When we find ourselves in a place where we no longer have the slightest landmark, or even in a place where unusual things are happening, we will perhaps be surprised to say to ourselves “that we are no longer Kansas,” referring to Dorothy’s famous line to her dog, Toto, in The Wizard of Oz (The Wizard of Oz). However, if there is a filmmaker whose each film provokes this feeling of disorientation felt by Dorothy after a tornado had transported her “beyond the rainbow” in the land of Oz, it is well David Lynch — who has never hidden being obsessed with the 1939 masterpiece. In his documentary Lynch/OzAlexandre O. Philippe explores this particular influence by bringing together the observations, calculations and other ruminations of a critic and six filmmakers.
The occasion is too good not to invite oneself into the reflection.
You should first know that Alexandre O. Philippe, who has become an expert in documentaries about cinema (78/52, Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist, Memory: The Origins of Alien), had the idea for this project during a screening of Mulholland Drive at the end of which David Lynch confided that not a day goes by without him thinking about the film The Wizard of Oz.
Revisiting Lynch’s films, this passion for Victor Fleming’s film, since that is what it is, is evident. However, it does not always manifest in the same way.
The most assumed tribute undoubtedly resides in Wild at Heart (Sailor and Lula), which stars Laura Dern and Nicolas Cage as lovers on the run: this film is so full of explicit references to The Wizard of Oz that it is permissible to see a rereading there. As summarized by Greg Olson in his book David Lynch: Beautiful Dark, “Lynch saw Sailor and Lula’s literal and emotional journey as a reflection of Dorothy’s odyssey in the land of Oz: you have to leave your home to find your home. The director therefore decided that his couple would verbally refer to The Wizard of Ozas a guide on their journey and [que le film] would serve as an allusive reference to their fears and aspirations. »
As examples, the character of Marietta (Diane Ladd), Lula’s mother, is modeled on the Wicked Witch of the West, and that of the Good Witch (Sheryl Lee), who appears in extremis to Sailor, on Glinda, the Fairy Godmother of the North.
But Wild at Heart constitutes a case in point, since generally speaking, the influence of The Wizard of Oz takes on more subtle forms in Lynch’s work.
Behind the curtain
The homage can certainly remain explicit, but in a distinct narrative context. Take blue-velvet, where a teenager plays amateur detective in his overly clean suburb (Kyle MacLachlan). The cabaret singer played by Isabella Rossellini is named Dorothy and wears ruby shoes evoking those, emblematic, seen at the feet of Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz.
For the record, those magic shoes helped Dorothy get back to Kansas at the end of The Wizard of Oz. In blue-velvetthey are of no help to the other Dorothy, doomed to remain a prisoner not of the land of Oz, but of this reality rhyming with disturbing strangeness that Lynch develops from film to film.
It also happens that the reference to Oz is diverted. In the TV series Twin Peaks and its cinematic ante-episode, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (Twin Peaks. Fire walk with me), the famous curtain of the red room, a sort of interdimensional space where the mystery becomes clouded instead of cleared up, could be perceived as a reference to the green curtain behind which the Wizard of Oz is revealed as what a charlatan.
Red being the opposite of green on the color wheel, Lynch demonstrates that he prefers puzzle games to prosaic revelations.
Another allusive wink occurs precisely in the most down-to-earth of Lynch’s films, the magnificent TeaStraight Story (A true story), where an old man (Richard Farnsworth) embarks on a 400 km journey on his lawn tractor. During the sequence with the runaway, the old hero benevolently suggests that the teenager return to her family, in a sort of mirror of the sequence where the old “magician” does the same with Dorothy.
The eye of the tornado
In Lynch’s recent productions, however, the references are more indirect, even unconscious. Normal, since, by dint of “thinking about it every day”, Lynch had to completely integrate The Wizard of Oz to his creative process, to the point where he no doubt now quotes him without even realizing it.
The neighbor named Dorothy in The Straight StoryMajor Garland (as in “Judy Garland”) Briggs in Twin Peaks…
Most often, as in Lost Highway (lost highway) Or Mulholland Driveit is through this narrative tipping point where an almost recognizable reality gives way to a dreamlike world that we discern the influence of The Wizard of Oz. With the difference that “the land of Lynch”, unlike the “land of Oz”, is governed more by a logic of nightmare than dream.
Basically, perhaps David Lynch’s cinema does not take place “beyond the rainbow”, but rather in the eye of the famous “tornado”, where everything is falsely calm, but upside down when you look around.
Fascinating look behind the scenes
The documentary Lynch/Ozis presented exclusively at the Cinéma du Parc. The documentaries 78/52, Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The ExorcistAnd Memory: The Origins of Alien, are available on VOD on iTunes and on YouTube. With the exception of Wild at HeartDavid Lynch’s films are available on VOD on most major platforms.