You can tell how self-conscious and critical he was of himself by the way he answers the question but also interrupts himself in between. It’s as if he’s listening to himself talk and critizing the words that come out of his mouth simultaneously.
you're not wrong but it's probably also the fact that he's thought about this idea for a while and it might or might not answer the question, but it's something he had to get out. But he's just making sure he conveys every single expression of what he perceives to be the true answer, even if it explores difference ideas.
you could tell this man was hell bent on authenticity and yet never felt like he could be as authentic as he wished (even though he was, without a doubt). i know because I identify with a lot of things he has said regarding this topic. LIke him, Im obsessed with it, and yet chasing authenticity seems like the best way to "scare it away" from your life, bc you never feel like you have finally gotten there. But you see it so clearly in other people, and you admire it and you even find yourself gravitanting around people who seem to be fully themselves and unconsciously trying to emulate them. It's the curse of living too much in your head. "Thats what authenticity is suppposed to look like". But in reality, most of these people are not even that self aware. They dont walk around constantly picking apart their actions and evaluating how authentic they are. They just embrace the whole. Even the mistakes and the "not so authentic" parts of themselves. Bc its not about reaching that perfect, final and "unactualizable" version. And its not about using others' authenticity as parameters to measure your own. It's about simply being
"And it's not about using others' authenticity as parameters to measure our own." I was literally just saying this to myself before reading your comment. It's wild how we can all so easily forget or miss the simple fact that recognizing (or at least 'perceiving') authenticity in someone else can cause us to singlehandedly assume their outward representation of authenticity should be emulated through ourselves.
Lynch started as a visual artist. A painter. Those who knew him in his early years as an artist say he always had his own singular vision. Unlike his friends he didn’t use drugs. He was more interested in realizing his vision. So, yes, someone who didn’t think about being authentic. He just was.
Not just be true to yourself but do what you're truly passionate about. Even if you're not being original (and who really is) real passion is infectious , people can feel it in your work and will enjoy it.
The issue with that for me is all I seem to be passionate about is video games and porn. So I can’t really be authentic, or I’ll never get stuff done. I have to pretend to be into all sorts of lame stuff that I really don’t care about just to get by in the world. My kind of authenticity is not celebrated
This is a remarkable moment in TV history, for many reasons, but none as notable as the fact that for two minutes and twenty five seconds, Charlie Rose did _not_ interject himself into the middle of a remarkable moment.
This is such a cheap comment, this moment only exists because Charlie midwifed it, he was excellent in this interview, and managed to make David, who really didn't like interviews, feel comfortable in not only this interview, but the prior one he did with him, which is why he would have felt comfortable returning to do a full length one. Comments like this, and their popularity, boil down to, "it's fashionable to dislike Charlie Rose", that's it, that's all that's needed to make countless high-status sheep upvote it.
I didn't notice that fact till I read this comment, but now I remember I used to find Charlie Rose aggravating for exactly the thing that he doesn't do here.
@@pezushka I was not trying to adhere to any fashion regarding Charlie Rose. My comment was based on my own sincere personal observations of his interviews, where he seems to have a greater interest in his own opinions than those of his guests. Compare his style to someone like Dick Cavett (or heck, Johnny Carson!), who let interviews breathe, and let interviewees expand. CR constantly cuts people off and opines and it becomes more about CR than the interviewee. This moment felt different. Perhaps CR was in greater awe of DFW and hence more taciturn.
Blue Velvet is the first Lynch movie that truly hit me in the face (a few times), although I had seen Eraserhead before. I agree. First time I see Wallace speaks, and so well.
"Blue Velvet" is about the only Lynch creation that I respect. Much of his other stuff is self-indulgent, repetitive and insulting to the audience, even if they don't realize it and think he's being so avant garde and challenging. He's not. Over time, he became so entrenched in the same kind of phony warping of reality that I couldn't watch him films or TV series anymore.
the trust artist who is true to himself... is like 95 % of all artists. it is why most fail. they forget that they doing an impression or show for other people. i don't mind nihilistic artists such as wallace, but at the end of day... nobody knows him outside the usa, and most americans never heard about him. he was a nobody, at this point, a product of media craze, perhaps, because media loves nihilistic artists, to some degree.
So what if it’s not in the mainstream? It doesn’t matter, in my opinion. The “mainstream” is a commercial stream - which is completely fine. But if someone is making art, just make it and be satisfied with expressing it regardless of whether people want to pay for it.
@@misterbeach8826 a failed artist is an artist that compromises their art to become an entertainer for the masses. An artist that never sells an artwork but stays true to their vision is a successful artist. It's funny that you are doing some textbook projection by accussing others of being nihilist while simultaneously denying any inherent value in artistic work and instead solely measuring it for it's ability to participate in the accumulation of capital.
Those who wish to appear edgy love to represent “the mainstream” as compromise. Instead of what it is; commonality. The irony being there’s nothing more common, and hence more mainstream, than the “them’n’us” attitude.
Well that’s when it’s time to find a way to make money in a way in which you are not forced to compromise your values. To be truly uncompromised one must be willing to rise to the occasion in which they are so secure they never have any reason to compromise.
I've been thinking about this, thing is it's easy to say and hard to do, but i view investing my hard earned money as my shortest path to acheving this kind of freedom. I am not close yet though and i provide for others. i like the comment. Maybe i should have picked a partner who earns more than me to let me be the freier geist 😂 @@giovannimartin3239
David Lynch seems to be an artist who is more in tune with dreams than almost any other. He somehow captures that perfect dream logic, that perfect sense that dreams make, even though it's nonsense. I know he's very into transcendental meditation; certainly also on the spectrum. I see a lot of myself in him and I strive to learn more about me and my psyche and figure out how I can be my most authentic self and share that with the world.
@MassimoAngotzi if you knew anything about what you were talking about, you'd at least be able to see what I mean. The fact that you can't even do that means that you clearly don't know enough about it to make that kind of judgement.
@@bufficliff8978 ive never been someone else so i dont think i could ever wholly know another persons perspective. but i like to believe that every person has a unique perspective - i mean to say we have all lived unique lives filled with unique experiences.
Wow, I didn't expect this to involve one of my favourite films. Blue Velvet was one of the most novel experiences in my lifetime. Haven't had a movie warp my mind since.
The following claim is _not_ meant to say anything about Wallace's writing, but man, just in general, he was probably the most media-literate human being I've become aware of. Given the time period into which he was born, he might've been a one-off. He lived during a time of seriously rapid media development, both technologically and conceptually. It'd be hard to imagine a more artistically-ripe future-especially considering how stifling our modern media can be! Or is that just my own lack of perception to see my time period as such?
I see right now as the best moment in history for anyone to raise their media literacy and create revolutionary art. The inundation of new technologies and new techniques and new formats in every medium has fostered (lol) a world in which rapid progression is the norm. I was born in 2002, so I didn't grow up having to learn how to understand new technology. I was born into a landscape of constantly changing technology, so instead of learning how to keep up, I'm learning how to reject keeping up. I'm learning how to cut through the fold to nestle myself a little home in the shit show. The art I create is entirely mine, and wouldn't be possible without all the new forms and techniques that have flooded the world. Butttt, those techniques and forms are meaningless without my unbridled imagination bringing them to life, and a dream of the new vast possibilities, of new artistic horizons simply can't fit in the old guard's boxes. Cinema, photography, news, journalism, any of it, it's all been shaken up foundationally by the internet and this new ability for anyone anywhere to know any information. The old rules don't matter anymore. Letting anyone else tell you how to go about shit like they know is worthless. No one knows anything anymore, and its those of us who recognize that and begin to redefine the world personally, to ourselves, who will get to shape what the future looks like.
@@transgenderbasketballplayer There is no best moment in history. Please, don't read me as one of those 'my generation was better' types. At the end of the day, we all get to go through the same old story. This song plays on repeat. In fact, the only way for one generation to ever become truly original would be for it to be the first to recognize just how vastly cliche any belief in originality is. There's this old expression, _youth is wasted on the young._ You will all but certainly have to come terms with its cruel irony, just as I have. See, there's a corollary to the forced rigidity of age, and that's the impractical elasticity of a fresh mind. While you may, no doubt, _perceive_ your present time & circumstance to be privileged or unique, you'll discover much-too-late the unfortunate reality that it was anything but. Consider that not all advancements are linear. Thus, subsequent contributions are not necessarily equivalent in degree, unless adjusted for scale. Many ideas are just natural extensions of a progenitor. There's a seed of thought I would like to plant for you. Allow this idea to unfold as time progresses: no matter which time period one has been born into, there will already be far more available media (at the time of one's birth) than one will _ever_ be able to make use of artistically. You are neither the first mind to come into the endless expanse of thought nor are you of the first generation to fail to be able to make use of it all. With respect, have some respect for your predecessors. Don't underestimate their capacity for understanding of this "landscape of constantly changing technology," and don't overestimate the value of your own. As your own time begins to solidify you, you'll start to understand that you didn't have to _learn_ to reject keeping up; you were never capable of doing so in the first place-none of us are. Try not to dismiss old ideas, and try not to emphasize novel ones; novelty is illusory, because it is not the newness of an idea that allows a tumbler to turn, but the alignment of changing circumstances. And one more thing: you "shape" nothing about the future. Deterministic forces are far beyond the scope of your control, and early Hominins already set things in motion that you and I cannot overpower. But try anyway. Genuinely, best of luck. Signed, -an old guard.
@@transgenderbasketballplayerspoken like someone truly bred into the postmodern paradigm...it will take another 25 years to wash away this toxic mindset 😢
I feel like this with the paintings of Frank Frazetta. They pull you into a World that is 100% made out of his soul and i think this phenomenon is what truly describes Art, invite people into the artists soul. Of course there are a Million ways to do it. Some people find the Tools to do so in traditional or modern ways, and others have to go through uncharted territory to communicate their true self to others. Sadly to many people only See the Art object and mistake it for Art in its entirety
The beauty of any art form can also be a mirror or window of the collective soul as well as our own. It is is being oneself that we can give expression to what we feel and experience.
Nothing and no one is truly ever “itself” or truly unique. We are all just prisms refracting our genetics, experiences, emotions, et al… into forming our own “reality” … I get his point about appreciating artists for their unique ways of seeing the world, and we should, but let’s not kid ourselves to think everything we do isn’t in some way shaped by the world, shaped by others. We’re all just bouncing off each other into oblivion and so on.
You're mistaking pure "originality" with unique "view". Two completely different things. Yes, everything is a consequence of everything else, that doesn't change the fact that an unique view in art is still unique when you add up all the small consequential details in a particular order that it's "unique" to that artist. IF and only IF the artist is good enough.
@@anameyoucantremember Ultimately we're all looking at the 'statue in the town square' and seeing what our perspective enables us too, right? What Nick-Salv sees as a guaranteed outcome of genetics x experience x emotions x etc., others see as a circus of free will colliding with itself. I think it's hard to say which is "true".
Everything you said can be true, and none of it invalidates a thing being truly itself, truly unique. Our individual perspective, the amalgam of all the filters thru which reality is perceived, is absolutely unique to each of us. How clearly we perceive all the information that's trying to squeeze into our minds and then thru that tiny aperture that connects to our conscious awareness, that's a matter of experience laid over a million other mysterious processes. How fearlessly we project that uniquely filtered perspective back out to the world, and how much valence that creative output has as a result... that, I think, is what the speaker here is talking about.
The keys to authenticity: 1) learn the rules then break them 2) love what you do with all your heart 3) experiment until you find what works for you 4) don’t focus on what others think until you master 1-3
There are no 'keys' to authenticity. If you have to make a numbered list of how to be authentic, you are doing the exact opposite. Authentic artists just are. They don't plan or think about it. They are authentic in every moment as themselves.
I can appreciate what David Wallace says here. It's tragic that our professors and coffee shop groups can hinder being oneself. The beauty of any art form gives expression and permission to be oneself, if one so dares with what we feel and experience. And yet, it can help us evolve and so help others, especially the younger generation who can advance our understanding. The main task is realizing and understanding what we feel and experience. But few can do this because it can lead to a painful isolation that can be unbearable. Jung once said, "The most terrifying thing is accepting oneself." Especially when our dreams demand it. It may be our Deity, Archetype, Familiar or Daemon as in ancient Greece. They are the ones who can fill the void. Indeed, there is light in our darkness and Symbols of Transformation, as Jung observed. Why couldn't Freud? Spiritual Alchemists saw this long before. And yet, Jung was censored and abandoned. Plato knew not long after Micaiah, to know what spirit moves us. Shadows of False Ideas on the walls of our mind can hold us bound and deceive us to our ruin, like misguided and possessed professors. Dreams don't lie. (Cf 1 Kings 22, Delphic Oracle et al) Buddha and Lao Tzu knew to just sit down to let the dust and swarm of thoughts and feelings, even somatic sensations, to settle. Jung said he would sit down to calm himself, maybe do some yoga, not to suppress or extinguish an affect, but to see if there were an image or voice he may need to interact with, especially if from a dream. It always made him feel better. Same for me. As we know, what we suppress, especially with meds and theories, will come back up until realized. How do we feel when shouted down, denied or ignored? Same for the various elements in us, as Ram Dass reminded us. Especially the Vox Dei. More people have been killed in God's Holy Name and still are, even by the insane who claim God told them to. But who wrestles with God as the name Israel means? Even simply ask why? God might then thunder, "Why do you?" Jung and his colleagues helped more than a few to realize and resolve their fear, hate and prejudice that any of us project. The spirit elements are the fabric of our being, if one can give them expression in some art form as Jung had and Primitives before him. It's really how we can connect with ourselves and be oneself, which should be the goal of analysis and therapy. It begins with therapists in understanding themselves, which more need to do to help their clients with all they feel and experience. It's the crux of individuation, which our dreams can help with. Jung saw how it will also lead to what he called the higher Self, be it God or Goddess or both. Who said: "Know thyself." It would follow: To thine own self be true. Even relationships can hinder being oneself with all the projections and harmful expectations of ourselves and others and how we may want us all to be, other than how we are made. IE: Our divine law of being Even as one reads this with what they may feel and experience. The operative word: RESPECT Cf Arny Mindell: Dreambody Working On Yourself Alone Riding The Horse Backwards John Weir Perry Roots Of Renewal In Myth and Madness Joseph Campbell The Hero With A Thousand Faces The Masks of God UA-cam interviews with Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell, Jung, Mindell et al. Jung Symbols of Transformation Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious Psychology and Alchemy Memories. Dreams. Reflections
Currently in the middle of reading (or rather, very slowly chipping away at) Infinite Jest and it makes a lot of sense that this is the dude it came from
Infinite Jest is a very tough read, but thrilling. (I read it twice in the can.) I was keenly aware that I was in the hands of a mad genius, and I loved it. I was not a bit surprised that he had killed himself..it must have been very difficult to be saddled with that brain, day in and day out.
a few years ago, I made it through 400-some-odd pages of IJ & when I 'met' the veiled woman, I was so confused that I thought I wasn't following the story well enough & stopped. O regret! Good luck with your slog -- keep forging on!
To this day, my favorite book of all time. I've read it now 5 or 6 times and get new things out of it every time. My advice: buy two copies - and chop one of them up into 5 sections (4 quarters + the end notes) - makes it much easier to carry around. :)
Thank you so much. Being passionate about what you love or are makes amazing art. Someone may not get it but those that do it resonates. I am not upset with John Molaney. I just wish the world had empathy for my life. I’m sure they are sad to see me struggle
Lynch snapped him out of his head and he snapped me out of mine. Just finished ‘a supposedly fun thing I’ll never do again’ which was published in 1990. Growing up then and looking back on it now through his words, he was hyper aware of what was going on at the time. Which is what the best writers do. A truly authentic , unique and great writer. I’m pretty sure he was wearing the bandana before axl but I could be wrong.
Yeah, this scene from Blue Velvet stuck with me for so many years. I remember seeing the movie when I was quite young, forgetting about the rest of the movie, except for this single scene. It wasn't very frightening, rather creepy and bizarre.
What's ironic is that Lynch, himself, said that the "standing" man who was shot, was actually based on a real police report he had read where a man had been shot in the head and was still standing up and not brain dead - the bullet had hit a certain part of his brain that allowed him to keep standing. So it's actually something that happens, physiologically and that actually happened at a crime scene. There's nothing "surreal" about it, apart from the fact that you just hadn't *seen* that in a film before. So it was only "surreal" based on past experience with movies - in real life, it happened and very likely more than once. The "surreality" of it was only because it wasn't part of the "reality" of movies at that point, which says a lot about how media, itself, influences how we view reality and what's "surreal" or not. TRUE surrealism is in films like Jodorowsky's work or "Eraserhead", Lynch's first film. "Blue Velvet", for all of it's "weirdness", is actually a pretty straightforward, reality-based film, despite its moments of oddness, like the bird in the window being so obviously an automaton, etc. or the style of its acting and dialogue.
@@redadamearthSo, because it was inspired by an actual event, it can no longer be considered surreal? Something doesn’t have to be impossible to be bizarre enough to *feel* like it *should* be impossible.
EXACTLY talk about pedantry geez louise! and not even very good pedantry! surreal, as generally understood, is simply the feeling of a moment or situation being unreal or dreamlike, and in the arts thats depicted by way of weird or fantastical or grotesque imagery often placed against the backdrop of the mundane. not an expert, but afaik that's the broad definition. anyway how often have you heard someone in conversation describe a particularly remarkable event they experienced as being "so surreal". hm now I'm being pedantic @@G.GordonMidi
I miss you. Never knew you when you were here. I am still trying to distill you. I am still trying to make Sense because of you. Thank you, where ever you are.
Damn, this sort of reminds me of the back story to Jack Kerouac's revision of _On the Road_ where he discovers his style, a hackneyed writing homage to Thomas Wolfe, wasn't true to the experience his novel was attempting to portray. It was when he started to adapt the language, both in cadence and vernacular of Neal Cassidy, Allen Ginsberg, Lucien Carr and other beatniks of the time--including himself!--he had his epiphany and the new draft blossomed into his most famous work.
reading Oblivion by DFW is such a great exercise in being an active reader. sometimes it takes patience or effort to read it, but then you see why he made it that way, and you think man this guy is switched on. plus he's very funny
two things i think are very dangerous for artists of any stripe, right now: one-endless youtube videos breaking down the work of very idosyncratic filmmakers, producers; video game devs etc. etc.; and two-the ubiquity of entertainment. the first reverse engineers the authentic and presents it as a recipe to be followed, just because it seems like the only way. and the second bombards you with success from every corner, cowering your connection to your own unconscious, making you think it's the only way. they're both falacies. a new way will never be part of the accepted curriculum because, by definition, it doesn't exist yet. so, bascially, like he said: be yourself (yawn).
There is great irony in the statement about artists being entirely themselves while, looking back, being the definition of a child of the times - aesthetically as well as philosophically.
Man, he died very near to where I used to live and it hurts knowing that. It was a beautiful city he lived in and worked in. A very quiet and healing place full of nature and calm. It makes me so sad he could not feel that in his pain. I do understand depression.
I loved how David wrote about David Lynch. It was refreshing to see a recognized author talk about how a film director, not just another author, could be so influential to their own work. I almost wish I hadn't known this about David because once I began Infinite Jest I saw so many of Lynch's influences through Wallace's writing. The character Mario, Hal's brother, was obviously inspired by Lynch's version of John Merrick from The Elephant Man. There's also a scene towards the end of the novel with Don Gately who came across, I believe he was a drug dealer of some kind (can't quite remember), but it reminded me so much of Dennis Hooper's character from Blue Velvet. Sort of a sadistic, overbearing maniac who tortured Don and another former drug addict.
1:08 I had a friend who was an Airborne Ranger. While deployed in Grenada he saw a machine gunner receive a mortal head wound. After falling to the ground the soldier got up and fired every round in his clip at the enemy and then collapsed. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy ...
"What the really great artists do is they're entirely themselves. They've got their own vision, their own way of fracturing reality, and if it's authentic and true, you will feel it in your nerve endings." - David Foster Wallace In a world that constantly asks us to conform, the art of being authentic becomes a true revolution. What is your vision of the world? How do you express it through your creativity? #DavidFosterWallace #art #authenticity #creativity #inspiration
This isn't true. Everyone wants artists to create something innovative, original, and interesting. The problem is many artists, especially young artists, inadvertently produce derivative works in their attempt to produce something good. Wallace was criticized for as much in his first book "The Broom of the System", and it was in his masterpiece "Infinite Jest" where he found his voice.
@@libenhagos9335 It's absolutely true. It's the first thing they ask and if you can't answer it concisely they assume you lack knowledge about art history, the art world and aren't to be taken seriously.
@@BoreasCastelbecause no art exists in a vacuum. Inspiration has to come from somewhere. You can be both original/true to yourself and work within a genre or tradition. Even someone who creates an entirely new genre or thing would be inspired by already existing ones. I think people expect artists to be students of their inspirations
@@libenhagos9335It's not possible to be innovative all the time though. Having this expectation every time is simply unrealistic, or will set you up for disappointment. Art only needs to be genuine, to come from your own heart. Nothing more!
As an artist myself, I want people to interpret the art in the way they want to see it, and get together so we can share our interpretations. Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam once was interviewed, and asked what their music and songs means to him, and he didn't want to say, because he didn't want to take away from his fan's interpretation.
I have used that very same example to explain "Lynchian". I add extra details, but I imagine this [Foster Wallace] is from whom I have taken the idea that Lynch can be explained by examples - that he can be explained by this one.
David was super bright and Infinite Jest is one of my favorite novels of all time, but as much as I agree with David about Blue Velvet, I think David Lynch owes a debt not just to Hitchcock but to other directors who dabbled in surrealism as well, such as Luis Bunuel, Maya Deren, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Jean Cocteau, Federico Fellini, Alain Resnais, Nicolas Roeg, Jean Epstein, Jean-Luc Godard and many others. This is not to take away the incredible esteem I have for Blue Velvet which is a highly intellectual, artistic and entertaining film.
I love this answer about creating art. There's more to it in that experience and work tends to be required to get good at any medium, but Lynch is an outstanding film artist, from Eraserhead to Inland Empire, and even that Disney pastoral or whatever it was is very good, unique, and interesting. Aside, at an very small industrial band show in a dive bar in 2018 or so in the Midwest, a guy there looked remarkably like DFW, and since then I still wonder if he somehow faked his death.
Ive spent the past few years working everyday on this massive, multi-million word epic with these characters that feel so real to me, I feel as though they're divine. Every single person I've sent my writing to has hated it, said they cannot understand it or its exhausting to read because of how dense and obscure it is, that I overload it with fluff and that it doesn't mean anything. Ive gotten doxxed because of it bu writing communities who have hated it, shunned, ridiculed etc. I literally want to be as authentic as I possubly can with it because writing it is like a spiritual excercise for me. I want to overwrite it because i dont believe novels ought to just be about one story. They are all encompassing. I love my characters to death. I want to document every thought they ever had. Its a sisphyian task writing knowing nobody will ever read it on account of its length and undescribability. I dont know if im wasting my time with it or of i really should listen to their advice and to shorten it so people can actually read and, maybe, praise it. But i want to refuse.
I saw the movie with a beautiful blonde girlfriend when I was in Hollywood going to music school, and when we got back to the apartment instead of making love we felt like we had to somehow "dance" the movie out of our bodies just to stay sane, to get back to reality, whatever we thought that was. Art can be strange but powerful.
David Lynch is a true surrealist in that he does his best to get rid of conscious filters. He takes what he imagines in his subconscious mind and tries to find a way to slap it up on a screen. It's not his job to figure out "what it means." He doesn't care. He's sharing what he sees. "Blue Velvet" is watered-down, candy-coated, half-committed Lynch (compared to "Eraserhead" before it and "Lost Highway, "Mulholland Dr." and "Inland Empire" afterwards), but it has its moments -- when it's not nudging and winking at the audience to assure them that it's only kidding (Sandy's vision of light and the cutesy bird/bug stuff at the end, for example). It has huge debts to Buñuel (the ants and the ear are straight out of "Un Chien Andalou"), "Night of the Hunter," the surrealism of Peter Greenaway ( "Draughtsman's Contract," "A Zed and Two Noughts") the melodramas of Douglas Sirk, and loads of film noir -- but it succeeded in inspiring some other artists for a while in the mid-1980s, so good on it for that. I think it's one of Lynch's least interesting and ambitious movies, though.
No art is in a vacuum. You cannot escape influence. You can follow it or react against it, but it shapes your perceptions whether you acknowledge it or not. His vision of the true self is just as romantic and naive, but I think artists have to believe they have something authentic and original to convey, or else why bother. An artist must delude himself into believing he is original.
In the context of this interview i have a feeling he was mature enough to recognize that all art is a synthesis of influences - he even mentions blue velvet being in debt to Hitchcock. i think he felt that this was implied, and he was mostly just reflecting on his former conception of art being overly based in tradition/going against tradition, and thus losing sight of creating something that firstly made him feel something.
also i think it’s pessimistic and naive to say artists that aim to create something “original” are hopeless. at some point jazz was original, rock and roll was original, EDM was original. all derivative but original none the less. i understand where you’re coming from but i think you could have been a little more patient with those feelings.
If there was no originality, there'd be no progress in the arts, but clearly there has been. You are absolutely shaped by your influences though. Originality comes from a unique combo of influences
I think you've projected that assumption on DFW in order to dismiss it. IMO, what he's saying is that the artist's intuition and voice (which is down to past experiences and is therefore 'unique' even if very similar to many others) should come before their own intellect trying to impose whatever they think will be clever or accepted. That's not a discussion about art in a vacuum or 'originality.' I don't think it's a particularly difficult notion to understand, either, although it might be quite hard to be aware of in practice, since we are swayed by our influences or what we think will be popular or clever. It's essentially another way of looking at the Hemingway quote of, 'Write one true sentence' or 'write the truth' etc. Many influential artists have tried to convey their own perspective of the truth, and while it may not be perceived as 'original' by the audience, that's not really the point of making it. You become an artist by making art, and making art is the process of expressing your experience in a medium. Whether it is 'original' or not is certainly a concern for critics and audience, but not necessarily for the artist.
On some level, all good art is personal, though, at the very least in the sense that you're creating what you like and shaping it based on your sensibilities
Myself changes from experiences and thinking long and hard enough to form different views. My taste might not, but change is inevitable. Even sometimes by force or death. I find this to be a sucker's endeavor.
There is a Thing that happens in autism brain which makes you jump between points with the presumption that the other party acknowledges and understands what the hell you're talking about. This is an extremely good example of how the not-so-mildly spectrumatic autistic mind works. To be clear, I am not denigrating the speaker: I am acknowledging their brain patterns. My mind works in the same way: it's a fractured pattern. (Edit: I think fractal may be a better choice of words here.) I've actually tried to read Infinite Jest and it's an incomprehensible mess. I can't stand his writing. The irony is not lost on me. Note the specificity at 2:02. "Not every other viewer". In my experience this kind of linguistic clarification is vital. How we coach language and how we try to give space to people who don't understand how our brains make certain leaps is a coping mechanism. The presumption is if enough fine detail is given, they'll understand the nuance. Practical reality is another matter, unfortunately.
Not formally diagnosed but this is me. People often say to me, "I'm not following" or they'll be on the part of the conversation I have moved past because I thought of something tangentially related and thought they too were on the same wavelength. When they're not, sometimes it angers me, but then I realize I am jumping all over the place and these connections I am making make sense to ME but no one else.
@@striderstache99 @a.r.c8021 brings up an excellent point in language patterns in this clip. Simultaneously answering a question then cutting it apart to clarify nuances is something I do a LOT in the way I communicate. It's almost like a clear answer is impossible because shades of grey and contextual variables in pursuit of truth/honesty vastly outweigh my ability to be clear. Do you experience that as well?
@CircleOfSignfighters i do this all the time. I often have the habit of making references to things that I feel will add more weight and context to a point I'm making, but I often get so lost in building it up that I lose track of what I'm trying to convey. I often make subpoints on subpoints I'm already making to my main point in a conversation too! Very infuriating. I want to provide as much context and understanding as possible but I can't help it sometimes when people get lost. It's like I visualize a track laid out before me when it comes to talking to people.
Blue Velvet is experiential and speaks to Jungian compartments the same way a vivid nightmare or erotic dream might. I would say that it's a film with transcendent or paranormal qualities
My worry as an artist striving to be himself, and create what I want without explantion is that one day I will be asked to explain myself, and I won't have the answer
I like this answer. Painters too have to simply find a language that's absolutely themselves and to hell with the consequences. If nobody else loves it...too bad.
Well he is right about this kind of art, is that can't be technically produced, it's not a system it is in fact a about expressing abstractions of concrete ideas.
Great artists are still influenced by those who came before (how could you not be in this world?), but manage to create their own art without getting mired in artifice. The real trap is to feel obligated to pay tribute and adhere to the blueprint of forebearers. They already made their mark, and some of that influenced you--now go do YOUR thing and see what comes out.
Lmao I know exactly what you mean. Something about the cover and title of that movie seemed very typical. That was my first Lynch movie as well although I had some idea of what to expect from reviews.
I love the conversation this video has started. Thank you all for the comments and engagement! Axl Rose would be proud.
Yeah, I thought that was Axl on the thumbnail, at first glance. I guess I'm not alone?
Welcome to the Jung-le.
@@jimcypher Good one.
Axl Rote (I'll see myself out..)
@@CrypticCocktails I guess he took the Write Train!
You can tell how self-conscious and critical he was of himself by the way he answers the question but also interrupts himself in between. It’s as if he’s listening to himself talk and critizing the words that come out of his mouth simultaneously.
you're not wrong but it's probably also the fact that he's thought about this idea for a while and it might or might not answer the question, but it's something he had to get out. But he's just making sure he conveys every single expression of what he perceives to be the true answer, even if it explores difference ideas.
Imagine how exhausting this would be
Me as fuck
Thats what your supposted to be doing?
@@rdog421I don't have to imagine it when it's my very own life. Ayyyyylmao.
you could tell this man was hell bent on authenticity and yet never felt like he could be as authentic as he wished (even though he was, without a doubt). i know because I identify with a lot of things he has said regarding this topic. LIke him, Im obsessed with it, and yet chasing authenticity seems like the best way to "scare it away" from your life, bc you never feel like you have finally gotten there. But you see it so clearly in other people, and you admire it and you even find yourself gravitanting around people who seem to be fully themselves and unconsciously trying to emulate them.
It's the curse of living too much in your head.
"Thats what authenticity is suppposed to look like". But in reality, most of these people are not even that self aware. They dont walk around constantly picking apart their actions and evaluating how authentic they are. They just embrace the whole. Even the mistakes and the "not so authentic" parts of themselves. Bc its not about reaching that perfect, final and "unactualizable" version. And its not about using others' authenticity as parameters to measure your own. It's about simply being
Thank you for the comment! Nailed it.
"And it's not about using others' authenticity as parameters to measure our own." I was literally just saying this to myself before reading your comment. It's wild how we can all so easily forget or miss the simple fact that recognizing (or at least 'perceiving') authenticity in someone else can cause us to singlehandedly assume their outward representation of authenticity should be emulated through ourselves.
Lynch started as a visual artist. A painter. Those who knew him in his early years as an artist say he always had his own singular vision. Unlike his friends he didn’t use drugs. He was more interested in realizing his vision. So, yes, someone who didn’t think about being authentic. He just was.
This is a great comment!
@@OrdnanceTVthe human condition ❤
Not just be true to yourself but do what you're truly passionate about. Even if you're not being original (and who really is) real passion is infectious , people can feel it in your work and will enjoy it.
And even if they dont. Do the work make your art it is an expression of who you are. Even if people dont connect to it you will have done it.
A small but focused few will flock to your art. Eventually, others will catch wind and connect.
It depends. If it REALLY stirs something inside of them, they will hate you for it because you’re messing with their psychologic homeostasis.
The issue with that for me is all I seem to be passionate about is video games and porn. So I can’t really be authentic, or I’ll never get stuff done. I have to pretend to be into all sorts of lame stuff that I really don’t care about just to get by in the world. My kind of authenticity is not celebrated
@@dont4get2wipe this comment deserves an award
"Screen gets all fuzzy now as the viewer is invited to imagine this."
He was always telling a story.
He was addicted to TV and saw himself as a viewer simultaneously
@@MWTan-nr6zl "He had the ability of splitting his mind's thinking along several parallel tracks."
@@RyanMcQuen👍
aka selfconscious
@@tzenophile art IS selfconsciousness
This is a remarkable moment in TV history, for many reasons, but none as notable as the fact that for two minutes and twenty five seconds, Charlie Rose did _not_ interject himself into the middle of a remarkable moment.
jesus fucking christ that man is a menace not just to himself but to the progression of society is he not, is he not
And the look on Charlie's face showed the disappointment. 🤣
This is such a cheap comment, this moment only exists because Charlie midwifed it, he was excellent in this interview, and managed to make David, who really didn't like interviews, feel comfortable in not only this interview, but the prior one he did with him, which is why he would have felt comfortable returning to do a full length one.
Comments like this, and their popularity, boil down to, "it's fashionable to dislike Charlie Rose", that's it, that's all that's needed to make countless high-status sheep upvote it.
I didn't notice that fact till I read this comment, but now I remember I used to find Charlie Rose aggravating for exactly the thing that he doesn't do here.
@@pezushka I was not trying to adhere to any fashion regarding Charlie Rose. My comment was based on my own sincere personal observations of his interviews, where he seems to have a greater interest in his own opinions than those of his guests. Compare his style to someone like Dick Cavett (or heck, Johnny Carson!), who let interviews breathe, and let interviewees expand. CR constantly cuts people off and opines and it becomes more about CR than the interviewee. This moment felt different. Perhaps CR was in greater awe of DFW and hence more taciturn.
I love being alive! And I won’t stop saying that no matter how much the voices tell me not to.
Wait-phrasing. They tell you not to _what,_ exactly?
@@pocket83squared also.. what voices? is bro doing alright?
All my homies ignore the voices
Fellow voice ignorer here, kudos to you my friend
@@pocket83squaredthey tell him not to love being alive. He phrased it correctly.
this guy is way above my level.
your level lol
He's probably one of the best authors of the last century so give yourself some credit
Blue Velvet is the first Lynch movie that truly hit me in the face (a few times), although I had seen Eraserhead before. I agree. First time I see Wallace speaks, and so well.
Then I highly recommend you check out the films of Luis Bunuel and Maya Deren as they had a big influence on David Lynch.
"Blue Velvet" is about the only Lynch creation that I respect. Much of his other stuff is self-indulgent, repetitive and insulting to the audience, even if they don't realize it and think he's being so avant garde and challenging. He's not. Over time, he became so entrenched in the same kind of phony warping of reality that I couldn't watch him films or TV series anymore.
@@surfwriter8461No.
@@surfwriter8461 I think it's you who doesn't realize
@@boudusaved4719luis bunuel was a former lead surrealist.
well said. the true artist is true to himself. hard to find in the mainstream.
the trust artist who is true to himself... is like 95 % of all artists. it is why most fail. they forget that they doing an impression or show for other people.
i don't mind nihilistic artists such as wallace, but at the end of day... nobody knows him outside the usa, and most americans never heard about him. he was a nobody, at this point, a product of media craze, perhaps, because media loves nihilistic artists, to some degree.
So what if it’s not in the mainstream?
It doesn’t matter, in my opinion. The “mainstream” is a commercial stream - which is completely fine. But if someone is making art, just make it and be satisfied with expressing it regardless of whether people want to pay for it.
🙏🙏🙏🙏 yep. All the best art is deep underground
@@misterbeach8826 a failed artist is an artist that compromises their art to become an entertainer for the masses. An artist that never sells an artwork but stays true to their vision is a successful artist. It's funny that you are doing some textbook projection by accussing others of being nihilist while simultaneously denying any inherent value in artistic work and instead solely measuring it for it's ability to participate in the accumulation of capital.
Those who wish to appear edgy love to represent “the mainstream” as compromise.
Instead of what it is; commonality.
The irony being there’s nothing more common, and hence more mainstream, than the “them’n’us” attitude.
This is how I do interviews, (for jobs, in Germany)..I'm beginning to understand why noone will hire me.
Yeah when you start yapping about david lynch it's over with. I learned that the hard way too.
I would 100% hire you.
Lmao
Well that’s when it’s time to find a way to make money in a way in which you are not forced to compromise your values. To be truly uncompromised one must be willing to rise to the occasion in which they are so secure they never have any reason to compromise.
I've been thinking about this, thing is it's easy to say and hard to do, but i view investing my hard earned money as my shortest path to acheving this kind of freedom. I am not close yet though and i provide for others. i like the comment. Maybe i should have picked a partner who earns more than me to let me be the freier geist 😂 @@giovannimartin3239
David Lynch seems to be an artist who is more in tune with dreams than almost any other. He somehow captures that perfect dream logic, that perfect sense that dreams make, even though it's nonsense. I know he's very into transcendental meditation; certainly also on the spectrum. I see a lot of myself in him and I strive to learn more about me and my psyche and figure out how I can be my most authentic self and share that with the world.
Yeah, right everybody is on the spectrum nowadays
@MassimoAngotzi if you knew anything about what you were talking about, you'd at least be able to see what I mean. The fact that you can't even do that means that you clearly don't know enough about it to make that kind of judgement.
You have a unique perspective and that is your greatest asset as an artist.
Most people don't have a unique perspective and see nothing themselves
@@bufficliff8978 ive never been someone else so i dont think i could ever wholly know another persons perspective. but i like to believe that every person has a unique perspective - i mean to say we have all lived unique lives filled with unique experiences.
@@bufficliff8978 if that is your perspective then you may be entirely unique in seeing that
@@djsandy303 you've been a "person" though.. so you can at least guess (and relate)
Wow, I didn't expect this to involve one of my favourite films. Blue Velvet was one of the most novel experiences in my lifetime. Haven't had a movie warp my mind since.
What kinda beer do you like? Heineken?? Fuck that! Pabst Blue Ribbon!!
"You ever been to Pussy Heaven?"
Did he ever write any books that were Lynchian ?
The following claim is _not_ meant to say anything about Wallace's writing, but man, just in general, he was probably the most media-literate human being I've become aware of. Given the time period into which he was born, he might've been a one-off. He lived during a time of seriously rapid media development, both technologically and conceptually. It'd be hard to imagine a more artistically-ripe future-especially considering how stifling our modern media can be! Or is that just my own lack of perception to see my time period as such?
We're still learning. What will you know of tomorrow.
I see right now as the best moment in history for anyone to raise their media literacy and create revolutionary art. The inundation of new technologies and new techniques and new formats in every medium has fostered (lol) a world in which rapid progression is the norm. I was born in 2002, so I didn't grow up having to learn how to understand new technology. I was born into a landscape of constantly changing technology, so instead of learning how to keep up, I'm learning how to reject keeping up. I'm learning how to cut through the fold to nestle myself a little home in the shit show. The art I create is entirely mine, and wouldn't be possible without all the new forms and techniques that have flooded the world. Butttt, those techniques and forms are meaningless without my unbridled imagination bringing them to life, and a dream of the new vast possibilities, of new artistic horizons simply can't fit in the old guard's boxes. Cinema, photography, news, journalism, any of it, it's all been shaken up foundationally by the internet and this new ability for anyone anywhere to know any information. The old rules don't matter anymore. Letting anyone else tell you how to go about shit like they know is worthless. No one knows anything anymore, and its those of us who recognize that and begin to redefine the world personally, to ourselves, who will get to shape what the future looks like.
@@transgenderbasketballplayer There is no best moment in history. Please, don't read me as one of those 'my generation was better' types. At the end of the day, we all get to go through the same old story. This song plays on repeat. In fact, the only way for one generation to ever become truly original would be for it to be the first to recognize just how vastly cliche any belief in originality is.
There's this old expression, _youth is wasted on the young._ You will all but certainly have to come terms with its cruel irony, just as I have. See, there's a corollary to the forced rigidity of age, and that's the impractical elasticity of a fresh mind. While you may, no doubt, _perceive_ your present time & circumstance to be privileged or unique, you'll discover much-too-late the unfortunate reality that it was anything but.
Consider that not all advancements are linear. Thus, subsequent contributions are not necessarily equivalent in degree, unless adjusted for scale. Many ideas are just natural extensions of a progenitor. There's a seed of thought I would like to plant for you. Allow this idea to unfold as time progresses: no matter which time period one has been born into, there will already be far more available media (at the time of one's birth) than one will _ever_ be able to make use of artistically. You are neither the first mind to come into the endless expanse of thought nor are you of the first generation to fail to be able to make use of it all. With respect, have some respect for your predecessors. Don't underestimate their capacity for understanding of this "landscape of constantly changing technology," and don't overestimate the value of your own. As your own time begins to solidify you, you'll start to understand that you didn't have to _learn_ to reject keeping up; you were never capable of doing so in the first place-none of us are.
Try not to dismiss old ideas, and try not to emphasize novel ones; novelty is illusory, because it is not the newness of an idea that allows a tumbler to turn, but the alignment of changing circumstances. And one more thing: you "shape" nothing about the future. Deterministic forces are far beyond the scope of your control, and early Hominins already set things in motion that you and I cannot overpower. But try anyway.
Genuinely, best of luck. Signed,
-an old guard.
@@transgenderbasketballplayerspoken like someone truly bred into the postmodern paradigm...it will take another 25 years to wash away this toxic mindset 😢
@@transgenderbasketballplayerit's only going to take 5 years for you to look back and cringe at the comment you left.
David Lynch's movies give me the same feeling I get when I'm dreaming and I'm running in slow motion, but everything around me is moving in real-time.
I feel like this with the paintings of Frank Frazetta. They pull you into a World that is 100% made out of his soul and i think this phenomenon is what truly describes Art, invite people into the artists soul.
Of course there are a Million ways to do it. Some people find the Tools to do so in traditional or modern ways, and others have to go through uncharted territory to communicate their true self to others. Sadly to many people only See the Art object and mistake it for Art in its entirety
Interesting thoughts. Thank you.
What distinction is there between Art Object and Art, as you perceive?
The beauty of any art form can also be a mirror or window of the collective soul as well as our own. It is is being oneself that we can give expression to what we feel and experience.
This has inspired me to not hold back with how depressing my songs are. Just let it out. All of it.
Can you share your playlist. I would like to listen.
Being himself and Axel Rose at the same time
Came here looking for this comment hahaha
@@carindreams5066 Same, haha
I wonder what Axel thinks if him!
Was gonna drop that irony but checked comments first thinking someone had to have pounced on it already...and you had. Walking away now...satisfied.
It's spelled Axl. Show some respect.
Nothing and no one is truly ever “itself” or truly unique. We are all just prisms refracting our genetics, experiences, emotions, et al… into forming our own “reality” … I get his point about appreciating artists for their unique ways of seeing the world, and we should, but let’s not kid ourselves to think everything we do isn’t in some way shaped by the world, shaped by others. We’re all just bouncing off each other into oblivion and so on.
You're mistaking pure "originality" with unique "view". Two completely different things. Yes, everything is a consequence of everything else, that doesn't change the fact that an unique view in art is still unique when you add up all the small consequential details in a particular order that it's "unique" to that artist. IF and only IF the artist is good enough.
@@anameyoucantremember Ultimately we're all looking at the 'statue in the town square' and seeing what our perspective enables us too, right? What Nick-Salv sees as a guaranteed outcome of genetics x experience x emotions x etc., others see as a circus of free will colliding with itself. I think it's hard to say which is "true".
Everything you said can be true, and none of it invalidates a thing being truly itself, truly unique. Our individual perspective, the amalgam of all the filters thru which reality is perceived, is absolutely unique to each of us. How clearly we perceive all the information that's trying to squeeze into our minds and then thru that tiny aperture that connects to our conscious awareness, that's a matter of experience laid over a million other mysterious processes. How fearlessly we project that uniquely filtered perspective back out to the world, and how much valence that creative output has as a result... that, I think, is what the speaker here is talking about.
Just like Thomas Mann said in The Magic Mountain, " A Man is not only himself but also his epoch and contemporaries".
Spot on, Wallace never really grasped the concept of no free will, his head was up his own ass.
The keys to authenticity:
1) learn the rules then break them
2) love what you do with all your heart
3) experiment until you find what works for you
4) don’t focus on what others think until you master 1-3
There are no 'keys' to authenticity. If you have to make a numbered list of how to be authentic, you are doing the exact opposite. Authentic artists just are. They don't plan or think about it. They are authentic in every moment as themselves.
I can appreciate what David Wallace says here. It's tragic that our professors and coffee shop groups can hinder being oneself.
The beauty of any art form gives expression and permission to be oneself, if one so dares with what we feel and experience.
And yet, it can help us evolve and so help others, especially the younger generation who can advance our understanding.
The main task is realizing and understanding what we feel and experience. But few can do this because it can lead to a painful isolation that can be unbearable.
Jung once said, "The most terrifying thing is accepting oneself." Especially when our dreams demand it. It may be our Deity, Archetype, Familiar or Daemon as in ancient Greece.
They are the ones who can fill the void.
Indeed, there is light in our darkness and Symbols of Transformation, as Jung observed. Why couldn't Freud? Spiritual Alchemists saw this long before.
And yet, Jung was censored and abandoned.
Plato knew not long after Micaiah, to know what spirit moves us. Shadows of False Ideas on the walls of our mind can hold us bound and deceive us to our ruin, like misguided and possessed professors.
Dreams don't lie.
(Cf 1 Kings 22, Delphic Oracle et al)
Buddha and Lao Tzu knew to just sit down to let the dust and swarm of thoughts and feelings, even somatic sensations, to settle.
Jung said he would sit down to calm himself, maybe do some yoga, not to suppress or extinguish an affect, but to see if there were an image or voice he may need to interact with, especially if from a dream. It always made him feel better.
Same for me.
As we know, what we suppress, especially with meds and theories, will come back up until realized.
How do we feel when shouted down, denied or ignored? Same for the various elements in us, as Ram Dass reminded us.
Especially the Vox Dei.
More people have been killed in God's Holy Name and still are, even by the insane who claim God told them to.
But who wrestles with God as the name Israel means? Even simply ask why?
God might then thunder, "Why do you?"
Jung and his colleagues helped more than a few to realize and resolve their fear, hate and prejudice that any of us project.
The spirit elements are the fabric of our being, if one can give them expression in some art form as Jung had and Primitives before him.
It's really how we can connect with ourselves and be oneself, which should be the goal of analysis and therapy.
It begins with therapists in understanding themselves, which more need to do to help their clients with all they feel and experience.
It's the crux of individuation, which our dreams can help with.
Jung saw how it will also lead to what he called the higher Self, be it God or Goddess or both.
Who said: "Know thyself."
It would follow:
To thine own self be true.
Even relationships can hinder being oneself with all the projections and harmful expectations of ourselves and others and how we may want us all to be, other than how we are made.
IE: Our divine law of being
Even as one reads this with what they may feel and experience.
The operative word: RESPECT
Cf Arny Mindell:
Dreambody
Working On Yourself Alone
Riding The Horse Backwards
John Weir Perry
Roots Of Renewal In Myth and Madness
Joseph Campbell
The Hero With A Thousand Faces
The Masks of God
UA-cam interviews with Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell, Jung, Mindell et al.
Jung
Symbols of Transformation
Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious
Psychology and Alchemy
Memories. Dreams. Reflections
I read the whole thing and I couldn't agree more. Appreciate you sharing it.
Best comment on UA-cam?
His brain operates on a different level. You can see why he’s the king of footnotes. His mind is weaving together so many threads
Currently in the middle of reading (or rather, very slowly chipping away at) Infinite Jest and it makes a lot of sense that this is the dude it came from
Infinite Jest is a very tough read, but thrilling. (I read it twice in the can.) I was keenly aware that I was in the hands of a mad genius, and I loved it. I was not a bit surprised that he had killed himself..it must have been very difficult to be saddled with that brain, day in and day out.
a few years ago, I made it through 400-some-odd pages of IJ & when I 'met' the veiled woman, I was so confused that I thought I wasn't following the story well enough & stopped. O regret! Good luck with your slog -- keep forging on!
@@NACH10tube I appreciate you giving me a heads-up. I kind of can't wait to meet her now
To this day, my favorite book of all time. I've read it now 5 or 6 times and get new things out of it every time. My advice: buy two copies - and chop one of them up into 5 sections (4 quarters + the end notes) - makes it much easier to carry around. :)
It’s awful, don’t waste any more time.
Thank you so much. Being passionate about what you love or are makes amazing art. Someone may not get it but those that do it resonates. I am not upset with John Molaney. I just wish the world had empathy for my life. I’m sure they are sad to see me struggle
He would have very much fit into our time today.
Thank you for existing David.
Lynch snapped him out of his head and he snapped me out of mine. Just finished ‘a supposedly fun thing I’ll never do again’ which was published in 1990. Growing up then and looking back on it now through his words, he was hyper aware of what was going on at the time. Which is what the best writers do. A truly authentic , unique and great writer. I’m pretty sure he was wearing the bandana before axl but I could be wrong.
greatest storyteller of my generation
When I entered this video, I did not expect him talk about the profound effect Blue Velvet had on him. My favorite Lynch film hands down.
Good on Charlie Rose to just be quiet and let DFW get all this thoughts and words out. Bravo.
I'm amazed he stayed quiet for 2 minutes. It must have been an accident.
Yeah, this scene from Blue Velvet stuck with me for so many years. I remember seeing the movie when I was quite young, forgetting about the rest of the movie, except for this single scene. It wasn't very frightening, rather creepy and bizarre.
What's ironic is that Lynch, himself, said that the "standing" man who was shot, was actually based on a real police report he had read where a man had been shot in the head and was still standing up and not brain dead - the bullet had hit a certain part of his brain that allowed him to keep standing. So it's actually something that happens, physiologically and that actually happened at a crime scene. There's nothing "surreal" about it, apart from the fact that you just hadn't *seen* that in a film before. So it was only "surreal" based on past experience with movies - in real life, it happened and very likely more than once. The "surreality" of it was only because it wasn't part of the "reality" of movies at that point, which says a lot about how media, itself, influences how we view reality and what's "surreal" or not. TRUE surrealism is in films like Jodorowsky's work or "Eraserhead", Lynch's first film. "Blue Velvet", for all of it's "weirdness", is actually a pretty straightforward, reality-based film, despite its moments of oddness, like the bird in the window being so obviously an automaton, etc. or the style of its acting and dialogue.
@@redadamearthSo, because it was inspired by an actual event, it can no longer be considered surreal? Something doesn’t have to be impossible to be bizarre enough to *feel* like it *should* be impossible.
EXACTLY talk about pedantry geez louise! and not even very good pedantry! surreal, as generally understood, is simply the feeling of a moment or situation being unreal or dreamlike, and in the arts thats depicted by way of weird or fantastical or grotesque imagery often placed against the backdrop of the mundane. not an expert, but afaik that's the broad definition.
anyway how often have you heard someone in conversation describe a particularly remarkable event they experienced as being "so surreal". hm now I'm being pedantic @@G.GordonMidi
@@redadamearth You don't understand what surreal means. Surreal does not mean impossible, and in fact, real life is full of surreal moments.
I miss you. Never knew you when you were here. I am still trying to distill you. I am still trying to make Sense because of you. Thank you, where ever you are.
Damn, this sort of reminds me of the back story to Jack Kerouac's revision of _On the Road_ where he discovers his style, a hackneyed writing homage to Thomas Wolfe, wasn't true to the experience his novel was attempting to portray. It was when he started to adapt the language, both in cadence and vernacular of Neal Cassidy, Allen Ginsberg, Lucien Carr and other beatniks of the time--including himself!--he had his epiphany and the new draft blossomed into his most famous work.
The Road goes on. Bilbo knew to relinquish his personal power or prowess and humble himself again back on the road.
Frodo lives.
reading Oblivion by DFW is such a great exercise in being an active reader. sometimes it takes patience or effort to read it, but then you see why he made it that way, and you think man this guy is switched on. plus he's very funny
DFW talks about life in a way that is poetically pure
two things i think are very dangerous for artists of any stripe, right now: one-endless youtube videos breaking down the work of very idosyncratic filmmakers, producers; video game devs etc. etc.; and two-the ubiquity of entertainment. the first reverse engineers the authentic and presents it as a recipe to be followed, just because it seems like the only way. and the second bombards you with success from every corner, cowering your connection to your own unconscious, making you think it's the only way. they're both falacies. a new way will never be part of the accepted curriculum because, by definition, it doesn't exist yet. so, bascially, like he said: be yourself (yawn).
This guy was a genius
No he fucking was not
Still is.
@@silasknight2837 mans dead bro
is*
@@ravimediatubeyeah he killed himself.
There is great irony in the statement about artists being entirely themselves while, looking back, being the definition of a child of the times - aesthetically as well as philosophically.
The purpose of using any technique is to be true to yourself. That’s what I got from this anyway.
Man, he died very near to where I used to live and it hurts knowing that. It was a beautiful city he lived in and worked in. A very quiet and healing place full of nature and calm. It makes me so sad he could not feel that in his pain. I do understand depression.
I loved how David wrote about David Lynch. It was refreshing to see a recognized author talk about how a film director, not just another author, could be so influential to their own work. I almost wish I hadn't known this about David because once I began Infinite Jest I saw so many of Lynch's influences through Wallace's writing. The character Mario, Hal's brother, was obviously inspired by Lynch's version of John Merrick from The Elephant Man. There's also a scene towards the end of the novel with Don Gately who came across, I believe he was a drug dealer of some kind (can't quite remember), but it reminded me so much of Dennis Hooper's character from Blue Velvet. Sort of a sadistic, overbearing maniac who tortured Don and another former drug addict.
He was so smart….i wonder how he would’ve fared today. I miss people like this. His NYT essay on Federer as a religious experience is beautiful
I’ve been inspired by Axl Rose before but I had no idea he was so literate when it comes to art and filmmaking!
Art is subjective. You will always have people who like what you do, and those who don't. Concentrate on the people who like your creations.
I never heard him speak before -- great clip!
1:08 I had a friend who was an Airborne Ranger. While deployed in Grenada he saw a machine gunner receive a mortal head wound. After falling to the ground the soldier got up and fired every round in his clip at the enemy and then collapsed. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy ...
"No overseas entanglements"
---Founding Fathers.
"What the really great artists do is they're entirely themselves. They've got their own vision, their own way of fracturing reality, and if it's authentic and true, you will feel it in your nerve endings." - David Foster Wallace
In a world that constantly asks us to conform, the art of being authentic becomes a true revolution. What is your vision of the world? How do you express it through your creativity? #DavidFosterWallace #art #authenticity #creativity #inspiration
What a legend
I hate that the art world expects people to say what kind of music or painting they make. Shouldn't it be their own?
This isn't true. Everyone wants artists to create something innovative, original, and interesting. The problem is many artists, especially young artists, inadvertently produce derivative works in their attempt to produce something good. Wallace was criticized for as much in his first book "The Broom of the System", and it was in his masterpiece "Infinite Jest" where he found his voice.
@@libenhagos9335 It's absolutely true. It's the first thing they ask and if you can't answer it concisely they assume you lack knowledge about art history, the art world and aren't to be taken seriously.
@@BoreasCastelbecause no art exists in a vacuum. Inspiration has to come from somewhere. You can be both original/true to yourself and work within a genre or tradition. Even someone who creates an entirely new genre or thing would be inspired by already existing ones. I think people expect artists to be students of their inspirations
@@libenhagos9335It's not possible to be innovative all the time though. Having this expectation every time is simply unrealistic, or will set you up for disappointment. Art only needs to be genuine, to come from your own heart. Nothing more!
As an artist myself, I want people to interpret the art in the way they want to see it, and get together so we can share our interpretations. Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam once was interviewed, and asked what their music and songs means to him, and he didn't want to say, because he didn't want to take away from his fan's interpretation.
what a brilliant man 💌
I have used that very same example to explain "Lynchian". I add extra details, but I imagine this [Foster Wallace] is from whom I have taken the idea that Lynch can be explained by examples - that he can be explained by this one.
The genius of one person may look like crazy to another.
David was super bright and Infinite Jest is one of my favorite novels of all time, but as much as I agree with David about Blue Velvet, I think David Lynch owes a debt not just to Hitchcock but to other directors who dabbled in surrealism as well, such as Luis Bunuel, Maya Deren, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Jean Cocteau, Federico Fellini, Alain Resnais, Nicolas Roeg, Jean Epstein, Jean-Luc Godard and many others. This is not to take away the incredible esteem I have for Blue Velvet which is a highly intellectual, artistic and entertaining film.
Man I love guns and roses.
Nice
Nailed that. 😅
(Didn't at _least_ 50% of us reflexively see Axl?)
I love this answer about creating art. There's more to it in that experience and work tends to be required to get good at any medium, but Lynch is an outstanding film artist, from Eraserhead to Inland Empire, and even that Disney pastoral or whatever it was is very good, unique, and interesting.
Aside, at an very small industrial band show in a dive bar in 2018 or so in the Midwest, a guy there looked remarkably like DFW, and since then I still wonder if he somehow faked his death.
If they don't know now they may never know, but just go go go!
What’s that last word he says, epipheric(?) experience..
Who cares, it's just words. Reality is not words and concepts.
Ive spent the past few years working everyday on this massive, multi-million word epic with these characters that feel so real to me, I feel as though they're divine. Every single person I've sent my writing to has hated it, said they cannot understand it or its exhausting to read because of how dense and obscure it is, that I overload it with fluff and that it doesn't mean anything. Ive gotten doxxed because of it bu writing communities who have hated it, shunned, ridiculed etc. I literally want to be as authentic as I possubly can with it because writing it is like a spiritual excercise for me. I want to overwrite it because i dont believe novels ought to just be about one story. They are all encompassing. I love my characters to death. I want to document every thought they ever had. Its a sisphyian task writing knowing nobody will ever read it on account of its length and undescribability. I dont know if im wasting my time with it or of i really should listen to their advice and to shorten it so people can actually read and, maybe, praise it. But i want to refuse.
I saw the movie with a beautiful blonde girlfriend when I was in Hollywood going to music school, and when we got back to the apartment instead of making love we felt like we had to somehow "dance" the movie out of our bodies just to stay sane, to get back to reality, whatever we thought that was. Art can be strange but powerful.
David Lynch is a true surrealist in that he does his best to get rid of conscious filters. He takes what he imagines in his subconscious mind and tries to find a way to slap it up on a screen. It's not his job to figure out "what it means." He doesn't care. He's sharing what he sees. "Blue Velvet" is watered-down, candy-coated, half-committed Lynch (compared to "Eraserhead" before it and "Lost Highway, "Mulholland Dr." and "Inland Empire" afterwards), but it has its moments -- when it's not nudging and winking at the audience to assure them that it's only kidding (Sandy's vision of light and the cutesy bird/bug stuff at the end, for example). It has huge debts to Buñuel (the ants and the ear are straight out of "Un Chien Andalou"), "Night of the Hunter," the surrealism of Peter Greenaway ( "Draughtsman's Contract," "A Zed and Two Noughts") the melodramas of Douglas Sirk, and loads of film noir -- but it succeeded in inspiring some other artists for a while in the mid-1980s, so good on it for that. I think it's one of Lynch's least interesting and ambitious movies, though.
No art is in a vacuum. You cannot escape influence. You can follow it or react against it, but it shapes your perceptions whether you acknowledge it or not. His vision of the true self is just as romantic and naive, but I think artists have to believe they have something authentic and original to convey, or else why bother. An artist must delude himself into believing he is original.
In the context of this interview i have a feeling he was mature enough to recognize that all art is a synthesis of influences - he even mentions blue velvet being in debt to Hitchcock. i think he felt that this was implied, and he was mostly just reflecting on his former conception of art being overly based in tradition/going against tradition, and thus losing sight of creating something that firstly made him feel something.
also i think it’s pessimistic and naive to say artists that aim to create something “original” are hopeless. at some point jazz was original, rock and roll was original, EDM was original. all derivative but original none the less. i understand where you’re coming from but i think you could have been a little more patient with those feelings.
If there was no originality, there'd be no progress in the arts, but clearly there has been. You are absolutely shaped by your influences though. Originality comes from a unique combo of influences
I think you've projected that assumption on DFW in order to dismiss it. IMO, what he's saying is that the artist's intuition and voice (which is down to past experiences and is therefore 'unique' even if very similar to many others) should come before their own intellect trying to impose whatever they think will be clever or accepted. That's not a discussion about art in a vacuum or 'originality.' I don't think it's a particularly difficult notion to understand, either, although it might be quite hard to be aware of in practice, since we are swayed by our influences or what we think will be popular or clever. It's essentially another way of looking at the Hemingway quote of, 'Write one true sentence' or 'write the truth' etc. Many influential artists have tried to convey their own perspective of the truth, and while it may not be perceived as 'original' by the audience, that's not really the point of making it.
You become an artist by making art, and making art is the process of expressing your experience in a medium. Whether it is 'original' or not is certainly a concern for critics and audience, but not necessarily for the artist.
On some level, all good art is personal, though, at the very least in the sense that you're creating what you like and shaping it based on your sensibilities
Damnit David, David shouldve outlived David.
he did
Myself changes from experiences and thinking long and hard enough to form different views. My taste might not, but change is inevitable. Even sometimes by force or death. I find this to be a sucker's endeavor.
seems obviously true. DFW knows whats up
Thank you David
Ufffff, I miss Mr. Wallace a lot! A lot, a lot, a lot!
I would love to have known his thoughts on 'social' media
There is a Thing that happens in autism brain which makes you jump between points with the presumption that the other party acknowledges and understands what the hell you're talking about. This is an extremely good example of how the not-so-mildly spectrumatic autistic mind works. To be clear, I am not denigrating the speaker: I am acknowledging their brain patterns. My mind works in the same way: it's a fractured pattern. (Edit: I think fractal may be a better choice of words here.)
I've actually tried to read Infinite Jest and it's an incomprehensible mess. I can't stand his writing. The irony is not lost on me.
Note the specificity at 2:02. "Not every other viewer". In my experience this kind of linguistic clarification is vital. How we coach language and how we try to give space to people who don't understand how our brains make certain leaps is a coping mechanism. The presumption is if enough fine detail is given, they'll understand the nuance. Practical reality is another matter, unfortunately.
Not formally diagnosed but this is me. People often say to me, "I'm not following" or they'll be on the part of the conversation I have moved past because I thought of something tangentially related and thought they too were on the same wavelength. When they're not, sometimes it angers me, but then I realize I am jumping all over the place and these connections I am making make sense to ME but no one else.
@@striderstache99 @a.r.c8021 brings up an excellent point in language patterns in this clip. Simultaneously answering a question then cutting it apart to clarify nuances is something I do a LOT in the way I communicate. It's almost like a clear answer is impossible because shades of grey and contextual variables in pursuit of truth/honesty vastly outweigh my ability to be clear. Do you experience that as well?
@CircleOfSignfighters i do this all the time. I often have the habit of making references to things that I feel will add more weight and context to a point I'm making, but I often get so lost in building it up that I lose track of what I'm trying to convey. I often make subpoints on subpoints I'm already making to my main point in a conversation too! Very infuriating. I want to provide as much context and understanding as possible but I can't help it sometimes when people get lost. It's like I visualize a track laid out before me when it comes to talking to people.
@@shr1mppoboi950 congratulations, you're on the autism spectrum.
Being entirely yourself and references Lynch. This is what great artists do, recognise the greatness of other greats
be yourself
A lot of great interviews have one thing in common. They were on Charlie Rose.
i felt blue velvet in my nerve endings thats for sure
Blue Velvet is experiential and speaks to Jungian compartments the same way a vivid nightmare or erotic dream might. I would say that it's a film with transcendent or paranormal qualities
ladies and gentleman, david foster wallace
GREAT
Man, Axl Rose looks good these days!
My worry as an artist striving to be himself, and create what I want without explantion is that one day I will be asked to explain myself, and I won't have the answer
Worrying about that it's exactly why you will never be asked about it.
WE NEED DFW MORE THAN EVER
The comparison is so apt since DFW and Lynch seem to share the same fanbase. They’re a Dune fan’s idea of what avant-garde looks like
What does avant- guard mean?
I like this answer. Painters too have to simply find a language that's absolutely themselves and to hell with the consequences. If nobody else loves it...too bad.
Well he is right about this kind of art, is that can't be technically produced, it's not a system it is in fact a about expressing abstractions of concrete ideas.
Being highly intelligent is undeniably a blessing and a curse.
He’s so right.
Damn, Axl Rose hit the wall
Sweet Child of Mine!
Ok that was pretty good. But all the other Axl Rose comments; are not funny... just like Axl Rose.
IMAGINE YOU'RE A HYPEREDUCATED AVANT-GARDIST LEARNING TO WRITE ''screen gets all fuzzy now as the writer is invited to imagine this'' fkn classic
Very beautiful ❤️
This is pre-Office David Wallace 🔥
Whoa Axl's talking voice is crazy
Axl Rose with his new pair of spectacles.
You mean John Lennon's specs
RIP David Foster Wallace you would've loved Lil B the BasedGod
This gives me goose pimples.
Hell yeah! Those are the best!
I read that with a lisp for some reason.
Goose flesh
Seriously? Tell me this in 30 years. Seriously.... 30 years.
Hey, I could relate to that.
Great artists are still influenced by those who came before (how could you not be in this world?), but manage to create their own art without getting mired in artifice. The real trap is to feel obligated to pay tribute and adhere to the blueprint of forebearers. They already made their mark, and some of that influenced you--now go do YOUR thing and see what comes out.
My man!
To that I say amen
Man, Axl Rose is pretty smart!
Me after watching Mullholland Drive thinking it was going to be a typical murder mystery lol
Don't go behind the Winkie's
Lmao I know exactly what you mean. Something about the cover and title of that movie seemed very typical. That was my first Lynch movie as well although I had some idea of what to expect from reviews.
@@calahil28heebie jeebies