Everyone enjoys a good historical drama, whether it’s “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood,” a contemporary classic, or “Grease,” a timeless throwback.
We all have a strong sense of nostalgia for bygone times, and even avant-garde filmmakers like David Lynch are susceptible to it. Lynch adopts a different strategy in his films than paying homage to particular eras.
Never Explaining My Work
David Lynch outlined why he doesn’t like to reproduce reality in his 2007 David Lean BAFTA lecture. Instead, he believes that using cinema might help “build another world” that has its own rules.
This, in his opinion, is “what’s so lovely about [film]” — the capacity to construct a brand-new world filled with distinctive sensations. Because of this, many of his most adored movies have a timeless quality.
The director creates movies that feel both wholly contemporary and retro by referencing elements from throughout the 20th century.
As he remarked to Criterion, his films are just like ordinary life in that we “relive the past” and “prepare for the future” while “new things [are] popping up every second.”
Because of this, movies like “Blue Velvet,” “Eraserhead,” and “Mulholland Drive” purposefully elicit nostalgic sensations from a bygone period while remaining utterly timeless.
The controversial 1986 movie “Blue Velvet” by David Lynch is a surreal mystery set in a small-town American setting. Kyle MacLachlan’s character Beaumont, a college student, works with Laura Dern’s character, a detective’s daughter, to solve a local murder.
Beaumont becomes entangled in the town’s murky and sordid underbelly while looking into a beautiful lounge singer (Isabella Rossellini), where he encounters the terrifying psychopath Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper).
In his BAFTA lecture, Lynch noted that “everyone said [Blue Velvet] is like the 1950s, with the hopeful glittering exterior and then a lot of darkness swimming beneath it.”
In the movie, “all those things go on,” the filmmaker acknowledged, “just like they did in the ’50s.” But they still go on today. It’s not important what time it is, he said.
The director said “absolutely” when asked if the movie was “timeless.” Lynch dislikes giving plot summaries for his movies, but the cinematic language in his work suggests that the setting is deliberately ambiguous.
For instance, “Blue Velvet” makes numerous references to the 1980s in its hair, cosmetics, and clothing. Frank Booth, however, is fixated on the 1963 Roy Orbison song and drives a 1968 Dodge Charger.
The director frequently looks for sites since he has a deep sense of nostalgia for it.
As per the director, “there are still numerous spots you could go to in Los Angeles to catch the drift of the old golden period, but they’re growing fewer.”
Lynch doesn’t, however, strive for historical authenticity in his writing. His movies combine elements of the past and present to create a world that has never been seen before or will ever be seen again.
“I adore watching a Lynch movie because it’s like entering a dreamlike, erratic view of the past that is as unstable as a memory.”
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