Cryptic and abstract art - who needs it?

[L'egoMan]

After reading vordabis attack on David Lynch on the film board, I got upset. He can't deal with Lynch's movies because he can't understand them which is perfectly fine with me. What is not fine with me is that he believes that Lynch's films, f. ex. Mulholland Drive, are written and made only for the purpose of being uncomprehensable and cryptic. This is wrong.

In the beginning of the 20th century you had painters like Matisse, Braque, Picasso, Malevich, Mondrian, Duchamp etc. etc. which in their own style, be it expressionism, cubism, suprematism, plasticism or dadaism, began working more and more abstractly. They challenged the audience and viewer to see and understand art and paintings in a different way. You were no longer served paintings which depicted recognizable objects from reality, you were served ideas and pure feeling through abstract shapes and colours. Artists still push the boundaries of art being it any media. Lynch is one of them.

Lynch is not like you average block-buster director. His movies are non-linear, often surrealistic. They challenge the viewer to encrypt and decypher and see the movies differently then when you see an entertainment movie, for example Donnie Darko (which is purposly made to be a one-liner mind teaser with no greater depth to it).

In films like Lost Highway, Blue velvet and Mulholland Drive, you are actually challenged as a viewer to understand and comprehend the meaning and messages in the movie. Now, that's a rare case when it comes to american movies. To enjoy Lynch you have to actually use some intellect and energy, but in vordabris case: of course it is much easier to write Lynch off as a bad writer\director instead of making an effort to apreciate his talent.

[TheImplodingVoice]

I agree (although I don't think Lynch is that complicated)... I wonder how would some people react if Mathew Barney's The Cremaster Cycle would be shown in regular movie theaters..

[Atomsk Iscariot]

Originally posted by niknakpaddywakk
What is not fine with me is that he believes that Lynch's films, f. ex. Mulholland Drive, are written and made only for the purpose of being uncomprehensable and cryptic. This is wrong. Who's to say whether they are or they aren't? Are you the artist? Mullholland Drive and Lost Highway could very well be incomprehensable and cryptic for the sake of being incomprehensable and cryptic. It's entirely possible that any stitch of meaning that could be attached to either of them may originate solely within the mind of the viewer.

[TheImplodingVoice]

Originally posted by Atomsk Iscariot
It's entirely possible that any stitch of meaning that could be attached to either of them may originate solely within the mind of the viewer.

This is always a possibility, but then there would be too many coinsidences (sp)...

I mean that could be applied to Da Vinci paintings too..

Also, Have you read the comments on Eraserhead made by Alex (foxing whatev) in the Film Forum? I think they are pretty solid. And I really think Lynch's movies make sense (I also think they arent the hardest things to understand in the world)

[L'egoMan]

Originally posted by Atomsk Iscariot
Who's to say whether they are or they aren't? Are you the artist? Mullholland Drive and Lost Highway could very well be incomprehensable and cryptic for the sake of being incomprehensable and cryptic. It's entirely possible that any stitch of meaning that could be attached to either of them may originate solely within the mind of the viewer.

By all the gods!
Indeed Lynch leaves a lot of unanswered clues for the individual viewer to ponder on and to make personal conclusions and theories, but there are clearly stories being told in both films! Of course I am not Mr. Lynch, but I can with 100% certainty constate that neither of those two films are so called 'rorschach tests'!

[L'egoMan]

Originally posted by TheImplodingVoice
(although I don't think Lynch is that complicated)....

I am of the same opinion! Yet there are people on this very board who finds his storytelling techniques so extreme and different that they slander his name and call him a bad artist!

[Cool As Ice Cream]

Originally posted by niknakpaddywakk
After reading vordabis attack on David Lynch on the film board, I got upset. He can't deal with Lynch's movies because he can't understand them which is perfectly fine with me. What is not fine with me is that he believes that Lynch's films, f. ex. Mulholland Drive, are written and made only for the purpose of being uncomprehensable and cryptic. This is wrong.

In the beginning of the 20th century you had painters like Matisse, Braque, Picasso, Malevich, Mondrian, Duchamp etc. etc. which in their own style, be it expressionism, cubism, suprematism, plasticism or dadaism, began working more and more abstractly. They challenged the audience and viewer to see and understand art and paintings in a different way. You were no longer served paintings which depicted recognizable objects from reality, you were served ideas and pure feeling through abstract shapes and colours. Artists still push the boundaries of art being it any media. Lynch is one of them.

Lynch is not like you average block-buster director. His movies are non-linear, often surrealistic. They challenge the viewer to encrypt and decypher and see the movies differently then when you see an entertainment movie, for example Donnie Darko (which is purposly made to be a one-liner mind teaser with no greater depth to it).

In films like Lost Highway, Blue velvet and Mulholland Drive, you are actually challenged as a viewer to understand and comprehend the meaning and messages in the movie. Now, that's a rare case when it comes to american movies. To enjoy Lynch you have to actually use some intellect and energy, but in vordabris case: of course it is much easier to write Lynch off as a bad writer\director instead of making an effort to apreciate his talent. hell yeah

[Cool As Ice Cream]

Originally posted by Atomsk Iscariot
Mullholland Drive and Lost Highway could very well be incomprehensable and cryptic for the sake of being incomprehensable and cryptic. I find Mulholland Drive comprehensable.

[L'egoMan]

Originally posted by Cool As Ice Cream
I find Mulholland Drive comprehensable.

!

[L'egoMan]

I must run now my friend, have a nice Belgian day!

[Nak Nak]

I don't have any difficulty "understanding" any of those films. That doesn't change the fact that I had plenty of difficulty actually enjoying them as pieces of cinema: both aesthetically and intellectually.

[L'egoMan]

Originally posted by Nak Nak
I don't have any difficulty "understanding" any of those films. That doesn't change the fact that I had plenty of difficulty actually enjoying them as pieces of cinema: both aesthetically and intellectually.

I say!

[Nak Nak]

Originally posted by niknakpaddywakk
I say!

You say what?

[Narcissistic Nihilist]

I fucking adore Lynch's work. Blue Velvet will always be an all time classic for me.

[TheImplodingVoice]

I would...but that's not necessarily(sp) bad

[Nak Nak]

I find it ironic that a lot of people would accuse you guys of being arrogant and pretentious for loving them.

[TheImplodingVoice]

btw I dont LOVE them...Lynch is not untalented really, but its not like he's the greatest whatever ever etc

[ramblingrose]

Oh good lord. Why did I never find this bit before? This is great, I love it when people fight about who's the cleverest.

[Nak Nak]

Originally posted by ramblingrose
Oh good lord. Why did I never find this bit before? This is great, I love it when people fight about who's the cleverest.

The Nabokov and Lynch crews think they are the cleverest.

[ramblingrose]

Oh please. Should I mention my favourite film is Ferris Bueller's Day Off or will that get me striped? I fucking hate intellectual snobbery, I admit I'm guilty of it on occasion but there are few things less attractive.

[Nak Nak]

Originally posted by ramblingrose
Oh please. Should I mention my favourite film is Ferris Bueller's Day Off or will that get me striped? I fucking hate intellectual snobbery, I admit I'm guilty of it on occasion but there are few things less attractive.

so true.

'day off is one of my favourite films also. My favourite film ever being Back to the Future.

[ramblingrose]

I'm going to state something now, just to test it out.
I read some Proust over the summer. It's not very good. This in no way indicates that I "didn't understand" it, it merely reflects the fact that there is no need to use seventy five words when one would do, and there is nothing noble in boring your readers to death and causing them to read Heat magazine to achieve some kind of normality.

[TheImplodingVoice]

omg you're so totally not getting it!

My favourite film is Breakfast at Tiffany's


NOW, Something completely Different:

[ramblingrose]

My clinical judgement is that Marcel P sucks a big dog's cock, and only enjoys his elevated status in the canon because it's so fucking DULL that people go, fuck it, I'll say it was great and then I won't have to read it all, but I wouldn't have a go at anyone for liking it. I wouldn't want to go caravanning with them or anything, because I imagine they'd speak very slowly, sip port from some sort of goblet and take polaroid photographs of trains. But, you know, I wouldn't punch them or anything.

[ramblingrose]

But who would win in a fight?

[Nak Nak]

Originally posted by ramblingrose
But who would win in a fight?

Not sure. I think Bram is the biggest, but he's a programmer, so I dunno how fit he is.

[ramblingrose]

Spending my formative years in a hideous backwater, watching fights on an almost nightly basis, led me to conclude that small wiry people are generally the dirtiest fighters. This gives them a good advantage. However they can always be thwarted by sheer size, there's not a lot you can do if someone heavy decides to sit on you. Then there are tall people with big hands, who are usually good at punching. Of course speed is also a factor, and we can never underestimate the complete fucking psychopath, e.g. the unfit-looking but homicidal man I once saw smash someone's head into the pavement repeatedly, or the tiny teenage boy who glassed someone about twice his size in a surprise attack.
So if anyone is in the latter category they'd probably win, and if you all are then you'll die and I'll be the cleverest. Yup.

[Nak Nak]

I fall into the small and psychotic category I think, being 5 9 with a slight chinese frame. Also, I obviously know kung fu too.

[ramblingrose]

Okay, you win! You sound like my friend who is a secret superhero.

[L'egoMan]

to link this up with the topic of abstract art, is it possible to physically fight one another abstractly? Will using metaphors for a drop-kick do any damage? A diffuse rendering of a left-hook: will it make the fiend bleed?

[Nak Nak]

May you heart burn. The flesh basted in the vitriol of lost Osirium!

[Osceana]

Originally posted by Atomsk Iscariot
Who's to say whether they are or they aren't? Are you the artist? Mullholland Drive and Lost Highway could very well be incomprehensable and cryptic for the sake of being incomprehensable and cryptic. It's entirely possible that any stitch of meaning that could be attached to either of them may originate solely within the mind of the viewer.

Furthermore i don't understand why his opinion of these works gives you the right to attack him and degrade his intellectual stature. Tsk tsk. Shame on you.

[Cool As Ice Cream]

this thread makes no more sense. in a very lynch kind of way. did some posts get deleted?

[ramblingrose]

It does make sense, you just don't get it because you're thick.

[L'egoMan]

Originally posted by Osceana
Furthermore i don't understand why his opinion of these works gives you the right to attack him and degrade his intellectual stature. Tsk tsk. Shame on you.

I can not describe in words how shamefull I am right now.

[Nak Nak]

Originally posted by niknakpaddywakk
I can not describe in words how shamefull I am right now.

Go and make me some more psychedelic music!

[L'egoMan]

In a message board debate situation, there's always a lot of confusion and misinturpetations. So let me clarify where I stand:

I made this thread to discuss and find the usefullness in abstract art. It was triggered by vordabis ignorance of Lynch's style.

I have not attacked anyone or tried to "degrade their intellectual stature" as you so nicely put it Oceana. I have on the other hand, questioned their opinions and views on things.

So guys, relax, put on a Bobby Conn record and chill.

[L'egoMan]

Originally posted by Nak Nak
Go and make me some more psychedelic music!

I try too...right now I'm working on a sound/video installation which is possibly the weirdest project I've ever done. 4 speakers in each of a rooms 4 corners, each playing three different frequenzies ( 50hz, 203 hz, 3345hz etc.). On one wall I'm projecting video clips of ultra near close ups of skin.

It is quite intense and intimate.

[Trickster]

Originally posted by niknakpaddywakk
I try too...right now I'm working on a sound/video installation which is possibly the weirdest project I've ever done. 4 speakers in each of a rooms 4 corners, each playing three different frequenzies ( 50hz, 203 hz, 3345hz etc.). On one wall I'm projecting video clips of ultra near close ups of skin.

It is quite intense and intimate.

Cryptic and abstract art - who needs it?

[Osceana]

Originally posted by Cool As Ice Cream
this thread makes no more sense. in a very lynch kind of way. did some posts get deleted?

Yes, some posts did get deleted. Despite (seemingly) popular opinion, i actually do still moderate this board.

And on the other hand, niknakpaddywak, i move that all posts you make from now on must include a little graphic of you wearing the Burger King crown- or i will delete them. :P (j/k)

[L'egoMan]

Originally posted by Osceana

And on the other hand, niknakpaddywak, i move that all posts you make from now on must include a little graphic of you wearing the Burger King crown- or i will delete them. :P (j/k)

never! *shakes fist*

[Mr. Felix]

Originally posted by niknakpaddywakk
After reading vordabis attack on David Lynch on the film board, I got upset. He can't deal with Lynch's movies because he can't understand them which is perfectly fine with me. What is not fine with me is that he believes that Lynch's films, f. ex. Mulholland Drive, are written and made only for the purpose of being uncomprehensable and cryptic. This is wrong.

In the beginning of the 20th century you had painters like Matisse, Braque, Picasso, Malevich, Mondrian, Duchamp etc. etc. which in their own style, be it expressionism, cubism, suprematism, plasticism or dadaism, began working more and more abstractly. They challenged the audience and viewer to see and understand art and paintings in a different way. You were no longer served paintings which depicted recognizable objects from reality, you were served ideas and pure feeling through abstract shapes and colours. Artists still push the boundaries of art being it any media. Lynch is one of them.

Lynch is not like you average block-buster director. His movies are non-linear, often surrealistic. They challenge the viewer to encrypt and decypher and see the movies differently then when you see an entertainment movie, for example Donnie Darko (which is purposly made to be a one-liner mind teaser with no greater depth to it).

In films like Lost Highway, Blue velvet and Mulholland Drive, you are actually challenged as a viewer to understand and comprehend the meaning and messages in the movie. Now, that's a rare case when it comes to american movies. To enjoy Lynch you have to actually use some intellect and energy, but in vordabris case: of course it is much easier to write Lynch off as a bad writer\director instead of making an effort to apreciate his talent.

I LOVE YOU.

Lynch is my hero.

I much enjoy his films, and films like Koyaanisqatsi, and Waking Life, because they are an exercise in the mind. They expand the horizons of film past a straight story (which ironically is the title of one of Lynch's films).

[Cool As Ice Cream]

Originally posted by *felix* stars as BraZil!
They expand the horizons of film past a straight story (which ironically is the title of one of Lynch's films). The Straight Story is a straight story. I fail to see the irony.

[Mr. Felix]

Originally posted by Cool As Ice Cream
The Straight Story is a straight story. I fail to see the irony.

the irony is that we are talking about David Lynch, and I said that he doesn't use straight stories, when in fact he made a film entitled The Straight Story that was a straight story. do you understand now?

[Cool As Ice Cream]

Originally posted by *felix* stars as BraZil!
the irony is that we are talking about David Lynch, and I said that he doesn't use straight stories, when in fact he made a film entitled The Straight Story that was a straight story. do you understand now? that's a contradiction, not irony.

[Mr. Felix]

irony is a contradiction.

[Trickster]

information is not knowledge
knowledge is not wisdom
wisdom is not truth
truth is not beauty
beauty is not love
love is not music

music is THE BEST
wisdom is the domain of the wis
beauty is a French phonetic corruption of a short cloth neck ornament currently in resurgence...

[Osceana]

Originally posted by *felix* stars as BraZil!
irony is a contradiction.

Good job. It's a contradiction, but not irony? :rolleyes:

[Cool As Ice Cream]

The two aren't equivalent.

[Fab]

I move that it would have been ironic had Straight Story not been a straight story. When Austin used the word, I don't think the situation was ironic.

I think it goes that ironies are nearly always contradictions, but a contradiction doesn't have to be ironic. But as Bram points out, they're not synonyms.

[L'egoMan]

Originally posted by Richard Fish
information is not knowledge
knowledge is not wisdom
wisdom is not truth
truth is not beauty
beauty is not love
love is not music

music is THE BEST
wisdom is the domain of the wis
beauty is a French phonetic corruption of a short cloth neck ornament currently in resurgence...

give zappa his credits foo'!

[Trickster]

well, the beauty of it is that only people as cool as ourselves know what i'm on about. :-p

remember me? from the bus? leeaaaather!! :-D

[L'egoMan]

true enough

let's talk about leather...

[Cool As Ice Cream]

hi nik! leather is made of cows.

[L'egoMan]

does the belgian blue cow have blue leather?

[Mr. Felix]

luke is a leather queen.

[vordabois]

Originally posted by niknakpaddywakk
After reading vordabis attack on David Lynch on the film board, I got upset.

And of course, instead of talking with me directly, you choose to come to a board I never visit to "vent some steam" in the form of "rational" defamatory claims.

Well, I can't thank you enough for that. It really strengthens your position to make such a move. :yes:

He can't deal with Lynch's movies because he can't understand them which is perfectly fine with me. What is not fine with me is that he believes that Lynch's films, f. ex. Mulholland Drive, are written and made only for the purpose of being uncomprehensable and cryptic.

It's so nice to see that you've classified MY takes on it without even bothering to (A) get into the discussion in question, and likewise (B) present your case to me directly, in order to (C) make the proper judgement calls.

Your logic knows no bounds.

This is wrong.

So, as you might surmise, I felt I needed to seperate this sentence from the rest of the paragraph and lower it a few lines. If you had done that and ended your post here, you would have remained correct. ;) :yes:


ANYWAYS...

OK, first of all, I'd just like to introduce you to something.

Meet "Free Stamp", a sculpture in the middle of a park in Cleveland's main civic center, just east of City Hall.

http://www.city.cleveland.oh.us/pictures/freestampsprsm.jpg

http://www.city.cleveland.oh.us/images/aroundtown/freestamp.jpg

Now, as you could tell by its very existance in that place at this time, certain people wanted it there. However, the thing was controversial when it was put in and it remains controversial to this day.

Can you understand why? I mean, really... Think about it for a second. Give yourself time if you need it. It might be a little hard to grasp the concept I'm about to thrust upon you...

Do these people oppose this huge stamp sculpture in the middle of the Cleveland Civic Center because they don't understand it?

No!

They oppose it because it's a piece of shit sculpture that says essentially nothing meaningful in a place laden with such history. (...not to mention the fact that it's fucking ugly as hell...)

Oh, I'm sure the artist and his fans love it to death, there's no mistaking that... But you know, I don't know a single one of them. And come to think of it, I've not seen anyone giving it the time of day without a smirk on their face, evidently marveling not the sculpture itself, but how anyone in their right mind would see the artistic merit in such a hideous monstrousity. It really is quite amusing to see their faces... I wish I lived up there so I could take some pictures and share the funnies with you.

To enjoy Lynch you have to actually use some intellect and energy, but in vordabris case: of course it is much easier to write Lynch off as a bad writer\director instead of making an effort to apreciate his talent.

Far be it for me to analyze the psychology of artistic expression and appreciation, but it's quite a "given" that abstract art depends on the polar opposite of intellectual thought. Indeed, it is the one aspect of art that perhaps most astutely speaks to only instinct and emotion... Something everyone shares, from healthy adults to old senile fogies to newborn babies.

What makes great [visual] art to me is the nature of the marriage between logic and emotion, or the ability of the artist to connect with his medium to make such difficult things to portray as feelings come to life visually. In order to do this, a person must have some sense of order.

Therefore, when something is totally devoid of any semblence of logic, it is the very essence of simplicity. Throwing images into the film that are supposed to contribute to the mood but only create a sense of chaos... That is precisely the only thing that could be poor about a work of abstract art. While I hailed Blue Velvet as a great movie because it had those primitive elements that hold it together, there is simply no better way to describe the failings of Lost Highway than haphazard, detatched and downright awful.

So I wasn't intending to malign David Lynch's style overall... Just as I said in the last sentence of one of my posts, the fact that he once had the ability to make great movies made Lost Highway all the more repulsive. Like any conceited artist, he has taken his success as some sort of mandate to take it further -- to cut those bonds with reality and real complexity -- and satisfy his cult-ish fandom with something TRULY meaningless.

So what you've done here is essentially hop over and create a David Lynch circle-jerk thread where you can criticize a person who was criticizing Lynch's work.

I hope it was every bit as gratifying as you dreamed!

[vordabois]

Originally posted by *felix* stars as BraZil!
Koyaanisqatsi

"Life Out Of Balance" :yes:

That's one of those movies I wish I had a copy of... An absolute masterpiece.

It's prime example of great abstract film... Haunting soundtrack throughout, no plot, no dialogue, but strangely, it's one of the most moving movie experiences I've ever had.

(And, well, as far as psychodelia goes, back when I used to party a lot, one of my friends had a copy... Watching it sufficiently stoned makes it even better! I was like :eek: )

[Cool As Ice Cream]

Have you actually seen Lost Highway? I watched it a couple of days ago and I don't understand how you could call it meaningless.

All I saw were two stories, flowing very well. And while there were some missing elements (compare it to the mysterious case in Pulp Fiction or to any open ending), there were also lots of parallels between the two stories.

I personally think it's fun to think about those parallels and what they might mean. Are the two stories actually one story? And if so, how? If you don't like thinking about these parallels, just ignore them and you still have two stories.