Cinematical

I think they are polar opposites. I think your word choice was a bit of baited mockery, but King is indeed a paragon of the ordinary man, while Lynch is, going on statistical track record, less likely to be. The difference between the two is King has ordinary characters placed within external situations of extraordinary horror, whereas Lynch's horror is internalized within his extraordinary characters.

Or, put this way: King has his characters walk into their nightmares, where Lynch has nightmares walk the environment inside his characters.

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i don't know, i think you may be onto something. King personally probably has a lot more in common with Lynch or Waters than he realizes. Where they differ is in the interests of their work. King, as an heir of Bradbury, has a lot invested in getting 'ordinary' people to take a dip in the extraordinary by grounding his fiction in familiar detail. He is a serious writer, but he's primarily invested in how the movies convey the concerns of his stories. i like respect King a lot, but both Lynch and Waters are artists and film makers first, and writers second, so he's not comparing the same skills or goals.

There isn't anything wrong with Lynch's observations or depictions of everyday people - King is wrong that he doesn't 'get' them. It's just not part of Lynch's schtick to inform the audience he 'gets' them, because his goals are not the same as King's. He's an artist, he's trying to challenge the viewer, not lure them into jumping, shivering or crying. Lynch and Waters know their work isn't for everyone, and i suspect King might worry if he thought his work wasn't.

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I think King is a great writer, he's just not very smart. I remember him telling some interviewer how Kubrick's version of the Shining was worse because it didn't include the fantasy/ghost-story/mystery element like the book, even though it was much less grounded in reality than the book was.

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this just makes King sound pompous. who in their right mind would insult David Lynch?

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I agree with cubitfox. As artists, Lynch and King are leagues apart (Waters was in one of my favorite Simpsons episodes, and so, I have a fondness for him because of that, but I don't think he should be mentioned in the same breath as Lynch).

I've read a few of King's books, and have never been very impressed. They're so uneven. There were parts of "It" that I thought were kind of creepy, but that's it. Never scary.

And yet, there's a scene in "Lost Highway" when Bill Pullman comes home and walks into this pitch-black corridor. Now that was easily the most frightening thing I've ever encountered in film/ art.

The irony comes from the fact that "It" was about a monster feeding off the deepest fears of its characters. In that above-mentioned scene in "Lost Highway," you actually get to experience that, as Lynch lets your own imagination take over and scare the hell out of you.

And I think King is confusing "ordinary" with "plain." Monika (sorry to be so informal) nails it by bringing up Alvin Straight. That film is so much a part of who Lynch is.

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King is almost insulting the general population, saying that they aren't interesting, deep people; just "normal people" who can't understand complex things, so artists shouldn't resort to complex characters because us simple folk can't understand them.

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I think a lot of people pigeonhole King's work as muddled in the supernatural and horror genre - I doubt that's the distinction he was trying to make between ordinary and out of the ordinary.

If you read the prologues and epilogues of King's books, you can hear him talk at length about how the scariest things in his books aren't vampires or killer cars or ghosts. It's the proclivity for vices, the standard set of sins from lust through envy, and the tendency towards cowardice - THAT is human nature and what he likely means by "ordinary".

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As someone who read 20+ King books in middle/high school and has seen all things Lynchian with the exception of the new one - Inland Empire - The Straight Story, and a few of his shorts, I have to say that they have little in common, if only in that Lynch is an amazing storyteller and King, while he is amazing prolific and can write a very easily digested story, is not all that complex or interesting a writer.

King dismissing Lynch like that is wrong - I think Lynch understands ordinary people - but while characters like Henry in Eraserhead are tinged with a hint of middle-class banality, they are certainly not all "ordinary." Lynch's work is mostly about the corruption beneath the surface, not necessarily ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.

That's such a bland thing to be "about" anyway: what author hasn't written at least one book about an ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances? Almost everything is about that.

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Who cares about King anyway? His stories are monotonic, not really scary. I think he reflects the American mind very well, but that's it.

If i want horror, i read Clive Barker. End of story. BTW, anyone who ever wrote this scandal-seeking "article" should really think about career change.

meh.

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The main difference between them is that Lynch is underrated and King is overrated.

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I think you're an overprotective David Lynch fan. It's true, he mostly does his own work but I don't think he'd be able to, or be interested in, adapting a work by King and keep it King's work. Whatever you think of Dune, he couldn't make it completely his and he couldn't really keep it Frank Herbert's. Stuck in the middle of having to make a mass entertainment, he failed. He would fail as well with Pet Cemetery or The Shining. I don't think King was challenging Lynch and Waters to do adaptations of his novels. He just knows their sensibilities wouldn't do them justice.

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Wow. I've always thought their was something missing from Shawshank. Red should have been played by Michael J. Anderson insted of Morgan Freeman.

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While I disagree with King that Lynch can't present ordinary people, I would like to point out that Stephen King has admitted to being a David Lynch fan in the past. Specifically, he told Fangoria magazine that he thought BLUE VELVET was "a classic," and expressed his desire to work with Lynch one day. Also, King confessed he was a huge TWIN PEAKS fan and that it was the main influence on his series GOLDEN YEARS (though I believe he called the post-Laura Palmer PEAKS an "unwatchable piece of s***").

Anyway, I think the two have a lot in common, as they both like to explore the light and dark sides of American life. I do see what King is saying, at least to a degree; Lynch's characters can often behave in an absurd and somewhat stylized manner, to the point where it can be alienating. There are even a few moments in relatively "normal" movies like THE STRAIGHT STORY where people act just a bit too quirky. I personally love that stuff, but it is a turn-off for certain viewers who want to relate to the characters. (I've had a handful of experiences sitting uncomfortably with an audience as they desperately tried to relate to a David Lynch movie).

However, I think King is correct only to a point. Superficially, Lynch's characters are weird, but I think ultimately we can all relate to them, no matter how ordinary or strange. As others here have said, Lynch takes us inside the characters' minds and souls, blurring the line between internal/external and fantasy/reality to the point where we realize the world is one mysterious place. King really does that too, just in a less abstract way. In the end, the two really have a lot in common, and I'm surprised King didn't recognize that. Oh well.

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I think the statement that Lynch and Waters don't get ordinary people is actually incorrect. I think they get ordinary more so than Stephen King. King always finds something (sometimes subtly) extraordinary about his characters. I believe that with Lynch and Waters it isn't that they don't understand ordinary people it is that they see the world as being off-kilter. I think Lynch and Waters actually delve into the core of people. In our everyday lives We often see the surface of people and not what we truly are. King is all about surface and no soul.
Honestly, I love all three of these men's work. I love them differently. Stephen King's movies stick with you till you leave the theater. David Lynch sticks with you for life. John Waters comes back up when you least expect it.

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Well, first off... Lynch is a film maker and King is a writer. Already you are dealing with apples and oranges. They are both storytellers... and apples and oranges are both fruit. Good! Got that outta the way.

But here's what I have to ask... Who cares? Really, come on. Yeah, Lynch is teriffic. He's about the one and only filmmaker today that films nightmares. Some people hate him. King's one of my faves, but some people don't dig on him. Numbers don't lie, though... even if you're not a fan, he's doing something right.

Now for all of Lynch's insanity on the screen... I can't imagine what his films would read like if they were novels. I'm sure they would be crap. Much like most of Kings novels made pretty crap movies since they are so dependant on interior voices.

But really, I blame the french.

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