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Speaker 1: It's a very great pleasure to have you on.

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Speaker 2: How are you doing, man, I'm doing great. Yeah, thanks

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for having me. I was glad that I think Robin

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reached out and said that, you know, you would be

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a good guest to come on here and talk film.

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So I appreciate that her linking us together, and I'm

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really honored to be here. I appreciate it.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much. And before we start talking about

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the film, why don't you just let people know where

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they can find your work and sort of tell them

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what you do.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I do quite a bit of stuff. I cover

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a whole range of topics, basically film philosophy, theology compared

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to religion, geopolitics, all that kind of stuff, and I

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cover it at my website mainly Jasonelsons dot com. I

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do a lot of media work, a lot it. We've

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done a TV show. I host the fourth hour of

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the Alex Jones Show about once every two weeks or so.

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And yeah, so I have two books on Hollywood and

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film symbolism, so that this is kind of my main

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thing that I've done for the last ten years, and

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then I kind of branch out into other stuff, even

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to the point of doing debates with a lot of

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religious figures and so forth atheists. But yeah, I did so.

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I did Esoteric Hollywood one and two. And this is

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great because and I'm glad by the way that that

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when we were talking, you said that you'd already done

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Lost Highway, because Wild at Heart is the one Lynch film,

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along with Eraserhead, that I've not yet really covered in

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my essays or in my video. So this is going

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to be great to finally delve into this one. Thank

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you so much.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I should say to the listeners that the first

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film that Jay suggested was Lost Highway, and we already

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talked about that one in November. We did a Noir November,

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So we did Lost Highway. And which other film did

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we do? We did a bunch of noir films. In

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any case, we're going to talk about Wild at Heart.

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I'm a huge Lynch fan and so and I just

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rewatched the film for you know, the end time. Yeah,

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it's a brilliant film. How come you wanted to talk

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about this film?

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Speaker 2: Well, like you, I'm a big David Lynch fan. And

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when I started, I was taking film classes back in

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my undergrad and I've always been a David Lynch fan

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since high school. But I never really got David Lynch.

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I guess you could say, to the degree that you

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can get David Lynch maybe until I was into my

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twenties and I'd read a good bit on compared to

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Religion and kind of got some of the ideas of

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Tibetan Buddhism down and this kind of stuff. So I

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had a better kind of toolkit for maybe giving a

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rough decoding or an attempt at decoding David Lynch. And

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so since then, you know, like I said, his films

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actually took up I think two or three chapters in

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my books. So I've dedicated a good amount of time

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to decoding a lot of David Lynch, especially Twin Peaks.

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I did a really really deep dive into Twin Peaks.

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So it's nice to then, kind of, like you said,

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step back and review it because one thing that one

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of the things that's great about David Lynch films is

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that every time you come back to it, you'll notice another,

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you know, sort of cross universe connection to another David

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Lynch film or something like that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know it's David Lynch is one of

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these filmmakers and I think the same sort of goes

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for We talked about we had some guests on last year,

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Tina and Yunis, and we talked about The Stand. Stephen

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King's the Stand and Stephen King he is, I mean,

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he advocates sort of leftist views, right, but when you

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look at the esthetics in the Stand and in other places,

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it's rural America, it's it's it's not really he's not

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very friendly to the big city sort of cauldron, leftist cauldron, right,

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he is very much in favor of So there's there's

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sort of an implicitly conservative message in many of those things.

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And I would say definitely the same with David Lynch.

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A lot of leftists like David Lynch.

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Speaker 2: But you know.

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Speaker 1: What what is twin Peaks. Twin Peaks isn't the leftist dream,

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it's the leftist nightmare. It's you know, they don't want

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to they don't want you know, rural America, a little

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town with only pretty much only white people, and there

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is very much those kinds of values that they generally

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don't tend to embrace.

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Speaker 3: Uh.

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Speaker 1: But but that is what connects to people, Those values

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connect to people on a deeper level, would you agree

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with that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, David Lynch has gotten a lot of criticism,

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for example, from feminists. They don't like the portrayal of

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you know, male female sexual relationships in David Lynch knows

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mainly because of course the male is the dominant figure.

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The films are definitely not amenable to feminism. I mean

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it's kind of it's kind of laughable really, especially with

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when you watch something like Dune. You know, Dune is

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a fundamentally anti feminist novel. I mean, the whole story

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is about you know, Paul actually sort of trumping the

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Witch Guild and their attempt to manipulate him, and he

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sort of rebukes these these witches, these feminists. Right. So

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I think that there's there's definitely a trend in David

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Lynch's films to not pander to or cater to that

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kind of low iq uh, you know, equalitarian leftism. But

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I think he knows as well that he has to

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kind of you know, sort of not really go into

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any of that stuff too too deep because everybody knows,

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you know, the the leftism that dominates everything, and you know,

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mainline Hollywood, mainline media. So I think also he's kind

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of made you know, quasi libertarian statements at times, so

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he probably is a more on the right specter of libertarianism,

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if I had to guess. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And at the same time, I find that artists, generally, filmmakers, musicians, anything,

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they tend to don't be very They don't have a

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very sort of clear conceptual understanding of politics. They have

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an esthetic understanding, right.

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Speaker 2: And although they don't really.

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Speaker 1: Grasp the political things that are going on, the aesthetic is,

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you know, the types of societies and the people that

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are portrayed in David Lynch's films.

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Speaker 2: That's what people.

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Speaker 1: On I mean, I consider myself on the right, but

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that's what I'm sort of nostalgic about. That's what I miss,

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That's what I feel, a sort of a certain sense

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of there's a tragic feeling of something being lost in

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the modern world. And a lot of the stuff that's

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being lost in the modern world is what's portrayed in

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many of David Lynch's you know films.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely the loss of Americana. Certainly, while at Heart will

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be you know, a big tribute to that. What is

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this older kind of fifties, sixties era Americana? What was

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lost there's a lot of critiques of kind of Americana too.

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I think with especially with Twin Peaks, we kind of

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have this idea that America is one thing, but in

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reality there's always this theme of kind of an under

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undercurrent of organized crime. This is something that I've delved

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into recently in my own just separate studies, with studying

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the history of the mafia, contract killers, assassins and that

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kind of stuff. And when I went back and watched

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Wild at Heart, actually noticed quite, you know, quite a

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few of those mob elements. I'll get into that something later,

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but the reason I bring that up is that I

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see Lynch is what you might call the Hollywood trilogy

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with Lost Highway, Mahan Drive, and Inland Empire. Those are

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kind of critiques of Hollywood. I mean, I mean, I

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had a friend long time ago who said that, you know,

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when David Lynch made Lost Highway, right, he was kind

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of giving his middle finger to Hollywood. Maholland Drive is

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kind of that, and and and you know, he's never

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really had a mainstream acceptance since then. It's always been

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kind of a tour avant garde type films, which I

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guess we're He's you know, most at home and is

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doing that kind of stuff. But I definitely think he's

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critiquing and and sort of showing the absurd because because

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one thing that comes up in the Hollywood trilogy is

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that Hollywood as this inland empire, functions like a little

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kind of city. And you notice you always have these

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kind of organized crime characters, the little man behind the

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glass that kind of calls the shots and he says,

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who gets a roll? And they're kind of working under

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the devil, or you have a mister what's it is it?

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Mister X, the guy in the Lost Highway, Dick Dick,

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who's the you know, the mobster who's filming the porno's

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and this kind of stuff, and he kind of calls

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the shots in that. So this theme is consistently there

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that if we think about David Lynch, he's who from Michigan, Minnesota,

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He's a Midwestern type of guy who went to Hollywood

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and he's out there and he sees the way it

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really works, and then he notices, you know, all of

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these girls like the Naomi Watts character in Mahan Drive,

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who come out there with the dreams of you know,

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being a starlet. And then they end up a crack

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whore basically is what happened. So I think he's seen

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the way that that that that machinery works and then

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it's really just a big kind of a deception. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think he's more or less explicitly said that about

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for example, a Razorhead, uh that you know, it's his

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reaction moving from a small place that that's you know,

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yeah we can relate to to to like a bigger city,

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which he saw basically as a hell hole, you know,

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and that's the nightmare that he portrays in a Razor Read.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well there's that scene or just laughing at that

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sequence in in uh waldet Heart, where when when they

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finally get to California, right, which is going to be

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the Emerald City. It's it's the paradise utopia that they're

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that they're looking for, and they get there and he

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gets beat up by the street game.

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Speaker 3: He's like, oh, lork, so thank you gentlemen for introducing

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me to you know, for straight and I would like

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to appolo Joe, So you gentlemen for calling your homosexual.

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Speaker 2: So he realized that no, it's not actually this utopia, right,

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It's like this the shithole.

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Speaker 1: Yeah it is, okay, So let's just dive into Wild

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at Heart. What are some of the main aspects that

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you find interesting in Wild at Heart?

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Speaker 2: Well, it's a kind of a surrealist fantasy. It's a

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retelling of Wizard of Oz, if I recall, it's based

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on a book. I've not read the book that it's

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based on, but there's some kind of book that was

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that was written that that's the basis of this. I

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think that it's it's a dark satire. It's it's kind

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of all the typical things that you would see or

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expect David Lynch to do, but it's prior to Twin Peaks,

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so I think a lot of what went into this

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will kind of set the stage for Twin Peaks. And

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one obvious example of that is a lot of the

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same actors. Right, we have you know, Laura Palmer pops

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up as the Witch. You have the uh, well, it's

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this app or Dune, So I guess you could say

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some of the characters that are in Dune or present

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here in terms of the actors. So he likes to

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work with a lot of the same people, as of

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course many directors do. But yeah, I think it's a

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it's very similar to Twin Peaks, and that it's a

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dark American satire, soap opera, psychodrama. And then I would say, also,

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it's every The thing about Wild at Heart is that

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every time I watch it it actually gets funnier. There's

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there's more things in it that make me laugh than

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the last time that I watched it. So it's it's

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the one unique Lynch film that I think is actually

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probably his most comedic that I off the top of

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my head that I can I mean that Twin Peaks

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certainly has some really funny parts and some funny characters,

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but Wild at Heart is just it's just hilarious when

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you go back and watch it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, especially the part with the jingle Dell. She talks

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about her weird what is it cousin uncle something.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Chrispin Government. Chrispin Glover plays this this lunatic cousin

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to Lula Lula, and he believes that everyone has lost

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the spirit of trust and Christmas and that if everybody

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just accepted that Christmas is every day, right, then everybody

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would be and so he just sort of descends into

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this madness and he thinks that the aliens are controlling

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people with Robert gloves to stalk him. It's just and

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then so it gets crazy and crazy and crazy, and

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I think that it's just a sort of a comedic

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interlude or adendum there to try to show the dysfunctionality

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of Lula's family. I mean, her whole family is just

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a total mass, a total nightmare. And she was of

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course raped traumatized when she was thirteen by Uncle Pooch, right,

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And this is kind of I think giving is just

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the indicator that her mom, who was of course is

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the evil, the wicked witch. Her mom's kind of wrapped

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up in a life of manipulation deception with these actually

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organized crime figures. And I didn't realize this until the

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last time that I went back and watched it, because

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I've actually done a lot of research on the history

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of organized crime in New Orleans. And so that will

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actually tie into the mister Reindeer figure and the Carlo

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Carlos Santos character, which we'll get to, right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And there's also this, I mean, there are many

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things that you know, looking at Wild at Heart from

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the perspective of Twin Peaks, there are many similarities. The music,

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you know, the there are some similarities. And also when

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when they watch TV, it tends to be these sort

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of nature shows, animals hunting things.

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Speaker 2: Like predator prey, right, yes, And also the sort of

256
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Harry Dean Stanton is it plays Johnny Farragut who manipulated

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bought the mom Diane Ladden, and she he's sitting there

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watching these you know, and animals rip apart one another,

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and he starts barking right like a hyena, which of

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course comes up in Twin Peaks, where you know, characters

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kind of randomly start barking as if they're sort of

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regressing to this you know, primal state of animality or something.

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But yeah, that's a good point. And also there's this.

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Speaker 1: Almost supernatural evil that's under the surface, I mean, because

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that's that's very obvious. Twin Peaks builds a lot on

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a lot of the atmosphere is built on this contrast

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between the sort of the purely good and the purely evil.

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Speaker 2: Right. And also here you have the.

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Speaker 1: These sort of henchmen that work for Santo's. They are

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involved in some sort of voodoo or whatever.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I was gonna bring that the contract killing.

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I mean, both in the Twin Peaks, and here you

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have the notion of ritual murder which is connected in

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some way to some kind of higher level organized crime

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and contract killing. And that was one of the things

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I highlighted in my In Peaks analysis was the sort

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of interconnectedness of these different different criminal syndicates and ritual murders.

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And another series I've been doing lately was to cover

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the history of the well known serial killers. And one

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thing that's that's a fact that you can actually demonstrate

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that doesn't come up and a lot of the sort

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of normal Normy takes on serial killers, and the sort

283
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of the normy FBI profile is that there's a lot

284
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of connections to organized crime and contract killing. And so

285
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not every serial killer, but many of them have that connection.

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And so when I go back and I watch these

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these Lynch films, it's just like I just see more

288
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and more how he's really kind of describing the way

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the world really works. It's all of our delusions about

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you know, America, about Hollywood, all that stuff just kind

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of gets ripped away and we see, you know, the

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CD underbelly. Which is not to say that it's all

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negative or dark. I think satire has a sort of

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positive you know, presupposition behind it. You know, when you're

295
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satirizing something, you're kind of you're kind of taking away

296
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the power of the mystique of the of the evil

297
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and showing that it's it's kind of absurd really, so

298
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it shouldn't have the power that it has. And yeah,

299
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mister Reinder, you know he's he's contracting out too these

300
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basically insane voodoo practitioners in New Orleans that we don't

301
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even know. I like how we don't even know really

302
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what this ritual is. It's just this really bizarre ritual

303
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where you've got this one legged woman who's like, uh,

304
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you know, count ta tent, counta tent, right, and then

305
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she has this sort of orgiastic you know, conclusion to

306
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the when they killed Johnny Farragut, where that's apparently the

307
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only way that she can you know, get off, And

308
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it's it's loosely some kind of ritual. But yeah, we're

309
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noticing that the cult in this film is somehow being

310
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used by the higher level you know, organized crime faction

311
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as a contract killing.

312
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's it seems to be not only in

313
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this film, but in many films and in Twin Peaks

314
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as well, that David Lynch is almost obsessed with rituals,

315
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I mean Dale Coop where he has his daily rituals

316
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with his tea, with his coffee, I mean his pie,

317
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and the things that he does, and the sort of ritualistic,

318
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sort of Tibetan way that he has of investigating crime

319
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with throwing rocks.

320
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Speaker 2: It's all these weird.

321
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Speaker 1: Sort of verging on the supernatural thing elements in basically

322
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everything that he's created.

323
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's definitely a theme. Is the Tibetan Buddhism, theosophy,

324
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these different religious traditions are underlying what's going on in

325
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these different worlds. And I even think that you can

326
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kind of find in those religions the notion of kind

327
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of a multiverse and this kind of stuff. And I

328
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think David Lunch plays with that idea too, which is

329
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why he will I think have similar characters kind of

330
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cross over into other universes. Right. We even have, for example,

331
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Lost Highway, there's a point where the Bill Pullman character

332
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or looks at the screen as if he's breaking the

333
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fourth wall and he's seeing us watching him. We have

334
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Audrey Horn. I mean, it's not this is a speculation

335
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of the people speculate this. But in While in While

336
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the Heart, you have the sequence where she's had a

337
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car rack and a head injury and it and she's

338
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just sort of wandering run her car. She doesn't know

339
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what's going on, and it's you know, uh, is it

340
00:18:21,119 --> 00:18:25,519
sheryln Finn, It's it's the Audrey Horn character from Twin Peaks. Now,

341
00:18:25,519 --> 00:18:28,119
Twin Peaks hasn't happened yet in terms of David Lynch's

342
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uh movies, but you could speculate that that this is

343
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Audrey in some other kind of universe or something, right,

344
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because at the end of Twin Peaks there's the assumption

345
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that that Audrey perhaps went out to Hollywood, right, people,

346
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we don't know exactly what happened to her after season two,

347
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but some people speculate that she left Twin Peaks to

348
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go make it as an actress, to make it in Hollywood.

349
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So is this our our Sailor and Lula happening upon

350
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the sort of interdimensional uh? And And if you watch

351
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Lost Highway you get that idea as well, where the

352
00:19:01,359 --> 00:19:06,200
Peak character kind of switches consciousness with the Bill Pullman character. Right. So, yeah,

353
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I think David Lynch definitely likes to toy with the

354
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idea of characters moving across universes, popping into other universes.

355
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And of course the most obvious example in this would

356
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be that the good Witch at the end is Laura Palmer.

357
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, definitely, Oh yeah, for sure. I mean there's

358
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also all these eccentric characters with I forget what's the

359
00:19:32,200 --> 00:19:34,440
actor's name, the guy who has a dog, he talks

360
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about his dog. You picture my dog. Oh, I told

361
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you what, Jack Nance, Jack Nance. Yeah, and of course

362
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Bobby Peru. All these creepy characters, and that's sort of

363
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what makes it, that's what creates the magic in many

364
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of his films, is you know, it's all about these

365
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creepy characters, these weird characters.

366
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Speaker 2: Yeah, he loves to play with with uh the with

367
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madness or with even bombs, right, Bombs come up all

368
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the time in David Lynch films, as sometimes even emblems

369
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of the demonic where they're or they're possessed. Right, So

370
00:20:14,599 --> 00:20:18,359
in Mulholland Drive, you have that that demonic bomb creature

371
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that's kind of hanging out behind the would be Denny's

372
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restaurant right behind the over by the trash. Can you've

373
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got the the bombs or or the the I don't know.

374
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The woodsmen, I guess is what you would call them

375
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in Twin Peaks too, right, who have to this the

376
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ability to kind of switch in and out of dimensions.

377
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They come from a spiritual realm into this realm, and

378
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you know, they're always wanting to have you got a light, right,

379
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They're always wanting to smoke this kind of stuff. So

380
00:20:44,519 --> 00:20:47,400
bombs figure in. And that's I've noticed other directors do

381
00:20:47,440 --> 00:20:50,599
this too, like John Carpenter does this, or he utilizes

382
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bombs as images of the demonic, And yeah, I think

383
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that what's interesting is that David Lynch, although not Christian

384
00:21:00,720 --> 00:21:03,000
or he doesn't have any kind of biblical worldview per se,

385
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he does like to utilize these I mean, I know

386
00:21:08,640 --> 00:21:11,599
the possession is an exclusive to Christianity, but I mean

387
00:21:11,599 --> 00:21:15,119
he he, he acts like he believes that, right at

388
00:21:15,200 --> 00:21:18,319
least in his art work, that demons can possess you,

389
00:21:18,400 --> 00:21:20,839
demons can take you over. Because what happens to uh,

390
00:21:20,920 --> 00:21:24,000
you know, at the end of Twin Peaks is, of course,

391
00:21:24,720 --> 00:21:28,640
you know, Cooper gets taken over by Bob, he gets possessed.

392
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Then we get mister c Uh and then of course

393
00:21:32,079 --> 00:21:35,160
we get in in Twin Peaks, we've got excuse me,

394
00:21:35,200 --> 00:21:38,079
and wal of Heart, we've got the mom who, although

395
00:21:38,240 --> 00:21:42,519
isn't specifically spoken of as possessed, she's clearly working as

396
00:21:42,519 --> 00:21:46,680
the kind of you know, double figure demonic character. But

397
00:21:46,720 --> 00:21:50,559
as we said, the Voodha ritual woman, you know she

398
00:21:50,599 --> 00:21:53,839
plays Laura's mom. She she goes into this sort of

399
00:21:54,240 --> 00:21:57,400
you know, dissociative possessed state when when they're doing the ritual.

400
00:21:57,480 --> 00:22:00,160
So this always comes up in David Lynch Film's mean

401
00:22:00,160 --> 00:22:02,400
that this is a consistent pattern and it actually fits

402
00:22:02,400 --> 00:22:06,000
with Tibetan Buddhism, and Tibetan Buddhism does acknowledge, you know,

403
00:22:06,079 --> 00:22:08,759
a spiritual realm with both you know, good angel and

404
00:22:09,519 --> 00:22:13,480
devil type entities. Mm hmm. By the way, I even

405
00:22:13,519 --> 00:22:18,079
found just real quick in the go Ahead. Uh, if

406
00:22:18,079 --> 00:22:21,200
you pay attention in Twin Peaks, and if anyone doubts

407
00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:24,200
me on this, I think this is a pretty knockdown point.

408
00:22:24,279 --> 00:22:28,640
But in Twin Peaks, when when Cooper and everybody's trying

409
00:22:28,640 --> 00:22:32,960
to solve the the situation with what's going on out

410
00:22:32,960 --> 00:22:37,440
in the woods, you can notice in the background. They've

411
00:22:37,559 --> 00:22:41,640
intentionally stuck you know, ritual magic images there. So you'll

412
00:22:41,680 --> 00:22:43,599
notice here I just have a little image here, just

413
00:22:43,640 --> 00:22:46,799
a picture, but this is behind Dale and this is

414
00:22:46,799 --> 00:22:51,680
one of the Solomonic sigils there. I think it's asmodious

415
00:22:51,799 --> 00:22:54,519
I think from the Keys of Solomon. So the point

416
00:22:54,559 --> 00:22:57,799
being is that Lynch is definitely intentionally putting, you know,

417
00:22:58,599 --> 00:23:01,119
things that indicate rich Well magic, as you were talking

418
00:23:01,160 --> 00:23:04,000
about earlier about rituals into into his artwork. There's no

419
00:23:04,039 --> 00:23:05,279
doubt about it.

420
00:23:05,359 --> 00:23:07,960
Speaker 1: Oh yes, oh yes. And I think it's interesting the

421
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:11,160
way he uses bombs, just like you said, is that

422
00:23:11,240 --> 00:23:16,119
bombs are they live among us, but they're another part

423
00:23:16,160 --> 00:23:18,960
of society. They're sort of on the borderland between. I

424
00:23:18,960 --> 00:23:22,240
mean what you know, do laws apply to bombs? I

425
00:23:22,240 --> 00:23:25,759
mean do they have like an you know, uh, an

426
00:23:25,799 --> 00:23:28,119
identity number or something like that. You know, it's like

427
00:23:28,319 --> 00:23:31,240
they it's like there's something apart from normal society, right,

428
00:23:31,480 --> 00:23:34,319
and that's that that is it's like an archetype that

429
00:23:34,319 --> 00:23:35,119
that is intriguing.

430
00:23:35,920 --> 00:23:38,279
Speaker 2: Did you ever see that. There's another movie that's very

431
00:23:38,359 --> 00:23:41,200
Lynchian in kind of its spirit. It's called Under the

432
00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:43,839
Silver Lake. Have you seen that I don't think. So, No,

433
00:23:44,400 --> 00:23:47,119
it's really good. You should watch that because there's a

434
00:23:47,160 --> 00:23:49,480
similar idea there with with bombs who have this kind

435
00:23:49,480 --> 00:23:52,119
of alternate society, and there's like a King of the

436
00:23:52,160 --> 00:23:54,880
bombs and he kind of has an intelligence network of

437
00:23:54,920 --> 00:23:57,640
all the booms. It's it's really wild story, but it's

438
00:23:57,680 --> 00:24:04,000
it's a very lynching and inspired it's definitely worth deconstructing. Interesting.

439
00:24:05,079 --> 00:24:08,000
Speaker 1: So, what are some other things that you've thought about

440
00:24:08,039 --> 00:24:09,240
with Wild at Heart?

441
00:24:10,759 --> 00:24:13,359
Speaker 2: So kind of on the basic level, the first time

442
00:24:13,440 --> 00:24:15,480
that comes to mind is it's I think it's a

443
00:24:15,519 --> 00:24:19,200
satire of this sort of simplistic, normy idea of American

444
00:24:19,279 --> 00:24:21,799
what America is. And I think I think Sailor and

445
00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:26,640
Lula represent just basic dumb Americans and the spirit of America.

446
00:24:27,839 --> 00:24:29,880
I mean, they want to go on just this road trip,

447
00:24:30,039 --> 00:24:33,759
right to run from the mom A. Sailor himself has

448
00:24:33,799 --> 00:24:36,920
a you know, a criminal past, right, he doesn't have

449
00:24:36,960 --> 00:24:38,680
a problem just kind of murdering a guy if he

450
00:24:38,720 --> 00:24:42,119
thinks that there's a you know, a dangerous situation around,

451
00:24:42,240 --> 00:24:45,400
he doesn't. He doesn't take any shit, right, He's just

452
00:24:45,440 --> 00:24:48,559
a dumb American basically, right, And he even the emblems

453
00:24:48,599 --> 00:24:51,359
that he chooses to represent himself are just these kind

454
00:24:51,400 --> 00:24:54,960
of basic American. He loves Elvis, right, Yeah, he just

455
00:24:55,279 --> 00:25:00,240
belts out Elvis songs anywhere he's he finds himself. He

456
00:25:00,279 --> 00:25:03,799
loves metal and even makes the connection between like how

457
00:25:04,240 --> 00:25:06,839
Elvis led to metal. He's like, you guys have the

458
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:11,559
same energy as oh, he tells the mettle man. Right. So,

459
00:25:11,960 --> 00:25:18,160
and Lula represents just the traumatized, just dumb American girl, right,

460
00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:25,119
the dumb blonde girl, right. And the the family that

461
00:25:25,160 --> 00:25:28,599
she comes from is actually kind of a higher class

462
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:30,839
family and they're a wealthy family. At least we get

463
00:25:30,839 --> 00:25:33,720
the impression that whatever the mom has been involved in,

464
00:25:33,839 --> 00:25:36,880
she's made some money from this, these these criminal operations,

465
00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:39,440
and they're connected to the mafia. This is another thing

466
00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:42,559
I didn't notice until this time around, is that I mean, yeah,

467
00:25:42,599 --> 00:25:46,839
the mister Reindeer figure is this sort of aloof enigmatic,

468
00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:51,759
you know, wealthy guy. But his you know, partner Santos

469
00:25:52,880 --> 00:25:56,039
I noticed this time around. His name is Marcelo Sentos.

470
00:25:56,960 --> 00:26:00,480
And this has a big part to do story with

471
00:26:00,599 --> 00:26:03,480
New Orleans. And the most famous mob boss of New

472
00:26:03,599 --> 00:26:09,160
Orleans was Carlos Marcelo and most famously, Marcelo was brought

473
00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:13,960
in in the seventies under RFK for being he was

474
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:17,839
grilled by Congress from being implicated in the GfK assassination.

475
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:21,599
So this is no small figure, and they for many

476
00:26:21,599 --> 00:26:26,359
many years couldn't bring Carlos Marcelo down. But as usual

477
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:28,400
with the organized crime, they had to rely on something

478
00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:31,640
like tax evasion, scams IRS type stuff. This is what

479
00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:35,400
they ended up getting Carlos Marcelo with. But he was

480
00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:38,000
actually flown out of that, like exiled out of the

481
00:26:38,039 --> 00:26:41,240
country by RFK and a secret kind of kidnapping operation.

482
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:44,440
And so this led to a lot of angst and

483
00:26:44,480 --> 00:26:47,119
anger on the part of Carlos Marcelo towards the Kennedys,

484
00:26:47,359 --> 00:26:49,400
which a fastening story on its own. And that's all

485
00:26:49,559 --> 00:26:53,480
one percent history. It's not conspiracy theory. It's all easily verifiable.

486
00:26:53,480 --> 00:26:57,359
In fact, that Bill O'Reilly did a whole investigative journal

487
00:26:57,519 --> 00:26:59,599
journalism peace on that many years ago. But all that

488
00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:04,160
just say that when I noticed watching it this time.

489
00:27:04,279 --> 00:27:06,839
The names in Lynch films and names have a lot

490
00:27:06,839 --> 00:27:10,079
of significance, as with most artists and writers. Of course,

491
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:14,759
the other name is Santo right well, that suggests Santo's

492
00:27:14,759 --> 00:27:18,240
traffic conte, who is also he's the famous mob boss

493
00:27:18,279 --> 00:27:22,400
of Florida, known for you know, many contract killings, calling

494
00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:25,759
in many contract killings, known for being connected to organized crime,

495
00:27:26,279 --> 00:27:30,240
drug trafficking, et cetera. So I think the name Carlos Santos,

496
00:27:30,279 --> 00:27:37,240
who's the kind of coagitator villain with with Marietta, definitely

497
00:27:37,279 --> 00:27:41,359
suggests the organized crime factor that I'd never noticed before

498
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:43,240
until going back and watching it. But so I think

499
00:27:43,240 --> 00:27:46,359
that's what we're getting here, is that really America. Just

500
00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:49,079
like ben Horn. Remember in Twin Pigs, ben Horn is

501
00:27:49,079 --> 00:27:54,519
connected to Canadian organized crime. If you remember the the

502
00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:59,039
jacquesa what's his name Jacqua anyway, that the French brothers

503
00:27:59,119 --> 00:28:01,480
right who are running the organized crime out of Canada

504
00:28:01,920 --> 00:28:04,920
that Ben Horn works for. So you've got organized crime,

505
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:07,400
you've got ritual murder, you've got all of these things

506
00:28:07,400 --> 00:28:10,759
that go into just a perfect uh you know, I

507
00:28:10,759 --> 00:28:13,680
guess you could say soap opera, but it's real. I mean,

508
00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:16,640
this is the real, you know, underbelly of America is

509
00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:19,599
organized crime. So that was something that really stuck out

510
00:28:19,599 --> 00:28:20,279
this last.

511
00:28:20,039 --> 00:28:25,920
Speaker 1: Time, definitely, And there's something about the characters just like

512
00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:29,119
you say, they're sort of ordinary dumb Americans. But also

513
00:28:29,160 --> 00:28:31,759
the way they speak is it's purely cliche.

514
00:28:32,759 --> 00:28:35,079
Speaker 2: It's sort of like, that's a good point. I didn't

515
00:28:35,079 --> 00:28:38,319
even think about theether. They're basically determined by pop culture.

516
00:28:38,559 --> 00:28:41,400
Speaker 1: Exactly, and it's sort of like, I mean, I don't

517
00:28:41,440 --> 00:28:44,640
even want to compare David Lynch to Tarantino, but that's

518
00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:47,160
sort of what Tarantino tries to do as well, like

519
00:28:47,400 --> 00:28:51,680
just use all these Americana cliche and film references, based

520
00:28:51,759 --> 00:28:55,960
everything on like rehashing things from old films. But this

521
00:28:56,079 --> 00:28:59,160
is sort of everything that they say is sort of

522
00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:01,079
like a cliche heard in some film.

523
00:29:01,079 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 2: It's a great point. This is a snake skin jacket.

524
00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:05,599
Speaker 3: For me, it was a symbol of my belief an

525
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:09,279
individuality and a personal freedom.

526
00:29:09,319 --> 00:29:11,680
Speaker 2: And I remember reading that that was actually something Nick

527
00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:14,440
Cage came up with, that wasn't actually part of the thing,

528
00:29:14,519 --> 00:29:17,279
but he was like, I feel like, I feel like

529
00:29:17,359 --> 00:29:20,440
Sailor needs to have a snake skin jacket. That's that's

530
00:29:20,480 --> 00:29:23,880
what he would have. And he's just perfect for that role.

531
00:29:24,039 --> 00:29:27,559
Just just wild, you know, American actor who's just sort

532
00:29:27,599 --> 00:29:31,720
of unhinged and just crazy, always going overboard with what

533
00:29:31,759 --> 00:29:35,519
I call crage, right, Nick Cage Rage just Crage. By

534
00:29:35,519 --> 00:29:36,799
the way, he is a he is a great actor.

535
00:29:36,839 --> 00:29:38,319
Like people, A lot of people think Nick Cage is

536
00:29:38,319 --> 00:29:41,119
a bad No, he's actually an excellent actor. He's he's

537
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:44,119
phenomenal in fact, you know, I mean, I know that

538
00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:46,480
the Academy Awards and all that kind of bullshit. But

539
00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:50,599
at the same time, typically speaking, I don't think you

540
00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:53,759
can win an Academy where without having a significant degree

541
00:29:53,759 --> 00:29:56,720
of talent. So there's a lot of films where Nick

542
00:29:56,720 --> 00:29:59,680
Cage does does really well. That one where he's the

543
00:30:00,119 --> 00:30:04,160
Let's Driver, the Martin Scorsese film I always forget the

544
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:06,480
name of it. That's an excellent film. Leaving Las Vegas.

545
00:30:06,519 --> 00:30:12,640
He's great in that Bad Lieutenant. He's excellent and Bad Lieutenant.

546
00:30:12,680 --> 00:30:15,079
I mean, there's dozens of films where he's he's a

547
00:30:15,119 --> 00:30:18,240
phenomenal actor. So and Wilder Heart. He does excellent in

548
00:30:18,279 --> 00:30:18,880
Waldi Hart.

549
00:30:19,079 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 1: He's supposed to be Yeah, he's perfect for the role

550
00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:23,440
because he's supposed.

551
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:23,720
Speaker 2: To be weird.

552
00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:26,440
Speaker 1: I mean he's and he is a bit weird, and

553
00:30:26,599 --> 00:30:30,559
he's still yeah yeah, yeah, no, I mean that's so

554
00:30:30,559 --> 00:30:32,920
so that but it works, and that's that's the whole

555
00:30:33,039 --> 00:30:35,720
charm of the film, and that's a part of that's

556
00:30:35,759 --> 00:30:38,759
the part of of you know, David Lynch's style is

557
00:30:38,799 --> 00:30:42,400
built so much on nostalgia, and of course a lot

558
00:30:42,440 --> 00:30:44,880
of it comes from I mean, I've I've never lived

559
00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:48,319
in the United States and I visited once, but but

560
00:30:48,319 --> 00:30:49,160
but still I.

561
00:30:49,240 --> 00:30:52,799
Speaker 2: Have through movies and TV.

562
00:30:53,079 --> 00:30:56,799
Speaker 1: I have also sort of a relationship to those cliches

563
00:30:57,039 --> 00:30:59,519
because I've grown up with them.

564
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:03,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's interesting. I've never actually thought to ask a

565
00:31:03,519 --> 00:31:06,359
person sort of out of the US what their take

566
00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:09,519
on the US is. And the funny thing about the

567
00:31:09,599 --> 00:31:11,680
US is, I know you probably know this, and you

568
00:31:11,680 --> 00:31:14,920
could probably derive this just from your visit, but you know,

569
00:31:15,359 --> 00:31:18,240
the United States is more like different countries only one.

570
00:31:18,839 --> 00:31:21,920
People think of it as as America. But I mean,

571
00:31:22,079 --> 00:31:25,680
the way that California operates is completely different than the

572
00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:28,039
way the Bible Belt or the South operates. I mean,

573
00:31:28,039 --> 00:31:31,200
it's just a I mean obviously that nowadays, with the

574
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:34,359
prevalence of kind of consumerism, corporatism and all that stuff,

575
00:31:34,359 --> 00:31:38,359
there's a lot less dissimilarity. We're getting the monoculture obviously,

576
00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:42,119
but traditionally speaking, I mean, it's it's just different countries.

577
00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:45,240
I mean, I've been all across of the US and

578
00:31:45,599 --> 00:31:48,680
many of the states. I lived in many of the states,

579
00:31:49,279 --> 00:31:52,119
and it's it's like different countries. It's hard to it's

580
00:31:52,119 --> 00:31:55,680
hard to explain, but it is a vast right, you know, landscape,

581
00:31:55,759 --> 00:32:01,119
and you know, and there's pros and cons too, obviously anywhere.

582
00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:03,960
I mean, I know that's kind of cliche, but I've

583
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:06,319
lived in California and I've lived in the Bible Belt,

584
00:32:06,359 --> 00:32:08,319
so I can compare the two. And I've been I've

585
00:32:08,319 --> 00:32:12,720
spent time in New York and so forth. But yeah,

586
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:14,839
I think that's that's a very interesting.

587
00:32:14,839 --> 00:32:17,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, but I think that's an interesting aspect

588
00:32:17,319 --> 00:32:21,079
that's that's sort of unique to to America and especially

589
00:32:21,079 --> 00:32:23,519
to California. When I when I was there, I visited

590
00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:26,599
la and it's sort of like, you know, because it's

591
00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:29,680
in so many movies. There are so many things that

592
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:32,279
I sort of could recognize although I've never been there before,

593
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:37,160
because so much of the image of America is based

594
00:32:37,200 --> 00:32:39,920
on films, and I think that sets its apart from

595
00:32:40,079 --> 00:32:44,000
many other countries, because you know, people who've never been

596
00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:46,200
in America can still relate to a lot of the

597
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:50,759
culture because simply because everyone grows up watching Hollywood films

598
00:32:50,759 --> 00:32:53,799
and TV shows things like that, and that's it's it's

599
00:32:53,880 --> 00:32:58,599
kind of weird because it's it's sort of when you

600
00:32:58,640 --> 00:33:01,519
when I in LA, felt like I was in a

601
00:33:01,559 --> 00:33:03,960
movie set, because it's like, Okay, I've seen all these

602
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:07,000
things before in a completely different setting.

603
00:33:07,759 --> 00:33:12,000
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was raised in San Diego for many years

604
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:13,839
and my dad was in the Navy, and then we

605
00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:16,160
moved back to the South for most of my life.

606
00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:19,119
And in the past few years, due to the work

607
00:33:19,119 --> 00:33:21,839
that I've been doing and the TV media work and

608
00:33:22,039 --> 00:33:25,200
the books, I've gone out to LA multiple times for

609
00:33:25,359 --> 00:33:29,680
US speaking engagements and TV type stuff. And it's a

610
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:32,200
lot different, right when you go out there with the

611
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:34,880
attitude of trying to deconstruct it. And before I'd written

612
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:36,400
the first book, we went out there and I was

613
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:39,640
doing some research and checking out a lot of different sites,

614
00:33:39,680 --> 00:33:41,960
and it was like you like, I felt like I

615
00:33:42,079 --> 00:33:46,519
was experiencing, you know, the movie world, because it's real time, right.

616
00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:49,240
And I think that's another thing that Lynch likes to

617
00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:52,519
play with, which due to the influence of surrealism, he

618
00:33:52,599 --> 00:33:56,680
loves that blurring the line between the dream world, the

619
00:33:56,680 --> 00:33:59,400
surreal world, and the real world, because that's a big

620
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:01,599
part of my drives, a big part of Twin Peaks,

621
00:34:01,599 --> 00:34:03,559
it's a big part of well, I guess many of

622
00:34:03,599 --> 00:34:07,240
his films is like, you know, where is the border

623
00:34:07,319 --> 00:34:11,360
between fiction and reality? I mean, most of our worldviews

624
00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:13,880
are a tape playing in our head, right, It's like

625
00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:19,719
our views are the fiction that that we've imbibed has

626
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:24,480
has partly programmed the way that we read reality. Oh yeah,

627
00:34:24,559 --> 00:34:26,760
so you know, that's the power of Hollywood. And that's

628
00:34:26,760 --> 00:34:28,639
part of the reason that when I wrote my book,

629
00:34:28,639 --> 00:34:31,400
I want to deconstruct the propaganda power of Hollywood, the

630
00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:33,920
way that it has the ability to literally kind of

631
00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:37,119
program our worldview because it's it's the replacement of the

632
00:34:37,199 --> 00:34:40,239
of Homer, right, it's the new myth maker. It's the

633
00:34:40,320 --> 00:34:44,320
new you know, tradition of storytelling for the modern world.

634
00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:46,960
And it has been tremendously effective. I mean it was

635
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:52,159
mainly for bad obviously, right in terms of destroying destroying culture,

636
00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:56,519
but it's a fascinating weapon to decode nonetheless.

637
00:34:56,800 --> 00:34:59,599
Speaker 1: Oh definitely. And it's it's interesting that this sort of

638
00:35:00,039 --> 00:35:04,119
you know, what the postmodernists called hyperreality, that it becomes

639
00:35:04,119 --> 00:35:08,679
more important than actual reality because people spend more time,

640
00:35:09,159 --> 00:35:11,199
you know, looking at a screen than.

641
00:35:11,079 --> 00:35:14,719
Speaker 2: They do looking at reality.

642
00:35:14,800 --> 00:35:16,599
Speaker 1: So you know, you sit at home, you look at

643
00:35:16,639 --> 00:35:19,039
a screen, and then you commute to work or whatever.

644
00:35:19,159 --> 00:35:20,960
You see look at a screen on the bus or

645
00:35:21,039 --> 00:35:23,360
train or whatever, and then you come to the office

646
00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:25,360
and then you look at a screen again. And there's

647
00:35:25,400 --> 00:35:28,719
so much of your time that's spent in this fake

648
00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:32,960
reality that that becomes more important. And you know, you know,

649
00:35:33,039 --> 00:35:35,920
they they can, they can, they can portray a picture

650
00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:38,719
of reality that isn't real, but it's still gonna be

651
00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:44,039
more important in determining people's attitudes and actions than the

652
00:35:44,079 --> 00:35:47,280
real because people sort of, ah, we can, we can isolate.

653
00:35:47,360 --> 00:35:50,519
You know, it's like COVID, you know, the lockdown. We

654
00:35:50,559 --> 00:35:52,639
don't we don't need the outside world anymore.

655
00:35:53,159 --> 00:35:56,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, that reminds me of the classic chapter from Budrillard

656
00:35:56,960 --> 00:36:01,360
where he talks about simulacra and simulation, which actually is

657
00:36:01,400 --> 00:36:03,800
referenced in the Matrix. I mean, it's it's it's bizarre

658
00:36:03,840 --> 00:36:06,960
because you know, it's it's one of the things I

659
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:09,599
point out in my books is that it's it's almost

660
00:36:09,679 --> 00:36:14,800
like in many cases, directors, our directors, cinematographers, screenplay writers, whatever.

661
00:36:15,400 --> 00:36:18,360
In many cases, they seem self aware of a lot

662
00:36:18,360 --> 00:36:22,360
of this stuff, perhaps more so than we we tend

663
00:36:22,400 --> 00:36:24,599
to think. And that's where my books do kind of

664
00:36:24,679 --> 00:36:29,039
verge on an element of conspiracy theorizing, is that it's

665
00:36:29,079 --> 00:36:31,559
almost like a lot of times there is an awareness

666
00:36:31,599 --> 00:36:34,159
of the of the power, of the philosophy, of the

667
00:36:34,199 --> 00:36:37,360
ability of Hollywood to manipulate and and that's one thing

668
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:39,559
I do appreciate about that David Lynch is that he

669
00:36:39,639 --> 00:36:41,639
seems to have that awareness and at the same time

670
00:36:41,719 --> 00:36:44,800
be willing to satirize it and be willing to critique it,

671
00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:49,920
be willing to kind of point out the power and

672
00:36:49,920 --> 00:36:51,280
the evil that it that it can be.

673
00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:55,039
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, yeah, because that is a theme definitely in

674
00:36:56,119 --> 00:37:01,119
uh Mulholland Drive and a Yeah, Lost Away, the evil

675
00:37:01,159 --> 00:37:04,760
of the movie industry and the yeah it's it's and

676
00:37:04,800 --> 00:37:08,760
there as well he plays with uh, well what's her

677
00:37:08,840 --> 00:37:11,719
name with you know, the blonde hair and the and

678
00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:15,159
the and the brunette in Lost My Way. Yeah, I

679
00:37:15,159 --> 00:37:17,480
mean it's too two different, and I think in Inland

680
00:37:17,480 --> 00:37:20,880
Empire he has like three levels because the girl now

681
00:37:20,880 --> 00:37:23,039
it's many years since I saw it, but I think

682
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:26,320
she is herself. She's you know, playing a role as

683
00:37:26,400 --> 00:37:29,480
an actor actress, and she's dreaming. So it's like you

684
00:37:29,519 --> 00:37:32,480
can never know what part of reality you're in. And

685
00:37:32,840 --> 00:37:34,960
of course that is a big part of the magic

686
00:37:34,960 --> 00:37:38,760
that he creates, because that's sort of yeah, it's it

687
00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:39,960
stretches our imagination.

688
00:37:40,559 --> 00:37:42,840
Speaker 2: Yeah. I watched an old documentary that that had an

689
00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:47,639
interview with Lynch and it was talking about his his influences,

690
00:37:47,679 --> 00:37:50,679
and it was like ten or so alevant garde tour,

691
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:55,159
you know, surrealist filmmakers. And I watched most of the

692
00:37:55,239 --> 00:37:57,480
clips of the surrealists and I went I did a

693
00:37:57,519 --> 00:38:02,360
bunch of reading on surrealism from philosophers and film theorists

694
00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:06,360
and whatnot. And one of the things that the attitude

695
00:38:06,440 --> 00:38:08,840
of the surrealist director is trying to do is to

696
00:38:09,760 --> 00:38:13,360
kind of play the role of God. I don't mean

697
00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:15,840
that in a blasphemous way, but it's like taking on

698
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:18,480
the persona of God to tell the story. Right, So

699
00:38:18,519 --> 00:38:20,800
it's like you're entering into a world, you're being told

700
00:38:20,800 --> 00:38:23,920
a story. Lynch compares himself as compares himself with a

701
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:26,440
time to a shaman. Right, He's the person who kind

702
00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:32,119
of steps into the other world through his TM transpnmentitation.

703
00:38:32,199 --> 00:38:35,440
He describes this process quite a bit where he tries

704
00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:38,199
to kind of get this influence from the other side,

705
00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:41,000
which is loosely a kind of a Tibetan Buddhist practice,

706
00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:44,880
and then he comes back to this world. Right, behold

707
00:38:44,920 --> 00:38:47,599
the one who chants out between two worlds? Right, firewalk

708
00:38:47,639 --> 00:38:49,599
with me. That's the whole point of the story. Is

709
00:38:49,639 --> 00:38:52,800
the artist as the shaman or the artist as the

710
00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:56,840
god figure telling the story the narrative, and you participating

711
00:38:56,840 --> 00:39:02,519
in that. And the idea is you know, what is real?

712
00:39:02,840 --> 00:39:07,159
What is fiction? What is the story that you yourself

713
00:39:07,239 --> 00:39:09,519
is telling you that you're telling yourself? Right? Are you

714
00:39:10,719 --> 00:39:14,000
really learning the world? Or are you being told a story?

715
00:39:14,119 --> 00:39:16,840
Are you buying into a false myth, a false narrative?

716
00:39:17,159 --> 00:39:19,039
I think he's playing with all of these ideas. I

717
00:39:19,039 --> 00:39:20,880
know some of that's kind of cliche and obvious, but

718
00:39:21,920 --> 00:39:23,880
I don't know. It's just one other thing I want

719
00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:28,280
to say too, about a theme that's pretty prevalent in

720
00:39:28,320 --> 00:39:30,960
some of the big directors like Kubrick that I've covered,

721
00:39:31,760 --> 00:39:34,480
is that they do they tend to have this theme

722
00:39:34,639 --> 00:39:40,239
of human trafficking and even ritual abuse and mind control,

723
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:43,480
and that might seem a little far fetched, but if

724
00:39:43,519 --> 00:39:45,800
you think about it, I mean that's pretty obvious in

725
00:39:45,880 --> 00:39:50,440
kuber Kubert's consistently dealing with the themes of human trafficking

726
00:39:50,440 --> 00:39:52,800
and pedophilia. We've got that with Lolita, We've got it

727
00:39:52,840 --> 00:39:56,159
with Shining, We've got it with Eyesweight Shut, We've got

728
00:39:56,159 --> 00:39:59,320
it even in Barry Lyndon, and then in Lynch we've

729
00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:02,400
got similar themes with you know, if we think about

730
00:40:02,440 --> 00:40:07,400
say Lost Highway, the Patricia Arquette character, she we give

731
00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:10,000
the impression that she was trying to, you know, do

732
00:40:10,079 --> 00:40:13,880
something entertainment and somehow she ends up in porn. So

733
00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:15,840
she ends up and I mean, that's the way I

734
00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:18,039
read it, that's the doubling, is that she's living a

735
00:40:18,039 --> 00:40:23,599
double life perhaps or or you know, the Fred Madison character,

736
00:40:23,599 --> 00:40:27,280
Bill Pullman, he doesn't know right her her dark side

737
00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:29,519
backstory or something like that, and then then he's found

738
00:40:29,519 --> 00:40:31,360
that out and it has made him jealous, and he

739
00:40:31,400 --> 00:40:36,199
stumbles upon, right the the network of the elites and

740
00:40:36,239 --> 00:40:38,639
the organized crime that are filming the porn. Right that's

741
00:40:38,679 --> 00:40:42,639
what the mister X, the Dick Dick Larent character is doing.

742
00:40:44,079 --> 00:40:47,360
And so there's this there's this this sort of implication

743
00:40:47,679 --> 00:40:50,599
of snuff right at the end when you have the

744
00:40:50,760 --> 00:40:53,159
you know, he discovers that film and people are being

745
00:40:53,159 --> 00:40:56,079
in Marilyn Manson makes a guest appearance there, and that's

746
00:40:56,119 --> 00:40:58,280
what appears to be a snuff film that everyone's watching.

747
00:40:58,679 --> 00:41:01,039
Mm hm. So that's another theme that comes up in

748
00:41:01,079 --> 00:41:03,440
a lot of organized crime and ritual murders, is the

749
00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:07,800
filming of it. And I and that involves or implies

750
00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:10,960
human trafficking. And so I think when we look at

751
00:41:11,039 --> 00:41:13,360
Twin Peaks, we've got that because the girls that are

752
00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:17,280
going to One Eye Jacks are essentially high school girls

753
00:41:17,280 --> 00:41:20,599
who are being coaxed into being prostitutes across the border,

754
00:41:20,679 --> 00:41:23,320
across the lake over in Canada One Eyed Jacks, Right,

755
00:41:23,320 --> 00:41:26,679
so you've got to and there's even right the kidnapping

756
00:41:26,719 --> 00:41:30,039
and the murdering of Teresa Banks, right, the prostitutes that

757
00:41:30,079 --> 00:41:33,559
are being trafficked and kidnapped by this organized crime ring.

758
00:41:34,599 --> 00:41:37,960
And then in Inland Empire, if you pay attention, the

759
00:41:38,039 --> 00:41:41,679
Laura Dern character when she dissociates or or goes into

760
00:41:41,719 --> 00:41:45,360
her dream set or whatever. She seems to have some

761
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:47,719
sort of mental or spiritual connection. I don't know if

762
00:41:47,719 --> 00:41:52,400
it's reincarnation or what, but there were these Polish prostitutes

763
00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:54,840
that appear to be trafficked as well. And it's even

764
00:41:54,880 --> 00:41:57,920
mentioned at one point that the guy who runs the

765
00:41:59,079 --> 00:42:02,519
circus or the the I think it's a circus at

766
00:42:02,519 --> 00:42:06,079
some point he's he's trafficking in prostitutes and women. And

767
00:42:06,119 --> 00:42:08,719
then she flashes to what looks like the seventies or

768
00:42:08,760 --> 00:42:11,039
eighties or something, and she's doing this dance routine with

769
00:42:11,079 --> 00:42:14,440
a bunch of kind of skanky hose in a in

770
00:42:14,199 --> 00:42:17,440
a trailer or something. Right, So there's this theme of

771
00:42:18,719 --> 00:42:21,960
the actresses kind of being like prostitutes and being traffic

772
00:42:22,159 --> 00:42:24,880
and then she bumps into Julia Ormond, who you know,

773
00:42:24,920 --> 00:42:27,760
tells her that she says some kind of wild, crazy

774
00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:31,320
conspiracy thing, like they're spraying chemicals in the sky and

775
00:42:31,440 --> 00:42:33,840
you know, and there she acts like she's, you know,

776
00:42:33,960 --> 00:42:36,360
got multiple personality disorder or something like that. So these

777
00:42:36,599 --> 00:42:39,199
are themes that Lynch, you know, constantly puts in the films.

778
00:42:39,239 --> 00:42:41,760
They're really there if you pay attention. How you want

779
00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:44,239
to interpret that, it is up to you. But I

780
00:42:44,239 --> 00:42:46,079
would say one last point is that a lot of

781
00:42:46,119 --> 00:42:49,960
people don't know the pretty high level connection that Laura

782
00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:53,000
Dern has. If you read Dave mcgallan's classic book on

783
00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:56,119
on the Hollywood Laurel Canyon scene called Weird Scenes Inside

784
00:42:56,119 --> 00:42:59,000
the Canyon, I highly recommend that book. He noted that,

785
00:42:59,760 --> 00:43:04,960
So let me think how it goes. Bruce Dern's godparents

786
00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:09,519
were Franklin Eleanor Rosenvelt and Eleanor Roosevelt. And then his

787
00:43:10,519 --> 00:43:14,639
other distant his grandfather. Yeah, so the godparents of the Roosevelts.

788
00:43:14,679 --> 00:43:17,800
His grandfather was George Dern, who was the Secretary of War.

789
00:43:18,960 --> 00:43:24,519
And then there's another connection to Bruce Dern's uncle is

790
00:43:24,639 --> 00:43:28,320
Archibald McLeish, who was a famous high level political operative

791
00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:31,400
and a member of Skull and Bones. So she actually

792
00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:36,159
comes from that. These Hollywood sort of counterculture figures ironically

793
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:41,920
come from a really established, prominent, you know, American dynasty, right,

794
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:45,039
And so here you've got this elite American dynasty of

795
00:43:45,119 --> 00:43:49,320
political figures. But then they're also you know, immediately connected

796
00:43:49,360 --> 00:43:52,599
to directly connected to the so called counterculture with Bruce

797
00:43:52,679 --> 00:43:56,280
Dern and the Hollywood scene. And that's something that we

798
00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:59,920
find a lot in the contradiction that is America. Is

799
00:44:00,079 --> 00:44:05,159
the America's royalty. America's elite tend to want to like

800
00:44:05,480 --> 00:44:09,960
distance themselves or they play another role of liberal counter

801
00:44:10,039 --> 00:44:14,280
culture when they're actually from the most wealthy, powerful families

802
00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:18,039
in the US. It's just this bizarre feature of the

803
00:44:18,119 --> 00:44:21,519
sort of the implicit guilt, Like you're supposed to be guilty,

804
00:44:21,840 --> 00:44:25,599
right if you're a successful American, and so the mask,

805
00:44:25,679 --> 00:44:28,320
the persona that you wear if you've been successful, if

806
00:44:28,320 --> 00:44:30,679
your family is wealthy, is that you pretend to be

807
00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:36,960
the counter cultural liberal. That's just a bizarre feature of America. Definitely.

808
00:44:37,199 --> 00:44:39,079
Speaker 1: I think you said many interesting things there. I like

809
00:44:39,119 --> 00:44:42,719
what you said about Lynch being a shaman. It's like

810
00:44:42,760 --> 00:44:45,320
he takes you on this spiritual journey.

811
00:44:45,960 --> 00:44:47,320
Speaker 2: And it's.

812
00:44:49,719 --> 00:44:55,519
Speaker 1: You mentioned the surrealist filmmakers playing God. I think that

813
00:44:56,320 --> 00:45:00,360
one example that comes to mind is Bunuel's f The

814
00:45:00,400 --> 00:45:05,280
Exterminating Angel, where people are in a room and it's

815
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:09,199
like he just throws in new sort of laws of nature.

816
00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:10,360
Speaker 2: They can't leave the room.

817
00:45:10,400 --> 00:45:13,639
Speaker 1: It's like he's just playing like pulling strings, you know,

818
00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:17,559
on the characters, and they can't do anything like normal things.

819
00:45:17,599 --> 00:45:19,800
They can't do normal things anymore. They have to stay

820
00:45:19,800 --> 00:45:22,159
in this room and no one knows why, and it

821
00:45:22,719 --> 00:45:26,760
becomes this bizarre thing. But it's it's also very attractive somehow.

822
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:28,719
It's you know, it draws, it really draws you in.

823
00:45:28,920 --> 00:45:29,800
It's very interesting.

824
00:45:30,199 --> 00:45:33,719
Speaker 2: I love those defying of laws of nature that he does.

825
00:45:33,800 --> 00:45:36,519
Like like how in season three or twin Peaks when

826
00:45:37,119 --> 00:45:42,320
the David Bowie character comes back as a teapot. Yeah,

827
00:45:42,599 --> 00:45:45,519
so he got lost in the you know, inter dimensional

828
00:45:45,559 --> 00:45:48,920
world and he comes back as this teapot. So it

829
00:45:48,960 --> 00:45:51,360
would else would come up with David Bowie as a teapots.

830
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:53,480
It's crazy, yeah, yeah.

831
00:45:53,519 --> 00:45:55,960
Speaker 1: And I also like what you said there about of

832
00:45:55,960 --> 00:46:01,920
course this him playing on on this you know, trafficking,

833
00:46:02,280 --> 00:46:05,519
exploiting people, and also trauma, because that is how I

834
00:46:05,559 --> 00:46:08,599
see lost Highway that. I mean, he loves his wife

835
00:46:09,039 --> 00:46:13,440
and when he finds out that she is that she is,

836
00:46:13,480 --> 00:46:17,199
you know, doing porn behind his back, he's so broken

837
00:46:17,440 --> 00:46:22,960
that he basically goes into a split personality states he's

838
00:46:23,000 --> 00:46:27,039
dissociating and he has to rationalize this to himself because

839
00:46:27,079 --> 00:46:29,960
he's so traumatized by this. And I think that is

840
00:46:30,039 --> 00:46:33,159
also a thing that goes through all of Lynch's films,

841
00:46:33,159 --> 00:46:38,519
basically almost that that characters are extremely traumatized by something,

842
00:46:38,559 --> 00:46:42,000
And I mean Twin Peaks is probably the clearest example

843
00:46:42,039 --> 00:46:46,039
of that. You know, I mean Laura Palmer is traumatized

844
00:46:46,079 --> 00:46:49,280
because she's she is being raped by her father, he

845
00:46:49,360 --> 00:46:51,119
was possessed by a demon.

846
00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:58,559
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the theme of doubling is pretty prominent. Well,

847
00:46:58,719 --> 00:47:01,880
it's it's a prominent theme in Hitchcock. You know, you've

848
00:47:01,880 --> 00:47:04,639
got strangers on a train, You've got Psycho, you know,

849
00:47:04,719 --> 00:47:13,000
with Norman Bates kind of dissociating m the girl in Vertigo,

850
00:47:13,559 --> 00:47:17,000
you can argue that, well, she seems to be part

851
00:47:17,039 --> 00:47:19,360
of this elaborate, sort of organized plot, so I don't know,

852
00:47:19,480 --> 00:47:22,599
technically know that she's not technically dissociating. She actually pretends

853
00:47:22,599 --> 00:47:26,960
that she's associating to the Jimmy Stewart character. But and

854
00:47:27,199 --> 00:47:30,320
of course, you know, obviously there's a there's a degree

855
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:33,400
of Hitchcock influence in David Lynch that you can see

856
00:47:33,559 --> 00:47:41,000
that's there. But let's see, there's another Sunset Boulevard, right

857
00:47:41,000 --> 00:47:42,719
if if you think about the Norman that's a big

858
00:47:42,760 --> 00:47:45,679
influence on David Lynch and the Norman Desmond character is

859
00:47:45,760 --> 00:47:50,079
basically dissociating. She's totally broken with reality. She thinks she's

860
00:47:50,119 --> 00:47:52,559
living in the silent film, you know, twenties thirties era,

861
00:47:53,239 --> 00:47:54,920
and this of course leads to the to the to

862
00:47:55,000 --> 00:47:59,440
the murder of that the starving screenplay writer that she

863
00:47:59,639 --> 00:48:06,320
sort of uh brings into her mystery realm there. So,

864
00:48:06,360 --> 00:48:08,559
in other words, this theme of doubling comes up a lot,

865
00:48:08,639 --> 00:48:10,719
and then I think Lynch likes to play with it

866
00:48:10,800 --> 00:48:14,199
because exactly it fits into the metaphysics. I mean, as

867
00:48:14,199 --> 00:48:16,440
far as I can tell, he believes Tibetan Buddhism to

868
00:48:16,480 --> 00:48:18,519
some degree. So I think he believes that there is

869
00:48:18,559 --> 00:48:22,840
this potential for dissociating. There is the reality of being

870
00:48:22,880 --> 00:48:26,239
influenced by these other forces, these other worlds, these other entities,

871
00:48:26,280 --> 00:48:30,679
the dream state, the unconscious, you know, et cetera. And

872
00:48:30,800 --> 00:48:32,480
that's what the shaman does or he tries to step

873
00:48:32,480 --> 00:48:34,639
into that world. So that's that's a kind of you

874
00:48:34,639 --> 00:48:37,679
can say, possession, right or coming under the influence of

875
00:48:37,719 --> 00:48:41,159
that higher realm, that other dimension, that spiritual reality. That's

876
00:48:41,199 --> 00:48:43,719
what his whole you know, transnial meditation stuff is about,

877
00:48:43,840 --> 00:48:45,840
is trying is trying to do that to get into

878
00:48:45,880 --> 00:48:48,800
that state not necessarily being possessed by a demon, to

879
00:48:48,840 --> 00:48:52,440
get into that state of being influenced by other realms,

880
00:48:52,519 --> 00:48:55,840
so to speak. So that's his whole ethos, absolutely.

881
00:48:56,199 --> 00:48:59,400
Speaker 1: Definitely, And I find that many I mean, just on

882
00:48:59,440 --> 00:49:02,159
a personal le, people that I know, many people who

883
00:49:02,159 --> 00:49:06,639
are extremely creative, like Lynch, They are interested in those things,

884
00:49:07,039 --> 00:49:10,880
in esoteric things and in sort of mystic mystical religions

885
00:49:11,119 --> 00:49:15,599
things like that, because it is I mean, it transports

886
00:49:15,599 --> 00:49:18,639
the mind to a different world or a different level

887
00:49:18,800 --> 00:49:21,800
of existence, or call it what you want. But yeah,

888
00:49:21,880 --> 00:49:25,480
they tend to not see the world in these strictly

889
00:49:26,400 --> 00:49:30,559
minimalist scientific terms because that isn't there's not a whole

890
00:49:30,639 --> 00:49:33,079
lot to work with with your imagination there.

891
00:49:33,400 --> 00:49:36,800
Speaker 2: And what is madness? I mean, I'm not saying there's

892
00:49:36,800 --> 00:49:42,079
no line between madness and genius, but that's definitely a

893
00:49:42,119 --> 00:49:45,400
theme right here, Like like what is the what is

894
00:49:45,440 --> 00:49:48,800
the guy who's the insane, you know, schizophrenic guy screaming

895
00:49:48,800 --> 00:49:52,280
at the mailbox, Like what separates that from you know,

896
00:49:52,320 --> 00:49:56,920
the genius artists or or the genius you know literal

897
00:49:57,079 --> 00:49:59,440
you know, the math sometimes even the mathematical genius is

898
00:49:59,480 --> 00:50:02,159
like a like a like a John Nash right, Like

899
00:50:02,239 --> 00:50:05,920
they become like literally the insane people. So a lot

900
00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:10,039
of mathematicians have actually have gone insane. So yeah, that's

901
00:50:10,079 --> 00:50:12,599
another interesting question. I think he plays with two, which

902
00:50:12,639 --> 00:50:14,679
is like what is sanity? What is madness? You know,

903
00:50:15,760 --> 00:50:17,760
there's no easy answers to that when it comes to

904
00:50:17,960 --> 00:50:21,440
the arts and that kind of stuff. I mean, I

905
00:50:21,880 --> 00:50:25,039
guess there is. I mean, I don't know. I mean,

906
00:50:25,199 --> 00:50:27,960
I guess I'm talking myself into a box there, because

907
00:50:28,039 --> 00:50:30,679
I do believe there's a difference between genius and madness,

908
00:50:30,719 --> 00:50:33,719
but at times it is perhaps a thin line.

909
00:50:33,719 --> 00:50:36,679
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think so too. Yeah, so I

910
00:50:36,800 --> 00:50:39,639
like to keep these shows around one hour. So so

911
00:50:39,760 --> 00:50:43,280
I think let's wrap this up in a little moment.

912
00:50:43,559 --> 00:50:45,480
Are there any final thoughts you want to get out

913
00:50:45,480 --> 00:50:46,599
there before we wrap it up?

914
00:50:49,719 --> 00:50:51,559
Speaker 2: I did have a couple just a few more notes

915
00:50:51,639 --> 00:50:56,639
about themes that he uses, Like, you know, another one

916
00:50:56,679 --> 00:51:01,199
of the mysterious elements that comes up is the everybody's

917
00:51:01,360 --> 00:51:04,320
wondered for years what the cowboy is in mahulland Drive.

918
00:51:04,400 --> 00:51:07,840
He's this sort of quasi supernatural figure that appears to

919
00:51:07,960 --> 00:51:11,280
kind of be demonic. We know that in Lynch films,

920
00:51:11,320 --> 00:51:15,360
when lights flicker, this is the presence of the supernatural

921
00:51:15,679 --> 00:51:17,960
or of the other world invading our world. So a

922
00:51:18,000 --> 00:51:19,800
lot of people wonder what the cowboy is. And I

923
00:51:19,880 --> 00:51:24,119
noticed that when they're filming that Fat Chick porno in

924
00:51:25,119 --> 00:51:28,719
Wild at Heart, the cowboy walks by. So this is

925
00:51:28,760 --> 00:51:32,039
another instance of and I would assume that Lynch is

926
00:51:32,079 --> 00:51:34,920
intentionally because he makes a point to show this cowboy,

927
00:51:35,039 --> 00:51:38,000
like the camera follows the cowboy guy walk past those facts,

928
00:51:38,119 --> 00:51:41,280
he's staring at them. Yeah, and so I think we're

929
00:51:41,280 --> 00:51:45,320
supposed to see that kind of even above the level

930
00:51:45,360 --> 00:51:48,320
of organized crime and the you know, the porno filmers

931
00:51:48,360 --> 00:51:51,239
and all that, there's a higher spiritual level of the

932
00:51:51,280 --> 00:51:53,599
demonic that's going on kind of in the background of

933
00:51:53,599 --> 00:51:57,880
this stuff. That's something that I noticed. And then beyond that,

934
00:51:57,960 --> 00:52:03,119
I would just say, let's see, uh the sigil ring

935
00:52:03,280 --> 00:52:06,000
or Santos has a ring that that signifies like he

936
00:52:06,079 --> 00:52:08,840
has a sigil. We know that in Twin Peaks, right,

937
00:52:08,880 --> 00:52:11,079
there's the there's the ring that what has the symbol

938
00:52:11,159 --> 00:52:14,480
that connects to this cult. Uh, So I think that

939
00:52:14,519 --> 00:52:16,760
again is another theme that's work that's worth mentioning that

940
00:52:16,840 --> 00:52:20,000
pops up, you know, across the canon of David Lynch films,

941
00:52:21,079 --> 00:52:25,000
Laura Palmer being the good Witch. That's about it. Those

942
00:52:25,039 --> 00:52:26,840
are Those are the last couple of points I wanted

943
00:52:26,880 --> 00:52:27,119
to mention.

944
00:52:28,039 --> 00:52:30,840
Speaker 1: Fantastic. I think this has been an excellent conversation. It

945
00:52:30,920 --> 00:52:33,519
was great to having you on the show. So I

946
00:52:33,559 --> 00:52:35,480
want to thank you for for joining us, and I

947
00:52:35,519 --> 00:52:37,360
hope we can we can do this again sometime.

948
00:52:37,920 --> 00:52:40,559
Speaker 2: Sure. Yeah, And if anybody's interested, you go to if

949
00:52:40,559 --> 00:52:42,039
you would. If you want. If you want my books,

950
00:52:42,079 --> 00:52:45,440
get them from the website because we give signed copies.

951
00:52:45,480 --> 00:52:47,360
And of course if you buy them from Bezos, I

952
00:52:47,360 --> 00:52:49,239
don't I don't make any money, so please get them

953
00:52:49,519 --> 00:52:51,880
if you want book. If you like this kind of analysis,

954
00:52:51,880 --> 00:52:52,960
that's what my books.

955
00:52:52,679 --> 00:52:57,719
Speaker 1: Do, brilliant, So Jay's Analysis dot com, so make sure

956
00:52:57,760 --> 00:53:00,559
to check that out. And like I said in the beginning,

957
00:53:00,559 --> 00:53:02,920
tomorrow we'll be back with two episodes. We're gonna do

958
00:53:03,719 --> 00:53:06,920
Endeavor first and then Academic Agent. But of course go

959
00:53:06,960 --> 00:53:11,519
to guide to culture dot org forward slash Decameron to

960
00:53:11,559 --> 00:53:14,360
see the entire schedule. And now I have to say

961
00:53:14,360 --> 00:53:17,599
goodbye because I have another show coming up with Greg

962
00:53:17,679 --> 00:53:21,639
Johnson and millennial woes. So but thank you so much

963
00:53:21,679 --> 00:53:23,440
for doing this and let's talk again soon.

964
00:53:23,679 --> 00:53:24,760
Speaker 2: All right, thank you, have a good day.

965
00:53:25,119 --> 00:53:25,880
Speaker 1: Okay, bye bye