World of Blue - Archived Forum 2007-2022

All great mentions above. I'd also add Tarkovsky to the list. There's something about the atmosphere of Stalker and Mirror in particular that feels reflected in the themes and visuals of The Return.

It occasionally made me think of Last Year at Marienbad, but nothing new there, a lot of Lynch's work does.

Also, I wondered in places if they'd been watching the Sopranos Kevin Finnerty episode. Which is interesting, because when I first saw that, I wondered if David Chase had been watching Mulholland Drive.

Novalis wrote: I also wanted to add the idea that when Cooper is leading Laura through the woods in parts 17 & 18, the scratching sound and his backward glance to see Laura torn from the world recalls the story of Orpheus and Eurydice in the underworld.[/i].

Yeah... that allusion seems deliberate enough for me to rule out the positive ending theories. I haven't yet found an interpretation of the ending that particularly works for me, but if I do, I'd imagine the Orpheus myth would have something to do it.

waferwhitemilk wrote:

Mr. Jackpots wrote:Kafka. The Metamorphosis. .

I watched Kafka (1991) with Jeremy Irons the other day, and I wouldn't be surprised if Lynch was influenced by that a little. It reminded me of The Return anyway. Good movie!

It's a novel...........

Thatfabulousalien wrote:

waferwhitemilk wrote: I watched Kafka (1991) with Jeremy Irons the other day, and I wouldn't be surprised if Lynch was influenced by that a little. It reminded me of The Return anyway. Good movie!

It's a novel...

a novella, actually.

I don't know why you're quoting me......... I know metamorphosis is a short story by Kafka, i actually read it in german. I also read The castle and The trial. But Kafka is also a movie from 1991 starring Jeremy Irons that mixes up Kafka's real lifestory with some of his fiction stories. And that's the association i made when someone mentioned Kafka, having just seen it the other day. I don't really know what was unclear about that, but let me just take this opportunity to again recommend that movie. It starts off in black and white and then goes to colour and it's basically about a guy (Kafka, writer of metamorphosis, a novella) who works for an insurance company and who gets trapped in his own stories, starring Jeremy Irons. I hope that explains it so everything is perfectly clear..........

Novalis wrote:I also wanted to add the idea that when Cooper is leading Laura through the woods in parts 17 & 18, the scratching sound and his backward glance to see Laura torn from the world recalls the story of Orpheus and Eurydice in the underworld.

Yes, strongly agreed. There are also a couple of scenes -- Naido walking while feeling the wall (part 3) & Coop leading Laura (parts 17/18) -- that immediately reminded me of Jean Cocteau's Orphee (/Orpheus). There are also broader thematic connections, backwards scenes, mirrors, classical Greek statuary (/natuary), etc.

A while ago someone on this forum noticed that there was an episode of The Twilight Zone that had some interesting parallels with S3. It was called something like 'the hitch-hiker' I believe. I googled it up and watched it, and while I don't think that particular episode is extremely resonant, I will confess that the Twilight Zone in general could be held up as an influence, even if one of the minor ones. On second thoughts, the whole zany 50s and 60s B-movie genre during the red scare years seems like a strong cultural influence (especially on Frost, with his sometimes-tongue-in-cheek love of Forteana). The character of Gordon Cole and his Blue Rose classification, vaguely steampunk hearing aid and hyper-institutionalised mannerism also play somewhat like some B-movie / comic book setup.

On second thought (again), Cole's hearing aid with large panel and starburst dial isn't so much steampunk as what some people call 'gothic ray gun' -- like the antennae on the bell-shaped devices in Shambhala/Fireman's cinema tower, and like the star-strewn iconology of The Forbidden Planet and similar films. There was a kind of cinematic futurism going on in the west during the 1950s and 60s, part rivalry and part paranoia over the Futurist and Gnostic-Cybernetic movements that had come across clearly in both early Soviet cinema and in Lang's Metropolis. Lynch's use of these motifs hark back to an era of sputniks in the news and estrangement over technology in the home, when telecommunication and satellites were still fairly new and bewildering things. We can talk about Lucy and cellphones if you like, but her reaction to Frank walking in while talking to her on the phone is no exaggeration of the kind of marvel in which 1950s and 1960s cinema revelled over such achievements as the worldwide transmission and relay of messages, nation-wide broadcasts and the marvel of colour television. Manned space-flight was still around the corner, the moon was as yet unconquered and Mars was a planet filled with bug-eyed aliens, but the miracle of TV and even Radio was still something largely inexplicable to the masses that could only be represented in the imagination by concentric circles emanating from masts and aerials. Thus: 'gothic ray gun'.

It's interesting that the FBI and the good guys (Dido and the Fireman) are surrounded with what seems like antiquated technologies. Cole spends a whole scene mesmerised by all the blinking and beeping equipment in his office -- I don't know what those readouts were about but they did seem an awful lot like an updated version of late Cold War / Roddenberry-era Star Trek consoles, not what we would recognise as cutting edge. It's ironic that out-of-date looking tech is often used to represent ultra-hi-tech with esoteric purposes (like Egon Spengler's unwieldy PKE meter or the proton packs in Ghostbusters, for instance).

On the other, Mr. C seems much more comfortable with cellphones than Mullens did. He has no difficulty hacking a notebook or the prison security system. He can turn a vehicle tracking device against itself just by entering a registration plate into a phone and tossing it through the window. He even has a Windom Earle box-of-tricks briefcase.

This post has got out of hand. I only really wanted to register the idea that S3 was influenced by a Twilight Zone and 50s B-movie aesthetic.

Lucy and cellphones...

carlos castaneda

alreadygoneplaces wrote:It occasionally made me think of Last Year at Marienbad, but nothing new there, a lot of Lynch's work does.

I'm glad you mentioned this movie though, since I'd never heard of it. I found an immersive review of it at criterion.com that really makes me want to see it now!

I'm rereading Bulgakov's Master and Margarita, I had pulled it off the shelf much earlier to visit how he treats the concept of evil in the world as well as the surrealist detail. Didn't expect to find explicit suggestions of Lynch-like familiarity. But the opening intro of devil "Woland" with eyes of two colors I couldn't help but think of David Bowie. And there are certain plays on the concept of time in that first chapter which go unaccounted for. Additional touches have struck a chord resembling Lynch-worlds as it is a story-within-a-story for example. I hope to encounter more as I keep reading~

alreadygoneplaces wrote:It occasionally made me think of Last Year at Marienbad, but nothing new there, a lot of Lynch's work does.

Absolutely. The famous shot of the trees not having shadows when everything else does is similar to some of the glitching reflections &c. in S3. And of course the temporal displacement, repeated dialogue and scenes, &c.

Novalis wrote:A while ago someone on this forum noticed that there was an episode of The Twilight Zone that had some interesting parallels with S3. It was called something like 'the hitch-hiker' I believe. I googled it up and watched it, and while I don't think that particular episode is extremely resonant, I will confess that the Twilight Zone in general could be held up as an influence, even if one of the minor ones. On second thoughts, the whole zany 50s and 60s B-movie genre during the red scare years seems like a strong cultural influence (especially on Frost, with his sometimes-tongue-in-cheek love of Forteana). The character of Gordon Cole and his Blue Rose classification, vaguely steampunk hearing aid and hyper-institutionalised mannerism also play somewhat like some B-movie / comic book setup.

On second thought (again), Cole's hearing aid with large panel and starburst dial isn't so much steampunk as what some people call 'gothic ray gun' -- like the antennae on the bell-shaped devices in Shambhala/Fireman's cinema tower, and like the star-strewn iconology of The Forbidden Planet and similar films. There was a kind of cinematic futurism going on in the west during the 1950s and 60s, part rivalry and part paranoia over the Futurist and Gnostic-Cybernetic movements that had come across clearly in both early Soviet cinema and in Lang's Metropolis. Lynch's use of these motifs hark back to an era of sputniks in the news and estrangement over technology in the home, when telecommunication and satellites were still fairly new and bewildering things. We can talk about Lucy and cellphones if you like, but her reaction to Frank walking in while talking to her on the phone is no exaggeration of the kind of marvel in which 1950s and 1960s cinema revelled over such achievements as the worldwide transmission and relay of messages, nation-wide broadcasts and the marvel of colour television. Manned space-flight was still around the corner, the moon was as yet unconquered and Mars was a planet filled with bug-eyed aliens, but the miracle of TV and even Radio was still something largely inexplicable to the masses that could only be represented in the imagination by concentric circles emanating from masts and aerials. Thus: 'gothic ray gun'.

It's interesting that the FBI and the good guys (Dido and the Fireman) are surrounded with what seems like antiquated technologies. Cole spends a whole scene mesmerised by all the blinking and beeping equipment in his office -- I don't know what those readouts were about but they did seem an awful lot like an updated version of late Cold War / Roddenberry-era Star Trek consoles, not what we would recognise as cutting edge. It's ironic that out-of-date looking tech is often used to represent ultra-hi-tech with esoteric purposes (like Egon Spengler's unwieldy PKE meter or the proton packs in Ghostbusters, for instance).

On the other, Mr. C seems much more comfortable with cellphones than Mullens did. He has no difficulty hacking a notebook or the prison security system. He can turn a vehicle tracking device against itself just by entering a registration plate into a phone and tossing it through the window. He even has a Windom Earle box-of-tricks briefcase.

This post has got out of hand. I only really wanted to register the idea that S3 was influenced by a Twilight Zone and 50s B-movie aesthetic.

Lucy and cellphones...

I see a lot more similarities between the Return and the Twilight Zone episode "Shadow Play" especially after now seeing the ending to the Return. The zooming in the clock, caught in an endless loop. Guy in jail being described as an animal (Nadio/drunk sounds anyone?) And at one point the defense attorney says something about ending his story Just like Charlie did to Audrey.

chromereflectsimage wrote:I see a lot more similarities between the Return and the Twilight Zone episode "Shadow Play" especially after now seeing the ending to the Return. The zooming in the clock, caught in an endless loop. Guy in jail being described as an animal (Nadio/drunk sounds anyone?) And at one point the defense attorney says something about ending his story Just like Charlie did to Audrey.

I'll dig it up and give it a watch. I've not seen many Twilight Zone episodes to be honest, and of the ones I've seen they've been really variable quality. I like the format and the aesthetic more than the stories sometimes.

It's interesting. I used to be a real glutton for the 'Weird Tales' vibe right around the time FWWM came out. That interest has ebbed and flowed in the interim years, but it's returned full force since S3 aired.

I don't want to assume that any movie/tv show is Robert Altman-esque just because it has a lot of characters, but his "Nashville" came to my mind while watching The Return. Both works are dense characters mosaics where the vast majority of it's characters bounce around independent of each other, oblivious of their shared connections. Although in Nashville, the characters' experiences are all centered around a political rally and it's planning/buildup, whereas in The Return, it's harder to establish what is the center of the narrative universe, and how the characters relate to each other. Like... how does a Native-American police officer in rural Washington connect to two junk food eating assassins driving cross county, and how do they both relate to a young man who quietly watches a giant glass box in NYC? They obviously all connect in some way, but the connection is less well defined than in Nashville, and more open to interpretation and debate. But similar to Nashville, The Return lets us look at one event (or series of events) through different perspectives, in a way that gives us a very broad and subjective view of the subject matter.

Maybe it's tenuous at best, but Nashville is the closest thing that comes to mind while watching The Return. And I suppose the Audrey stuff might be reminiscent of Bunel's "Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie", except Audrey (sort of) finally gets to her destination, so maybe not.

Picnic at Hanging Rock

I watched 'Suicide Club' and 'Noriko's Dinner Table' yesterday and they're both great. I also think they might have influenced Lynch and/or Frost in what they were trying to do with 'The Return'. There's even a very explicit red balloons scene in Noriko (explicitly red balloons, not sexrelated or anything). Having said that, i hated 'The Return'.