freakish so I was baffled to read negative reviews. People complain that this film is hard to label. With Lynch they either want a full on, surrealist freakshow or a realist film. But to be fair, the vague, uncategorised-ness is what attracts me. And honestly, do we really need to label everything? I also read a most disturbing opinion, the so-called misogyny of Lynch. This certain writer claimed that the portrayal of Mrs. Fortune, who is -lightly put- an unstable emotional mess. He (yes, he!) described it as painful to see these scenes, but isn’t it really the writer himself that has deep and unconscious spots of misogyny? Because Marietta Fortune isn’t the only one who is mentally disturbed here, it’s both men and women who are completely out of their minds. It’s odd how the writer in question only notices her misfortune. And sure, the girls are treated violently like said writer points out but this isn’t a misogynist point of view, it’s a realistic point of view that Lynch simply wishes to show. Maybe David Lynch is filming this with a vague sense of irony and protest like Cindy Sherman did with her photographs? Either how, there is nothing shown here that can truly be called anti-feminist, in my opinion.

Negative opinions set aside; this film is gorgeous in my eyes. I love the camp white trash couple, madly in love. I love the freaks, and I love the crazy violence. Then there’s also the silly and downright stupid humour at times. Lynch laughs with all stereotypes and ridicules it in the most light-hearted way, and I love it. Look at the infamous, first scene for example:

The senseless and irrational violence might get to you when you think of this seriously but the mannerist way of acting, the overdramatized moves of Cage, and the hard music ridicule violence and show us with a splash of irony just how senseless it is. Or am I the only one seeing this?

And to give you a sense of the freakishness seen in this film:

I cannot tell you more without ruining the story for you. So I’ve put up some stills to show you Lynch’s great imagery and quotes to point out the silly humour, here. Enjoy!(?)

However, Francis Bacon is a part of my course, and I am quite close to worshipping him. Ever since I saw a reconstruction of his filthy studio I loved him. His disturbing use of images, colours, distortions and composition has truly never left my mind since I was fourteen and have haunted me. Aside from his imagery I’m also smitten by his autodidactism, his demeaning attitude towards most art and his personal inspirations. One of which is the 1925 silent film, Battleship Potemkin, by Sergei Eisenstein. It tells the story of the 1905 Russian Revolution by a revolt on the ship Potemkin. After getting served rotten meat (includes delicious looking maggots) and a threatening mass execution, the sailors get pushed to mutiny. At Odessa they find a sanctuary but as the authorities disturb the proletarians’ new-found happiness a massive bloodbath occurs. And it’s this specific bloodbath that Bacon loved. Again here is YouTube to our avail!

Gripping! I adore this. From the sickening Madonna-lookalike to the baby’s impending death and to the synchronised soldier’s legs, all this sensuous drama fills me with pure joyous beauty. Delicious. What Bacon mostly loved, however, was the bloody-eyed nanny screaming.

Quite gripping too, no? Bacon is legendary cynic and was a lover of suffering and despair and this image seems to sum it all up to me. Now, what’s even more distressing than an old sweet nanny with bleeding eyes screaming is Bacon’s end result°.

If you look carefully you can still see the outlining of the glasses but what one notices right away is the general pain in this image. And it’s simply amazing to me how one can paint pain.

°Francis was also clearly inspired by Velasquez’ portrait of Pope Innocent X but I am less interested in that aspect. The horror in this painting is what gets me.