When I learned that this weeks class was going to be on documentary I was over the moon. ‘Yes!’ I thought to myself, ‘Finally we get to talk about some god damn Louis Theroux!’. I was excited, I mean, Louis pretty much wins the award for my favourite person, and so disappointed to find that he was only mentioned in passing under the subheading of ‘Interactive Documentary’. However, as this is my favourite format of documentary, I quickly recovered from my Theroux-induced heartbreak once we were introduced to the work of Errol Morris.

I was surprised to find that I was unfamiliar with him, but I was pretty amazed by his work with ‘The Killer Inside Me’. That was my sort of documentary. I mean, it had everything: murder, a crazy person, a condescending documentarian, a subject that didn’t quite realize how condescending said documentarian was being. It was great. So great I actually went home and watched it again, and then once more with mum, whom I usually watch docos with (In case you were wondering, she thought it was great too). Our serial killer groupie Sondra London didn’t necessarily need all that much help in portraying her mental instability, but Morris assisted her in the most brilliant and subtle ways. The constantly shifting lighting cast shadows over her already terrifying face, giving off the impression of her being some sort of monster, or creature from the darkness. The constant cutting to black made the narrative, her narrative, seem disjointed, drawing the viewer out of the tale and causing them to go over the information that had just received. The closer the camera zoomed into her face, the more intense things became, and with all these elements combined ‘The Killer Inside Me’ is rendered a rather chilling experience.




Still would have liked to have watched Louis’ porn episode though.

Or his Westboro Baptist Church exposé.




You may be surprised to know that someone who once opened a speech by stating “There’s nothing I love more than a good murder” is made to feel entirely squeamish by horror films. I know, but I just, I can’t with them. It’s almost heartbreaking for me because I’m usually interested in the narrative (which I realize is what most people whom watch horror are least interested in), but I just can’t get past it. Like, I’m all over horror in literature, but when it comes to films all I can think is ‘N O P E’. Fortunately for me the content observed in this weeks class wasn’t necessarily scary, instead it just caused me to feel rather uncomfortable. When it comes to this genre I think I’m more perturbed by cheesy jump scares than anything.

On the other hand, some of the scenes we watched this week I found rather enjoyable. In particular, Robert Wiene’s 1920 film ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ (although looking at it on IMDB apparently it falls under the horror genre...). I’m sorry to say I haven’t seen it before, but I found the visuals to be really striking, and wouldn’t mind picking it up now. As someone who quite likes German cinema, with a focus on German expressionism (or anything starring Daniel Brühl), I’m surprised that I’ve actually managed to miss this one. That being said, I was never as big on expressionist cinema, as I was on paintings.



I really like the stylistic nature of Wiene’s film, and the use of lighting is very impressive considering the period. I can only imagine how shocking the looming figure of our star somnambulist must have seemed to audiences of the 20s’! Fortunately I think this is the sort of horror I can cope with.

I'm not really sure how to finish this post now, so I’m putting a picture of Daniel Brühl here because I can:




Diane, 11:13 p.m., April 16th, typing up my blog post for Mark’s class. The scene I selected for this weeks discussion is ‘Cooper’s Dream Sequence’, or the first ‘Red Room’ scene, from David Lynch’s ‘Twin Peaks’ (S01E02).

Now, I noticed whilst watching other people’s presentations that the scenes they’d chosen often had some relevance to their childhood. I mean, things they watched with their parents/siblings, that sort of thing. Well, in my household we watched Twin Peaks. There’s nothing my family loves more than a good, old-fashioned murder.

The scene presents us with three characters:

• Special Agent Dale Cooper (To be referred to as ‘Special Agent Sexy’, from here on in)
• The Man from Another Place
• (Not) Laura Palmer

Now, here’s why this particular scene stood out to me.

• Backwards dialogue & action – It’s what I imagine the inside of David Lynch’s head sounds like.
• Riddles/clues – Stroking my pretense of intellectualism, feeding my ego, all that jazz…
• Striking visuals – The patterned floor touches the red curtains in an almost awkward fashion, adding to the eeriness of the scene.
• First time we see Laura (kind of), excluding when we’ve seen her body or in photos/videos.
• Introduces an almost supernatural element to the show.

Basically, what I’m saying is that it was unlike anything I’d seen before. So, when you coupled these particularly unusual elements with the rest of the show it was kind of just one big recipe for ‘YES’. Does that make sense? No? Well, moving on then…



Hey, look, more reasons why I think this scene/show is gr9 (which is one better than gr8):

• It has murder, a detective narrative, dreams, riddles, a mystery and it’s generally weird.
• The sort of ‘what the fuck’ feeling that it gives you.
• Special Agent Sexy
• The Man from Another Place’s dance
• It’s the first sort of really weird scene in the series. Everything up to that point is relatively ‘normal’. (David Lynch normal, that is.)
• It’s really clever, and it provides the viewer with clues wrapped up in riddles, which just makes everything even more mysterious.
• It makes more sense every time I watch it, but I still haven’t quite figured all of it out yet. Eg. why the man wants to help Cooper. I have an idea, but it’s all pretty complicated.
• Audience enters with Cooper, who looks as confused as we are, so even the scene acknowledges that it’s unusual.
• It’s just the best.

Also, The Simpson’s parodied it once in ‘Who Shot Mr Burns? Part 1’.




There is something really appealing about non-commercial and cable television. I believe it’s that it doesn’t fear breaking away from the standard cycle of mainstream TV, but rather tackles a variety of new and, in some cases, even confronting subjects. I mean, let’s look at freaking BBC’s ‘Black Mirror’. Being a fan of the show I was both really excited, and a little disgusted, that we’d be watching the first episode in class this week. If you’re familiar with the program, you’ll more than understand why. There’s sort of two ways in which you can look at this particular episode, the first being that it’s an amazing and insightful commentary on the power of the media, and the second being that it’s a perverted tale of a man having sexual relations with a pig.

Right, let’s just do a quick checklist of a few of the reasons why this show couldn’t be shown on commercial TV:

• The unusual structure: 3 episodes with different casts, and characters.
• It presents us with a malicious public, whom want to see an extremely indecent act at someone’s expense.
• And did I mention the MAN HAVING SEX WITH A PIG?

As the title suggests, ‘Black Mirror’ is a satire that shows us a dark reflection of ourselves, and examines our relationship with the media. It’s not repetitive, or all that easy to consume, and, most importantly, it makes the audience think. There are some glaringly obvious differences between this intellectual satire, and your typical, commercial rom-com.

I think that most of the allure of non-commercial TV is that it breaks away from the sort of routine mainstream drama, and presents us with something new and different. However, whilst this can be breath of fresh air to the audience, some people may find that they prefer the traditional routines of commercial narrative.







Now, first things first, I best give you a heads up on something: there is absolutely no way for me to be able to discuss anything even vaguely related to David Lynch without delving into Twin Peaks territory. I’m sorry, but that’s just how it has to be. It’s my favourite thing of all the things ever, and I believe it is my sole duty to bring it up at every possible occasion.

For future reference, other things I’m liable to try and find any occasion to bring up include:

• Casey Affleck
• My belief that one day, when the planets align, Quentin Tarantino’s nose and chin will meet in the middle.

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Lynch’s 'Mullholland Drive' breaks the rules of classical narrative thanks to it’s rather convoluted storyline. It leans towards being a puzzle, with a non-linear narrative and alternation between periods of time. It’s structure is based more of emotional growth, rather than the result of cause and effect, and as a result draws the audience in, despite their initial confusion. The film can also be viewed as a satire of the ultimate emptiness of Hollywood dreams.


The basic narrative structure is patterned on dreams, and the dream experience, yet the only instance in which dreams are explicitly mentioned is in the first scene at Winkie’s. In order to reinforce the relevance of the dream state, the seemingly illogical structure is implemented, along with characterization, to represent the unreliable nature of dream logic. The narrative is segmented into two parts; the dream vs reality, the lie vs the truth. The narrator fools the audience, and herself, into believing the lie to be reality, but the truth is later revealed, and the dream state confirmed.

If you were to rearrange the segments/scenes from Mulholland Drive into a linear fashion, it would look like something along the lines of this:

1. The film set – Here Diane begins to suspect the affair.
2. The one where Diane throws Camilla out of the apartment?
3. The dinner – Where Diane’s resentment grows.
4. The meeting at the Winkie’s – Where the hit is arranged.
5. The initial shot of the pillow – Where she enters the dream state.
6. The dream sequence – ¾ of the film.
7. The club – Silencio – Diane is brought into awareness, all the ~illusion~ talk causes her to realize that she’s dreaming.
8. Diane’s awakening – hallucinates Camilla’s presence.
9. The end.

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