People like to think a crime has some meaning but most of them don't

The dualism inherent in movies for me is popcorn vs cinema. Commerce/art. I need both to live. Though distinct from one another that isn’t to say either is better or worse. Sick after consuming garbage I yearn for sustenance. You can only watch elevated transcendental form for so long until the monotony becomes unbearable and you need to restore balance with rousing spectacle instant gratification you don’t have to think about. 

     When I think of the 90s I lived it I think of serial killers. The Silence of the Lambs (1991, Jonathan Demme) and Seven (1995, David Fincher). As far as they were what’s new. Awards. Box office. Cultural. But there’s also something especially looking back I find distasteful. The only thing that really bothers me. Depravity. 

I take the meaning of the title of the movie Cure (1997, Kiyoshi Kurosawa) to refer to the antidote to depravity. Or what I find far worse. People who like to watch it. The first way Kurosawa does this is to deglamorize the killings. 
     Notice how of all five of the murderers the three we are shown none of which exemplify this as much as the cop. Probably one of the most memorable discussed scenes in Cure. That wide static daytime ext and the way it happens so mundane without in any way being stylized. None of the murders in Cure have any motive until it’s programmed into them. Cure dismantles the serial killer juggernaut sensation of the 90s which preceded it. We aren’t lured into following the narrative to find out why they did it because we already know why. And it’s nothing special.
     Yet we still get to follow the procedural. So what is it we are trying to solve? That’s just it we aren’t. Popcorn would have us solve the mystery. But Cure as cinema instead forces us to realize we’ve been hypnotized and have to snap out of it. 
 
I’m gonna skip to the end and come right out with it when TAKABE murders MAMIYA I don’t think it’s because he’s to carry on the Mesmer legacy taken over from Mamiya. He's too perfect new lease on life to be. I think Takabe does it because he realizes Mamiya is a hoax. Powerless. Mamiya is depravity enticing Takabe to find his true self telling him that by freeing him he will get to hear his true secret. But Takabe doesn’t buy it. And when he asks Mamiya if he remembers now it’s because they’re both divested themselves of their mutual interest in the illusion that led up to this point. There never was a secret. It was only a means to pull people down the rabbit hole. Into the abyss. This is real life now. Mostly I feel this because afterwards Takabe isn't in the same lost condition Mamiya was always in plus didn't Mamiya have to read like a thousand books to get that way. 
     Mamiya is the media. He’s empty. He uses manipulation psychology tricks to get people to believe they suffer from unfair plights that they’re only way out of is to take it out on others. And he’s so cool. Seriously. That shaggy mop thin moustache stoner gen X slacker baggy Aran sweater Cobain disaffected charm sincere ASMR hypnotizing sound design accompanying cozy doom is the reason I can’t stop watching this movie. Over and over again. Mamiya is cure is cinema is the greatest thing any movie could ever do. Hypnotize its audience. Suspension of disbelief. Put your stupid phone away and pay attention. 
 
Likewise the wife of Takabe is also a depiction of another type of problem which arises from popcorn. Hollow shallow meaningless entertainment with no redeeming value. The first scene in the movie when FUMIE is asked what the book she read is about is repeated later on. And when the doctor asks about the book she has no recollection of ever having read it. Just like after you watch a big budget Hollywood movie and take away absolutely nothing from it. 
     And when Fumie gets lost on that bridge in that signature Kurosawa high wide ext with the overpowering sound of wind that’s like us getting lost in a movie. Like she losing our grasp on reality is proof that we have crossed over into the power of cinema. But when she does a load of laundry yet the washer is empty or serves a steak that isn’t cooked we can see this as the media causing one to lose touch with reality despite not actually hurting anyone. When the doctor at the sanatorium tells Takabe he looks sicker than his wife it’s because she’s able to live her meaningless life while remaining healthy. Unlike him.
 
The dualism in Cure is it pathologizes our sickness allowing us to indulge in it while curing us of it. It warns us of the perilous rabbit hole while tempting us to jump in. And I did. I have. A notion I have is that both Mamiya and Fumie suffer from memory loss is because they and we can’t remember anything before Cure because the other fifteen movies Kurosawa made up until now no longer matter. 

4. Wicked Witches and Femme Fatales—the Barry Gifford screenplays

Middle period. The way I like to remember the star persona of David Lynch during this time is avant garde rockstar. Commercial surrealist. He’s wearing all black; but still keeping that top button buttoned. He introduces his signature coif for the first time at its wildest. He’s directing the most enigmatic black and white Calvin Klein fragrance ads we’ll ever see. Sex becomes a commodity. Violence along with it. And this wins him a Palme d'Or.

A golden heart fairy tale. Lynch’s most optimistic heart on its sleeve unabashed romance. His only pure love story. SAILOR and LULA share a developing internal conflict: doubt. Midpoint is Lula grappling with Sailor having hidden from her that her mom wanted to fuck him and his refusal is the reason she hates him and likely has ordered a hit on him troubles her. Wicked Witch.

     Sailor likewise begins to lose his trust in Lula when he finds out she told BOBBY PERU she’s pregnant before telling him. In fact she doesn’t tell him at all. So Sailor’s destiny becomes two-bit hood bank robber deadbeat loser. That is until the Good Witch restores Sailor’s belief in himself thereby allowing him to acknowledge Lula’s love for him and he her so they can raise their child together and live happily ever after. Which brings us to maybe the film’s central weakness. It lacks a strong idea behind its theme. Lynch usually has some profound narrative structuring behind his content.
      But it doesn’t matter. Because Wild at Heart (1990, David Lynch) is all surface style accessible indulgent delight. It’s powerful. It stays with you. It’s at its most sublime during that scene where Lula lies on the bed forlorn looking at that little statue of a horse with Strauss’ Im Abendrot blasting. This At Sunset piece about a couple approaching dissolution and death will prove to be a bait and switch but that’s to the strength of Wild at Heart. Most of the movie we get to see this perfect couple together. And when you think about it what causes them to lose trust in each other is so petty and is experienced by each of them so simultaneously calculated it’s Hollywood fairytale implausibility makes it that much more dreamy. It’s an operatic sweeping ideal of young sexy idealistic invincible love. As far from real life as Hollywood has always been yet vigorous dangerous and modern.
     You still get Lynch’s small town Americana nostalgia. Like the gas station attendant snapping his fingers while Lula dances. And when Sailor gets the thrash metal band to play an Elvis song we have to stop and ask ourselves what world are we in? Exactly. David Lynch’s. The end credits Cage singing Love Me Tender is the best reason not to skip through the crawl ever conceived. 
     Wild at Heart like any good road trip movie is about the voyage not the destination. From North Carolina to New Orleans to Texas this thing really finds its character. The paranoia conspiracy theory borne secret society of underworld network that connects everyone. And who can forget that one MR. REINDEER scene? You know the one I’m talking about. The haunting exquisite corpse teeny bopper Sherilyn Fenn Now She Tells Me monologue. And how the loathsome Bobby Peru somehow gets more and more charming upon each subsequent rewatch.

Lost Highway (1997, David Lynch) is a crime genre film about pussy. And self-denial. Its plot is pretty straightforward. The thing is hardly any of it takes place in what we might typically think of as the real world. You know. The diegesis. And usually if I hear a movie is all a dream or all took place in someone’s head or Tyler Durden is imaginary and in hindsight I’m supposed to accept that the character played by Edward Norton beat himself up in that scene in the parking lot that kind of thing ruins the movie for me. I mean I’m generalizing here but say there were a movie and at the end we were to be told it was all a dream I’d be furious. But I also adhere to the conviction that in cinema there are no rules. There are always exceptions. And remember Wild at Heart has shown us David Lynch is quite fond of a film that happens to be one of those exceptions The Wizard of Oz.
     MYSTERY MAN is an evil demon capable of driving a man to madness induced jealous homicidal rage. Or so FRED MADISON tells himself. That way he sheds the burden of having to accept it’s he alone who goes psycho and murders his wife. According to my theory the only aspects of the premise we may be certain of are that RENEE MADISON met her friend ANDY at a place called Moke’s and some guy named DICK LAURENT is connected to some part of this somehow.
     Also due to the fact that we never actually see Fred kill Renee this builds a central mystery essential to the film’s narrative which coincides with the jury in the O.J. Simpson murder trial finding him not guilty. Let’s say the inciting incident then is the buzzer Dick Laurent is dead message. In Fred’s scheme this is the first stage in what becomes a Faustian agreement wherein in exchange for his redemption Mystery Man enlists Fred as an accomplice to execute Laurent—here the embodiment of perversion sexual violence establishing him as evil. We know this is impossible though. In Fred’s delusional fantasy he finds redemption by having the courage to vanquish evil but Mystery Man can’t really live up to paying his end of this bargain because Fred’s soul is already unequivocally damned to eternity for the murder of Renee.
     If video represents Fred’s aversion to how things really happened then Mystery Man sending the anonymous tapes to his residence points toward a defect in Fred’s design. Mystery Man breaks the terms of their agreement and begins harassing Fred and forcing him to acknowledge his role in their partnership. After that scene where Fred and then Renee embark upon their plunge into that abyss corridor we see these two shadows walking across the living room. Those two shadows are Mystery Man and Fred going in for the kill. And those lights upstairs waving all over the place before the couple return home is Mystery Man prepping the murder scene. Furthermore any time Mystery Man is in two places at once we can take as Fred struggling to reconcile the fact that this evil entity he’s summoned has control over him and a mind of its own but really comes from within himself the whole time.
 
In equal and opposite juxtaposition with Fred’s contempt for Renee is his infatuation and desperate refusal to let her go. The PETE DAYTON portion. ALICE is the perfect half of all the bliss emotions she arouses in him against the poisonous half Renee does. Alice is Fred’s wish fantasy codependent denial impulse that sex can preserve their troubled relationship. Until this dream is ruptured by him knowing better as it disintegrates into the acceptance conclusion no it can’t. 
     The scene in which Pete first sees Alice in that shop is mesmerizing. The increased frame rate of the camera along with the mismatched shutter to preserve the fluorescent tubes’ flicker shot of her getting out of the car set to Lou Reed’s cover of Magic Moment is ethereal. But nevertheless it’s still shallow and objectifying of her. The awkwardly uncomfortable scene where Alice is forced to strip at gunpoint while Pete is made uneasy upon hearing it retold to him make no mistake is also a product of the very same warped psyche of Fred this whole time. 
     Pete and Alice are projections conjured up by Fred as a means for him to reverse the imbalance of physical attraction between he and Renee in the real world. When Pete’s parents and Sheila recall a man showing up with Pete that night and when detectives Al and Ed say Pete Dayton’s prints are all over Andy’s crime scene it’s because Fred’s delusions can only go so far before such an inevitable collision. The elegiac sweeping vocal ballad of melancholy longing that precludes the coitus interruptus Pete frightfully encounters matches Fred’s erectile disfunction scene because they’re one in the same reality. Yet in Pete’s version as with everything else it’s idealized. Imbued with romantic cinematic more closely according to our own desires dramatic force as if a Greek god is accusing his desperate fuck impulse you can’t possess pussy you silly mortal how dare you even try.
 
Similarly near the end of Pete’s hardboiled femme fatale interlude when he asks to go to the bathroom and is transported to room 26 with a serious case of migraine as the black widow mercilessly taunts him with the condemnation did you want to ask me whyyyyyy his headache links to two significant matching occurrences. It’s the key. 
     In his cell when Fred’s psyche literally rips apart as headache it begins the Pete interlude. And then after Fred nabs Laurent so again Mystery Man can do the actual deed and executes him afterwards the police chase which ensues with the entire LAPD chasing Fred just like he was O.J. the headache that ends the film tells us that none of this happened and Fred is still on death row. It now makes sense when we recall that scene on the phone with Mr. Eddy when Mystery Man tells Fred about how in the Far East when a person’s sentenced to death they’re sent to a place where they can’t escape never knowing when an executioner may step up behind them and fire a bullet into the back of their head. Lost Highway uses a retro-fitted construction which foreshadows the path Fred both denies will send him to his doom and knew all along.