David Lynch and Trancendental Meditation
The book is about a lot of things, and while it is primarily about Lynch’s experience with TM, and there is no small amount of proselytizing, I still didn’t feel like it was a hard sell. I mean, with sentences like “I call that depression and anger the Suffocating Rubber Clown Suit of Negativity,” we’re safely out of Deepak Chopra territory. At first blush, it doesn’t make sense that the same guy who made Wild at Heart meditates. He actually addresses the incongruity of the violence of his films and all the peace and bliss talk of TM, though I don’t totally buy the explanation.
But really, the TM actually makes Lynch make a lot of sense. I don’t know a ton about TM, besides that it’s something of a pay-per-enlightenment cult. But I know that part of the schtick is that it’s about meditating to get in touch with this deep well of ideas inside you, and to let them ideas bubble up, and the content of them is actually not so important*. I think this goes a long way to account for his filmmaking style, which is often very rich, evocative, original, fecund, though the actual content is somewhat inscrutable.
*Buy me a beer sometime and I’ll tell you about how I know anything about TM
PS: I think Wild at Heart is the suckiest of his movies that I’ve seen.
January 18th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
I suspected Lynch was into TM based on the link to the Maharishi University of Management prominently displayed on his home page. I can’t fault you for buying the book and I don’t think any less of Lynch but Transcendental MeditationTM (or TMTM) is one of those things that for many reasons drives the needle of my bullshit detector straight into the red zone. The fact that it’s trademarked is not least among those reasons.
I suppose next they’ll be telling us that the spiritual revolution will not be copyrighted.
PS - Wild At Heart is probably my least favorite Lynch film as well but it makes for an interesting companion piece to Industrial Symphony No. 1.
January 19th, 2007 at 1:10 am
This brief interview with Lynch just came out today. I didn’t realize he was doing a book signing as well. He touches on TM but more importantly, he answered the question I had planned on asking him at the Q&A next week.
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A437367
January 19th, 2007 at 10:23 am
75% probability - you were going to ask about DV.
25% probability - you were going to ask about self distribution.
0% probability - “Can you explain what happens when a person starts practicing Transcendental Meditation?”
January 19th, 2007 at 10:24 am
40% probability - you’ll surprise me and it will be none of the above
January 19th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Good call on your part. My (multi-part) question was (or would have been): is the film being projected digitally or via film transfer? Do you consider the video-to-film transfer as a regrettable necessity (most theaters not being equipped for digital projection) or does the generation loss inherent in the process serve your aesthetic?
Based on his answer, Lynch seems partial to digital projection, but embraces the imperfections that can result when transferring video to film.
January 22nd, 2007 at 10:10 am
Hey schweets, you’ve been tagged! This one should be easy for you.
See my blog for scoop.