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David Lynch & magic (take 3)

28/6/2017

1 Comment

 
In talking about magic in the work of David Lynch, I am not referring to a special ethereal quality, but simply the abundance of what are effectively conjuring performances, re-imagined in the context of the world of Twin Peaks.
In series 3, Cooper makes his uncanny appearance levitating inside a glass box, in echoes of David Copperfield's 'Flying' levitation back in the 90's, during which the illusionist produced the same exact image, night after night on a live stage.
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Returning to series 2, during the extended Black Lodge sequence of the last episode, Cooper's cup of coffee keeps changing consistency, from smoothly liquid, to thick and oozy, to block solid, again and again. Lynch is aptly tapping into conjuring - the uncanny transformations of matter - to power this universe in which time flows in all directions. The magic tricks pinpoint a fractured dream-like reality.
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Other examples include, in episode 8 of series 3, the 'giant' walking on stage and gently levitating upwards, whilst an unnamed woman holds a ball of light.
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One of my pet favourite moments, from the current series (3), is an exchange between drug dealers (here called man A and man B, as I don't know their names), in which a coin trick is used to establish a clear sense of hierarchy. Man A holds out a US quarter and tosses it into the air. As the coin is filmed spinning in mid-air, man B suddenly, and to his surprise, spits out a quarter from his own mouth, and holds it between his fingers. In a further circular twist, the original spinning coin then falls into the extended palm of man A: man B looks down at his hands to find that the coin he had spat out is no longer there.
Somewhat impossible to stage in 'real life', but beautifully capturing how magic can serve this eerie sense of reality not being what we think it is.
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1 Comment
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22/4/2025 07:34:34 pm

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