Ross wrote:The thing that was so strange about the reaction to FWWM was that it was filled with such hate and vitriol. Its one thing for a movie to get bad reviews, or for people to be dismissive, but this was different.
Honestly I think part of it was the old "crowd mentality". People had turned on Lynch and the series already. They were just waiting to shoot him down. How much of it was really about the movie itself, and how much was riding the negative bandwagon? I'm not sure.
Yes, the fad was over. In 1990 he was celebrated as this icon of loony weirdness who could still be part of the mainstream. But it's as if there was a tacit understanding that he still had to toe the line in some way and when he didn't (Twin Peaks only got weirder, and Lynch declined to hold the viewer's/critic's hands and explain everything in simple terms) the tide turned.
I think the movie didn't help this feeling - obviously it was very dark and Lynch's most disorienting film yet (though far more disorienting works were to come, and get much better reviews) - but one of the weirdest elements, to me, is that critics often bashed Lynch for ALLEGEDLY doing precisely the opposite of what he was ACTUALLY doing. For example, he made FWWM pretty alienating for fans of the series' wackier moments, yet critics accused him of overzealous fanservice. He obviously poured heart and soul into the picture (it's possibly the most emotional of all his movies) and they accused him of being bored with the material and detached from it. He made a movie exploring sexual abuse through the eyes of a victim and was accused of misogyny and reveling in violence.
It's seriously like the critics were watching Bizarro World Fire Walk With Me.
Worst treatment of him I've seen is in Geoff Andrew's interview for Time Out London, conducted at Cannes. It's just dripping with condescension and misunderstanding.