How would you rank David Lynch's films?

[Pete Martell]

What you say sounds interesting but some of it i can't understand because of the lack of punctuation. Sorry.
Problems of identity. and....er.....that's it!

Which subject can be more wide and interesting

[snikgrif]

Which subject can be more wide and interesting

Is the subject about 'problems with identity'? If so, I agree with you. This is a vast subject. I haven't added my ranking of DL's films because, to me they keep changing depending on my mood or interest, but my usual favourite films are all the personal mental crisis with identity ones i.e. Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire and to a major extent Blue Velvet, and FWWM is certainly about a girl in crisis with her identity. All of them seem quit different to me and effect me all in a very strong way. I have always been interested in what or who we think we are, and this encompasses not only the state and effect of the mental illness in some, but also in normal (supposedly) and everyday lives, what ideology, religion, sex, nation, race or none of these do we identify with? What do these identities enforced or chosen by society or mental trauma cause people to do. I see the tragedies and successes of human history and sociology as stemming from the values or problems with human identity, a pretty big subject. War, crime, obsessions, politics, suicide, personal missions in life, love, hate, man, woman the list is endless for me. I never get tired of watching these films mentioned, I am totally absorbed in them every time.

[cubist]

Absolutely it can cover a huge area. I'm thinking more of the actual subjects of the films.

1)Lost Highway. The film revolves around the identities of the Fred & Renee characters. Fred turns into someone else and at the end turns back. Then you have Alice & Renee played by the same actress.

2) Mulholland Drive - THe whole film revolves around the real and supposed identities of the Naomi Watts character and the Laura Harring Character. It's not so much "This is the girl" as "Who is the girl?

3)INLAND EMPIRE - This one revolves around the identity of the Laura Dern character. Laura Dern plays at least 3 people or aspects of the same person.

All the films are populated by doppelgangers - this doppelganger idea appears in Twin Peaks - the good Dale & the bad Dale.

I realise that i'm reducing the films to the kernel here but nevertheless I can understand how someone might now think, after more or less 10 years of this, how about doing a film about something else.

AS for me - I love em all & Lynch can do what he wants. But I can't help thinking that a little change of pallette might be refreshing. The Straight Story was a complete change of pallette - he didn't even write it. Maybe we need another Straight Story now!

[snikgrif]

this doppelganger idea appears in Twin Peaks

Yes, nearly everybody in Twin Peaks is going through an identity crisis

[Mb3]

Which subject can be more wide and interesting

but my usual favourite films are all the personal mental crisis with identity ones i.e. Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire and to a major extent Blue Velvet, and FWWM is certainly about a girl in crisis with her identity. All of them seem quit different to me and effect me all in a very strong way.

I feel exactly the same way as you do because if you take a look at my list you can see that I also mainly prefer the films that you mentioned.

[Chaosmonger]

1. Mulholland Dr.
2. Eraserhead
3. Blue Velvet
4. Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me
5. INLAND EMPIRE
6. The Straight Story
7. Dune
8. The Elephant Man
9. Wild at Heart
10. Lost Highway

[XenoGilmour]

My first post on Dugpa! Hello everyone, seems to be a great group.

I'd only rank the first few:

1. INLAND EMPIRE
1. FWWM
2. Eraserhead
3. Mulholland Dr.

I love the rest pretty much all equally and would say Dune and Lost Highway resonate the least with me but are still among my favorite films in general.

[BobbyPeru]

1. Blue Velvet
2. FWWM
3. Wild at Heart
4. Lost Highway
5. Eraserhead
6. Industrial Symphony #1
7. Mulholland Drive
8. Inland Empire
9. Elephant Man
10. The Straight Story

[gavriloP]

1. Blue Velvet
2. Mulholland Drive
3. INLAND EMPIRE
4. Fire Walk with Me
5. Lost Highway
6. Wild at Heart
7. Eraserhead
8. Elephant Man
9. Straight Story
10. Dune

Thats my list today, but the definitive order of first five changes from day to day. Blue Velvet and Mulholland are more simple movies but somehow their feel and balance is so good. LH and especially IE are best nightmare movies ever, though. First part of FWWM is pure magic, I could watch those agents with their blue rose cases all the time. When I was more into TP I really felt that Laura Palmer part but nowadays not so much.

I have to say that it has been a long time since I saw Eraserhead. Maybe its time to revisit that peculiar life of Henry Spencer again.

[Brad D]

fire walk with me
blue velvet
eraserhead
mulholland drive
the elephant man
lost highway
the straight story
dune
inland empire
wild at heart

[gsinnyc]

1. Fire Walk With Me
2. Mulholland Dr.
3. INLAND EMPIRE
4. Lost Highway
5. Eraserhead
6. Blue Velvet
7. The Elephant Man
8. Wild at Heart
9. The Straight Story
10. Dune

[neverwakingworld]

I would like to know where people would place Jennifer's films among her fathers.

[Black Rose]

Mulholland Drive-- So perfect, so lush.
Blue Velvet
Wild at Heart
FWWM
Lost Highway
Eraserhead

and at the bottom:

Inland Empire.

I know there are a lot of IE fans here, and there are the seeds of several very good films here, but I just didn't get into it.

The others I haven't seen, or I saw so long ago I don't think it's fair to rank them.

[iar]

Wow... this is difficult! I often think that I have two lists, one for my favourites and the other for which might be 'objectively' the best. But I'll list my favourites...

-Mulholland Drive
-Blue Velvet
-FWWM
-Lost Highway
-INLAND EMPIRE
-Eraserhead
-The Straight Story
-The Elephant Man
-Wild at Heart

I haven't seen Dune!

I often wonder what it would be like to make a Top Ten Scenes list. Although I have Lost Highway in 4th place, it contains maybe one of my top two scenes. Whilst Blue Velvet would probably not have any scenes making my top 5, it's an altogether better-rounded film that Lost Highway.

Ahhh... swings and roundabouts! Truth be told, beneath MD I find it VERY hard to list the films. There's something in all of them which makes me love Lynch all over again.

[Buck's Student]

Bare in mind, I don't dislike ANY Lynch film.

Eraserhead - I feel bad, because it's like I'm saying he went downhill afterward, but he just keeps getting better.
Wild At Heart
Lost Highway
Blue Velvet
Muhollund Drive
Inland Empire
Elephant Man (I have never complained about a film being so depressing)
Dune
Fire Walk With Me (To me, you'd have to see the show, so it's not really a stand alone film)