Calgon, Take Me Away...

Many people do not care for the movies of David Lynch. What makes a movie "good," after all? Consider all the elements: the cast, the story, the cinematography, the sound track, the art direction, the costuming... What kind of movies do you enjoy?

I myself am partial to costume dramas - Sense and Sensibility, Indocine, Dr. Zhivago...take me away to a different time period, preferably the 19th century. For me then, art direction and costuming are rather important.

David Lynch's movies are often obtuse. One wonders what the bloody hell is going on anyway? I would argue that it is because he is most concerned with creating a mileau--setting and emotional response is primary. His art direction borrows heavily from noir. His stories, however, are surreal and nightmarish when they make sense at all.

I appreciate his movies because it is how I tend to create my living space. I have a very cinematic approach to my environmental aesthetics--when I can control my environment.

For example, I recently visited my good friend, Lisa, in Minnesota. When it came time to leave, I decided I wanted to have an adventure on my way home and take a completely different route back to the Upper Peninsula. I drove most of the way home on two lane highway through rural Minnesota, Wisconsin & Michigan. The day was beautiful, the scenery was beautiful. I found this awesome radio station in northern Wisconsin playing big band/swing. I stopped at a diner for brunch and visited with some locals just chewing the fat. I could almost imagine that I had gone back in time about 50-60 years.

My favorite moments at home are when the combination of weather and music, in combination with my log home, artwork, books, and animals creates a particular mood and ambiance. More often than not those are the moments when I truly miss not having someone there to share the scene and experience the full effect.

It may be a snowy winter day with Shostakovitch's string quartets playing and a fire in the wood stove and flannel pj's and mom's knitted throws wrapped around my shoulders. Perhaps it's a rainy day in October with that intense autumnal greyness contrasted by the bright orange and yellow maples; I have Dexter Gordan on the stereo blowing mellow sax-Darn That Dream or some such jazz standard.

These times when they happen are dream like - they speak to my inner Blanche DuBois - who tries to create magic with a paper oriental lamp shade amidst the squalor. Yet they are also very much a part of my reality.

Marilyn Monroe had a mentally unstable mother who died in an institution. She was often very worried about her own mental health. She often questioned her perceptions of her reality. In one of the many fictionalized versions of her life, the writer had her talking about remembering her dreams and sometimes not being able to differentiate between when she dreamt something and when she actually experienced it. The confusion frightened her as apparent evidence of her own mental instability.

I often remember my dreams vividly, often experiencing the emotional state of the dream well into the morning after. I also have very strong memories of situations across the many years of my life. We joke about my intense memory in my family. In my mind I can often see and replay moments from 20-30 years ago. It is as if a have a photographic memory for place and scene.

Perhaps it is because I remember my life as a collection of tableaux that I am so captivated by creating emotional space to spend a few hours within. Of course, it is particularly because I live alone that I am able to do this. My animals are most cooperative and happy to play along with my moments of fantasy. Children and spouses I imagine are much more reluctant to play the game. I'm thinking of Diane Weist in Bullets Over Broadway - "Don't speak!"

You'll have to excuse me now. I feel the need to pull out a movie or turn on the stereo and drift pleasantly away from July 2010 for awhile. Peace.