The Image, The Film-Maker, His Cow, And Her Cheese [INLAND EMPIRE]

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"Without cheese there wouldn't be an INLAND EMPIRE." [Short Video]

[The two guys who made/accidentally-captured this 2-minute video - of Lynch in a suitably bizarre "performance art" promotion of his latest film on a Hollywood sidewalk - sound like the two guys from the Black-Book office scene/massacre in Lynch's Mulholland Dr ...].

Since its premiere at the Venice Film Festival last September, this DV-shot, 3-hour oneiric epic has been rhizomatically percolating ever so slowly but surely.

"EVEN by David Lynch’s weird standards his latest thriller is an exasperating stretch. For three chilly hours we shadow a small cast of artists and prostitutes as their identities are deliberately blurred in one of the most impenetrable films ever made ... The character played by Jeremy Irons is trying to shoot a psychological drama about love and terror in some sort of crazy labyrinth but there’s something deeply wrong with his script. "

"David Lynch's latest opus is a Russian doll of a film with stories inside stories inside stories. But coming in at three hours long, made in Poland and Hollywood, the digitally-shot film is inspired and incomprehensible by turns ... Laura Dern (who also co-produced) stars as an actress who has just landed a part in a new film. What the producers have neglected to tell her is that the movie is a remake and that the two original leads were murdered. Now, history looks set to repeat itself. "

"There is a very clean divide in Mulholland Drive between a woman's dreams and waking life, but the walls between the two are completely dissolved in the more fragmentary Inland Empire, Lynch's most self-reflexive creation to date. The director has vowed never to work on film again, and for this, his first feature shot on digital video, he lobs a cherry bomb at his entire canon, recording the jagged remnants that resonate from the blast as they slide and dissipate into the swirl of his projector beam. Some may call it a toilet, but I like to think of it as a splendiferous whirlpool of wonders. "

"You may ask what the film's stream of non sequiturs, anecdotes, clues, doublings, folktales, and psychotic episodes mean. We could say nothing and declare that Inland Empire doesn't so much fall into the abyss as it resides in it, telegraphing dizzying sounds and visions from its drowned world toward the outside, which should suffice as an explanation if you've learned to respect the fact that Lynch carves his films much closer to where our id resides than anyone has ever dared. Lynch, more honestly than Godard, embraces the dark and dingy contours of the DV format ..."

Can't wait ...
 

lazybones

f, d , d+f , p.
ditto mate.

still have no idea when it is due to appear in the UK.....i'm assuming that at the very least it will be shown in London..? anyone have anyword?

I'm eager to see how the use of DV affects the mise-en-scene. Perhaps now that he is on DV we can expect a slightly faster work rate??

I'd love him to make another TV series, though it'd probably get axed :slanted: speaking of which, is there any way whatsoever to get hold of "on the air" - ive heard great things about it and its one of the few things by lynch i've not seen. first that, then twin peaks, the MD pffft. bloody suits!
 
ditto mate.

still have no idea when it is due to appear in the UK.....i'm assuming that at the very least it will be shown in London..? anyone have anyword?


As the film is being independently distributed by Lynch (with backup from French production company, Studio Canal), release dates by country are necessarily diachronic, each having to be independently negotiated, but the following are the latest estimates:

Theatrical Releases :

December 7, 2006 (Slovakia)

December 6, 2006 (USA) (New York limited release)

December 15, 2006 (USA) (California limited release)

December 29, 2006 (USA) (wide theatrical release)

December 29, 2006 (Finland)

January 11, 2007 (Germany)

January 25, 2007 (Iran) (Tehran limited release : Farhang Theatre)

February 7, 2007 (France)

February 7, 2007 (UK) (London limited release : Odeon Camden Town Theatre)

February 7, 2007 (Belgium)

February 15, 2007 (Iran)

April 5, 2007 (Netherlands)

April 7, 2007 (Japan)

April 12, 2007 (UK)

April 26, 2007 (Australia)

July 5, 2007 (Russia)

July 12, 2007 (Czech Republic)

DVD Releases :

June 8, 2007 (USA) (INLAND EMPIRE DVD Distributed by Rhino Entertainment)
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I'm eager to see how the use of DV affects the mise-en-scene. Perhaps now that he is on DV we can expect a slightly faster work rate??

Perhaps, but certainly a very different film-making process:

Lynch: "I started working in DV for my Web site, and I fell in love with the medium. It's unbelievable, the freedom and the incredible different possibilities it affords, in shooting and in post-production."

"For me, there's no way back to film. I'm done with it," Lynch says. "I love abstraction. Film is a beautiful medium, but it's very slow and you don't get a chance to try a lot of different things. With DV, you get those chances. And in post-production, if you can think it, you can do it."

DV has clearly given Lynch the freedom from having to clarify his intentions -- to financiers, or even to himself -- before he starts shooting.

"The explaining of things in words is always a huge problem," he confesses.

He characterizes the DV production process as a journey of "huge exploration" to discover what his film will be.

"I'm writing as I go," he says. "I believe in the unity of things. When you have one part, and then a second part that doesn't relate to that first part, it's very curious to find that they do relate after all. It's a most beautiful thing."

He also believes that it produces a different kind of performances from actors. "When you run out of film, you have to stop and reload, and during that time the heat sometimes goes off. But with this medium you can keep that heat, and it builds, and it's beautiful to see."

He says that Dern, in particular, has benefited from this freedom. "She's the most incredible actress. Some people get roles and do their thing, but some have a lot more inside and don't usually get the chance to show it."

As for the quality of the DV image, Lynch says, "It looks different. Some would say it looks bad. But it reminds me of early 35mm, that didn't have that tight grain. When you have a poor image, there's lots more room to dream."

"But I've done tests transferring DV to film, and there are all kinds of controls to dial in the look you want."

And from the not coming to a theatre near you website:

The most aggressive means of drawing in the viewer that Lynch has at his disposal is ironically the most immediately repellent. Lynch’s use of digital video in the film has already been the source of much head-scratching in early reviews and festival reports; many have wondered, rather petulantly, why the director of such crystalline, defined celluloid images as those in Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive — vibrant, striking images of deep red curtains and lipstick, clear blue fluorescence, and impenetrable blackness — should opt in his new film for the gritty, fuzzy, and amorphous quality of DV. Indeed, Lynch has not simply jettisoned celluloid, he has completely negated it, choosing to shoot on a Sony PD-150, a relatively lower grade digital format, that when projected, jolts the image into life with thousands of tiny, wriggling pixels. Scenes shot in near-darkness, of which there are many, are swimming with surface interference as though Lynch is not so much interested in what he is shooting as intent on conveying the thick smog of the Inland Empire or the very skin of the video itself. What appears onscreen is thus consistently ugly and endlessly fascinating, lending texture and noise to every object in the frame and applying great, unflattering splotches of rouge and green pallor to every face in close-up.

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I'd love him to make another TV series, though it'd probably get axed :slanted: speaking of which, is there any way whatsoever to get hold of "on the air" - ive heard great things about it and its one of the few things by lynch i've not seen.

Have not seen all of it, but some clips and the script are here.
 

PopMobile

Member
hundredmillion, can I ask where you got that release schedule from? I've been scouring the net for news of a UK release date, and there doesn't seem to be any. I phoned both Odeon Camden Town and Odeon Head Office, and nobody knew anything about a showing in february.

I hope you're right though!
 
hundredmillion, can I ask where you got that release schedule from? I've been scouring the net for news of a UK release date, and there doesn't seem to be any. I phoned both Odeon Camden Town and Odeon Head Office, and nobody knew anything about a showing in february.

I hope you're right though!

Here ... ............................ and ... here.
 

PopMobile

Member
I don't see any mention of the Camden screening on the second link, but somebody must know something to have bothered to put it on Wiki - I'll keep searching. Can't wait to see this film. Cheers for letting me know!
 

D84

Well-known member
Wicked! I can't wait - although April next year seems a long way away... :slanted:

I saw one of Godard's recent films which used DV to really good effect.

It looked good in 28 Days Later too...
 

PopMobile

Member
After a lot of searching, it seems that there still isn't a uk release date yet. The moral of this story is: don't assume stuff you read on Wikipedia is true. Still, I'm pumped about seeing this - I got a chance to see The Fountain at the weekend and found it slightly underwhelming. Lynch-Lite through a sci-fi filter...
 

polystyle

Well-known member
Some friends went to see it last night
in the West village here ,
think it's at only one theatre (IFC)

Am also curious ...
 

polystyle

Well-known member
Friend's POV after seeing it -
Very long , dark , dreamy
Best experienced in the theatre
Great sounddesign and sdtk , including a Beck tune
Laura Dern is great in it
 

PopMobile

Member
Got to see this last week at the NFT London - with David Lynch in attendance.

Absolutely mind-blowing. Don't see it if you're not a fan of Lynch.

If you are a fan, you will wish it was even longer than three hours! To me, this is Lynch mulling over his whole film career. Characters, settings, even words - are used to represent his previous works. I think it's a bona fide masterpiece
 

don_quixote

Trent End
awesome awesome awesome awesome

must watch it with someone else though, usually i go to the cinema on my tod but i needed to talk about this immediately.

only got sketchy clues about what the hell it's all about tho. will try and find time to watch it again; it's showing three times a day in cambridge which compared to the distribution network elsewhere is a pretty heavy effort.
 

nicnic

SlowMo
Seen it a couple month ago in Paris: the movie is GREAT. Very disturbed and violent yet very fresh and nice to watch. Absolutely mad everchanging 'story': impossible to grab but you can 'understand' it with your feelings. :rolleyes:
Some will hate this film! :cool:
Will check his first major exhibition next week.
 

mms

sometimes
apparently

It's only one 1 screen in London (covent garden) from this thurs. until wed it's also at haymarket and Greenwich.

It's on 10 other prints in the regions too.
 
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