FILM NOTEBOOK
Horror
has
always
been
a
genre
of
extremes.
It’s
something of a self-fulfilling
prophecy;
it’s
difficult
to
evoke fear from that which is
familiar, so horror filmmakers
find themselves locked in a
never-ending search for the
bloodiest,
the
goriest
and
the scariest. This proverbial
arms race has led the genre to
feel a bit oversaturated, with
many horror films prioritizing
shock value over quality and
depth. It’s no slight against
these films, as they certainly
have their place in the popular
entertainment canon, but one
couldn’t be faulted for hoping
for an alternative. Enter David
Lynch.
Lynch
is
horror’s
Andy
Warhol:
an
enigmatic,
white-haired
virtuoso
with
a penchant for the bizarre.
Operating on the fringe is
Lynch’s
modus
operandi,
originally making a name for
himself on the midnight movie
circuit that gained cult fame
in the ’70s. These screenings,
which started as a place for
low-budget genre films, would
eventually become a hotbed for
some of cinema’s most bizarre
and inventive films that would
have never been funded by a
major studio. Lynch produced
his directorial debut, 1977’s
“Eraserhead,” during his time
studying at the American Film
Institute, and would go on to
blow up the midnight circuit,
running for 99 consecutive
weeks.
The film tells the story of
Henry
(Jack
Nance,
“Lost
Highway”),
a
young
man
whose one-night stand leaves
him forced to raise a grossly
deformed baby in a hyper-
industrial
urban
hellscape.
It’s not only one of Lynch’s
most iconic and recognizable
films, but also a quintessential
example
of
Lynch’s
iconic
horror
style.
Watch
“Eraserhead” and you’ll find no
jump scares, no dissonant string
quartet; that’s just not Lynch’s
style, which recognizes fear as
a deep, complex emotion that
deserves exploration beyond
just cheap tricks and gotcha
moments.
In
“Eraserhead”’s
runtime, audiences are treated
to a factory that turns brains
into erasers, a cabaret girl with
severe facial deformities and a
limbless, lizard-like baby that
cries 24/7.
Most
horror
movies
tell
stories about scary situations
happening
in
our
world.
They’re
meant
to
leave
audiences with that nagging
thought
that
maybe,
just
maybe, this could happen to
them. Lynch, however, defies
this convention entirely. The
world of “Eraserhead” is like
our world gone insane; Lynch
isn’t trying to scare you so
much as he’s trying to make
you extremely uncomfortable.
Lynch’s
cinematography
purposely defies the typical
“rhythm” of horror movies,
forgoing
the
short,
jumpy
shots meant to build suspense.
Rather, Lynch’s camera lingers
on characters as they twitch
and convulse, often in silence.
There’s a realness to this style,
and as a result, “Eraserhead”
feel
less
like
watching
a
scary movie and more like
accidentally stumbling through
a portal into a hellish alternate
reality.
Lynchian horror is effective
because
it
toys
with
our
expectations. It is at once
both
disturbingly
bizarre
and
uncannily
familiar.
This dissonance is powerful
and can make Lynch’s films
viscerally difficult to watch.
Lynch’s films upset the most
basal part of us, the part that
has observed an order and
wants to see that order upheld.
Lynch’s films take this order
and warp it into deformity; the
worlds his film occupies are
like ours gone horribly wrong.
While fans have long argued
over Lynch’s messaging, he’s
refused
to
ever
comment
publicly about the meaning of
“Eraserhead,” leaving fans to
find their own meaning in the
insanity. Lynch’s penchant for
secrecy expanded to his props,
never revealing how he made
“Eraserhead”’s deformed baby
prop — even the actors and set
crew had to close their eyes
when he moved it onto the
set. If you’re sick of the cheap
tricks this Halloween and you
want a ruin-your-life kind of
horror experience, then look no
further than the works of David
Lynch.
Lynch’s ‘Eraserhead’ and
the art of uncomfortable
MAX MICHALSKY
Daily Arts Writer
FLICKR
Lynch is horror’s
Andy Warhol: an
enigmatic, white-
haired virtuoso
with a penchant
for the bizarre
For as long as I can remember,
I’ve always loved scary movies.
When I was a kid, they had a
distinct and very physical effect on
me. I would yell. I would toss away
the blankets, horrified. I would
jump off the couch and pray in a
sort of knowing, mischievous way,
that the boogie man would not get
me. That feeling of unfiltered, pure
fear was ambrosiac to me. It’s a
kind of rawness I chase every time
I see a movie. It’s why I’ve never
stopped watching horror.
Nowadays, I pay attention
to different aspects of horror
movies, not the jump scares or the
cheap tricks, but the narratives
and what they may say about our
understanding of fear. My favorites
of the genre are the movies that
meant one thing when I saw
them in childhood and express
a message entirely new when I
watch them now. The truth is that,
of the unhealthy heaps of horror
I have seen, only one filmmaker
consummately encapsulates the
duality between my infantile
adrenaline-seeking and my more
mature reinspection: Wes Craven.
Among the most successful
horror
directors,
Craven
has
sustained
his
mordantly
brooding impact in the popular
consciousness because his work
transcends any single era of horror.
From his voyeuristic 1977 cult
classic “The Hills Have Eyes” to
his decade-defining “A Nightmare
on Elm Street” seven years later
to his cinematically reinventive
“Scream” in the ’90s, the master
of his craft has engendered a
revitalized adoration for horror on
a multigenerational scale.
Sure, on the surface, Wes
Craven’s
filmography
is
not
astoundingly iconoclastic. At its
core, it is a catalogue of slick grimy
flicks with psychotic killers and
(mostly) helpless victims awaiting
their demises. And that’s not
necessarily a bad thing.
I
remember
watching
the
opening scene of “Scream” when
I was 10. At first, all I could do
was stare wide-eyed in disbelief,
an indignant refusal to accept
the bloody insanity I was seeing.
Looking back, however, it was
among the first times my reaction
to a movie was so involved, so
intensely visceral.
In hindsight, that is the first
solid memory I have of a film — any
film — leaping so violently out of
the screen and urging me to reflect
on the medium outside of simply
watching it.
It
was
a
pretty
scarring
experience
that
I
probably
shouldn’t have had so young, but
it also opened my mind to the
capability of a movie, horror or not,
Craven, master of horror
ANISH TAMHANEY
For the Daily
FILM NOTEBOOK
to pull a viewer in so completely.
There was always a layer of Wes
Craven films that escaped me in
my first viewings, even though I
knew it was there, lurking in the
background.
I have, time and time again,
revisited “Scream,” because, in
myriad ways, it is an indictment
of the genre itself — its lazy
clichés, its predictability and its
sanctimonious parables. On top
of remaining the somewhat silly
serial killer movie I’ve always
cherished, the film is layered
with metatextual messages in
practically every line.
Most memorable for me is
when Jamie Kennedy is watching
another horror film, “Halloween”
and urging Jamie Lee Curtis
to turn around. “Look behind
you Jamie, look behind you,” he
desperately mutters just as the
very real killer looms behind him.
A moment that had deeply
frightened me as a kid had turned
profoundly
illuminating.
This
wasn’t just a scary movie; it was
a scary movie that could speak
volumes about the fallacies of its
own genre. I often laugh at this
scene now, not just because of the
general ridiculousness of the movie
but because the double-entendre is
strikingly clever.
Another gem of the series
comes from “Scream 2,” in which
a group of college students in film
class debate at length about the
validity of movie sequels. The
conversation is endlessly hilarious
because of its interactivity; we,
as viewers, are forced to evaluate
our own perceptions of second
installments. Craven openly plays
with our own expectations of the
very movie we are seeing now. It’s
brilliant.
And while it may be too
generous to similarly laud the
additional sequels the franchise,
they too toy with our reality and its
relationship to film, establishing
a cartoonish mirror of our world
in which the fictional “Stab” film
series suffuses the fervor of horror
fans.
Of course, it is impossible to
discuss the ways in which Craven
interacts with our reality without
“A Nightmare on Elm Street,” the
harrowingly astral gorefest that
gave birth to an equally famous
razor-handed antagonist: Freddy
Krueger.
His particular brand of evil
always terrified me more than any
other because he took advantage
of a necessity of human behavior:
sleep. How could I find comfort
in turning off the TV and tucking
myself in when I knew the movie’s
dangers were never really gone?
There’s one line from “Scream”
that embodies Craven, his outlook
on cinema and his palpable reach:
“It’s all a movie. It’s all one great
big movie.”
The truth is that the source of
my appreciation of Craven years
ago and today is one and the same:
His films are a reflection of my
relationship with cinema. They
offer this basic lesson regarding
our involvement with the screen.
The more you want out of a film,
the more you will receive.
With this realization in mind,
I will never stop watching Wes
Craven movies. They remind me
and can remind all of us of the
reason we turn on the TV at all.
DIMENSION FILMS
When I find myself in times
of
trouble,
Rebecca
Solnit
comes to me. But her advice is
never simply to let it be. Quite
the opposite, the essays in her
latest collection “Call Them By
Their True Names: American
Crises (and Essays)” encourage
us to fight, in both word and
action, against the forces of
injustice, inequality and apathy
that threaten the integrity of
American society.
Solnit is perhaps best known
for writing on feminism in her
earlier essay collections “Men
Explain Things to Me” and
“The Mother of All Questions,”
but after writing over 20 books
and countless essays, Solnit
proves an insightful observer
in a diverse range of subjects,
from environmental activism
to the history of walking to the
culture of San Francisco. The
essays in “Call Them By Their
True Names” are exemplary of
Solnit’s omnivorous appetite,
and her ability to weave her own
obsessions into a vibrant and
complex image of American life.
In the both grossly and
charmingly
titled
“Armpit
Wax,” Solnit meditates on how
the creation myths of different
cultures tint the lens through
which we consider questions
of
perfection,
grace
and
redemption; in the more somber
“Death by Gentrification,” Solnit
does a deep forensic dive into
the 2014 police killing of Alex
Nieto to explore how it reflects
on larger issues of displacement
and
inequity
in
rapidly
gentrifying
San
Francisco
neighborhoods; in “The Ideology
of Isolation,” Solnit connects
the American “cowboy ethos”
of
rough-and-tumble
self-
sufficiency to the disintegration
of objective truth. Somewhere
in
this
nimble
navigation
between the historical and the
contemporary, the philosophical
and the concrete, Solnit offers
a
remarkably
clear-eyed
understanding
of
American
society, and pulls off the neat
trick of untangling some wildly
complicated
issues
into
a
comprehensible form without
ever denying their complexity.
Tying together the disparate
subjects of these essays is
Solnit’s interest in the power of
language, both as a diagnostic
tool for larger social issues
and a weapon by which those
issues can be obscured or
distorted in the public eye,
which she identifies as “one
of the crises of this moment.”
Though Solnit doesn’t shy away
from the cerebral and abstract,
her interest in language is
deeply practical, coming from
her history as a progressive
activist. She writes, “Calling
things by their true names cuts
through the lies that excuse,
buffer,
muddle,
disguise,
avoid or encourage inaction,
indifference, obliviousness. It’s
not all there is to changing the
world, but it’s a key step.”
And “changing the world,” as
grand a claim as that may seem, is
the explicit goal of these essays.
While that may seem naive to
some, Solnit argues that it’s
absolutely essential in her essay
on “Naive Cynicism,” which she
defines as the attitude that the
world cannot be transformed
in any substantial or ideal way,
and therefore there’s no point
in trying. Solnit argues that we
must meet naive cynicism with
practical idealism in the form
of action: “What we do begins
with what we believe we can do.
It begins with being open to the
possibilities and interested in
the complexities.”
This
prevailing
emphasis
on hope, even in the face of
seemingly
insurmountable
obstacles,
makes
Solnit
a
steady and necessary voice of
the resistance. While her own
values
lie
unapologetically
on the far-left of the political
spectrum, her mission applies
to anyone seeking a more just,
more progressive social order,
with a grounding in evidence-
based reform. In a time when
every week seems to bring a new
defeat for minorities, for women
and for the environment, Solnit
reminds us that our actions
matter even when they seem
trivial.
“Actions
often
ripple
far
beyond
their
immediate
objective, and remembering this
is a reason to live by principle
and act in the hope that what you
do matters, even when results
are unlikely to be immediate or
obvious … You do what you can
do; you do your best; what what
you do does is not up to you.”
‘Call Them By Their True
Names’ is a call to action
JULIA MOSS
Daily Arts Writer
BOOK REVIEW
“Call Them
By Their
True Names:
American
Crises (and
Essays)”
Rebecca Solnit
Haymarket Books
Sept. 4, 2018
This prevailing
emphasis on
hope, even in the
face of seemingly
insurmountable
obstacles, makes
Solnit a steady and
necessary voice of
the resistance
His particular
brand of evil
always terrified
me more than any
other because he
took advantage
of a necessity of
human behavior:
sleep
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Thursday, October 18, 2018 — 5