Blanchot - The Unavowable Community (extract)

I repeat, for Bataille, the question: Why "community"? The answer he gives us is rather clear: "There exists a principle of insufficiency at the root of each being..." (the principle of incompleteness). Let us take note that what commands and organizes the possibility of a being is a principle. It follows that this lack on principle does not go hand in hand with a necessity for completion. A being, insufficient as it is, does not attempt to associate itself with another being to make up a substance of integrity. The awareness of the insufficiency arises from the fact that it puts itself in question, which question needs the other or another to be enacted. Left on its own, a being closes itself, falls asleep and calms down.

David Lynch, amazingly, says that he will never go back to using film. He admits that film looks better than digital but insists that the highest importance should be placed on the capturing of ideas, for which a giving in to rhythm is required. Digital cameras, he says, allow the director to, first of all, shoot with a minimum amount of people and therefore allow connections to manifest themselves that would not do so in a busier environment and, secondly, to shoot long takes without interruption and allowing one to mess things up without worrying, to talk to the actors while filming, and therefore capture any ideas that might come up in the moment.

My love, still, for all things smacking of Blanchot, nearly forces me to agree with him. However, just as profoundly I carry a strong mistrust of all allusions to immediacy, particularly from artists. Yet Lynch can’t be dismissed as a mere artistic romantic just as the lovers of film cannot be branded mere nostalgic purists. Lynch recognises the beauty of film, but he is willing to sacrifice it. Has he lost something, though? Is it just a coincidence that Inland Empire is my least favourite Lynch movie? It does feel to me as though Lynch had lost some focus with that film rather than gained it through the uninterrupted technique of shooting in DV. He is too free. He needs restraint if he is to produce something truly great again.