alreadygoneplaces wrote:The Charlie character marks yet another instance of Lynch using physical disabilities as a shortcut to the uncanny (and even revulsion), which I'm getting really sick of. It made me of this scene from Living in Oblivion...
https://youtu.be/HrFxciguk38?t=5760 - Skip to 1:36:00 if it doesn't put you in the right place
The dream-sequence stuff in that film seems a largely unfair dig at the original TP (and others), but I do feel there was a seed of truth in there that grows with every Lynch film. There's also a great scene in that film where Peter Dinklage takes offence to the idea of his character representing someone's 'anxiety'.
As with most things Lynch, it's complex and more nuanced than it appears on the surface (or at least, appears to be- making I'm giving too much credit), but the way some of these characters are perceived does shine a light on the problems with this approach... on these boards alone, I've seen the 'giant' and 'little man' at Buella's place described as 'weird grotesques', Charlie as a 'potato'.
I always thought of this with MFAP especially in the original, but MJA's performance was so strong, it papered over the cracks and deflected attention away from this issue.
I also think there is some truth in that Living in Oblivion dig. I also want to add something MJA wrote on
facebook back in May about this:
Michael J Anderson wrote:He never used me as an "actor". I never actually played a CHARACTER on TP. A strange wiggly little "thing", used to 'represent' strangeness itself. It was choreography. Choreography, btw, that I choreographed myself, but never got credit for, of course.
While we all (presumably) know about MJA's bizarre allegations and wider behaviour, which have seemed unnecessarily hostile, it is worthwhile taking him at his word when it comes to this particular issue.
Of course, the context for actors with conditions like dwarfism and giantism onscreen (we can also mention amputees here -- surely we've all seen the moment in the Lynch (one) documentary where DKL specifically requests of his crew a 'one-legged girl' in what is presented as a moment of 'artistic' quirkiness) has varied considerably since the days of Tod Browning's
Freaks, taking in many fantasy roles where differently sized actors play mythological species (dwarves, elves, gnomes, ogres, goblins, and so on). We have to acknowledge those in-universe contexts in which diminutive size or being unusually tall is conventionally coded as being 'from another place' (from
Time Bandits to
Merlin to
Harry Potter, the list is endless), and how this, rightly or wrongly, has provided actors who are little with lots of work. On the other hand, these roles do not always typify and dehumanise the actor to the same extent, and in some cases they can be given real consequential characterisation that does not spring
solely from the visual effect of their condition (perhaps
X-Men:Days of Future Past's use of Dinklage can be regarded as treading an interesting line here -- I'm still unimpressed;
Carnivale, on the other hand, intentionally placed characters with disabilities and conditions alongside others in terms of characterisation, and did not exclusively focus on them as sources of the uncanny). In general, the cinematic use of physical conditions as visual signifiers of the uncanny, or as inscriptions of an anticipated disquieted reaction on the part of the audience, is still pretty dire and cheap across the board. MJA's complaint that Lynch's use of him reduced him to an abstraction on the basis of his condition does, I think, hold water.
A crucial distinction I would make in my own mind is between Twin Peaks (and FWWM) use of MJA and Mulholland Drive's use of Jeanne Bates and Dan Birnbaum (Irene and her companion aka 'the old couple'). While in the latter case, the final scene has the old couple appear through visual effects as tiny, rendering them uncanny in their unrelenting pursuit of Diane, the use of MJA's physical condition in Twin Peaks as a kind of pre-existing practical effect does take on an exploitative dimension. One can ask, why not use a visual effect rather than treating MJA's physical condition as 'a shortcut' to achieving the uncanny? Can the motivations for this decision ever be considered as purely economical, or is there always an ideological component to it (e.g. the habits of western film-makers -- as exemplified by Buscemi's character in Living in Oblivion)? Is there, as the linked video alleges, a case for seeing the 'convenience' of casting people with physical disabilities or medical conditions as laziness and lack of imagination when other routes are available (more so than ever in the digital age), and does this usage of actors border on some form of abuse? It's a thorny question.