If you listen at radio play, what do you see?
Even though Lynch is very unique director he has been classically trained and he gives much value to the "rules" of cinema. In a way that when he breaks the rules it is intentional. So the point of view in editing and in the compositions are important.
He is also a soundguy (one thing that I love maybe most in his movies, his soundtracks are simply the best) and these sounds are important.
Even though they called him postmodern back in the day I think it is not so simple, I don't think he is making references and doing camera tricks just for the sake of it. I think he means something, even if he don't know what it is.
Things that haunt me in this movie are for example:
Smithy/Piotrek is always the same, "who is playing smithy?"
The Characters we see to get hypnotized are Doris and Smithy (while tending animals in the circus). And was that Kinski girl also hypnotized in MTTH?
There is vinyl needle noise on the sountrack when we see some of the polish scenes with the phantom and lost girl and Smithy/Piotrek with a moustache. But they are not constant, or are they? Only reference in this movie to this noise is record player that is playing a recording of AXXON N radio play. Of course we can think it as a symbol but I don't like them very much cause they lead to the endless swamps of interpretation. There is also a record player in Smithy's apartment.
There is definitely more than one Sues in this movie if we believe the language of cinema.
Phantom is the Shadow and he is evil. We only see him as "normal" in the radio play and in MTTH where he is selling watch (but this itself is pure Mephistopheles stuff, deals with devil, you know). And when we see Crimp, he vanishes. I think phantom is the evil that is born, so he is a reflection, but whose reflection he is? Well, in the end he is Sue's but that would mean that Sue is boy (Lost Boy). Mind boggles. She is chasing herself.
Why is Doris coming from black and white to the color in the end of MTTH? The only BW stuff in the movie are scenes in hotel room with blurred faces and scenes with the closeups of record player needle (that has been rolling for some time, based on the dust).
And one thing about Axxon N is that we see it three times and heard about it once (it is a readio play) First two written axxon n lines on metal are roadsigns, there are arrows in them and only the last one (Smithy's house) is the "real" Axxon N.
"Where dreams make stars and stars make dreams" it can be read as: "Where dreams make stars that make dreams". Dream of Sue is Star Nikki that is making a movie about Sue, the dreamer.
One thing that bugs me is the scene with a line "Damn, this sounds like a dialogue from our script". Is there a film crew? We hear Kinglsey's voice (with distortion, hmm) and see strange glimpse of camera but is it there?
There is more, much more still bubbling under and surfacing but I have to give it a rest, this is already quite a load to digest.
Some things that keep me awake
Moderators: Brad D, Annie, Jonah, BookhouseBoyBob, Ross, Jerry Horne
Re: Some things that keep me awake
And just to add something I have to tell that I have watch this movie many times from my DVD but this More Things That Happened I have only seen once as downloaded Xvid Avi (I know it's a bad bad thing to do, but hey I own the DVD and they didn't give me any extras
). That MTTH had some errors (missing minuscule pieces of dialogue and scenes) and the audiotrack was way off sync (talk about some Lynchian experience when knocks and screams and words come like 10 seconds before the action). So my knowledge about MTTH isn't complete.
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