Geography of Smithy's house

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gavriloP
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Geography of Smithy's house

Post by gavriloP »

Here is the rough floor plans of Smithy's house. Brought to you by MS Paint :)


Smithy's room is a heavy concrete corridor with curved ceiling. In MTTH there is a red lamp. It seems to defy the laws of physics quite heavily. It is definitely from some other big stone building. In the end Phantom comes from this door. Sue goes there two times (once in IE and once in MTTH). both times she goes to somekind of loop. in IE she comes back to AXXON N door and in MTTH she ends up in front yard and goes back inside, to the livingroom (but strangely describing it as unknown place).

Strangely when Sue comes to the Axxon door again from Smithy's room, she don't go back to house but continues from the left door that isn't part of the house.

Also LG comes back to Smithy's house from Smithy's room.


There is a red lamp also in storage room.


Record player is in living room, just south of front door and Sue sits near it quite often.
The red phone is by the sofa and that funky lamp of balls is on the left side of the lazy chair.

The AXXON N door is the door that never gets opened from inside.

Unknown spaces are just that. There are open doorways in both living room and bed room.

There is an idle chair on the southern wall of kitchen that reminds me of children's eating chair. There is also a big teddy bear on the lawn in the barbecue scene. And BTW that back yard don't seem to fit with this house, but maybe that is just a practical error with sets.

There are some wardrobes and such missing but I think all the essential stuff is there.

Oh, and that question mark on the left side of the dining table is for the fact that in the "I'm pregnant" dining scene there might be a doorway behind Smithy.
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Floor plans to Smithy's house
Floor plans to Smithy's house
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Kiddo
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Re: Geography of Smithy's house

Post by Kiddo »

Great work, gavriloP!

I have one question and one suggestion.

First, what is the "feeding chair" and when do we see it in the film?

And I do have one major suggestion to improve upon your otherwise excellent floorplan: take into account the back of the house as we see it from outside in the backyard during the barbeque scene.

For instance, according to your floorplan, the back of Smithy's house is essentially flat. But during the barbeque scene, we clearly see that the bedroom area of the house protrudes significantly outward and away from the rest of the house into the backyard area.

The way to correct this would be to simply lengthen the hallway leading to the bedroom and push the entire bedroom area away from the rest of the house towards the backyard. This way, you would have a much more accurate representation of the house's dimensions.

Continuing along this train of thought, it would be useful to include that little hallway that the carnies emerged from when they arrived at the barbeque. It is situated between the bedroom area and the kitchen area, and appears to begin right about where you have the little question mark near the dining table.

But again, great work! Coolest post I've seen here since apples' "Chapter 35" thread. Keep it up, guys - keep pushing it further.
applesnoranges
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Re: Geography of Smithy's house

Post by applesnoranges »

Yes, this is at least very satisfying to curiosity, very helpful and so thanks!

In addition to Kiddo's suggestion, there is something I wonder about and that is that, looking from the back yard, to the right of the kitchen windows there seems to be a large space with a sort of crenelated horizontal design, almost like a garage door or something (in back of her in the picture). It seems that the kitchen window we see from the inside is way in front of her in this picture.

Kiddo: I think what graviloP is calling a feeding chair is what I would call a step ladder. My grandparents always had this piece of furniture in the kitchen.
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gavriloP
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Re: Geography of Smithy's house

Post by gavriloP »

Yep, this might not be crucial but I liked to really give structure those hallways and doors. I was actually surprised how easily this happened. Lynch wasn't playing tricks here.

I should have added that those proportions are of course not right, this is pretty "mental" map so to speak. I had difficulties to get this to fit with outerior scenes, but maybe I should think about them again, some stretcing and stuff probably helps :) also those outer walls in north and south are something I just assumed. There is still lots of stuff missing like bathrooms and such (I would think they have them :) ).

That feeding chair is a mystery to me. I meant the chair where you strap your little kid for eating. It isn't very familiar looking to me, but because I'm from Finland and this is California I thought that might be some old 60s or 70s design like almost everything in this house.

Anyway, I meant that chair that you can see on the "southern" wall of kitchen in cooking scene with sausages. Oh, and about that scene. Are there any americans that can vouch that she is cooking some "californian" breakfast because it seems very polish to me.
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gavriloP
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Re: Geography of Smithy's house

Post by gavriloP »

And here is the back yard, I think that these maps could be joined if the long wing to the east is Smithy's secret room AND then it would be quite interesting what we see in windows. But that would mean that also this backdoor should be in that area so I don't know.

Oh, now I see what you were saying about. Yes, it could be that the wing to the east could be kitchen and then that backdoor could be the question mark. AND then this wing to the south could be Smithy's secret room.

BTW what do you think about the fact that Sue can't go there? I mean literally can't. Room 47 seems to be there, but then again that is not where Sue is going in the end (I mean int the AXXON N door scene she finally goes from the left door) even though the corridors she go through do remind me of those glimpses from Smithys room. And of course LG comes from there in the end.
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Kiddo
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Re: Geography of Smithy's house

Post by Kiddo »

BTW what do you think about the fact that Sue can't go there?
The "room" you refer to as "Smithy's secret room" is not a room at all - it is a long hallway (we see it several times throughout the film) that leads to impossible places. It is a portal of sorts.
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gavriloP
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Re: Geography of Smithy's house

Post by gavriloP »

Kiddo wrote:
The "room" you refer to as "Smithy's secret room" is not a room at all - it is a long hallway (we see it several times throughout the film) that leads to impossible places. It is a portal of sorts.
Yes of course, I mentioned it too earlier. The point to call it "smithy's secret room" was the idea that Smithy's house is just normal house and not some bizarro place with wormholes. I know there is a portal but to me that doesn't mean there is real scifi like portal. If you know what I mean. So if there ever was house like this there got to be a room and not a corridor from polish stone building.
Carl
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Re: Geography of Smithy's house

Post by Carl »

It's interesting to think about the physical geography of meta-physical places. Remember, 'Smithy's house' started as a 'set', so there will likely not be a one on one correspondence to a 'real' house.
Some of the abrupt transitions, not all involving axxoNn, may relate to the fact that they take place in movies, where, when a character goes through a door, the camera does not always follow because there may be no set beyond. We see only what the camera shows us; the mind builds up the rest of the 'place'.
Sue, in particular, becomes aware as things progress that she is a character in a movie (OHIBT) and that her movements are not always under her own control. Some of her abrupt transitions, mental and physical, seem like the really incongrous ones Nikki walks through near the finale: that is, walking from one set to another of a movie ( actually, movies).
**
'High chair' is AmerEnglish, I guess, for 'eating chair', an item not needed by this couple. I'll check next time to see if such is there.
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Re: Geography of Smithy's house

Post by JFK »

'High chair' is AmerEnglish, I guess, for 'eating chair', an item not needed by this couple. I'll check next time to see if such is there.[/quote]

exactly right, "high chair" is always how ive known it. and it definitely looks like one, old as it may be. and the breakfast she is making isnt anything out of the ordinary in the US. scrambled eggs, fried hot dogs(not in my breakfast tho!), maybe bacon on the back burner.
nothing out of the ordinary.
applesnoranges
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Re: Geography of Smithy's house

Post by applesnoranges »

I could not find images of step ladders exactly like the one in Sue's kitchen (below) but there are a couple of similar ones on these pages (about 3/4 down in the first link).

http://i4k-props-atl2.com/scenes

http://www.weada.co.uk/oak-arts-crafts- ... der-chair/

This looks to me like a kitchen stool with steps that can be folded up inside it when they are not used.

If I'm wrong and it is some kind of child's feeding chair I've never seen, then the reason for it would be that she is pregnant and they have bought the chair awaiting the baby. But it doesn't look like that to me; it looks like many things in that house that give the feeling of the time period and the kind of taste of this couple.
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gavriloP
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Re: Geography of Smithy's house

Post by gavriloP »

JFK wrote:and the breakfast she is making isnt anything out of the ordinary in the US. scrambled eggs, fried hot dogs(not in my breakfast tho!), maybe bacon on the back burner.
nothing out of the ordinary.
It's good to hear about that breakfast because being from slightly different culture it is always difficult to know some little details like this.

And about that chair. It isn't for very little baby because it is "open". I mean if it is for kids anyway. Of course I might be giving it too much value, but it just caught my eye and you know how it goes.

But then what about the big white teddybear on the lawn?
applesnoranges
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Re: Geography of Smithy's house

Post by applesnoranges »

Carl wrote:It's interesting to think about the physical geography of meta-physical places. Remember, 'Smithy's house' started as a 'set', so there will likely not be a one on one correspondence to a 'real' house.
Some of the abrupt transitions, not all involving axxoNn, may relate to the fact that they take place in movies, where, when a character goes through a door, the camera does not always follow because there may be no set beyond. We see only what the camera shows us; the mind builds up the rest of the 'place'.
Sue, in particular, becomes aware as things progress that she is a character in a movie (OHIBT) and that her movements are not always under her own control. Some of her abrupt transitions, mental and physical, seem like the really incongrous ones Nikki walks through near the finale: that is, walking from one set to another of a movie ( actually, movies).
I was thinking of something like this regarding graviloPs first diagram but didn't want to bring up too many things at once. It seems to me that sometimes the door in the hall does not go to a secret room, or even the hallway that Kiddo mentioned, but opens directly in front of the dining table. That is, from the view from the living room where we can see both down the hall and through to the dining table. But people do come and go through that door to the parallel world in Poland etc., and we see the phantom in the arched hallway near the end as he approaches that door. But when Nikki walked through it after putting the gun in the drawer and walking around the corner, the sense I have is that she walked through the door, past the dining table, then around the movie set, and came out somewhere in the area of behind the other AxxonN door. How exactly she left the set of the house I don't know, but we see her pass through that door from our position behind the AxxonN door, the camera just pans right, and then there she is. She doesn't seem to have walked through the same hallway as the phantom. So what is behind that door seems to depend on who is perceiving it.
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Re: Geography of Smithy's house

Post by Kiddo »

It seems to me that sometimes the door in the hall does not go to a secret room, or even the hallway that Kiddo mentioned, but opens directly in front of the dining table.

No, nothing like that ever happens in the film.

the sense I have is that she walked through the door, past the dining table, then around the movie set

The dining table and the movie set never come into play during this scene. The set only exists in the "real" world, which Nikki left once she passed through the red curtains that led to the theatre. And again, the portal door never leads to the dining room area - it leads to impossible places.

So what is behind that door seems to depend on who is perceiving it.

Well we always see the same hall behind the portal door, but it does appear to bring people into a vast network of places - an ocean of possibilities.
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gavriloP
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Re: Geography of Smithy's house

Post by gavriloP »

applesnoranges wrote: It seems to me that sometimes the door in the hall does not go to a secret room, or even the hallway that Kiddo mentioned, but opens directly in front of the dining table. That is, from the view from the living room where we can see both down the hall and through to the dining table.
After some heavy midsummer festivities, I'm back in business... What was important to me when I drew this map was the fact that Lynch in fact doesn't play any tricks. All the doors are logical and there is no change. Only thing that fools perception is the fact that there are some differences how we see this space because Lynch uses some wild and unconventional lens choices from wide to tele and this alter the sense of space.

"portal" door is only used by smithy and sue(she uses it once in IE and once in MTTH). And of course phantom and LG comes from there.
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Re: Geography of Smithy's house

Post by Kiddo »

Correct. The hallway beyond the portal door is traversed by Susan (twice), Smithy, Crimp/Phantom, and Lost Girl. It is a bridge between Smithy's house and outer realms of the Empire.
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