I see a lot of people saying that you should be weird or uncompromising in your art, and that's all well and good, but if there's one lesson you should take from David Lynch's career, it should be to love the people around you as openly as possible.
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I know that sounds vague but it's in everything he said and did; everything he does is about trying to get everyone to be open with each other. He wanted you to love each other; that's what he kept saying and doing over and over again.
He found joy in things, and he'd put the things he loved in his work. He'd be like "golly, that's really neat!" and then he'd just put that in his stuff. To think of him like "oooh, the super weird guy. you should be weird" misses the point. You should do what you love, not what you find weird.
to be unabashedly yourself, you must love other people. it's the people who are self-conscious--because they love themselves more than anyone else--who are incapable of being as weird and interesting as they could be. All they think is "what will you think of me?"
Honestly been struggling with his passing and what to take away from his life, and I think you put it together in such a beautiful way. Thank you, I needed to hear that.
Everyone's trying so hard to be the main character in their own weird story that they forgot the best art comes from making other people feel like they're part of yours. Lynch wasn't a lone genius - he was a genius at making people feel loved.
I think that people are focusing on the individual when David Lynch himself would admit how much of filmmaking is a collaborative process. How he would take inspiration from those surrounding him and let the art express itself as a group effort.
IMHO, art is about freedom of expression, not doing what 'a lot of people' say we 'should' do, which would normalise us.
'Weird' is impossible to pin down. If enough people are 'weird', it morphs into 'normal'. I don't think either state exists; there's just what's in fashion and what isn't.
If a film as eerie, strange & outright disgusting as Eraserhead can be, in its own awful way, about love & connection, then anything can.
"Fix [your] hearts, or die." is the essence of his ouvre, said with his own lips, through a character coming to grips with his failure to achieve that demand.
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you should do what you're capable of doing, and make sure the people you're working with are 'puppy dogs with our tails wagging'
otherwise it’s just being contrarian for its own sake, passionless with no love behind it.
'Weird' is impossible to pin down. If enough people are 'weird', it morphs into 'normal'. I don't think either state exists; there's just what's in fashion and what isn't.
"Fix [your] hearts, or die." is the essence of his ouvre, said with his own lips, through a character coming to grips with his failure to achieve that demand.