It's a film that doesn't work quite as well on video, the way I saw it in the early Nineties at college. Lynch at key moments shoots from a little more than middle distance but not quite long distance, just at a noticeable remove. Add cropping for TV on top of that, and this gorgeous widescreen movie sometimes just looks odd. But yes, on the big screen it works like gangbusters. And is disturbing, as in horror-film levels of disturbing, something I didn't really or fully get the first time I saw it.
Next month, another Portland theater will show another David Lynch film on the big screen, which is the really preferable way to watch his stuff. The theater: 5th Avenue Cinema at Portland State University. The film: Eraserhead. Which, again, I've seen but on video. But which screams to be seen on a big screen with an audience, for a more full impact to how disturbing it is.
I haven't been to 5th Avenue Cinema for over a decade. I've only been there once, for a revival screening of Highlander. And I'm tempted, for Eraserhead.
And if I do so, I should probably put off, still, my eventual viewing of David Lynch's Twin Peaks: The Return. I have the DVD; I have an honest-to-God plan for watching it — binge the first four episodes, then watch the rest with some days or maybe a full week between episodes — but...
...I don't want to feel like I'm burning through his work. I can, of course, only watch a David Lynch film or show for the first time once. And I should vary the diet. I mean, the next film I'll watch is probably The Devil Wears Prada, which I've borrowed on DVD from the library. THERE ARE OTHER FILMS. AND SHOWS. MANY OF WHICH I'LL LIKE.