Lynch Shorts (from a video including a Kenneth Anger short)

I found a video that had David Lynch's first two well known short films, "The Alphabet" (1968) and "The Grandmother," (1970) the other day, so I rented it. The copy was pretty bad, but you could still see that it was pretty unique stuff.

"The Alphabet" is simple, real simple, animation. But what it contains that is not so simple is Lynch's unusual take on things, and this amazing use of soundscape. The images seem to be drawn on white paper with magic marker and using stop motion animation. It is hard to tell what Lynch is going for here. After this, there is the live action sequence set around a girl in a bed while the letters of the alphabet pop around here on screen, also using a slower stop motion. It all seems like some sort of disturbing "Seasame Street" episode. Lynch's children were rather young when this was made, perhaps he was trying to introduce them, and us, to the (really strange, avant-gaurd) art world using a common childhood knowledge, the alphabet, as a guide.

"The Grandmother" is far more interesting and Lynchian stuff. Here is where we see the seeds of the genius that made "Eraserhead." For those unfamiliar with the Lynchian legend that is the story, here it is: A young boy, with an unhappy home life, plants some seeds in a bed that grow into a grandmother. They are happy together for a short time, until the grandmother dies.

What makes it Lynchian? Well, it is filmed in rather dark and shadowy areas of a rather stark set. It begins with some animation reminiscent of what has come in "The Alphabet" before moving to the parents and the boy coming up out of the ground and "being born." In Lynch's world here, the characters are grown out of the soil, not birthed like humans. The characters all have thick, white make up and reddish orange lips and inner mouths, the boy looks like a Lynchian Eddie Munster and he wears a nerdy suit with a bowtie throughout the film. The parents, who are slobs, soon move to a stark, spooky setting where the boy is forced to endure their humiliation. He wakes up to large orange stain in his bed each morning (supposedly, one imagines, either urine or semen), which his father drags his face through upon discovery each day. The parents don't speak but rather bark a word that sounds like "Mock" when yelling at him.

Sad and lonely, the boy soon finds a bag of "seeds" and places a load of dirt on a bed, plants and waters the seed and grows a plant which "births" a grandmother. For all his love of her, she is rather spooky and stern looking. They don't really evolve any kind of true relationship but Lynch and the actors make it obvious he loves her. There is even the begining of a kissing scene that seems much more like a kiss of lovers that familial expressions of affection.

The grandmother has a fenetic and weird stop motion heart attack and dies and the boy, left to his grief, visits her in the graveyard (where she sits in a rocking chair and smiles at him) before coming home and collapsing on the bed with a Lynchian animation popping up out of his head.

The short explores several themes and devices that would reappear in later Lynch works. The family situation, with much emotional and physical abuse is explored (Laura Palmer). The "earthy" dark recesses of human existence is suggested. (Jeffrey finds an ear in the dirt in "Blue Velvet"). The use of sound (by Lynch and Alan Spelt) is typical Lynch with lots of industrial and synthesized sounds (music by Tractor) flavoring the piece and foreshadowing what was to come on almost all of his further works.

What is new is this idea of a love between a parental figure and a child which borders on incest seemingly initiated by the child. I don't recall Lynch ever returning to this theme again. While "Twin Peaks" surely explores incest, it finds it abusive and lethal. Here, the love seems more like the momentary existence of happiness.

With "The Grandmother," Lynch establishes himself as a filmaker who will explore the dark side of human existence using sets, art direction, soundscapes, make-up, and the tools of an avant-gaurd artist. It is the "seed" of what is to come in his career. Looking back on it, some 30 years later, it is still weird, spooky and distressing to watch. Yet, like much of his later work, it has that "understandable" quality to it that makes the themes and the allegories and the symbolism fairly easy to understand. Lynch takes the common occurances of families generally hidden from public view (like child abuse), exposes them and turns them into artistic statements. He takes the disturbing and makes it disturbing film, but in a way that isn't normal or maudlin. Perhaps it is his removal of "emotion" that makes his films and his characters the most unique. His characters don't necessarily evoke sympathy but they do illicit understanding. This may be the most odd aspect of his artistic work.

The rest of the video was rather drab with a lot of shorts that used stop-motiona animation that prefigures Tool videos. These are boring to me, so I didn't watch any for too long. Then, there was a short by Kenneth Anger called "Fireworks" that was made in 1947. Wow. I had heard Anger's works were "homoerotic," but this takes that phrase to a new level. Anger's "Fireworks" is a mediatation on gay longing that uses the uniformed image of the Navy man as it's ideal. Anger's protagonist dreams of the uniformed male physique and wavers between wanting it sexual and wanting to be physically assaulted by it. His film explores that line between the physicality of sexuality and the physicality of fighting and finds the line blurred beyond unsderstanding. It's pretty typical symbolism nowadays, but for 1947, it's seems quite unique.

Anger does have some odd moments, such as the scene where the uniformed "man" has several "sparklers" coming out of his pant's zipper. It looks silly. But, overall, "Fireworks" leaves you wanting to know more about the man's work.

Report Card (The Alphabet)

Script: B+

Voice Characterizations: A

Animation: D

Originality: A+

Music: A+

Final Grade: B-

Report Card (The Grandmother)

Script: A+

Acting: A+

Cinematography\Lighting: A+

Special Effects\Make Up: A+

Music: A+

Final Grade: A+

Report Card (The Fireworks)

Script: B+

Acting: C

Cinematography\Lighting: A

Special Effects\Make Up: B+

Music: C

Final Grade: B-