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The Big Sleep: The most baffling film ever made?

145 points by DrNuke 5y ago

blowski 5y ago
Was it really that baffling? As a genre, film noir tends to have a twisting storyline and this was a particularly good one. But compared to, say, a Christopher Nolan or Charlie Kaufman film, this was a walk in the park.
- leephillips 5y ago
  I love it and have seen it several times, but I still don’t know what’s going on. I believe you, though, because my girlfriend in college tried to explain it to a friend and me after we had all watched it. She had been able to follow it, but we were lost.
- chippy 5y ago
  Now realise that, compared to movies from the last generation, its the bafflement is the actual story, not the twists and turns. In other words, 40 years ago, this news article would bizarre! Everyone who saw the film would have grokked the way the movie was told. Its like the amazing difference between medieval and modern art works is the difference in how metaphor and meaning is represented rather than the actual story represented. However some might say that it's the story that counts and thats whats interesting. To be a cultural historian today must be very frustrating.
- monkeyfacebag 5y ago
  Do Christopher Nolan films have a reputation for being baffling? I've never had that experience with them. On the other hand, we just saw The Green Knight and that one will throw you.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    They are certainly baffling without subtitles since the speech is not audible.
  - handrous 5y ago
    > On the other hand, we just saw The Green Knight and that one will throw you. I think I'm going to need at least two more viewings to get from "OK, I see it saying a lot of things about several themes or ideas, and I can tell what at least some of those themes or ideas are, but I have only the vaguest idea what it's saying about them" to "ah, now I get it." Great movie.
  - bmitc 5y ago
    Nolan's films are not baffling in the sense of creating true mystery or intrigue. They are baffling because they truly are a mess and have inaudible dialog, and that's despite being famous for having tedious monologues.
- tclancy 5y ago
  Same, but have you read the book? I really like Chandler and have read it a number of times so I feel like there's a leg up. For instance, the Sean Reagan character doesn't really exist in the movie and barely registers when I watch it whereas his story is perhaps the biggest thing in the book.
Causality1 5y ago
arguing that we should embrace ambiguity. This is probably my most despised media trend of the 21st century, and that's saying something. "You decide how it ended" "You decide if she lived or died" "Their motivations for doing that are up to you" "It means whatever you want it to mean" It's an excuse for lazy writing and for being too cowardly to make decisions.
- jerf 5y ago
  I feel similarly about the "twist" that "it was just a dream!" or something similar. It's already fiction. It's already made up. If I wanted to be stuck with just the stories & endings and such I could make up, I wouldn't be coming to you for a story. Not that there isn't room for ambiguity or complexity or anything, but, I already know what I think. I'm here precisely to find out what someone else thinks, and "well, what do you think?" is not very helpful.
  - Joeboy 5y ago
    "It was just a dream" only works if it suggests an actual ending. Eg. Brazil, Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. I don't think it's a viable twist in itself.
    - recursive 5y ago
      "Scenic Route" is another movie that does this. I like it.
    - earleybird 5y ago
      Which ending of Brazil?
      - Joeboy 5y ago
        Not the Sid Sheinberg "Love Conquers All" ending, if that's what you're getting at! I did watch it once, hard to believe that seemed like a good idea to anybody. Makes me wonder how many other great films we lost to that kind of studio butchery.
pjmorris 5y ago
I was amazed and astonished when I first saw 'The Big Sleep', early in my college career. I'd never seen a movie I had a hard time following before, and I was captivated. There's an old Steve Yegge post where he described presenting for Jeff Bezos. I'm paraphrasing, but Yegge said something like after writing the presentation (no slides), delete every fifth paragraph to keep Bezos intrigued enough to pay attention. I feel like that's what happened to either the script or the filming of 'The Big Sleep.' EDIT: Every third paragraph, link to Yegge post: https://gist.github.com/kislayverma/6681d4cce736cd7041e6c8214469d2fd https://gist.github.com/kislayverma/6681d4cce736cd7041e6c821...
- seph-reed 5y ago
  This was a really nice read. I've made a habit lately of "checking out" on having any opinion about anything I can't truly analyze. And this is a great example of why. I'm surrounded in content telling me why Bezos is a monster, and they make a good argument. But for all that hatred, I've never once heard a single mention of him being smart, let alone intimidatingly smart, let alone "a first class genius" or "better regarded as hyper-intelligent aliens with a tangential interest in human affairs." This seems like an important character detail to have been left out.
  - soneca 5y ago
    I remember reading about him being very smart multiple times. Just not on articles commenting Amazon workplace environment and such, as it should not be indeed. On articles about the beginnings of Amazon, the writing culture, or anything that is in part a biography on Bezos, I always see it mentioned how smart he is.
    - seph-reed 5y ago
      > Just not on articles commenting Amazon workplace environment and such, as it should not be indeed I think the distinction between "evil" and "evil genius" is actually kind of important for a world that often anchors its reality to Hollywood narratives. It sets up a more believable antagonist, and makes it clear that -- unlike the grinch -- their heart is not likely to change. It also sets up the challenge: be smarter. If he was just greedy, it might be a race to the bottom (greed always wins). But in this case it's a race to the top (intelligence seems to win). I also think the distinction between "greed wins" and "smart wins" extends with a similar lack of mention into other popular "villains" like Elon or THE ZUCK. At least for me, knowing that the richest person in the world is also considered extremely smart by the smartest people he could pay to work with him... it makes me feel that -- unlike politics -- business is not yet a complete race to the bottom.
zabzonk 5y ago
I remember watching it (I'd seen it before) with an audience of stoner undergrads at St. Andrews University (not the brightest of people - I was at Edinburgh) and having to explain what exactly was going on, not helped by being somewhat stoned myself. But do films (or any art) have to "make sense"? For example, I've never really worked out what the original "Solaris" is about, but it doesn't stop it from being both scary and moving.
- themodelplumber 5y ago
  > But do films (or any art) have to "make sense"? In a lot of ways I think it depends on your role, and the role of the film in your experience. If your role is to enjoy, then I hope the film was created with your preferred perceptive style in mind. If your role is to write a paper on a film, maybe the make-sense films make that whole assignment much easier. Solaris is a tremendous sensory experience on its own. You can pick up on a lot of the implications by interpreting the film's sensory output as metaphor. From facial expressions to positioning, texture, and sound / music. A lot of people find that relaxing because the metaphor-extraction process is like a background process for them and it feeds their intuitive grasp of what's unfolding in the "big picture" of the film. They tend to take in and process much of life in the same way. At the same time, not everybody enjoys that, and it will make some people downright uncomfortable. To be comfortable with a film, maybe they need to be able to piece it together logically for example, or at least be able to create by themselves an explanation/exposition of the contents where one didn't exist before. Incidentally, I find the sensory-experiential/metaphorical approach (my go-to) much less fulfilling while watching films created by people who are more logical and detail-driven. For example, I was rewatching _The Spanish Prisoner_ the other day and it was painfully clear that Mamet really wanted viewers to track his labyrinth of aphoristic details. From a sensory-metaphor perspective there wasn't much to work with, and the film didn't seem to "make sense" from that intuitive standpoint. But it's less painful IMO, and maybe even more pleasurable, when you know the kind of gifts and preferred perspectives the director is working with, and at least you're aware that you can make a decision to change your perceptive focus, or watch something else. That aspect makes sense to me, and helps me watch films that wouldn't otherwise make sense in this way or that one.
LarrySellers 5y ago
When I realized that The Big Lebowski is The Big Sleep + bowling it blew my mind
- AutumnCurtain 5y ago
  Definitely very inspired by. The whole Jackie Treehorn element in particular
at_a_remove 5y ago
Take Dark City. I believe the studio forced a new opening that more or less explained everything rather than letting you puzzle it all out. I didn't find the movie too hard to work through, but I think Hollywood execs have a fairly low estimation of the audience's intellect. Lynch is a bit harder. Lynch is atypical in two ways that play off of one another. First and most obviously, he has been developing as a film-maker (as one would hope over the decades), but he expects that his audience would have kept up with him, introducing a kind of filmic vocabulary. I would say that Mulholland Drive is much, much more comprehensible once you have understood what Lost Highway is on about. In turn, Lost Highway is an extended riff off of the dualism you would see in Twin Peaks and Fire Walk With Me. As to the second factor, Lynch is very heavy into TM and he would like to present images, sounds, and such to the viewer, and then find out what the viewer thinks of them. Not in a "this is up to you to puzzle out," rather he is pitching rocks and skipping stones off of what he likely believes is to be a collective unconscious or a shared cultural experience, then being excited about what might pop up. It's a genuine interest, I think.
- LarrySellers 5y ago
  “I don't know why people expect art to make sense. They accept the fact that life doesn't make sense.” -- David Lynch
  - psychomugs 5y ago
    I've been on a mini Lynch binge recently (Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, and a lot of his interviews on Linda Faludi's excellent channel [1]) and I feel like this quote sums him up. [1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVdYdogQM2xd29HUOED4EbQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVdYdogQM2xd29HUOED4EbQ
  - newsbinator 5y ago
    > They accept the fact that life doesn't make sense. Most people, in most cultures, don't accept it as fact that life doesn't make sense. What % of people would agree with the statement "everything happens for a reason"? Or even "because God did it". Of those who don't think everything happens for a reason (i.e. life makes sense... to someone), the vast majority nevertheless believe we live in a universe of physical rules. We accept we could get wiped out by an asteroid or a deadly plague, sure. That makes sense. We don't accept we could get wiped out by a Lynchian fever dream. That doesn't make sense.
lqet 5y ago
Regarding classic film-noir movies, I found "The Lady from Shanghai" by Orson Welles much more baffling, and also frustrating. The first time I watched it, I didn't really get the plot. As a big Orson Welles fan, I assumed it was my fault and consulted Wikipedia. The Wikipedia understanding of the plot was equivalent to mine and didn't answer any questions, so I watched it a second time, and a third time. There are massive plot holes. I really believe that Welles was not interested in a coherent plot, he just needed a vehicle for beautiful cinematography and great acting. But it is so frustrating if you try to follow a complicated plot, only to realise at the end of the movie that not even the director was able to understand it.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  The "Lost" miniseries is enjoyable only once you accept that it simply doesn't make any sense. Just enjoy the moments. Though "Lost" was on to something with the dialog "it's a snowglobe!" They could have followed up on that, leading to a satisfying conclusion, but as with everything else, it just went nowhere.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > The “Lost” miniseries Is this different than the Lost series of 6 seasons and 121 episodes? Or is this just an unusual use of the prefix “mini-”?
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      Yes, that Lost.
    - jcrawfordor 5y ago
      I've heard a joke along the lines of "I loved LOST, it's a shame they only made one season" from multiple people. Whether they allow one or two seasons of the show to actually exist in their memory depends on the person.
  - asdff 5y ago
    I'm really surprised LOST still has that reputation years after release. Having seen the entire thing, I think the plot makes sense and there aren't very many holes. The writers omit a lot early on but I felt like it gets answered by the end as you learn more about the island. In the moment as it was being released year by year I can see how it was seen as confusing when you'd wait for a while to get an explanation, but these days you could binge the entire thing.
okareaman 5y ago
Whew! I thought it was just me.
telesphore 5y ago
It's a matter of setting up expectations and balancing that with good story telling. Ambiguity, elision, out-of-order story telling, etc. are all part of art but it's a delicate balance. There's a contract that artists set up with the audience that will allow them to use these techniques. Primer is one of those where I'm OK with my confusion because the story was interesting without all the answers, and it was setup pretty early on that this wasn't an A to B story. On the other hand, the fade-to-black ending of The Sopranos was, in my opinion, a total violation of that contract. Nowhere did they setup that kind of ambiguity. Yes, it's a series vs. a movie but my point still stands. No Country for Old Men, again IMO, rides that line a little close. Sure the Bardem character checks his boots at the end but there were some other major gaps that I don't think were set up. It was well acted and produced but expectations were not managed so it still goes into my meh pile. When it works the it's a lot of fun figuring things out. I'll have to give The Big Sleep a try. Edit: At the other end of the spectrum, expository lumps are no fun either.
- lqet 5y ago
  > On the other hand, the fade-to-black ending of The Sopranos was, in my opinion, a total violation of that contract. Nowhere did they setup that kind of ambiguity. I respectfully disagree. One of the qualities of "The Sopranos" was exactly that things weren't always spelled out explicitely. Also, I did not really find the ending to be extremely ambigious. I mean, it is pretty clear what happened.
  - FireBeyond 5y ago
    I mean even that exact ending was spelled out a few episodes before, when the characters are (and I'm paraphrasing) discussing death, and how you never know, because for you, things are just happening around you, you're living, then ... nothing. Michael Imperioli even pointed it out on a late show interview, that there were multiple hints in the previous episodes that spelled things out entirely clearly.
- d23 5y ago
  > No Country for Old Men, again IMO, rides that line a little close. Sure the Bardem character checks his boots at the end but there were some other major gaps that I don't think were set up. It was well acted and produced but expectations were not managed so it still goes into my meh pile. Really? This is one of my favorite movies. What did you find overly ambiguous? If anything I felt the closing dialog and monologue were sort of on the nose about the theme of the movie, but I don't mind that.
version_five 5y ago
One thing I'd add to the article is that a key feature of the Marlow novels is their meandering plots. I read once that Raymond Chandler stories are about the journey, not the destination, so basically you're following Marlow around as he does stuff (that is mentioned in the article). The stuff he does is locally interesting, and it makes the stories good. But judging the stories based on their plot synopsis doesn't really get you anywhere. I've read all the Marlow novels, a while ago now, but I'd be challenged to give a decent summary of any of them. Its about the individual scenes.
- smackeyacky 5y ago
  This is very much my experience of those novels. Not quite as opaque as Conrad's "Heart of darkness" but I get the idea that you are supposed to be as much in the dark about what is happening to Marlowe as Marlowe is himself. It helps with the immersion.
- twelvechairs 5y ago
  TV has shifted this way, where its now common to have long running series where different writers, directors, etc. across every episode. Everything is logical in its immediate context but can seem illogical in the broader context of the entire series/show.
  - mixmastamyk 5y ago
    Yes, lots of characters change at random, just when you think you know them.
    - version_five 5y ago
      I find this in a lot of Netflix shows, where the season is ostensibly building to some revelation about who the killer or mole or whoever is, but each episode plays out like it was based only on prompts from the previous ones and not according to some planned story arc. At the end you don't see everything fall into place, you learn that there was a relationship that was not alluded to in any way through the rest of the season that suddenly makes someone the killer.
meijer 5y ago
The young Lauren Bacall somehow looks very contemporary. No idea why...
jbgreer 5y ago
I'm a big fan of 'The Big Sleep', Kubrick & Lynch. I also enjoy nonfiction literature that dumps you in the middle of the story. I find encountering unfamiliar words, characters, etc. interesting, and the extra work to figure out the context is satisfying. My wife, on the other hand, hates that sort of thing, such that I recognize there are works I cannot recommend to her, or movies we can only watch with my finger on a pause button, ready to explain. She's not dumb, but she certainly has less appreciation or patience to put up with that sort of thing.
BatFastard 5y ago
Primer has got to be the most baffling movie ever made, impossible to keep track of the timelines! Still an awesome movie!
- munchler 5y ago
  The great thing about Primer is that most of its important events don't even appear in the movie itself. If you like Primer, I highly recommend Shane Carruth's other movie, Upstream Color. Very different from Primer, but similar in that both movies let viewers figure things out for themselves.
chadcmulligan 5y ago
There was a story I heard that the actors couldn't follow what was going on either, there was a large blackboard with arrows and scenes to help them figure out where they were. For anyone who's thinking of watching this weekend, the Maltese falcon is another great Bogart movie, and not quite as complex as the big sleep, and my personal favourite.
jedimastert 5y ago
If you wanna talk about baffling movies (or just a fun story) check out The Terror https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3Qo-bntEZc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3Qo-bntEZc
wrp 5y ago
For anyone who had trouble understanding the plot of The Big Sleep, I would really like to hear what the difficult points were for you. It's one of my favorite movies and while the plot was convoluted, I never felt it was confusing. I see this as an opportunity to understand how some other people process narratives.
georgeecollins 5y ago
If you have ever read the book-- and I recommend it-- the movie is very much like the book and the book makes sense. Partly because you are reading and you can take the details in. But it makes sense to me.
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exabrial 5y ago
I don't know... you probably haven't seen Sharknado. The real mystery is why does this film even exist
mikhailfranco 5y ago
I highly recommend the BBC radio versions of Chandler's Marlowe books, starring Ed Bishop as Marlowe. The collection contains 6 x 1.5hr plays, including The Big Sleep. https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details/Raymond_Chandler_A_BBC_Radio_Collection_Starring_E?id=AQAAAEBs9Ce0WM https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details/Raymond_Cha... The plays are rarely rebroadcast on the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007k360 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007k360
- rwmj 5y ago
  Ed Bishop out of UFO? (Checks Wikipedia, and yes it is!)

145 points by DrNuke 5y ago

Was it really that baffling? As a genre, film noir tends to have a twisting storyline and this was a particularly good one. But compared to, say, a Christopher Nolan or Charlie Kaufman film, this was a walk in the park.

leephillips 5y ago
I love it and have seen it several times, but I still don’t know what’s going on. I believe you, though, because my girlfriend in college tried to explain it to a friend and me after we had all watched it. She had been able to follow it, but we were lost.
chippy 5y ago
Now realise that, compared to movies from the last generation, its the bafflement is the actual story, not the twists and turns. In other words, 40 years ago, this news article would bizarre! Everyone who saw the film would have grokked the way the movie was told. Its like the amazing difference between medieval and modern art works is the difference in how metaphor and meaning is represented rather than the actual story represented. However some might say that it's the story that counts and thats whats interesting. To be a cultural historian today must be very frustrating.
monkeyfacebag 5y ago
Do Christopher Nolan films have a reputation for being baffling? I've never had that experience with them. On the other hand, we just saw The Green Knight and that one will throw you.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  They are certainly baffling without subtitles since the speech is not audible.
- handrous 5y ago
  > On the other hand, we just saw The Green Knight and that one will throw you. I think I'm going to need at least two more viewings to get from "OK, I see it saying a lot of things about several themes or ideas, and I can tell what at least some of those themes or ideas are, but I have only the vaguest idea what it's saying about them" to "ah, now I get it." Great movie.
- bmitc 5y ago
  Nolan's films are not baffling in the sense of creating true mystery or intrigue. They are baffling because they truly are a mess and have inaudible dialog, and that's despite being famous for having tedious monologues.
tclancy 5y ago
Same, but have you read the book? I really like Chandler and have read it a number of times so I feel like there's a leg up. For instance, the Sean Reagan character doesn't really exist in the movie and barely registers when I watch it whereas his story is perhaps the biggest thing in the book.

Causality1 5y ago

arguing that we should embrace ambiguity. This is probably my most despised media trend of the 21st century, and that's saying something. "You decide how it ended" "You decide if she lived or died" "Their motivations for doing that are up to you" "It means whatever you want it to mean" It's an excuse for lazy writing and for being too cowardly to make decisions.

jerf 5y ago
I feel similarly about the "twist" that "it was just a dream!" or something similar. It's already fiction. It's already made up. If I wanted to be stuck with just the stories & endings and such I could make up, I wouldn't be coming to you for a story. Not that there isn't room for ambiguity or complexity or anything, but, I already know what I think. I'm here precisely to find out what someone else thinks, and "well, what do you think?" is not very helpful.
- Joeboy 5y ago
  "It was just a dream" only works if it suggests an actual ending. Eg. Brazil, Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. I don't think it's a viable twist in itself.
  - recursive 5y ago
    "Scenic Route" is another movie that does this. I like it.
  - earleybird 5y ago
    Which ending of Brazil?
    - Joeboy 5y ago
      Not the Sid Sheinberg "Love Conquers All" ending, if that's what you're getting at! I did watch it once, hard to believe that seemed like a good idea to anybody. Makes me wonder how many other great films we lost to that kind of studio butchery.

pjmorris 5y ago

I was amazed and astonished when I first saw 'The Big Sleep', early in my college career. I'd never seen a movie I had a hard time following before, and I was captivated. There's an old Steve Yegge post where he described presenting for Jeff Bezos. I'm paraphrasing, but Yegge said something like after writing the presentation (no slides), delete every fifth paragraph to keep Bezos intrigued enough to pay attention. I feel like that's what happened to either the script or the filming of 'The Big Sleep.' EDIT: Every third paragraph, link to Yegge post: https://gist.github.com/kislayverma/6681d4cce736cd7041e6c8214469d2fd https://gist.github.com/kislayverma/6681d4cce736cd7041e6c821...

seph-reed 5y ago
This was a really nice read. I've made a habit lately of "checking out" on having any opinion about anything I can't truly analyze. And this is a great example of why. I'm surrounded in content telling me why Bezos is a monster, and they make a good argument. But for all that hatred, I've never once heard a single mention of him being smart, let alone intimidatingly smart, let alone "a first class genius" or "better regarded as hyper-intelligent aliens with a tangential interest in human affairs." This seems like an important character detail to have been left out.
- soneca 5y ago
  I remember reading about him being very smart multiple times. Just not on articles commenting Amazon workplace environment and such, as it should not be indeed. On articles about the beginnings of Amazon, the writing culture, or anything that is in part a biography on Bezos, I always see it mentioned how smart he is.
  - seph-reed 5y ago
    > Just not on articles commenting Amazon workplace environment and such, as it should not be indeed I think the distinction between "evil" and "evil genius" is actually kind of important for a world that often anchors its reality to Hollywood narratives. It sets up a more believable antagonist, and makes it clear that -- unlike the grinch -- their heart is not likely to change. It also sets up the challenge: be smarter. If he was just greedy, it might be a race to the bottom (greed always wins). But in this case it's a race to the top (intelligence seems to win). I also think the distinction between "greed wins" and "smart wins" extends with a similar lack of mention into other popular "villains" like Elon or THE ZUCK. At least for me, knowing that the richest person in the world is also considered extremely smart by the smartest people he could pay to work with him... it makes me feel that -- unlike politics -- business is not yet a complete race to the bottom.

zabzonk 5y ago

I remember watching it (I'd seen it before) with an audience of stoner undergrads at St. Andrews University (not the brightest of people - I was at Edinburgh) and having to explain what exactly was going on, not helped by being somewhat stoned myself. But do films (or any art) have to "make sense"? For example, I've never really worked out what the original "Solaris" is about, but it doesn't stop it from being both scary and moving.

themodelplumber 5y ago
> But do films (or any art) have to "make sense"? In a lot of ways I think it depends on your role, and the role of the film in your experience. If your role is to enjoy, then I hope the film was created with your preferred perceptive style in mind. If your role is to write a paper on a film, maybe the make-sense films make that whole assignment much easier. Solaris is a tremendous sensory experience on its own. You can pick up on a lot of the implications by interpreting the film's sensory output as metaphor. From facial expressions to positioning, texture, and sound / music. A lot of people find that relaxing because the metaphor-extraction process is like a background process for them and it feeds their intuitive grasp of what's unfolding in the "big picture" of the film. They tend to take in and process much of life in the same way. At the same time, not everybody enjoys that, and it will make some people downright uncomfortable. To be comfortable with a film, maybe they need to be able to piece it together logically for example, or at least be able to create by themselves an explanation/exposition of the contents where one didn't exist before. Incidentally, I find the sensory-experiential/metaphorical approach (my go-to) much less fulfilling while watching films created by people who are more logical and detail-driven. For example, I was rewatching _The Spanish Prisoner_ the other day and it was painfully clear that Mamet really wanted viewers to track his labyrinth of aphoristic details. From a sensory-metaphor perspective there wasn't much to work with, and the film didn't seem to "make sense" from that intuitive standpoint. But it's less painful IMO, and maybe even more pleasurable, when you know the kind of gifts and preferred perspectives the director is working with, and at least you're aware that you can make a decision to change your perceptive focus, or watch something else. That aspect makes sense to me, and helps me watch films that wouldn't otherwise make sense in this way or that one.

LarrySellers 5y ago

When I realized that The Big Lebowski is The Big Sleep + bowling it blew my mind

AutumnCurtain 5y ago
Definitely very inspired by. The whole Jackie Treehorn element in particular

at_a_remove 5y ago

Take Dark City. I believe the studio forced a new opening that more or less explained everything rather than letting you puzzle it all out. I didn't find the movie too hard to work through, but I think Hollywood execs have a fairly low estimation of the audience's intellect. Lynch is a bit harder. Lynch is atypical in two ways that play off of one another. First and most obviously, he has been developing as a film-maker (as one would hope over the decades), but he expects that his audience would have kept up with him, introducing a kind of filmic vocabulary. I would say that Mulholland Drive is much, much more comprehensible once you have understood what Lost Highway is on about. In turn, Lost Highway is an extended riff off of the dualism you would see in Twin Peaks and Fire Walk With Me. As to the second factor, Lynch is very heavy into TM and he would like to present images, sounds, and such to the viewer, and then find out what the viewer thinks of them. Not in a "this is up to you to puzzle out," rather he is pitching rocks and skipping stones off of what he likely believes is to be a collective unconscious or a shared cultural experience, then being excited about what might pop up. It's a genuine interest, I think.

LarrySellers 5y ago
“I don't know why people expect art to make sense. They accept the fact that life doesn't make sense.” -- David Lynch
- psychomugs 5y ago
  I've been on a mini Lynch binge recently (Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, and a lot of his interviews on Linda Faludi's excellent channel [1]) and I feel like this quote sums him up. [1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVdYdogQM2xd29HUOED4EbQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVdYdogQM2xd29HUOED4EbQ
- newsbinator 5y ago
  > They accept the fact that life doesn't make sense. Most people, in most cultures, don't accept it as fact that life doesn't make sense. What % of people would agree with the statement "everything happens for a reason"? Or even "because God did it". Of those who don't think everything happens for a reason (i.e. life makes sense... to someone), the vast majority nevertheless believe we live in a universe of physical rules. We accept we could get wiped out by an asteroid or a deadly plague, sure. That makes sense. We don't accept we could get wiped out by a Lynchian fever dream. That doesn't make sense.

lqet 5y ago

Regarding classic film-noir movies, I found "The Lady from Shanghai" by Orson Welles much more baffling, and also frustrating. The first time I watched it, I didn't really get the plot. As a big Orson Welles fan, I assumed it was my fault and consulted Wikipedia. The Wikipedia understanding of the plot was equivalent to mine and didn't answer any questions, so I watched it a second time, and a third time. There are massive plot holes. I really believe that Welles was not interested in a coherent plot, he just needed a vehicle for beautiful cinematography and great acting. But it is so frustrating if you try to follow a complicated plot, only to realise at the end of the movie that not even the director was able to understand it.

WalterBright 5y ago
The "Lost" miniseries is enjoyable only once you accept that it simply doesn't make any sense. Just enjoy the moments. Though "Lost" was on to something with the dialog "it's a snowglobe!" They could have followed up on that, leading to a satisfying conclusion, but as with everything else, it just went nowhere.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > The “Lost” miniseries Is this different than the Lost series of 6 seasons and 121 episodes? Or is this just an unusual use of the prefix “mini-”?
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Yes, that Lost.
  - jcrawfordor 5y ago
    I've heard a joke along the lines of "I loved LOST, it's a shame they only made one season" from multiple people. Whether they allow one or two seasons of the show to actually exist in their memory depends on the person.
- asdff 5y ago
  I'm really surprised LOST still has that reputation years after release. Having seen the entire thing, I think the plot makes sense and there aren't very many holes. The writers omit a lot early on but I felt like it gets answered by the end as you learn more about the island. In the moment as it was being released year by year I can see how it was seen as confusing when you'd wait for a while to get an explanation, but these days you could binge the entire thing.

okareaman 5y ago

Whew! I thought it was just me.

telesphore 5y ago

It's a matter of setting up expectations and balancing that with good story telling. Ambiguity, elision, out-of-order story telling, etc. are all part of art but it's a delicate balance. There's a contract that artists set up with the audience that will allow them to use these techniques. Primer is one of those where I'm OK with my confusion because the story was interesting without all the answers, and it was setup pretty early on that this wasn't an A to B story. On the other hand, the fade-to-black ending of The Sopranos was, in my opinion, a total violation of that contract. Nowhere did they setup that kind of ambiguity. Yes, it's a series vs. a movie but my point still stands. No Country for Old Men, again IMO, rides that line a little close. Sure the Bardem character checks his boots at the end but there were some other major gaps that I don't think were set up. It was well acted and produced but expectations were not managed so it still goes into my meh pile. When it works the it's a lot of fun figuring things out. I'll have to give The Big Sleep a try. Edit: At the other end of the spectrum, expository lumps are no fun either.

lqet 5y ago
> On the other hand, the fade-to-black ending of The Sopranos was, in my opinion, a total violation of that contract. Nowhere did they setup that kind of ambiguity. I respectfully disagree. One of the qualities of "The Sopranos" was exactly that things weren't always spelled out explicitely. Also, I did not really find the ending to be extremely ambigious. I mean, it is pretty clear what happened.
- FireBeyond 5y ago
  I mean even that exact ending was spelled out a few episodes before, when the characters are (and I'm paraphrasing) discussing death, and how you never know, because for you, things are just happening around you, you're living, then ... nothing. Michael Imperioli even pointed it out on a late show interview, that there were multiple hints in the previous episodes that spelled things out entirely clearly.
d23 5y ago
> No Country for Old Men, again IMO, rides that line a little close. Sure the Bardem character checks his boots at the end but there were some other major gaps that I don't think were set up. It was well acted and produced but expectations were not managed so it still goes into my meh pile. Really? This is one of my favorite movies. What did you find overly ambiguous? If anything I felt the closing dialog and monologue were sort of on the nose about the theme of the movie, but I don't mind that.

version_five 5y ago

One thing I'd add to the article is that a key feature of the Marlow novels is their meandering plots. I read once that Raymond Chandler stories are about the journey, not the destination, so basically you're following Marlow around as he does stuff (that is mentioned in the article). The stuff he does is locally interesting, and it makes the stories good. But judging the stories based on their plot synopsis doesn't really get you anywhere. I've read all the Marlow novels, a while ago now, but I'd be challenged to give a decent summary of any of them. Its about the individual scenes.

smackeyacky 5y ago
This is very much my experience of those novels. Not quite as opaque as Conrad's "Heart of darkness" but I get the idea that you are supposed to be as much in the dark about what is happening to Marlowe as Marlowe is himself. It helps with the immersion.
twelvechairs 5y ago
TV has shifted this way, where its now common to have long running series where different writers, directors, etc. across every episode. Everything is logical in its immediate context but can seem illogical in the broader context of the entire series/show.
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  Yes, lots of characters change at random, just when you think you know them.
  - version_five 5y ago
    I find this in a lot of Netflix shows, where the season is ostensibly building to some revelation about who the killer or mole or whoever is, but each episode plays out like it was based only on prompts from the previous ones and not according to some planned story arc. At the end you don't see everything fall into place, you learn that there was a relationship that was not alluded to in any way through the rest of the season that suddenly makes someone the killer.

meijer 5y ago

The young Lauren Bacall somehow looks very contemporary. No idea why...

jbgreer 5y ago

I'm a big fan of 'The Big Sleep', Kubrick & Lynch. I also enjoy nonfiction literature that dumps you in the middle of the story. I find encountering unfamiliar words, characters, etc. interesting, and the extra work to figure out the context is satisfying. My wife, on the other hand, hates that sort of thing, such that I recognize there are works I cannot recommend to her, or movies we can only watch with my finger on a pause button, ready to explain. She's not dumb, but she certainly has less appreciation or patience to put up with that sort of thing.

BatFastard 5y ago

Primer has got to be the most baffling movie ever made, impossible to keep track of the timelines! Still an awesome movie!

munchler 5y ago
The great thing about Primer is that most of its important events don't even appear in the movie itself. If you like Primer, I highly recommend Shane Carruth's other movie, Upstream Color. Very different from Primer, but similar in that both movies let viewers figure things out for themselves.

chadcmulligan 5y ago

There was a story I heard that the actors couldn't follow what was going on either, there was a large blackboard with arrows and scenes to help them figure out where they were. For anyone who's thinking of watching this weekend, the Maltese falcon is another great Bogart movie, and not quite as complex as the big sleep, and my personal favourite.

jedimastert 5y ago

If you wanna talk about baffling movies (or just a fun story) check out The Terror https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3Qo-bntEZc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3Qo-bntEZc

wrp 5y ago

For anyone who had trouble understanding the plot of The Big Sleep, I would really like to hear what the difficult points were for you. It's one of my favorite movies and while the plot was convoluted, I never felt it was confusing. I see this as an opportunity to understand how some other people process narratives.

georgeecollins 5y ago

If you have ever read the book-- and I recommend it-- the movie is very much like the book and the book makes sense. Partly because you are reading and you can take the details in. But it makes sense to me.

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exabrial 5y ago

I don't know... you probably haven't seen Sharknado. The real mystery is why does this film even exist

mikhailfranco 5y ago

I highly recommend the BBC radio versions of Chandler's Marlowe books, starring Ed Bishop as Marlowe. The collection contains 6 x 1.5hr plays, including The Big Sleep. https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details/Raymond_Chandler_A_BBC_Radio_Collection_Starring_E?id=AQAAAEBs9Ce0WM https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details/Raymond_Cha... The plays are rarely rebroadcast on the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007k360 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007k360

rwmj 5y ago
Ed Bishop out of UFO? (Checks Wikipedia, and yes it is!)