A Sensitivity to Things

David Lynch’s first film, Eraserhead (1977), a dark, disturbing and deeply surreal exploration of the directors own subconscious, was initially pronounced as un-releasable upon completion, but in short time became a cult classic and critical success, launching Lynch to the forefront of avant-garde film-making and earning him the favour of Stanley Kubrick, who proclaimed Eraserhead one of his all-time favourite films.

Thirty years later David Lynch is still exploring the sub-conscious, and unusually for a notoriously private director who refuses to discuss the details of his plots or their meanings, has written a book about… himself. Not a traditional biography mind you, but a surreal, whimsical exploration of his own consciousness. His legion of fans would expect nothing less.

In Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity, David Lynch puts aside his filmic quest to get inside the viewer’s head and lets them instead inside his, an invitation almost as rare as a ticket to fiction’s Wonka Chocolate Factory, and possibly just as out of this world.

“When I first heard about meditation I had zero interest in it, I wasn’t even curious. It sounded like a waste of time. What got me interested though was the phrase, ‘True happiness lies within.’ ”

So begins Catching the Big Fish, and from the very first page, as though entering a state of deep meditation, ordinary reality is left—along with one’s shoes—at the door. A practitioner of meditation for twenty minutes, two times a day, for over thirty years, Lynch invites the reader on a mind-altering journey, expounding upon his commitment to Transcendental Meditation and the powerful creative wellspring it has provided him in 85 alternatively light and lofty chapters, many in koan-like form. Citing his daily sessions of silence and inner happiness as essential to the creative process, one can only wonder what kind of films this director might have made otherwise—Academy Award nominated Blue Velvet (1986) among the most disturbing, unsettling films of all time.

Catching the Big Fish is a blend of thoughts and themes, sometimes random like a stream of consciousness, or the analogy he personally prefers for creativity, casting a hook into a bottomless sea, and melds biography, film analysis, philosophy and spirituality with a heart on sleeve sincerity, narrating the author’s passion for charting the world of dreams and ideas and rendering them unto action. Few probably realise that this famously reclusive director is putting his own money into establishing meditation centres around the world, or that he has founded the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and Peace to further his meditative ideals.

A little like a rare sighting of the Loch Ness Monster, any public appearance of one of the greatest American directors of modern cinema is compulsory viewing, or reading in this case, and whether or not you are ready to tread the same waters, Catching the Big Fish is worth at least a dip.

Craig Bellamy, striker for English Premier League football side Liverpool, is said to be a person who crystallises opinion. In a League where larger than life is a way of life, everybody either loves our hates the diminutive, fiery former goal-scorer for Blackburn. And just to prove my afore-mentioned maxim: after Bellamy’s latest on-field exploits, I think I could become a fan.

Bellamy has been in the news in recently for allegedly striking fellow team-mate John Arne Riise with a golf club during a training camp in Portugal—perhaps confusing the six-foot red-headed Norwegian for a golf ball. Whatever the truth to the incident (did he shout“fore” first?), I very much admired his gesture in this morning’s encounter with Barcelona; after scoring a dramatic, score-tying goal, he turned to the crowd and proceeded to tee-off, striking an imaginary golf-ball to the back of the stand.

To do so showed a considerable sense of humour, and no small sense of self-deprecation. One seldom sees celebrities in his position—deservedly or not—deliberately making fun of themselves, and I expect Bellamy disarmed a legion of critics with this single, comic gesture

I have some sympathy for the situation famous athletes find themselves in. Not for their astronomical salaries mind you, but their non-existent private lives, the smallest incident seized upon and“beat-up” out of all proportion; they are watched ceaselessly by an army of journalists whose livelihoods depends upon such, whatever the truth.

He may have done what he is said to have done, or he may not have; either way it was more than likely a private falling-out between friends, and if they are friends again once more—they both took the field together this morning so it seems likely—what exactly else matters?

Because at the end of the day, whose business was it apart from theirs?

I have just finished writing an article on crime novel author Elmore Leonard’s top ten writing tips, tips which I discovered, and here comes that word again, quite serendipitously after stumbling across a page about George Orwell on the same site.

Now I should admit to raving fans of Get Shorty or Maximum Bob that I have never actually read a novel by Elmore Leonard—I had never heard of the man until a couple of days ago; yet don’t take that as a conscious or unconscious slight on my part—he sounds like the ideal paperback companion for a round-the-world plane trip, which here in New Zealand is the only way to get absolutely anywhere.

On the plus side to my wavering credibility, I can admit to having seen several of his film adaptations, incidentally the same adaptations he also recommends: Get Shorty wasn’t bad, although I can tell my attention began to wander by the fact that I can remember nothing from halfway through; Jackie Brown was an entirely regrettable experience, and the last time I take advice from a co-worker about films to watch; Out of Sight however was quite the opposite—and further backs my without hesitation recommendation of every title Steven Soderbergh has ever made—although by way of disclaimer: take the age of any film and the year that I watched it, and you’ll end up with some sort of formula as to the reliability of my opinion on it; I have at times been severely embarrassed recommending films that I liked a very, very long time ago.

So if my opinions on films are at times a little suspect, what exactly would I know about contemporary America’s best-selling crime novelist—also a ‘genre’ writer respected for his technical ability? Not a lot, but I did like his main point of advice on writing:

“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”