Awoke completely deaf in my left ear and semi-deaf in my right and with a general and persistent headache due to some sort of sinus pressure. I think this is an allergic reaction, as my hayfever was unexpectedly bad yesterday, with an itchy throat whenever I went out for a few minutes. Combined with yet another day of constant stomach pain, these ailments are an annoyance. Still, I've started sequencing work on a new audio piece tentatively called The Fingers Of Evil.
I watched an interview with David Lynch yesterday talking about the making of The Elephant Man, which was interesting. I love his work, and wish he would make more. I read the Ronnie Rocket script years ago and the images still remain with me. The interview also reminded me how abnormal I am compared to other humans. I grew up believing that my so-called parents were evil androids determined to kill and torture me with their strange punishments. In engaged emotionally only with my first computer and by the time I left school at 16 I had largely stopped communicating or socialising with other people and didn't speak to anyone until I joined my first art club at the age of 34. I've grown to understand other people more but never felt like them or part of society in any way, more like a completely different species.
I started to watch Lost Highway last night. I knew nothing about it before watching, which I prefer. It was unexpected because the story was surrealistic somehow, but not the visuals or actions or interpretations. After watching a lot of Lynch's work recently, it contrasted sharply with earlier and brilliant works such as The Grandmother. Art should be emotionally arresting, ideally amazing, wondrous. Bill Pullman seems miscast, as did Nicolas Cage in Wild At Heart. Perhaps Jack Nance should have been his leading man in everything, like Max von Sydow or Erland Josephson for Bergman. Jack's single scene in Wild At Heart was one of the most memorable.
I have re-imagined a new start of Lost Highway; the scene opens with the Pullman character awoken by a buzzer at the door (as in the film), he is lyin next to his wife in their silk bed but we see only her dark hair, she could be a dummy for all we know. Octopus tentacles are coming from under the sheets on her side onto the floor. We see this from above as he rises, a very short shot. He answers the buzzer, a voice says the line about the death, which bemuses him, he quickly sees if anyone is outside; there is not. He writes down the message, which changes as the film moves on. Well I haven't the space here to write it all out, but I found the film inspiring, but, sadly, perhaps for the wrong reasons for the first time in a David Lynch film, that I thought it could have been done better. The first act seemed too slow. Everything looked too clean too, I felt it needed to flicker or be grainy. The best shots were the exteriors from low angles.
Today I feel Beethovenish, due to the deafness. Let us see what the day brings.
