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ladysophy · 2 years ago

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Will the Real Mr. Lincoln Please Stand Up?

I thought I was done with this subject, but I found some more primary sources of President Lincoln’s unpopularity. The shade against this “benevolent” dictator is strong:

“The candidate for President, Abraham Lincoln, is an uneducated man, a vulgar village politician, without any experience worth mentioning in the practical duties of statesmanship and only noted for some very unpopular votes, which he gave while a member of Congress." -The New York Herald on May 22, 1860.

“The tone of levity and frivolity which characterizes the speeches of Mr. Lincoln causes the hearts of our citizens to sink within them. They perceive already that he is not the man for the crisis and begin to despond of any extrication from the impending difficulties." -The New York Express on February 1861.

“The humiliating spectacle is thus presented by the President-elect indulging in the merest clap trap of a politician, thanking the people for voting for him, flattering their political pride and appealing to their sectional animosities." -The Philadelphia Argus.

“Mr. Lincoln is wholly unqualified for his position. The personal presence, the dignity nor the knowledge demanded in the magistrate of a great people. No branch of the Administration has been well and efficiently administered under him. His soul seems to be made of leather and incapable of any grand or noble emotion. You leave his presence with your enthusiasm dampened, your better feelings crushed, and your hopes cast to the wind. Even wisdom from him seems but folly." -The New York World on April 13, 1864.

“That there is in the Republican Party a widely diffused impressions of the feebleness, faithlessness and incapacity of Mr. Lincoln's Administration is notorious." -The New York World on June 2, 1864.

"The age of rail splitters and tailors of buffoons, bores and fanatics has succeeded. Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Johnson are both men of mediocre talent, neglected education, narrow views, deficient information and of course vulgar manners. A statesman is supposed to be a man of some depth of thought and extent of knowledge. Has this country with so proud a record been reduced to such intellectual poverty as to be forced to present two such names as Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson for the highest stations in this most trying crisis of its history. It is a cruel mockery and bitter humiliation. Such nominations at this juncture are an insult to the common sense of the people. Has this country with so proud a record been reduced to such intellectual poverty as to be forced to present two such names as Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson for the highest stations in this most trying crisis of its history?" -The New York World on June 4, 1864.

These primary sources are gold! Especially the last source. But wait! I have two more primary sources that are quite telling and chilling.

The first primary source is from a judge named Henry Clay Dean. He knew what was going on with Lincoln and his administration. He was also arrested with many others for speaking against Lincoln. Here he writes:

“Our government is in nothing uniform except its' contempt of law and powerful only for the oppression of the people. Every officer seems to contemplate his office as an engine of destruction in which he is engaged to work the ruin of the particular department of government entrusted to his care. The Postmaster General (Blair) has for the last five years been violating the mails. The Secretary of the Treasury (Chase) has been squandering the public wealth. The Secretary of the Navy (Welles) has been enfeebling our naval power. The Secretary of War (Stanton) all crimsoned with innocent blood is employing the army for the destruction of the Country. The Secretary of State (Seward) has been subverting Constitutional law and disgracing our form of government at home and abroad. The Secretary of the Interior has been conniving with public jobbers to defraud the government of its' most valuable lands. The Attorney General (Bates) is gravely burlesquing nonsense itself by defining Constitutional construction of unconstitutional laws and is in conspiracy with military commissions to murder innocent women. The President (Lincoln) is administering the government through military satraps in a manner unknown to Republican systems and disgraceful to despotism's, which regard the character of those entrusted to power… The courts of the Country are infamously corrupt. The state Legislatures and Congress are flagrantly accessible to bribes, which has become the only tangible basis of' special, and an essential necessity in general legislation. The people of the late Confederate States after encountering the terrible vicissitudes of war were overtaken by famine, which inflicted frightful forms of starvation and are now overrun and robbed by predatory invasions…”

The second primary source is from General Don Piate. He traveled with Lincoln when Lincoln was doing speeches for his campaigns. Here’s what he said:

“When a leader dies all good men go to lying about him. From the moment that covers his remains, to the last echo of the rule press, in speeches, in sermons, eulogies, reminiscences, we here nothing but pious lies. Abraham Lincoln has almost disappeared from human knowledge. I hear of him, I read of him in eulogies and biographies, but I fail to recognize the man that I knew and liked."

If you don’t find that quote telling and even chilling, I don’t know what will. And I’m officially done.

Source: Weaver, John (Pastor). Honest Abe Wasn’t Honest. AmericanStalin.com.

#primary sources #american history #american civil war #now i’m done

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tilbageidanmark · 2 years ago

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Movies I watched this Week #102

Re-watch: Lasse Hallström‘s sweet, early paean to lost childhood, My life as a dog. One of my three favorite nostalgic films from that period about coming of age and first loves (together with Nils Malmrose’s ‘Tree of knowledge’ and Truffaut’s ‘L'Argent de poche’). 9/10.

With the oh-so-Swedish recording of "Far, jag kan inte få upp min kokosnöt" played constantly on an old record player in the summerhouse.

🍿

Catherine Deneuve X 2 more:

🍿 My first by André Téchiné, My Favorite Season: 50-year-old Catherine Deneuve and her estranged brother Daniel Auteuil renew their tumultuous relationship when their mother’s health decline. Frankly, it was a meandering, meaningless and boring film. 2/10.

🍿 So once again, watching the absolutely wonderful The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Is Jacques Demy’s technicolor sung-through uber-romantic musical with the ethereal Catherine Deneuve one of my most favorite movies ever? Yes. “Is this the saddest happy ending in all of movies, or the happiest sad ending?“ Yes. "Why does it always rain when we say goodbye?"

The trailer is great too.

🍿

“Why don’t you go to bed, honey. I’ll bag the Nazi and straighten up around here”...

Paul Bartel’s weird, politically-incorrect, black comedy Eating Raul. About a bald, asexual, middle-aged wine snob and his voluptuous nurse wife who kill swingers in their seedy Los Angeles apartment building. Bizarre John Waters esthetics, odd exploration of sex, murder and cannibalism during the excessive “Lifestyle” of 1982. First re-watch in 40 years.

🍿

2 with Harry Dean Stanton and 2 with actor David Lynch:

🍿 Spielberg’s newest, autobiographical The Fabelmans, his personal ‘Cinema Paradiso’. Cloyingly disappointing. The segments of movie making and even more so the scenes of movie-watching were lovely, but everything else around them, the family dynamics, the dichotomy between art and domesticity, the mother’s longing for life fulfilled, the young Jew in a gentile world, was unremarkable. Lynch cameo as John Ford. 3/10.

🍿 “...Ungatz!!...”

Harry Dean Stanton’s 206th acting credit and his very last film, Lucky, which was also one of the few (two?) in which he leads. The directing debut of ‘Norm Gunderson’, aka John Carroll Lynch. A slow, quiet and magnificent tale of a 90-year-old man looking back (and 'not’ dying by the end credits!). Shot around the poverty-stricken, God-forsaken, unincorporated tiny hamlets in the high-desert I used to hang around 12 years ago: Phelan, Twenty Nine Palms, Pearblossom, Joshua tree. I could also see myself being that reflecting, lonely old man in a couple of years, shuffling around to the local dive bar and the corner mini-mart for milk, and then back home to the cave. (Photo Above).

A few excellent characters pop up in this sparse drama, besides David Lynch: Ron Livingston, Barry Shabaka Henley, Ed Begley Jr. and a powerful reunion with Alien’s Tom Skerritt. The unexpected climax slayed!

10/10 - Best film of the week!

Extra! Extra! Harry Dean sings Canción Mixteca from ‘Paris, Texas’.

🍿 On the other side of time, Harry Dean Stanton’s first no-credit role was in Hitchcock’s The wrong man. Repeating his central theme of ‘a man wrongly accused of a crime he didn’t commit’, this was untypical for Hitchcock, because he played it here (or at least the first half of it) in a subdued, sober and haunting style, nearly like a modern Kafkaesque documentary.

Toward the end, though, the focus shifts into ‘blaming’ the wife and turning it into a misogynistic tale of the poor, weak woman who can’t handle stress, suffers a mental breakdown, and hurry, we must commit her to ‘an institution’, for her own sake. Henry Fonda was perfectly-cast as the straight-arrow, honest Catholic Everyman.

🍿

When I studied film at the University of Copenhagen in the late 70′s, I picked Michael Cacoyannis’ classic masterpiece Iphigenia as the topic of my final paper. Iphigenia is one of the original Greek tragedies by Euripides, and the film is still as magnificent as it was 45 years ago. With unforgettable score by Mikis Theodorakis. 10/10.

🍿 Alejandro Iñárritu’s new epic Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths, his first film to be filmed fully in Mexico since 2000. A surreal, “Magic realist” exploration of a writer in a crisis of identity, a-la ‘8 1/2′. The first half had no clear vision I could see, but at the exact midpoint the story-telling turned the genuine wizardry fireworks on: When he had his talk with his father at the baño, and shrunk to a child size with a big head, in the long tracking shot walking the empty De Chirico streets, the piles of dead Spencer Tunick people, the tiny baby crawling back to the sea like a turtle... The visuals turned phantasmagoric, and the story opened up. 7/10.

🍿

Brendan Gleeson X 3, two by Martin McDonagh:

🍿 The Banshees of Inisherin, Martin McDonagh’s latest dark and unforgiving drama about the end of friendship in rural Ireland 1923. Was it a metaphor for the Irish Civil War? Or a metaphysical fairy tale about fairy women and myths?

🍿 "Oh Jesus. What a fuckin' day!" ...

Six shooter was McDonagh’s debut short, and it won him the 2006 Oscars for Live Action Short, Gleeson is a widower on a train who loses his faith in God. A train is passing through the beautiful Irish landscape, while inside death and mayhem ensue. 7/10.

I saw Martin McDonagh’s three earlier films once before (’In Bruges’, ‘Seven Psychopaths’, ‘Three billboards’), so I’ll mark to revisit them again in the future.

🍿 Re-litigating Dubya and the Neocons Iraqi wet-dream in Green Zone. Everybody forgot about this colossal clusterfuck, and moved on (except of the million dead Iraqis). So, it’s not a relevant film any more. A noisy, testosterone-laden, macho war film of the action type. I only watched it because Paul Greengrass’s Bourne trilogy is one of the only action movies I love. But his shaky-cam, quick-cut style that was effective in ‘Bourne’ is now so hectic and dizzy, choppy & headache-producing, that it’s impossible to handle.

🍿

“It’s called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it” X 4:

🍿 I was Finally able to see Judd Apatow’s new 4-hour biography of George Carlin’s American Dream. Carlin was an American Saint and my legendary hero, but I didn’t know that much about his personal life, especially about his moving 30-years love and marriage to his wife Brenda. There was never a deeper philosopher who could analyze America better than Carlin’s cynical - and nihilist - insights. 9/10.

🍿 So I dug up the very first episode of Saturday Night Live from October 11, 1975, hosted by Carlin, with two separate musical guests, Billy Preston and the shy, young Janis Ian. There were some classic early SNL shows, but this one was long before they discovered the formula. 🍿 “...I do that all the time. It’s the third stage of syphilis!...:

His 1992 Jammin' in New York, possibly his best HBO special, and his favorite show. Classic encapsulation and delivery, packaged in thin, black-dressed rage machine.

“... There is nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine ... been here 4 1/2 billion years. We've been here, what, a 100,000 years, maybe 200,000. And we've only been engaged in heavy industry a little over 200 years. 200 years versus 4 1/2 billion. And we have the conceit to think that somehow we're a threat? The planet isn't going away. We are!...”

🍿 And one last, short screed, Dumb Americans, from his latest Angry Old Man‘s period and final show ‘Life Is Worth Losing’.

🍿

Also, re-watching the complete Marital Ali Wong Odyssey, for the second time this year:

I guess you can call me a fan. What started as some sweet, light-headed Re-watching Divertimentos, in between weightier fair, ended up with a complete followup of everything I saw her in before: Her three Netflix standup specials Baby Cobra, Hard Knock Wife and Wong Don Wong were all explicitly-dirty, graphically-nasty, and absolutely hilarious. She was heavily pregnant during the first and second one, and all were non-stop, extreme filthy descriptions of her wild sexual life and imagination. 9/10.

She had married the son of successful wacky inventor Ken Hakuta (“Doctor Fad”), and used her husband, marriage and motherhood as a central theme of her edgy routine. So in hindsight, I am saddened to read on her updated Wikipedia bio, that they are now divorced.

Her performance is very physical, but here is the complete transcript of her last Wing Don Wong show.

🍿 I even re-watched the first film she wrote and directed, Always Be My Maybe, an Asian ‘When Sally Met Harry’, which was nearly as good.

Bonus: A 25-min. Fresh Air interview from the same year as ‘Baby Cobra’.

🍿

The imposters, the 2nd farce directed by Stanley Tucci’s after ‘Big Night’. A 30′s style screwball comedy, in the vein of Laurel and Hardy, but without any of their wit and humor. Two out-of-work actors hide as stowaways on an ocean liner, in the vain of ‘A night at the opera’ but without a single funny scene resembling that. A large ensemble cast of otherwise fine character actors couldn’t salvage this. 1/10.

🍿

6 Shorts:

🍿 The tailor, an old 6-minute comedy film by Gordon Grinberg. A black & white, nearly-silent telling of a famous Jewish Joke. (Via)

🍿 Re-watching Paperman, another 6-minute short, which won the 2012 Best Animated Short for Disney. A romantic meeting via paper airplanes in a 40′s setting.

🍿 A Short Introduction To The Disturbing Paintings of Hieronymus Bosch: Did he suffer from LSD-like hallucinations of St. Anthony’s fire? Was he simply insane?

How come Terry Gilliam never attempted to create a Bosch movie?

🍿 My 4th by British director Jonathan Glazer (before he branched out into features with ‘Sexy beast’ and others) How Jamiroquai Shot Their Iconic ‘Virtual Insanity’ Video.

🍿 The Simpsons Meet the Bocellis in ‘Feliz Navidad’ 2022 - Extreme Late-Stage-Capitalistic, boring-distopian cross-merchandising from Disney++++

🍿 And.... I’m looking forward to see Greta Gerwig’s new Barbie!

🍿

(My complete movie list is here)

#movies

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intriguingpeoplebyangelafloyd · 5 months ago

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CLARA BLANDICK

4 June 1876 - 15 April 1962

THE WIZARD OF OZ

Clara Blandick is an American actress who worked on stage and screen. She is best known for playing Aunt Em in The Wizard of Oz (1939). She filmed all her Wizard of Oz scenes within one week and was paid $750. Blandick also appeared in Tom Sawyer (1930), Huckleberry Finn (1931), The Strange Case of Clara Deane (1932), and A Star is Born (1937).

Blandick was born aboard the American ship ‘Willard Mudgett’, which was captained by her father and she grew up in Quincy, Massachusetts, US. In 1879, she met actor E. H. Sothern and moved to New York City in 1900 to work as an actress. She married a mining engineer Harry Stanton Elliott, the couple divorced in 1912.

She continued working as an actress after The Wizard of Oz and then retired when she was 74. During the 1950s her health suffered, her eye sight failed and she suffered from arthritis. She moved into seclusion at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

On 15 April 1962, Blandick, 85, returned from church on the Sunday and started to rearrange her bedroom. She placed her favourite photos on display and laid out her resume and press clippings from her career. She put on a beautiful blue dressing gown and had her hair styled. She lay down on her chair and left a note. Her landlady, Helen Mason discovered her deceased later that day; she was cremated and interred at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale. Her ashes are interred not far from actor Charley Grapewin (who played Uncle Henry in The Wizard of Oz).

#clarablandick #thewizardofoz #thewizardofoz1939 #auntem

#clara blandick #clarablandick #the wizard of foz #thewizardofoz #the wizard of oz 1939 #aunt em

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pitabreadsuniverse · 1 year ago

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Kevin Kaarl: Paris Texas Album Tour

my first ever solo concert— God knew i needed to be there and experience it alone. i was brought to tears multiple times. he’s one of the few artists who might sound better in person.

Kevin spoke at one point about the overall sentiment and inspiration of his album Paris Texas. below is an excerpt from a Rolling Stone article, essentially recapping what he said onstage:

“The album is a story of someone who lost interest in himself and then rediscovered themselves,” he says. “It makes you feel more human to know that someone who was lost was able to find themselves again.” … It took him a year to finish the album, he says, because he couldn’t get inspired. He couldn’t even settle on the title. Then he watched a movie that helped things fall into place for him: 1984’s Paris, Texas, starring Henry Dean Stanton as a man who sets out to rediscover himself and recuperate a life left behind… “I feel I saw it at the right time and it helped me a lot creatively. It helped me a lot — a lot to finish this album.”

im a firm believer that art, books, opportunities, people, experiences, etc are placed in your life at the right time. this concert, and especially this segment, when he spoke about this movie coming into his life at the right time validated those thoughts for me.

i too was meant to be there in that exact moment. blessings never come late—or early. it healed me in so many ways, and i will forever be grateful.

one final excerpt:

“In this song [por qué no me comprendes?] I’m describing a situation: “Why I cannot comprehend or understand that things are not going to be the way they were before,” he says. “I have to keep going on my path. I have to accept change.”

we have to accept change.

to accept change is to accept life for the complex mess it is. to accept that no matter how hard we try, it will be imperfect and painful and full of grief— grief over people, past versions of ourselves, places, things left behind, etc.

over the past year, i experienced some of the harshest growing pains i’d ever felt—figuratively. i grieved so much that was left behind through many sudden changes that were happening in my life, both good and bad. 2022 gave me a lot, but it was also one of the saddest years of my life. thank you to this album for defining those complex feelings through music: grieving change, growing pains, and how we move through them.

thank you to Kevin Kaarl.

#SoundCloud #kevin kaarl #live music #folk music #nostalgia #concert #grief

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dasmuggler · 2 years ago

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Various stars attend the Paramount Pictures 75th Anniversary Party in Los Angeles, January 1987. From left to right (front row): Martha Raye, Dana Andrews, Elizabeth Taylor, Frances Dee, Joel McCrea, Harry Dean Stanton, Harrison Ford, Jennifer Beals, Marlee Matlin, Danny de Vito. (Second row) Olivia de Havilland, Kevin Costner, Cornel Wilde, Don Ameche, Deforest Kelley, Tom Cruise, Charlton Heston, Penny Marshall, Bob Hope, Victor Mature, Elizabeth McGovern, Robert de Niro. (Third row) Andrew McCarthy, Henry Winkler, Anthony Perkins, Robert Stack, Mark Harmon, Faye Dunaway, Buddy Rogers, Gregory Peck, Debra Winger, Timothy Hutton. (Fourth row) Jane Russell, Mike Connors, John Travolta, Janet Leigh, Charles Bronson, Ted Danson, Lou Gossett Jnr, Ryan O’Neal, Rhonda Fleming, Leonard Nimoy. (Fifth row) William Shatner, Peter Graves, Molly Ringwald, Dorothy Lamour, Olivia Newton-John, Cindy Williams, Matthew Broderick, Gene Hackman, Walter Matthau, Robin Williams. (Back row) Ali MacGraw, Burt Lancaster, Scott Baio, Rhea Perlman, Bruce Dern, James Caan, Glenn Ford, Fred MacMurray, Shelley Long, James Stewart. Photo by Terry O'Neill.

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theseunfinishedlives · 2 years ago

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#theseunfinishedlives: an independent, multi muse, canon* crossover world building blog for various characters from many fandoms; *now includes less than a handful of original characters.

Important: This is now a private writing blog affiliated with @mockingjaybroken only. Please do not attempt to interact with me if you are not the affiliated blog. I will block you.

BBC Ghosts

Rogh / Robin

Descendants

Doug Harry Hook

Hacksaw Ridge

Milt Zane Smitty Ryker

Jack, the Giant Slayer

Elmont

Les Misérables

Combeferre Enjolras

Lost in Austen

Piranha

MCU (Captain America: The First Avenger)

Steve Rogers - pre or post serum

Nancy Drew PC Games

Alec Fell Beatrice Hotchkiss Carson Drew Charlotte Thornton David Gregory Dexter Egan Dirk Valentine Donal Delany Fiona Malloy Frank Hardy Grigor Karakinos Gunnar Tonnisson Harper Thornton Henry Bolet Jacques Brunais Jake Hurley Joe Hardy Josiah Crowley Mickey Malone Millie Strathorn Mr Harris Ned Nickerson Nico Petit Pa Renate Stoller Thanos Ganas The monster of Castle Finster Unnamed OC storm chaser

Saving Private Ryan

Irwin Wade Richard Reiben

Sky High

Warren Peace

The Chronicles of Narnia

Lucy Pevensie

The Green Mile

Dean Stanton

The Host

Wanderer

The Hunger Games

Darius Peeta Mellark

The Little Mermaid '89

Prince Eric

Den Lille Havfrue (The Little Mermaid)

The Little Mermaid

The Pendragon Cycle

Myrddin

The Secret Garden

Dickon Sowerby Mary Lennox

Titanic

Tommy Ryan

Twilight

Bella Swan Brady Fuller Carlisle Cullen Collin Littlesea Embry Call Ephraim Black Jacob Black Jared Cameron Levi Uley Liam Maggie Paul Lahote Quil Ateara II Quil Ateara V Sam Uley Seth Clearwater Siobhán

#『 tulpinned. 』#『 tulinfo. 』#『 tulqueued. 』#『 tulmirror. 』#『 tulmusings. 』

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reginadeinisseni · 1 year ago

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Fool for Love (1985) ORIGINAL TRAILER

FOLLIA D' AMORE 1985

REGIA ROBERT ALTMAN (ROBERTO UOMO ALTO) CON HARRY DEAN STANTON (ENRICO DI AN STA CON TONINO) KIM BASINGER

UN UOMO E UNA DONNA SI INCONTRANO IN UN MOTEL CHE ALLA FINE PRENDE FUOCO UNA CONTESSA SPARA COLPI E ATTENTA ALLA LORO VITA

RIMANE SOLO IL VECCHIO CHE SUONA L' ARMONICA

LOVE MADNESS 1985

DIRECTED BY ROBERT ALTMAN (ROBERTO UOMO ALTO) WITH HARR DEAN DEAN STANTON (HENRY OF AN IS WITH TONINO) KIM BASINGER

A MAN AND A WOMAN MEET IN A MOTEL WHICH EVENTUALLY CATCHES FIRE A COUNTESS FIRES SHOTS AND ATTENTIVE TO THEIR LIVES

ONLY THE OLD MAN WHO PLAYS THE HARMONICA REMAINS

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

#gustavopetro #colombia #DONALDTRUMP #TRUMP #BOLSONARO #DORIGHEZZI #STRISCIALANOTIZIA #FRANCESCO #RUTELLI #PROPAGANDALIVE #ELUANA #ENGLARO #ELUANAENGLARO #CRISTIANODEANDRE #twitter #facebook #skyrock #linkedin #instagram #okru #tiktok

#youtube

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cinemavariety · 6 years ago

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The Director’s Series: David Lynch

The director series will consist of me concentrating on the filmography of all my favorite directors. I will rank each of their films according to my personal taste. I hope this project will provide everyone with quality recommendations and insight into films that they might not have known about.

Today’s director in spotlight is David Lynch

#10 - Dune (1984) Runtime: 2 hr 17 min Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

In the year 10,191, the world is at war for control of the desert planet Dune – the only place where the time-travel substance ‘Spice’ can be found. But when one leader gives up control, it’s only so he can stage a coup with some unsavory characters.

Verdict: Most directors who make enough films will always have a few misses. Dune is almost unwatchable with its convoluted storyline that will confuse anyone who hasn’t read the novel. I’ll give it this - the set and costume design are out of this world, no pun intended.

#9 - The Straight Story (1999) Runtime: 1 hr 52 min Aspect Ratio: 2.39 : 1 Film Format: 35 mm

A retired farmer and widower in his 70s, Alvin Straight learns one day that his distant brother Lyle has suffered a stroke and may not recover. Alvin is determined to make things right with Lyle while he still can, but his brother lives in Wisconsin, while Alvin is stuck in Iowa with no car and no driver’s license. Then he hits on the idea of making the trip on his old lawnmower, thus beginning a picturesque and at times deeply spiritual odyssey.

Verdict: The only one of Lynch’s films that could be considered purely “heartwarming”. It also feels the least like a Lynch film, with the director never really foraying into his autuerist territory. It is a simple, cute film that didn’t exactly leave much of an impression on me.

#8 - Lost Highway (1997) Runtime: 2 hr 14 min Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

A tormented jazz musician finds himself lost in an enigmatic story involving murder, surveillance, gangsters, doppelgangers, and an impossible transformation inside a prison cell.

Verdict: Lost Highway has a few scenes that I find to be the most bone-chilling in Lynch’s oeuvre. However, I wish that the entirety of this film had the same effect on me. There are more than enough satisfying plot elements to this, but I also feel like Lynch utilizing a modern soundtrack more than Badalementi’s superb score really does make this film feel dated.

#7 - The Elephant Man (1980) Runtime: 2 hr 4 min Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man being mistreated by his “owner” as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of great intelligence and sensitivity. Based on the true story of Joseph Merrick, a severely deformed man in 19th century London.

Verdict: The Elephant Man showcases how cruel human nature can be. It is one of Lynch’s most sentimental works that manages to be both horrendous and beautiful. John Hurt’s performance as the “elephant man” is multilayered and one of the most impressive, humanistic feats of an artist embodying a character with the utmost ingenuity.

#6 - Blue Velvet (1986) Runtime: 2 hr Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

The discovery of a severed human ear found in a field leads a young man on an investigation related to a beautiful, mysterious nightclub singer and a group of criminals who have kidnapped her child.

Verdict: This is Lynch’s detective film, and I would say one of the best starting films for someone looking to get into his work. It has all of the surrealist plot motifs we come to expect from Lynch, but also has a pretty understandable storyline for the most part. Blue Velvet explores the dark underbelly beneath the fake “harmless” veneer of a seemingly quiet and peaceful small town.

#5 - Wild at Heart (1990) Runtime: 2 hr 5 min Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

Young lovers Sailor and Lula run from the variety of weirdos that Lula’s mom has hired to kill Sailor.

Verdict: Many might not see Wild at Heart as one of Lynch’s strongest works, but I personally find it to be the most fun film he has ever made. Lynch creates such a wide variety of scummy characters that truly make your stomach church (I am looking at you Willem Dafoe). It’s one of those so-bad-it’s-perfect movies and the Wizard of Oz allusions are a great addition to the story.

#4 - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) Runtime: 2 hr 14 min Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

In the questionable town of Deer Meadow, Washington, FBI Agent Desmond inexplicably disappears while hunting for the man who murdered a teen girl. The killer is never apprehended, and, after experiencing dark visions and supernatural encounters, Agent Dale Cooper chillingly predicts that the culprit will claim another life. Meanwhile, in the more cozy town of Twin Peaks, hedonistic beauty Laura Palmer hangs with lowlifes and seems destined for a grisly fate. Verdict: I think it’s a real shame that this film was held in such low regard by both critics and fans alike when it was released. These people seemed to be truly confused as to the types of films Lynch makes. Thankfully, it has developed into a real cult classic since then. This film, which also serves as a prequel to the iconic television series, abandons the campy tone of the series and is Lynch achieving the vision that he wanted from the show. It’s a beautiful, haunting, and heartbreaking story.

#3 - Inland Empire (2006) Runtime: 3 hr Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1 Film Format: Mini DV & 35mm

An actress’s perception of reality becomes increasingly distorted as she finds herself falling for her co-star in a remake of an unfinished Polish production that was supposedly cursed.

Verdict: Lynch has yet to make a feature film since this one, and it truly is the director going off the rails with his style in the best of ways. Inland Empire is almost completely impossible to describe because it is more of an experience than it is a structured narrative. It returns to Lynch’s often-used idea of “hollywood is hell”. To me, this is Lynch’s scariest film. It’s utterly hopeless and the pixelated DV cinematography exudes a very cold and artificial aesthetic. Laura Dern deserved an Oscar for her performance as an actress who confuses her own life to the character she is playing.

#2 - Mulholland Drive (2001) Runtime: 2 hr 27 min Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

Blonde Betty Elms has only just arrived in Hollywood to become a movie star when she meets an enigmatic brunette with amnesia. Meanwhile, as the two set off to solve the second woman’s identity, filmmaker Adam Kesher runs into ominous trouble while casting his latest project.

Verdict: You will very rarely find such a perfect masterpiece of a film, but Mulholland Drive manages to do that. It also seems to reveal new layers every time I revisit. Lynch blurs the lines between the dream world and reality so masterfully in this film that it really does linger in your subconscious afterward - much akin to a haunting dream that you can’t seem to shake. Naomi Watts is electric as an LA newcomer who gets involved in the dark recesses of Hollywood.

#1 - Eraserhead (1977) Duration: 1 hr 29 min Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child.

Verdict: By no means am I trying to say Eraserhead is Lynch’s “best” film - but for me it will probably always remain my personal favorite. This was my introduction to Lynch’s work and it holds a very sentimental spot for me as this was the time in my life when I really began exploring experimental film. Eraserhead is set in a dystopia that could also serve as an alternate reality altogether. Henry Spencer has to deal with his demanding wife and deformed child while daydreaming of a singing woman in the radiator. This is Lynch at his most surrealist, his most uncompromising, and his most nauseating. It truly is one the most impressive low-budget films ever made. It manages a fine line between repulsion and transcendence.

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