Customer Reviews

Pervert in the Pulpit: Morality in the Works of David Lynch

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I suppose each new micro-generation of film students must kill its father. However, this book is, sadly, boring. It is boring because it focuses on the content of the films, whereas what makes Lynch's films interesting and unconservative are their form (which has become increasingly anti-narrative) and visual qualities. Furthermore, most of his films clearly depict the deep well of misery beneath middle-class American values. It is true that there is something retro about Lynch, and specifically some of his moral scenarios remind me of old melodramas. Clearly, melodrama was a hugely conservative genre; its whole point was to tell women that any deviation from cookie-cutter domesticity would destroy them and their families.
However, melodrama is also a fascinating genre, and I don't think we should confuse Lynch's somewhat nostalgic (albeit questioning) quotation of melodrama and other forms of Americana for the thing itself.

"Mainstream" critics tend not to be very sophisticated about either film form or politics, so I am mystified why Johnson's conformity to mainstream critical opinion is regarded by some of the reviewers on this site as a selling point. I can only assume that Johnson's book succeeds in tapping into the anti-intellectualism of our culture, and THAT'S what I would call conservative.

The reactions of readers to Pervert in the Pulpit say it all. Anyone interested in Lynch should be engaging this book, not dismissing it. Some reviewers call it liberal, others nihilist, some say it is completely wrong and others thoroughly convincing - the sure sign of a must read. I don't agree with all of it, but I cannot watch any of Lynch's films again without thinking of Johnson's argument. The way he frames Lynch's hyper-morality does indicate an ideology as Lynchian as the weird images and funky stories that have become Lynch's trademarks. Labels certainly can't contain or diminish Johnson's critique. Read this book, if just to argue with it.

I strongly disagree with the reviewer from NY. This book is definitely NOT "pointless" though I can see why die-hard Lynch fans might get a bit miffed by Johnson's presentation of Lynch as a conservative. This book actually analyses ALL of his films from a literary perspective -- I like especially his Nietzschean slant on the early experimental films. It's not a vehicle to glorify Lynch but it certainly acknowledges his allure and his achievement. I think it's a must-read for serious students of cinema.

This book is pretty informative and could serve as an effective starting point for those looking to understand Lynch's work in a context broader than that of modern cinema. However, the analysis is flawed throughout by the author's misinterpretation of the premise that forms the crux of Lynch's work. The author is right to discuss Lynch from a Nietzschean perspective, though he understands Nietzsche little more than he understands Lynch; Lynch,like Nietzsche, D.H. Lawrence, and Henry Miller, proposes through his work a morality more rigorous than that of the masses, and one based not on repression but on the active principles of love and good will. Johnson could learn quite a bit by reading reactions from the numerous, now discredited, critiques aimed at Nietzsche and Lawrence, which all follow a similarly flawed line of thinking.

One thing you can tell from the reviews below is that the people who adore Lynch do not like this book, which is maybe why I give it a five. Okay, some of the ground is familiar, and the central theme - that Lynch's work is weirdly conservative - is pretty much acknowledged by every serious critic over the last few years. But what Johnson has done is to demonstrate methodically how Lynch insidiously loads his supposedly freaky films with pretty conventional "heartland" ideas of morality. I also agree with the reviewers below that all this argument about Nietzsche is seriously off the point. As for Nemesis, Johnson never compares Lynch to Nietzsche, and it is Lynch who finds some behavior "degenerate," not Johnson (unless you count his objection to Lynch's persnickety Calvinism). To find Lynch compassionate given his sense of Old Testament retribution indicates a misreading of Lynch and Johnson. If you're more interested in re-thinking Lynch than lionizing him, "Pervert" is an excellent read.

The attempt to reduce all art to politics is a heinous, and deplorable process, especially to reduce it to absolutist, connotation-laden labels. This was H#tler's motive when he created an art gallery with two separate floors: one for Reich-approved aryan-enhancing art and another floor for everything else ("degenerate art"). Johnson is NOT on the level and should not be trusted -- he has an agenda, and it is political.

Of all the artists, writers and filmmakers Lynch could be compared to, to select Nietzche (the proto-N@zi) makes me strongly doubt the sincerity of the author. What of the surrealists and creators of film noir? Why not compare Lynch
to American writers of small-town weirdness and tragedy like Faulkner, Sherwood Anderson, Thornton Wilder, Edgar Lee Masters, James Agee?

One thing the Nietzcheans can neither understand, appreciate-- let alone practice -- is compassion, and Lynch is drenched in it. To attempt to carve his works of sorrow and despair into a Nietzchean mold is sick and suspect.

"There are only 3 things that matter in life: "To be kind, to be kind, and to be kind" -- att. to Henry James

I think this quote from David Cronenberg describes this book well: "Do you know this critic Robin Wood? He's a Canadian critic. I think his best work actually happened before he became openly Marxist and gay. He used to wear a T-shirt that said "Gay Marxist" and he was very militant. He talked about my early films in totally negative terms. I mean, people still remember his stuff. He felt that I was a force for repression -- I was representing the status quo. He saw "Shivers" [American title: "They Came From Within"] as abhorring sexual liberation and freedom, and representing a middle-class reaction. And that bothered me because I thought it was a complete misreading of the film. I mean, at the end of "Shivers," when the parasite-infected, and therefore sexually liberated, maniacs are unleashed on the city, I knew the audience was one with that, we were all for them. But he took it as though I was showing that as horrifying and scary and terrifying. Well, it is terrifying, but liberation is terrifying. By taking a totally politicized stance, he missed the real meaning of my movies. But it fit into his agenda, and as far as I know he continues to interpret all my films that way."

If you want to read politically motivated misinterpretations of Lynch's work, this is the book for you. If you'd rather read an unbiased look at David and his films, try Lynch on Lynch where you get to read the man himself talk about his films.

Oh, and by the way, for those who are wondering, Lynch is actually a liberal.

This is an important and unique addition to any appreciation of Lynch's work, but all this talk of Nietzsche is off-topic. The author only uses minor insights from Nietzsche's perspective on morality to shape some of his points about Lynch's early films. The book is not "seriously Nietzschean," but it is certainly not the case, as Matthew Norman writes in his reveiw, that "Johnson understands Nietzsche little more than he understands Lynch." Johnson's use of Nietzsche is appropriate and smart, but to focus on that isssue is to misread Johnson's point: that Lynch is a moralist in the typically American strain of Puritanism, a point that other writers on Lynch seem to ignore or dismiss. Johnson's argument is sharp and focused, and it seems bizarre and petty that some of the critics below misconstrue what he's trying to do. You might disagree with Johnson's premise, but the book should be read fairly and not misrepresented. It's more than a good start: it's a new perspective altogether.

This is a fun read, if only for the attitude. On theory, the text is more than a bit light: Cinephiles after more heavy current philosophical grist should seek to grind elsewhere. Johnson's reliance on Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Freud and Sartre, et al., also indicate his modernist tendencies, which is, of course, in academia these days, still passé, if not taboo, though that doesn't make his argument irrelevant. It's sort of refreshing to lie back and let Johnson make his point, even if he reads, at times, like an old fashioned muckraker.

Okay, I'm a fan, not a critic. I didn't read this entire book, just skimmed it after I got the basic gist of it. I'd suggest to any Lynch fan to try to get this from the library before buying it, which luckily I did, because you won't want to own it. This writer is convinced his theories are correct and everyone else, including David Lynch himself, are the ones misintepreting. One thing I know he gets wrong: he claims Lynch takes himself so seriously that there is no irony or humor in his work. Just because you don't get it, doesn't mean it isn't there, Lynch's unique sense of humor shows up in all his work. And to claim that the study of "good" and "evil" in dramatic fashion forwards a conservative agenda makes no sense to me whatsoever. I guess you either "get" Lynch or you don't, and this writer does not. The only thing I got out of reading it was to make note of the other writers he refers to who he says are all wrong.