How to know just how beloved an artist, actor or celebrity is among your social circles? It’s easy: just wait for them to die.
David Lynch passed away on January 16 and the news was, for a while, the only thing I saw on my Instagram. Friends were desperately sad, and showed it by posting endlessly about the director, his movies, and how he’d inspired generations of freaks and weirdos.
It was beautiful, but made me feel quite left out. I never quite got Lynch’s work. Hell, I’d not even seen any of it until the end of last year.
A nerd by trade, I decided to take my mind off the impending US election by watching his version of Dune. Films like Mulholland Drive and Blue Velvet intimidated me, but I could deal with the deserts of Arrakis, and the machinations of the Harkonnens.
In all honesty, I didn’t have that good a time. It shouldn’t have been a surprise: Lynch was famously not enamoured with the finished product, and the movie is now mostly remembered as kitsch and (accidentally) camp. I probably should have turned to the rest of his filmography after that, but I still don’t think I’m ready.
Lynch’s films famously have mangled plots, and no real beginning or end. That’s a bit too arthouse for me. I’m trying, though – I’ve already come a long way.
As I say, I’m a nerd – and I was born at precisely the right time. In my late teens, Hollywood decided that there was money to be made by shamelessly pandering to the geeks, and that’s what they did for over a decade.
I spent most of my twenties in the cinema, though rarely watching anything highbrow. Instead, I eagerly awaited every new Marvel release, rushing in to find out which superhero had gained new powers, which one was about to die, and which one was going to turn into a villain. It was brainless but terrific fun: pure, unadulterated escapism.
I had such a good time, in fact, that I never stopped to wonder if I perhaps needed to widen my horizons a bit more. I’d roll my eyes at people arguing that those movies were childish slop, and felt sorry for their inability to just let go.
At some point, however, things began to change. I’d count down the days to a new Marvel release, head to the cinema as quickly as I could, and leave two hours later feeling… well, feeling nothing. That was the whole problem. Over time, it started reminding me of something I once saw online.
Adulthood, at first, means realising that there’s no one stopping you from eating junk food every day, and deciding to do it just because you can. True adulthood, though, only begins once you start feeling ill after eating all that junk food, and decide to only have it once in a while, even though you could just be gorging yourself.
Like that online saying, I’d been downing milkshake after milkshake, because there was no parent or teacher yanking them away from my greasy paws, and eventually it hit me that I had a stomach ache. Slowly, cautiously, I started dragging myself away, and looked at what else was on offer.
Crucially, I wasn’t the only person this happened to. Ticket sales for superhero movies have been going steadily down for the past few years, and the movies capturing the zeitgeist are, if not entirely pretentious, then at least a step up from what had once been on offer.
Everything Everywhere All at Once was, technically, about multiple universes, but it was produced by a daring independent studio. Saltburn leaned towards the trashier side of things, but also had some terrific acting and brilliant zingers.
Most recently, Conclave was adapted from a pulpy airport book, but Ralph Fiennes’ performance was subtle and wonderful, and the pace of the movie was purposely slow, and its aesthetics quietly refined.
Still, people – in my circles at least – discussed it like it was a blockbuster, and encouraged everyone to see it. It felt like an encouraging development; a joyful return to a world in which movies can be just that.
They aren’t sequels, remakes or offshoots from an already existing universe. They exist on their own, begin and end, and offer something compelling and unique. What more can you possibly ask for?
By the time you read this, I will also have done something I have been fretting about for some weeks. The Brutalist, Brady Corbet’s latest movie, is about to be released in the UK. Its runtime? Three and a half hours. Its plot? Frankly unclear. Had it come out even just a few years ago, I would have laughed in your face if you’d suggested it to me.
That I am not only planning to see it but actively (if cautiously) looking forward to it is a sign that both I and the times have changed. That is an undeniably good thing.
Everyone loves cheeseburgers but, as it turns out, really nice greens can also make you feel like life is truly worth living.
