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David Lynch Retrospective "Moving Through Time" @Music Box Theatre Pt. 2
- Scary Fingers
- 2 days ago
- 12 min read
Here follows my continued adventures at Music Box Theatre’s “Moving Through Time” David Lynch retrospective, presented by Daniel Knox. Part One Here.
Tuesday, April 15th.
I dressed in a black suit and tie, white shirt, and a white envelope with a pen and two makeup sticks resembling pens duct taped beside my lapel as a facsimile pocket to complete my costume as the Eraserhead protagonist, Henry Spencer. I had expected more people to dress up, so I was extremely self-conscious in my getup, and suspected the character felt the same anxiety through out the film. Entering the theatre, I was greeted by a man with an eraserhead baby strapped to his chest in a child carrier, who then checked my ticket. There was at least one other man cradling an eraserhead baby in the audience.
After the movie was to be a Q&A with Charlotte Stewart, the actress who portrays Mary X in Eraserhead and Mary Briggs in Twin Peaks. Before the movie, Stewart chatted with the promoters outside theater one, and I debated going up and talking to her before the movie, but convinced myself I could wait to hear her speak in the post-movie Q&A.
When I moved up a row for a better view before the film, a bearded dude in black a row up way to the right turned and said, “Nice Henry costume!” and extended toward me a mask of Jack Nance’s huge head. “You can join us afterwards for pictures for our Black Lodge collection.”
Not knowing what this commitment could possibly entail and whether or not he expected me to put the mask on at that very moment, I simply nodded and smiled, now holding in my lap a giant Jack Nance head staring bug eyed up at me. I guess I own this now, I thought.
The movie was played on 35mm film, and on screen it seemed more blurry than my last viewing and glowed with more light than it needed. In scenes where characters disappeared into pure darkness, I could still see them faintly standing there before the scene cut. In the scene where a pencil leaves a mark on paper, you could not see the pencil mark. Maybe it was due to the film's age, or maybe the light should have been dimmed to make up for that.
In the Q&A, Charlotte Stewart said when she first met David Lynch, he was wearing two bow ties, his favorite, and the one he saved for special occasions. She told the story of preparing for a scene where Jack Nance’s character pushes through her torso into a pit of fetuses–a scene ultimately cut from the film–where Stewart had to lie naked under a sheet in order to be covered with the plaster to construct a false torso. She kept the torso on her wall for 40 years before giving it away, because you can only have a torso with a pit of fetuses on your living room wall for so long. Not sure if the fetuses came separately or whether they stayed with the torso formerly on the living room wall.
After the Q&A, Stewart signed autographs on a choice of two pictures, a film still of her cross-eyed and a recent photo of her with David Lynch. I waited maybe 20 minutes, slightly shaking, stressed on which picture to buy, how much it would cost or if I’d be asked to leave in preparation for the next film before getting the chance. When finally I went up, I requested both photographs, sending myself out of 40 bucks. As I said hello and tried to get my credit card out, I dropped my wallet with a splatter of change. In picking it up my false pocket with pens fell off and Stewart and her assistant chuckled. When she was ready to sign them, I spelled my name for her. She seemed impressed. “That’s the old fashioned way of spelling it,” she said.
“Yeah, everybody always spells it wrong,” I said.
Signing the second photo of her and Lynch, she said, “This is the last time I saw him alive.”
Given that heavy statement, I needed to say something. “It’s a nice picture,” I said.
“Have a nice night. God bless you,” she added, taking me somewhat by surprise.
“You too,” I said, and carried everything over to a leather armchair next to the men’s room to sit and collect myself.
In that time I spent waiting, moviegoers were let in for the showing of Dune. I figured what the hell and sat in the back of the theater for some pre-show clips and interviews about the film. On an image of the actress portraying Lady Jessica, I realized that I really didn’t like this film and not even sneaking into the movies for free could convince me to rewatch it in the span of a few months. I checked the bus times and headed out. I ran down the sidewalk past some couple, tie flapping, explaining I was catching a bus, clutching my Henry Spencer mask and signed autographs. When I reached the stop, I learned the bus was delayed, the couple passed by me, and I stood around 13 minutes wondering if I would get abducted in my Henry Spencer getup, never to be seen again. On the bus home I heard a strange one-sided conversation from a young man on the phone that sounded like his friend’s crush had been killed. He ended the call by saying he was glad his friend was alive, and for him to go to sleep.
Wednesday, April 16th - Blue Velvet
I showed up in a blue rayon dress. I saved a seat and tried to get out of the row to the bathroom and slammed into someone’s drink, sloshing it on my suede shoe, and apologized multiple times, hoping I wouldn’t be asked to reimburse them for it. Thankfully, the drink was still in the cup holder, so most of it was left, and I’d brought black heels to switch into. On the way back to my seat, I thought, I’ll go in from the other side, so I won’t knock into their drink again. Coming from the other side I slammed into someones extra large drink which hit the ground and rolled away under the seats, leaving only a lid with a straw through it. I apologized over and over as the owner bent down to see if they could salvage anything. The only other thing the floor was a pile of spilled popcorn, which I hope I had nothing to do with. “Well, that’s gone,” she said.
Blue Velvet was presented on 35mm film, so there were black spots and lines on screen, adding an authentic touch. As the film wore on, scenes jumped and multicolored lines danced on screen, making me nervous something would go horribly wrong. Sometime through the movie, when Jeffrey is in his car snapping pictures of the Man in the Yellow Suit, a huge black circle came from the right and obliterated all sight and sound. The screen was pure black, blacker than any fade out in the film. After some seconds, the audience started to murmur. I looked at my friend to say anything and said, “Uh oh.” We sat there with no movie or sound for some seconds before the blackness fell away to the left, like the second shoulder of a massive shadow passing across the projector light. The film resumed in vivid color a fraction of a second before where it left off, depicting the Man in the Yellow Suit passing off a suitcase to The Well Dressed Man. I imagined there was a problem switching projector reels on time. However, according to a redditor on which scenes Blue Velvet's six film reels would be changed, none of them appeared to end or start at this scene, so who knows what happened. The rest of the film had no issues.
As we left and I purchased another ticket from the box office, I noticed an abandoned eraserhead baby lying behind the counter.
Thursday, April 17th - Red Rock West / “My Last Martini” / Wild At Heart
Thursday I showed up in all black with a leather jacket and very dark shades, which is as close as I could get to Nicholas Cage’s character in Wild at Heart. I only had the change before I made a break for the bus, and ended up waiting around for it. All I had with me to eat until 8pm was a sucker, a little cube of gum, and a mint.
The non-Lynch film, Red Rock West, is a kind of neo-western starring Nicholas Cage, (who stars in Wild at Heart) who gets tangled in an attempted hit on some guy’s wife, played by Lara Flynn Boyle, (who plays Donna in Twin Peaks,) who in turn wants Cage’s character to kill her husband. Dennis Hopper (who stars in Blue Velvet) plays the real hitman. It was alright.
I fended off fainting during the film by eating the mint and chewing the gum. I’d eaten the sucker on the bus. I thought I’d have a chance to purchase a bagel but the line for Wild at Heart was already extending down the block, so I got in line.
Some preteen girls came by giggling, asking “What are you in line for? What’s the line for?” as they passed. No one answered.
Across the street, a Black man in a uniform stood outside a business and yelled, “What are y’all in line for?”
“Wild at Heart!” shouted back a woman.
There was a pause.
“‘Wilding Heart?’” he shouted back.
No one answered. After a beat, the man went back inside.
The short film, “My Last Martini,” based on the Barry Gifford short story, preceded Wild at Heart, a movie based off his novel of the same name. A Q&A with director Rob Christopher and actress Wendy Robie who stars in the film, (and plays Nadine in Twin Peaks.) In the Q&A, she shared a memory of filming Twin Peaks where, in taking off a door, it slammed into her leg, leaving a massive bruise. Episode director Diane Keaton let her chose the take, so she picked the leg slamming one to immortalize it.
I had to move up a row after two extremely tall people sat in front of me, and the dude next to me said “Was it because I’m tall?” As Christopher and Robie exited from their interview chairs, the guy said, “Do you come here often?” I had to ask him to repeat himself. “Do people usually give standing ovations? I feel we should have given a standing ovation.” I said I didn’t know, but thought if he really cared so much nobody was stopping him from starting one. And then he left before Wild at Heart was even close to over.
Wild at Heart was a funny wild ride. Throughout the film, an incessant mumbling of an aimless tune with no words came from some dude behind me to the left which would occasionally cease at an abrupt scene change. I had to ignore it. It took serious restraint not to turn around and look at this person. If you’ve never seen this one, I highly recommend reading Gifford’s novel first. The movie changes things that work within the world, adds mystery, and increases the stakes. When I heard “Be-bop-a-Lula” by Gene Vincent & His Blue Caps in the soundtrack, all I could think was Wow! I love this song! The ending made me emotional, but the choice to include credits to the left and right over the final scene gave apparent permission for the audience to start chattering and murmuring, though the movie wasn’t technically over, and the scene finished after the last credits had rolled and gone.
On the way out, Music Box Theatre was already preparing for what presenter Daniel Knox called “Twin Peaks Night.” In the area outside a theatre, people crowded around a man standing with an owl perching on his arm, near an assistant old man with glasses sitting in a chair beside him. Besides that guy was a table where a woman wearing a RR diner waitress outfit was selling slices of pie. I felt faint. I muscled my way to the table. There wasn’t exactly a line. Most would-be buyers likely would wait until closer to the showing of Fire Walk With Me.
“How much is the pie?”
“It’s 6.50,” she said.
I thought that was crazy cheap considering the money I’d bled lately. “What kind of pie is it?”
“We have key lime and cherry.”
There were also brown things on a paper doily on a silver tray.
“What are those?” I asked.
“These are vegan log cookies.” She listed the ingredients.
I decided to leave them for the vegans. I had a band interview to get to so, I used my dad’s credit card to buy an emergency slice, stuffed some coffee creamers in my pockets and ran out with my slice of key lime pie. It was all gone by the time I got on the bus. I was sprinting to my interview listening to “Be-Bop-a-Lula” on my headphones when I finally connected the glaring fact that Laura Dern’s character is named Lula, which is a much more important reason for its being in the film besides it being a good song. Then I knew my diet of a sucker, a mint, gum, and a slice of key lime pie had gotten to me. I had completely forgotten the two coffee creamers in my pocket until hours later.
Saturday - “On the Air 1 & 7” / “Industrial Symphony No. 1” / The Short Films of David Lynch
“On the Air” is the little-known television show written by David Lynch and Mark Frost, creators of the hit TV show Twin Peaks. The pilot was filmed right when Twin Peaks was being cancelled, so through their contract, they were still able to film On The Air. This show about filming a television show in 1957 was meant to be an absurdist comedy. It was cancelled after only seven episodes, and I can see why. As a matter of fact, it was a mercy killing, and it’s for the best lost to obscurity. The pilot episode projected had Japanese subtitles, which shows how rare it is to find. It was sort of funny at the end, but the finale wasn't any better. The characters were cartoonish, the set, props, and costume colors were loud and cluttered, and the jokes didn’t land. According to Nancye Ferguson in a prerecorded interview shown before “On the Air,” actor Miguel Ferrer (Albert in Twin Peaks) was the only one on set who didn’t think the show was going to go on forever, which is interesting considering he plays the only serious and negative character who constantly sweats about the fictional television show’s failures. Speaking of failures, the pre-show of shorts before “On the Air” suffered from a lack of sound, and the prerecorded interview presentation had to be stalled by the interviewer himself while the sound was worked out.
The total bomb was followed by a rare treat. Industrial Symphony No. 1 is a concert film, a prerecorded performance with music by Angelo Badalamenti, lyrics by David Lynch, and features singer Julee Cruise in a dress illuminated and suspended in air over the industrial rusty ominous darkness below, featuring a prowling topless woman, a flayed deer on a stretcher, and a man “floating” by his ankles here and there among the flashing lights, and later actor Michael J. Anderson (The Man from Another Place in Twin Peaks) sawing a log with one platform silver boot and one short silver boot, until a man with a flashlight scares him off. Subtitled Song of the Brokenhearted, it is preluded by Actress Laura Dern and Nicholas Cage, Lula and Sailor in Wild at Heart, respectively, engaged in a telephone conversation. Having seen Wild at Heart the previous day, it was an effective framing story for the performance categorized by heartbreak, longing, and darkness. I was emotionally moved and had to keep my eyeballs from leaking, and even heard sniffling in the rows behind me, but I couldn’t be sure if it wasn’t only the first symptoms of allergy season.
This presentation of The Short Films of David Lynch was comprised of his earliest films–which I had seen most of already. The first presentation was all eight episodes of Lynch’s adobe flash animated two-toned Dumbland, a crude adult comedy, with all characters voiced by Lynch. Some of it was really funny. I was left wishing there were more episodes. Had I known I’d have to sit through “Six Sick Men Getting Sick (Six Times),” a looped animation six times with a constant air raid drone, I might not have gone. The Grandmother, a longer short film predating Eraserhead, The Amputee, both takes, the second which I’d never seen. In the other take, the narration is flatter, and blood from the amputated stump is more out of control and spurts onto the letter actress Catherine E. Coulson (The Log Lady in Twin Peaks) is writing on. That’s kind of hard to ignore, even in a Lynch film.
I am going to miss seeing repeat attendees and being surrounded by the Lynch fanbase. I will not see the world the same. Res ipsa loquitur.
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