On January 16, in the midst of one of its most profound crises, the American psyche lost its greatest contemporary interrogator when filmmaker and artistic renaissance man David Lynch died at 78. I immediately thought of Lynch and his remarkable films following Donald Trump’s decision this week to impose a 100 per cent tariff on foreign films, supposedly in response to – as the US President put it – “the death of Hollywood”.
Let me explain why.
A typical bemused complaint about Lynch’s films, paintings, music and other art was: “But why is it so weird?” In conventional terms, Lynch’s films indeed seem “weird”, but that’s because life is weird. It’s been particularly weird in the US over the 60 years during which Lynch fixed his deeply penetrating gaze on national culture, mores, facile expectations and, above all, the liminal and subconscious recesses of the American mind.
Lynch, born in Missoula, Montana, had a folksy charm seemingly at odds with the often ferocious and violent dissection with which he excavated the dark spaces lurking behind apparent American normality. One of his early champions, comedian and filmmaker Mel Brooks, described him as “Jimmy Stewart from Mars”.
The tone for the rest of his career, and its relationship to Americana, was set by the unforgettable opening of his 1986 masterpiece Blue Velvet. His camera frames stereotypical US iconography: white picket fences surrounded by flowers, friendly firemen waving from reassuring red fire engines, happy children walking safely across a street protected by crossing guards, all seemingly plucked from the 1950s.
It settles upon a man casually watering his lawn while a woman inside watches a slightly menacing crime drama on television featuring an advancing revolver. But we see his hose tangled against itself, constricting the flow of water. He falls to the ground, clutching his neck. As he gurgles through a stroke, the now freely dancing hose sprays water that is lapped up by a happy and oblivious spaniel, while an equally thought-free toddler staggers forward.
American life has only been getting weirder, and Lynch had been the pre-eminent chronicler of this intensifying weirdness
The camera pans down into the manicured lawn, and descends into the grass, revealing a ferocious battle between apparently monstrous black beetles. Alongside seemingly idyllic perfection is the constant prospect of human pain and death, but more importantly and unexpectedly a usually unseen and unsuspected dark undergrowth of savage, primal violence. These metaphors are hardly subtle, yet deep complexity arises from an unmistakable ambivalence.
The artist genuinely yearns for American pastoral purity, yet he harbours no illusions about the darkness – beyond merely the understood prospect of disease and death – that lurks unsuspected and unseen beneath that illusory perfection. Everywhere in Blue Velvet is an ever-deeper, always more unsettling next narrative layer, typically signalled by Lynch’s extraordinary and unique soundscapes characterised by deep drones and sudden unsettling sonic jolts. Everywhere, a cynical and savage humour is also at work.
In his later masterpieces, beginning with Lost Highway (1997), Lynch frequently depicted characters who may or may not be experiencing psychogenic fugue – a disassociation so profound that new realities can suddenly be imagined, dreamed or even “lived” to escape unbearable trauma. In subsequent films such as Mulholland Drive (2001, often justifiably cited as the greatest film yet of the 21st century) and Inland Empire (2006), the psychological puzzles become increasingly complex, convoluted and difficult to unpack.
The relationship between different characters – who may or may not be contrasting manifestations of each other, or some other, possibly unseen, persona – becomes increasingly oblique. With Inland Empire, one is obliged to simply experience the film’s raw power rather than trying to discover any underlying linear narrative. One may or may not exist, but the point is that it doesn’t matter. The film proceeds thematically, and it must be understood as a series of set pieces that either don’t connect as a standard coherent narrative or, rather, can be reconnected in so many plausible ways that any effort to discover a normative storyline is calculatedly thwarted and, indeed, punished by the complexity and, arguably, deliberate impossibility of the task.
Lynch brought this sensibility to what may ultimately be regarded as his most fully realised work, a third season in 2017 of his hit TV show from the early 1990s, Twin Peaks. This majestic 18-hour film, broken into episodes, interlaces the quirky and humorous, although often mystifying and terrifying, American surrealism of his earlier works with the darker psychogenic fugue-related themes of his later style.
Episode eight, in particular, which defies easy description, is almost certainly the most remarkable and surreal hour ever on American television. Its huge influence on later important films such as Oppenheimer (2023), winner of seven Academy Awards, is readily apparent.
Lynch, a dedicated practitioner of transcendental meditation, argued that beneath surface realities lies a transcendent universal consciousness that can be accessed through meditation, imagination and art. His ouvre is informed by a vast benevolence and, although frequently accused of misogyny, he was among America’s leading feminist artists.
American life has only been getting weirder, and Lynch had been the pre-eminent chronicler of this intensifying weirdness. Mr Trump’s effort to impose a 100 per cent tariff on foreign films will intensify the dumbing-down of popular culture with cinemas dominated by imbecilic superhero dross, pointless remakes and predictable spinoffs, and is 70 years too late.
When Mr Trump was a young man, and Lynch was making Eraserhead (1977) – certainly the greatest-ever student film, and probably the only undoubted student masterpiece – Hollywood was already well post-mortem. The demise of the classic studio system to which Mr Trump is apparently referring – when he said Hollywood is dying – was, ironically, precisely what allowed Lynch and other brilliant young directors beginning in the 1960s, like Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese, to make visionary and original films that resonated powerfully with a mass audience.
Lynch, a passionate proponent of DIY art, was the most prominent director to ardently embrace affordable digital video (Inland Empire was shot by the director himself on a single inexpensive digital video camera). Such affordable technology theoretically makes filmmaking, even on mobile phones, accessible to virtually anyone. Yet in reality, corporate media today has a firm stranglehold on mass cultural production dominated by artistically vapid marketing executives.
With life in America getting ever-weirder, Lynch gone, and the Trump administration trying to limit access to international perspectives, it’s unclear who else, if anyone, might be up to the crucial artistic task of excavating the darkest depths of US culture and society, even as they rise ever-closer to the surface and, indeed, predominance. America has never so desperately needed the likes of David Lynch.
UK’s AI plan
- AI ambassadors such as MIT economist Simon Johnson, Monzo cofounder Tom Blomfield and Google DeepMind’s Raia Hadsell
- £10bn AI growth zone in South Wales to create 5,000 jobs
- £100m of government support for startups building AI hardware products
- £250m to train new AI models
Desert Warrior
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Ben Kingsley
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Rating: 3/5
England v West Indies
England squad for the first Test Cook, Stoneman, Westley, Root (captain), Malan, Stokes, Bairstow, Moeen, Roland-Jones, Broad, Anderson, Woakes, Crane
Fixtures
1st Test Aug 17-21, Edgbaston
2nd Test Aug 25-29, Headingley
3rd Test Sep 7-11, Lord's
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Profile of RentSher
Started: October 2015 in India, November 2016 in UAE
Founders: Harsh Dhand; Vaibhav and Purvashi Doshi
Based: Bangalore, India and Dubai, UAE
Sector: Online rental marketplace
Size: 40 employees
Investment: $2 million
What is the Supreme Petroleum Council?
The Abu Dhabi Supreme Petroleum Council was established in 1988 and is the highest governing body in Abu Dhabi’s oil and gas industry. The council formulates, oversees and executes the emirate’s petroleum-related policies. It also approves the allocation of capital spending across state-owned Adnoc’s upstream, downstream and midstream operations and functions as the company’s board of directors. The SPC’s mandate is also required for auctioning oil and gas concessions in Abu Dhabi and for awarding blocks to international oil companies. The council is chaired by Sheikh Khalifa, the President and Ruler of Abu Dhabi while Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, is the vice chairman.
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How to help
Send “thenational” to the following numbers or call the hotline on: 0502955999
2289 – Dh10
2252 – Dh 50
6025 – Dh20
6027 – Dh 100
6026 – Dh 200
THREE
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Ziina users can donate to relief efforts in Beirut
Ziina users will be able to use the app to help relief efforts in Beirut, which has been left reeling after an August blast caused an estimated $15 billion in damage and left thousands homeless. Ziina has partnered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to raise money for the Lebanese capital, co-founder Faisal Toukan says. “As of October 1, the UNHCR has the first certified badge on Ziina and is automatically part of user's top friends' list during this campaign. Users can now donate any amount to the Beirut relief with two clicks. The money raised will go towards rebuilding houses for the families that were impacted by the explosion.”
Infiniti QX80 specs
Engine: twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V6
Power: 450hp
Torque: 700Nm
Price: From Dh450,000, Autograph model from Dh510,000
Available: Now
Emergency
Director: Kangana Ranaut
Stars: Kangana Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Shreyas Talpade, Milind Soman, Mahima Chaudhry
Rating: 2/5
How to apply for a drone permit
- Individuals must register on UAE Drone app or website using their UAE Pass
- Add all their personal details, including name, nationality, passport number, Emiratis ID, email and phone number
- Upload the training certificate from a centre accredited by the GCAA
- Submit their request
What are the regulations?
- Fly it within visual line of sight
- Never over populated areas
- Ensure maximum flying height of 400 feet (122 metres) above ground level is not crossed
- Users must avoid flying over restricted areas listed on the UAE Drone app
- Only fly the drone during the day, and never at night
- Should have a live feed of the drone flight
- Drones must weigh 5 kg or less
BULKWHIZ PROFILE
Date started: February 2017
Founders: Amira Rashad (CEO), Yusuf Saber (CTO), Mahmoud Sayedahmed (adviser), Reda Bouraoui (adviser)
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: E-commerce
Size: 50 employees
Funding: approximately $6m
Investors: Beco Capital, Enabling Future and Wain in the UAE; China's MSA Capital; 500 Startups; Faith Capital and Savour Ventures in Kuwait
Final round
25 under - Antoine Rozner (FRA)
23 - Francesco Laporta (ITA), Mike Lorenzo-Vera (FRA), Andy Sullivan (ENG), Matt Wallace (ENG)
21 - Grant Forrest (SCO)
20 - Ross Fisher (ENG)
19 - Steven Brown (ENG), Joakim Lagergren (SWE), Niklas Lemke (SWE), Marc Warren (SCO), Bernd Wiesberger (AUT)
