Novelist J.G. Ballard once observed David Lynch’s 1986 adaptation, Blue Velvet, was described as “a reshoot of The Wizard of Oz with Kafka’s script and Francis Bacon embellishments.” Lynch aficionados have long known of the director’s fascination with Oz and its alternate realities. In Blue Velvet, a tragic woman named Dorothy wears red shoes. In Lynch’s Wild at Heart (1990), the Good Witch descends from the sky. Inside a pink orb like bubblegum Like Glinda from Oz. “If you have a really wild heart,” The Good Witch tells the film’s ultra-violent protagonist, “You’ll fight for your dreams,” but this is Lynchian art. It is advice that sounds like a statement of conviction.
In the frustrating documentary Lynch/Oz, writer-director Alexandre O. Philippe explores how The Wizard of Oz fits into Lynch’s work with interspersed results. . Divided into six chapters, the film is narrated and “moderated” (as the credits say) by about half a dozen individual contributors, and is effectively a self-influenced, booster-influenced study. (Film critic Amy Nicholson, a frequent New York Times contributor, is also one of the hosts.) Aside from the material originally shot in glitzy theatres, the visuals consist almost entirely of archival footage. , mostly from Lynch’s filmography and movies. From interviews, advertisements, etc., it immediately starts to feel like every movie made since the dawn of cinema.
Each chapter of “Lynch/Oz” effectively functions as a mini-essay on the subject of the documentary, with the moderator discussing narrative prototypes, the unconscious, visual techniques, Lynch’s work, and sometimes his own work. . For example, filmmaker Rodney Usher draws a line at the beginning of chapter two, Film, between Oz and the Robert Zemeckis film, Back to the Future (1985). , opens with a somewhat confusing split screen filled with snippets from both films. Usher says he doesn’t know if “Oz” actually inspired “Back to the Future.” Still, The Wizard of Oz is “a really solid template,” he continued, adding that it’s “a provocative lens for looking through many different stories.”
In “Lynch/Oz” the lens gets dirty very quickly. One of the problems is that this documentary, for example, he repeats several films without rest, rather than delving into one title. Usher talks about “Mulholland Drive” (2001), and director Karin Kusama says the same thing in Chapter 4 (“Multitude”). Usher also talks about “Blue Velvet,” a touchstone that filmmakers Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead will return to in Chapter 5 (“Judy”). Even when the host doesn’t specifically mention the Lynch movie, Phillip sometimes inserts a Lynch movie clip as if to make a point. For example, when including eating scenes from various Lynch productions to go along with Kusama’s story of seeing him eat pancakes with syrup. She waited at the table.
It is interesting to hear John Waters talk about Lynch, a contemporary whom he clearly admires (Chapter 3, “Kind”). (While Waters’ section sounds like an excerpt from a taped interview, the other chapters sound like they were scripted.) And Kusama sums up Lynch’s relationship with Oz in one sentence: I might have enjoyed listening to the story of “When you look at Lynch’s films, these are driven by the laws of the unconscious, so why isn’t ‘Oz’ his foundational text?” As the clips pile up, the 20-minute final chapter (“Dig”), hosted by director David Lowery, incorporates more than 50 films, but whatever the point Phillip is trying to make is , hopelessly lost.
Lynch/Oz
Unrated. Running time: 1 hour 48 minutes. at the theater.
