Short Takes: The Ineffable David Lynch Moment - "Scissors"

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I've spent the better part of the hour watching Lynch's short works, some I've seen, some not; but one of them is "Scissors" and I've got to single it out because it's one of those pieces of his that hits some emotional place of anguish and beauty (in me, anyway) that some of the more intense points in his feature work do.

I have in mind the fever points in Blue Velvet when Jeffrey and Sandy start to unravel before the enormity of Frank Booth's crimes. Both of them just kind of go to pieces - I'd say out of nowhere, but there was a constellation of evil that brought them to this moment. It is utter trauma, but MacLachlan and Dern sell it so intensely, it's more rattling than anything Dennis Hopper does in the movie.

He does this again in "Mulholland Drive" during the "La Llorana" scene. After everything Watts has been through, again there's this fever pitch of something like abject terror and a peculiar grace. There are similar moments in "Twin Peaks" in all three seasons; and while there are moments of utter terror - Robert Blake's cameo in "Lost Highway", and for sure, the Frank Booth moments (and also the "do you like to do bad things?" scene between MacLachlan and Rossellini), these are more defined suspense build up, tension and release. 



This "other thing" that Lynch captures is unlike any other moment I've encountered in film. I think it's mostly me, but it speaks to something Andre Breton wrote: "Beauty will be convulsive, or not at all." If anything, Lynch may be the last true surrealist in cinema. 

I've been meaning to unpack this element in his work for some time now. Going over Jodorowsky's work recently got me thinking about Lynch, and Buñuel, but even Buñuel's work doesn't strike this peculiar spot in me. It's most assuredly a kind of emotive pitch (that word again) or "octave" that I find unique to Lynch, and it seems like a note he's able to orchestrate. 

To be sure, there are more conventionally "moving" scenes in his work; think "The Elephant Man" and "The Straight Story", the odd moments of transcendence in "Twin Peaks"; but this odd kind of intensity and concomitant - I call it "grace" or "beauty" because I don't know what else to - emotional tone is something altogether different.

I will be revisiting Lynch in greater detail at some point and hopefully by that time, I will be able to better articulate this feeling I get. Currently, I am working on a couple of larger pieces; the one about Alejandro Jodorowsky and another about Alla Nazimova. In the meantime, I may just have a couple more short takes coming up…well, shortly.

 


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