Why These Mountains? Why This Sky? This Long Road? (Laurie Anderson)

"Hustlers of the world, there is one mark you cannot beat: the mark inside." William Burroughs

What compels me about the absurd, avant-garde and surreal? Why do I find the predictable, explainable and formulaic in Hollywood and art so overwhelmingly banal?

I decided to unlock memories of my past and track some of the things that have shaped this incredible interest of mine in that which really makes very little sense of all.

Below, I've started reflecting a little on what I've gained so far from this bizarre passion of mine.


The Genius of David Lynch

The film 'Eraser Head' was one of many alternative films I saw late night at the Valhalla Cinema in Melbourne. I went to see it many times as it confronted me with sound scapes, images and interactions that were disturbing, amusing and left me each time with different feelings that I couldn't articulate. After Lynch made his short films, he spent about 5 years creating this absolute classic which he has been quoted as saying he still enjoys watching it to this day and is proud of the end result. This film etched itself into my mailable brain and became a bench mark for other films. I've had very few friends who I've taken to this film who actually enjoyed it. The wonderful thing for me is that it definitely it seemed to evoke a strong response in all of these people.

In retrospect this film had particular resonance given what was happening for me in my late teenage life. Some of these extremely distressing dynamics were with my father coming out as gay, the emotionally violent way my parents navigated their separation and divorce, our families hideous decline into fundamentalist Christianity and my own conflicts with being gay and the fear that my coming out would be the end for my mother. The lead character Henry constantly looked troubled as he was trying to make sense of what was happening around him. I had no idea at the time, but was I in fact seeing a mirror of myself in Henry? An expression I was hiding, but laying in the darkness of my unconscious? (pic Henry in Eraserhead)

Watching David Lynch being interviewed is poetry. As the inevitable questions arise asking him to explain what parts of his films mean... the anxiety ridden desperation for certainty, logic, structure, and understanding... his fingers start moving like massive spiders legs as it is upside down scrambling for a foothold. He is hovering over a feeling, an intuitive moment, a moving shadow, a sound that people can't hear. (pic Poster ad for David Lynch's Short Films)

There are no explanations, there is no safety. People either shut down, and walk out of his films, dissociate, allow their minds to glaze over, or if they are willing, start feeling things they can't describe, experiencing murmurs from the soul that are usually silent.

"But what's so fantastic is to get down into areas where things are abstract and where things are felt, or understood in an intuitive way that, you can't, you know, put a microphone to somebody at the theatre and say 'Did you understand that?' but they come out with a strange, fantastic feeling and they can carry that, and it opens some little door or something that's magical and that's the power that film has." Quote from David Lynch (pic on left David Lynch)

As I watched parts of Inland Empires, I felt discomfort, strange darkened echoes from somewhere inside of me. Questions... am I even open to them? What disturbs me so much when I see a frozen image of someone who's face contorts? The part where a man walks into a darkened room with a table of Polish men, and he can feel the fact that a woman is there, someone who was there, but faded before he arrived.,... it has stayed with me ever since. What resonance does this have for me? (pic above scene from Inland Empires)

The Connection to the Unconscious


"Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious" Jean Cocteau

We are not privy to much of our unconscious, in fact most turn their attention fearing what really lies beneath. The fear of what the soul, or self is really like. How often have all of us been scared of the shadows that we can feel but not want to give form to.

"In my writing I am acting as a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas, a cosmonaut of inner space, and I see no point in exploring areas that have already been thoroughly surveyed." (William Burroughs)

Carl Jung a psychologist who thought very deeply about the human condition around the time of Freud said:

"Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity."

What is it we fear the most about darkness? What is it we fear about ourselves? For me, to truly open up to the absurd, the unexplained, the shadows and at times the disturbing is to get a little closer to parts of myself that I am driven to hide from. Even then I know I'll never get close. I was desperately afraid of the dark as a little boy, it was the space where the unexpected, the ethereal, the menacing would take flight around my bed. Even though I consciously want to explore the darkness vicariously through the brilliance of certain artists and authors... I wonder if this is really the case.... do I really want to connect to it? The guardians that I created in childhood to protect me from pain, panic, and the unknown... the light on when I was asleep... they still exist inside of me. On one level protecting me, and at the same time, depriving me of the deeper levels that lie within.

Surrealist art, film, poetry, prose, sound, music, performance and other forms of art, are one way that I've found that get me just that little closer.

"The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place; from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web." Salvador Dali

A Truly Unique and Brilliant Artist of Film - Guy Madden

As seen in an earlier blog entry, Guy Madden is a modern day film making genius. He uses influences from silent film, and brilliantly marries this with what he terms a "neurological" way of seeing a film. This is where it seeks to move away from the usual formulaic linear style of stories in cinema we've been brought up with He tries to more accurately emulate the way we really think and imagine. When reflecting and imagining a memory, we don't go from the beginning right to the very end with it tapering like a perfect stool. We jump to some emotionally potent parts, repeat various aspects, skip to the end and we might weave our way back again. His films do this with silent film-like theatrical fervor and made delectable by the overwhelming campness in many moments in his films.

His film which you can see on You Tube "Fuse Boys" can be seen on a humorous camp level, or can be seen as an intense portrayal of an old gay man desperately longing for young muscular male flesh, but is excluded although the shirtless protagonists are merely an arm length away.

I found this particularly painful to watch, which surprised me as I thought I'd savour the camp sensibility and feel nothing else. I wondered why, and thought it may offer me a mirror into that which I don't want to explore or accept in myself as I rapidly progress towards my middle age. I consciously don't seem to have a problem with aging, but has this piece of surrealist film offered me a glimpse into my unconscious fears? If this is the case, it is another wonderful gift.

One of my favourite Madden short films which I have seen probably way too many times follows. It speaks for itself:

"Sissy Boy Slap Party" by Guy Madden