thebiollante-blog - Tumblr blog

[thebiollante-blog]

welcome to infinite corridor

hello

here i will post lots of music and upload a podcast every friday.

ˢᵗᵃʸ ᶦᶰᶠᶦᶰᶦᵗᵉ

[thebiollante-blog]

David Lynch, Head #2, 2013. Silver gelatin print on archival paper. http://twin.pk/discusspart14 #TwinPeaks http://ift.tt/2hYiuDs via http://ift.tt/OF8QRD

[thebiollante-blog]

i want more people (especially young people) to know that gender exploration is a long and difficult process and it’s okay to try out different names, pronouns, methods of presentation, etc you don’t owe anyone your identity. you don’t have to “pick a side”; you don’t even need to label yourself if you’d rather not if you do end up looking back at a time in your life and realize it was a phase, that’s ok. i feel like it’s a lot more upsetting and painful to try to find your “true” gender as fast as possible, than to accept that your gender may change in future, and that’s ok. that doesn’t make your current feelings or experiences less real.

[thebiollante-blog]

I keep seeing articles like this and I really don’t understand them.

Am I the only one who thinks the scene was perfectly in tune with the rest of the episode? The rest of the season? She suited it well. It was very frustrating in a funny way, Charlie staying on the phone too long, but I what was “baffling” or “maddening” about it?

[thebiollante-blog]

but actually... dipper’s birthmark does, in fact, lead to something.  when ford is captured by the weird security drone thing in “Dipper and Mabel vs the Future”, a few star maps appear as the drone prepares to take off and leave Earth.  one of these star maps is--DUN DUN DUN--the big dipper!

the episode clearly meant to make a connection, because afterwards, dipper’s hair keeps blowing back and revealing his birthmark.  i guess he ran into aliens as a kid or something.  shrug.

(i figure this is common knowledge now but i just finished the show so sue me)

Today’s meta that no one asked for: how utterly Dipper and Mabel defy the chosen trope at every turn. Let me tell you folks I am so happy that Dipper’s birthmark meant ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like it never stops amusing me. So often we get the narrative of the mysterious birthmark in a specific shape. The Birthmark of Destiny trope can be found all over the place and it kind of… seemed like that’s where they could have been going with because why else give this kid an actual CONSTELLATION on his forehead but nope. It’s just a weird coincidence. I mean yeah we have Journal 3 and the Choose Your Own Adventure book and any future spin-off comics or movies that COULD reveal things but tbh I’m willing to call it: Dipper Pines is an entirely normal guy who happens to have weird discoloration on his forehead in a very specific shape.

And I love it so much. Both these kids are so NORMAL. I mean…

Normal-ish. They’re pretty big weirdos.

But neither of them are superpowered. Dipper’s smart and determined, Mabel’s creative and kind, they’re both brave, but these traits don’t make them Special. They’re both special, but neither is chosen. I mean heck, we’ve got the whole zodiac thingy and some of them are symbols super associated with the character and some of them are…. oh Pacifica happens to be wearing a llama sweater today and Wendy is an ice cold badass. AND THEN THAT ENDS UP NOT WORKING ANYWAY (thanks Stan twins). 

This show isn’t about destiny. It’s a show about family. It’s about making choices and staying determined even in the face of impossible odds. It’s about love and working together. Dipper’s birthmark is just a birthmark. Mabel and Dipper are just kids. Their achievements come through their determination and refusal to give up, and that is a far more interesting narrative to me than any chosen arc.

[thebiollante-blog]

18 Hour Movie?

Back before Twin Peaks: The Return showed up, David Lynch referred to the new series as an 18-hour movie split into parts.  Needless to say, that’s a pretty interpretable statement.  I’m not surprised, given the way the guy approaches any form of press or art-related questions.  Also, needless to say, fans are taking this pretty literally:

According to the fandom, this isn’t just a statement on the show’s narrative or cinematography: we’re actually watching an 18 hour film, and watching episodically does us a disservice.  Not only that, but many fans are hoping to create or watch a future fan edit of The Return that removes the credits in order to see Lynch’s supposed artistic intent.  Luckily, Lynch was asked to elaborate on the statement, and said this:

Well, like I said, I love the world, and ideas started coming. So there we were, and I always saw working in television the same as working on a film. It is a film. So when I shot the pilot for Twin Peaks, way back when, I just saw it as a short film. The pilot was not that short; it was a feature film, it just had an open ending. And the same thing goes with this—it’s a film. It’s broken into parts.

Here it is, from the man himself.  Not only does he see The Return as film, he also sees all of his television work as film.  Does this mean we should all sit down for 18 hours and consume some fan edit of the most dense and labyrinthine show in recent memory?  Is this what his statement means?  I doubt it.

Let’s be fair to this interpretation: Lynch just compared all of The Return to the pilot of Twin Peaks, which at least weakly implies that the former was written with a non-episodic narrative structure in mind.  However, it’s farfetched to assume from this statement that The Return is literally a film split into parts by Showtime, and that we’re somehow honoring Lynch’s wishes by moving the parts into a cohesive whole for him.  This feels totally wrong to me, mostly on the grounds of what we know about Lynch and artistic intent.

If there’s one thing David Lynch has made clear about himself, it’s that he needs final cut above all else.  He’s still pissed about Dune, where his wishes were put second to commercial intent.  Post-Dune, he tends to jump ship when his control dissolves; he left his position as showrunner of Twin Peaks when he was forced to reveal Laura Palmer’s killer, and almost abandoned The Return in its early stages when he and fellow showrunner Mark Frost were only given 9 episodes.  Lynch has also said that he doesn’t believe in making qualitative sacrifices to his art due to constraints; instead, he finds something that works equally well within his defined constraints and moves forward.

Let’s just say, for the purposes of argument, that Lynch and Frost initially intended Twin Peaks: The Return as a seamless cinematic experience, and Showtime execs insisted it be cut up into 18 parts (I don’t believe this, but hey, weirder things have happened--especially with Lynch).  The show we see now on our televisions is still inarguably partitioned episodically--complete with beautiful and important scenes during the credits of each episode--and it was written and directed that way by Lynch and Frost, not Showtime.  Given Lynch’s constraint-savvy perfectionism and obsession with creative control, it’s not very likely he would have settled for a script and release format he wasn’t happy with, regardless of initial intent.

[thebiollante-blog]

Selfie with Kyle MacLachlan at SDCC! 📷 by Dana Ashbrook http://ift.tt/2uYPTmh via http://ift.tt/OF8QRD

[thebiollante-blog]

[thebiollante-blog]

tbh i’d be happy if this was the last song i ever heard

[thebiollante-blog]

[thebiollante-blog]

I shall now attempt to summarize fma in one sentence

Two little boys take the “bargaining” stage of grief a little too literally.

[thebiollante-blog]

In Which I Spoil Blue Velvet

So David Lynch has been really supportive of the idea that the meanings of his films are anyone’s guess and that his interpretation is only worth as much as the next.  I agree with that.  There’s just one take on one of his films (guess which one) that really bugs me.

(FYI, if you’ve seen Blue Velvet recently, you can just skip to the picture of Frank Booth.  Everything before that is just relevant plot summary.)

The central plot of Blue Velvet focuses on a cute and quirky college kid Jeffrey Beaumont as he conducts a really strange investigation into a severed ear he found laying in a field in this idyllic 50′s-esque town called Lumberton.  His investigation leads to him doing some pretty questionable things, like sneaking into a woman’s apartment and watching her undress.  Eventually he stumbles upon this guy, Frank Booth, who is (imo) one of the most disturbing characters in all of cinema.

That woman Jeffrey was watching undress?  Her name is Dorothy, and Frank’s been holding her husband and child hostage as a way to force sexual favors on him.  The ear from the beginning?  It’s her husband’s.  Over the course of the film, Frank rapes Dorothy, beats Jeffrey to unconsciousness, kills Dorothy’s husband, and lobotomizes a detective with a stab to the head (and also shoots him dead).

I’ll keep this short(er) by not diving into too many details, but the most popular interpretation of Blue Velvet involves the idea that Jeffrey (and by symbolic extension humanity) isn’t immune from becoming chaotic and evil like Frank.  Over the course of the movie, Jeffrey starts acting out and becoming slightly more violent (hitting Dorothy when she asks him to, threatening his family, etc.), and at one point Frank insists Jeffrey is just like him.  However, Jeffrey’s actions never really go beyond creep territory, and the movie ends with Jeffrey killing Frank in self-defense (Frank had a gun on him), in a sense shunning his dark side.

If you’ve read this far, here’s what the rant is about: there’s another interpretation that I keep seeing in discussions about Blue Velvet.  Basically, Jeffrey isn’t just on his way to becoming Frank--he IS Frank.  Well, in the sense that they’re morally on the same level.  Also, David Lynch was using Jeffrey’s initially innocent and cute nature to trick us viewers into rooting for him as the “good guy”, and those who truly “get Lynch” will realize that Jeffrey’s killing of Frank is immoral.

I know I mentioned these things earlier, but for clarity, here is what Jeffrey does:

breaks into Dorothy’s apartment

watches Dorothy undress

hits Dorothy during sex after she yells “Hit me!”

threatens a family member

kills Frank in self-defense

Now, here is what Frank does:

kidnaps Dorothy’s spouse and child

repeatedly rapes Dorothy

beats Jeffrey and leaves him unconscious on the side of a road

kills Dorothy’s husband

lobotomizes and then kills a detective

LIKE HOW IS THIS EVEN A POINT OF DISCUSSION?!  SURE, JEFFREY’S A CREEP, BUT LOOK AT THE TWO LISTS.  NOTHING JEFFREY DOES EVEN COMES CLOSE TO HOLDING A FAMILY HOSTAGE, REPEATEDLY RAPING A WOMAN, AND KILLING PEOPLE FOR LITTLE TO NO REASON.  AND SURE, JEFFREY KILLED FRANK... IN SELF-DEFENSE!  A GUN WAS POINTED AT HIM!

*huff* *huff* Okay, I’m better now.  But yes, the message I’m trying to get across in this post is: people are entitled to their opinions, but morally equating Jeffrey’s actions to Frank’s actions is basically equating voyeurism and slapping people to rape and senseless murder.  That makes no sense.  I doubt this is a popular viewpoint, but I’ve already seen it way too much and needed to yell about it for a second.  Thanks for listening.

[thebiollante-blog]

David Lynch: Now, Dana, in this particular photograph I really want to convey to the viewer that Bobby is an angsty teen, a rebel, someone who has a problem with rules. Dana Ashbrook: say no more

[thebiollante-blog]

LOOK SHE BLENDS IN WITH THE BENCH AND THE WALL IT’S SO CUTE

[thebiollante-blog]

HOLD ME BACK I CAN’T AFFORD THIS

[thebiollante-blog]

cries

Your father never lost faith in you