L.B.

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applesnoranges
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Re: L.B.

Post by applesnoranges »

It does not look like a stamp to me. It looks drawn on there, maybe with make up pencils.
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Kiddo
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Re: L.B.

Post by Kiddo »

It does not look like a stamp to me. It looks drawn on there, maybe with make up pencils.

It's funny you'd say that because looking at that picture absolutely confirms that the letters are a stamp to me. The L.B. is much too perfectly rendered to be hand-written. Notice that what appear to be imperfections in the lines are actually caused by the bones in her slender hand.

She most likely recieved the hand-stamp before being let into the room with the dancer. To me, that makes perfect sense. This theory also lends further credence to our belief that the specific meaning of the letters is largely irrelevant to unlocking the meaning of the story.
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Re: L.B.

Post by applesnoranges »

OK it could be a stamp too I guess. But I guess you are saying that we wouldn't get anywhere imagining how it was drawn on there but stamped we have that answered and can move on. Anyway, I agree with you that the actual meaning of the letters is irrelevant.

So the only place to go in seeing why the LB is in the movie, as far as I can see, is by noticing the difference between when it is right side up, upside down, and not there. But if you think the right side up scene has no meaning because someone just forgot to put it on up side down prior to the shoot and Lynch also missed that during the editing in which he was so careful to show it for only a few frames, then for you there is nothing to say about that. There is for me, not only because I find it impossible to think it is an error when I see no reason to think so, but because when it is right side up she is in a completely different mood: she has just seen herself as distressed across the street and laughed about it.

Then, as you noted before, when she rises as Nikki again, the LB is gone. But when she reaches in the drawer (the above pic) then it is back because she is back in Smithy's House and this is Sue again. Then after that, the person who embraces Lost Girl with no LB is Nikki again.
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jina
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Re: L.B.

Post by jina »

Kiddo wrote:
She most likely recieved the hand-stamp before being let into the room with the dancer. To me, that makes perfect sense. This theory also lends further credence to our belief that the specific meaning of the letters is largely irrelevant to unlocking the meaning of the story.

This meaning as you say it makes sense.
but think about it this way. she gets this stamp at the club, which in a very weird coincidence could also mean something.
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Re: L.B.

Post by Kiddo »

Good point, jina. I'm totally open to the idea that the L.B. hand-stamp Susan recieved at the club is meaningful, but I just haven't yet figured out the meaning. I don't think anyone has...
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Re: L.B.

Post by MichaelPW »

jina wrote:she gets this stamp at the club, which in a very weird coincidence could also mean something.
Oh, yes. The club somehow represents her "standing in the middle" (like the dancer does). And she had bad luck during that time, because she lost her son.
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jina
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Re: L.B.

Post by jina »

Michael, i don't know about the bad luck reference. i like it as an idea but the way the letters are written don't click me as bad luck
i thought she lost her son years ago when she was very younger. it is a past memory in the film.
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Re: L.B.

Post by Carl »

I figure she lost her son before he was born, after being beaten by Smithy, who was enraged by her infidelity and lies.
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jina
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Re: L.B.

Post by jina »

Why Smithy and not Piotrek?
i'm a bit confused with the name Smithy.
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Re: L.B.

Post by Carl »

The beating is shown at the point in Sue's monolog where she misrepresents the incident, so , Smithy.
The point at which I wonder if it's Smithy or not , and by extension, if it's a scene in IE or OHIBT, is the seance and visit to the shed in Poland looking for the man he works for. I ain't yet made up my mind.
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Re: L.B.

Post by Kiddo »

The point at which I wonder if it's Smithy or not , and by extension, if it's a scene in IE or OHIBT, is the seance and visit to the shed in Poland looking for the man he works for.

2 points:

1) It does not appear that Smithy is looking for the "man he works for" at the shed - instead, Smithy and Janek are looking for the Phantom. And Gordy tells them The Pahntom disappeared after muttering something about Inland Empire.

2) The Smithy scenes cannot be part of OHBT because Peter Lucas does not play any characters in Kingsley's film. In Nikki's world (which is the world where OHBT is being filmed) Lucas plays Piotrek.
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Re: L.B.

Post by Carl »

1) I entertain the notion that 'The Phantom ' is the man he works for.
2)Is Smithy not played by Lucas? At first I certainly thought not, but my wife has convinced me that this is so.
The Smithy scenes do seem to me to be from OHIBT.
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jina
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Re: L.B.

Post by jina »

Smithy's house in OHIBT, is the house him and Nikki used to live when they were younger - at least for some reason i think it is-


there is this question in the film : "who is Smithy?", if i remember rightly??

and the kid in the end is credited as "smithy's son".
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Re: L.B.

Post by applesnoranges »

So, if we ask the question, "Who is Smithy?" and we see Smithy's son, we know whose son he seems to be (not the Lucas character who can't procreate children), because there is only one logical answer: his other parent, his mother, Smithy, played by Karolina Gruszka, who returns to her own house and her own family. We always know who someone's mother is.
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Re: L.B.

Post by Carl »

'We always know who someone's mother is.'
Sure, 'Moma's baby, Pappa's maybe.'
In this case, at the end of IE, I think that the child is that of LG and the murdered actor from 4 7.
( I'm seeing the woman who can not give him children as the wife of an actor in 4 7, rather than as a character in that uncompleted film. I'm always willing to re-think this. The question becomes 'What scenes are from what films?' Do we see any scenes, other than 'Cast out thias wicked dream...' from 4 7 ?)
They are united in Smithy's house because, now that the story is at last completed, the charaters can attain their natural, interrupted-by-murder Destiny.
Very unsatifactory, I do admit.
In fact, I find and always have found the entire ending to IE to be weak drama. To have an effective, emotionally cathartic resolution in Drama ( as distinct from Fiction in general, such as novels) there has to be an understanding, perhaps a reluctant understanding, of just what is being depicted. IMO,this is the weak point of IE, as opposed to FWWM or MD.
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