Organization: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Keywords:David Lynch
Lines: 74
Message-ID: <1k7ue7INNomv@skeena.ucs.ubc.ca>
NNTP-Posting-Host: unixg.ubc.ca
Hotel Room is of course (to the best of my knowledge) the most recent Lynch
project, or at least the one that's been the most recently released. It has
yet to be shown up here in Canada, and probably the rest of the world yet and
only HBO subscribers or maybe you satellite folks that can tap into the TV
heavens can see it yet.
However, thanks to a true friend on this newsgroup (I won't mention his name
because I don't want the world bashing down his door asking for copies) mailed
me the first Hotel Room installment.
I don't know how many episodes have been filmed yet, or for that matter how
many are intended to begin with, but it is an interesting series. The show
begins with a narration by David Lynch himself in a voice-over while newsreel
like footage of hotel construction is seen. Lynch says something to the effect
like "The space for the Hotel Room had been around for a millenia. But man
created it and on the way was to discover the secret names of truth..." There's
a little more to it than that but for all intents and purposes that's it.
There are three stories in this first episode and they all take place in a
New York Hotel room, room number 603. All three stories happen in the same
Hotel room but in different years and subsequently different era's. There are
only two consistent elements from story to story. The first is the basic
dimensions of the room, and the decor. For instance, while the furniture might
change, the light switch, windows, doors and phone jack are all in the same
place from episode to episode. The other constant is the Hotel staff, who no
matter what year the story takes place in, they are always the same actors
and they are always, or at least pretty much the same way dressed every story.
I found that in particular to be a very interesting element to Hotel Room, even
though the staff themselves don't play a big role in any of the stories.
There were three stories in Hotel room #1 "Tricked", "Getting Rid of Bob" and
"Blackout"
"Getting Rid of Bob": The worst of the tree in my opinion. This one never really
comes together to go anywhere. Griffin Dunne is a good actor and an actor I
really enjoy too, but I couldn't even force myself to like this one. I don't
want to give away any of the story, so if you haven't seen it, you might want
to skip ahead to the next message or something.
I just couldn't get into the story, and the slightly comic ending of Bob (Dunne)
getting hit on the head with the fire poker was just too little too late.
"Blackout": Was the girl in this episode blind? Her soul-dead eyes made me first
think that she couldn't see. This episode was also hard to get into. It takes place in 1936 during a blackout in the the hotel room where two country visitors
are in town to get treatment. Crispin Glover is in this one. I might watch this
again on a second viewing but I found this episode to be very dull in
comparison to...
"Tricked": This one is with Harry Dean Stanton, the girl in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, (I forget her name) and a british actor doing an american accent. You might
have seen this actor before in Dune, and I think he played the actor with the
Duck-like voice in the bar in "Wild At Heart", when Sailor and Lula are
listening to the Dixiealand-jazz type band. This installment I really enjoyed.
It takes place in 1969.
Those who have seen FWWM might also recall hearing some familar sound effects,
namely that erie wavery sound that can be seen in FWWM during the scene out-
side of the electrical wires, as at other times in that film. I'm not sure how
this sound is actually produced, but I am curious to know. It mustn't be soem
kind of musical instrument, and least one recorded and played forwards.
I know somebody posed the question about "What really happened in Tricked"?
and that's a certainly good enough question. I can only suggest that it might
have something to do along the same angles that Leland Palmer has with Bob,
and that the older actor possesed Moe (the Harryy Dean Stanton character). I
think I am going to watch this again and see if I can tighten my thoughts
up on the matter though.
While it is difficult to understand I was quite happy with it and I felt Lynch
was onto something with this Hotel Room series and I wish him the best of
luck with it.
The episode with Tricked on it has just as much menace in it as FWWM. When
Stanton kept saying "that this isn't the time louiss" I got a very heavy
feeling that *soemething* was going to happen soon. Interestingly enough,
the episode called "Tricked" was written by Barry Gifford who wrote this
episode, of course wrote the book "Wild At Heart".
