I salute Lynch for getting his work released by a big studio.
After I saw the film I was like "wow" the big studios didn't
interject and go "errr...David...I don't get it...you gotta change it"
why on earth would they ever do that? they know very well that this is
david lynch's very lucrative niche market to do such films (& this is not a
judgement on their aesthetic quality, far from it.) once he starts making
movies that get less popular, you can bet the producers will start saying
"hey, how about you make spiderman IV?" but of course, of course, lynch is
a "cas à part", one of the rare ones who has managed to gain the trust of
the public. lynch embodies the (otherwise questionable) phrase i once
thought up, "obfuscate & you'll only have friends."
as for the "is it art?" debate, i think pretty much anything can be said to
be art or not art, without ever meaning anything more than the simple
convenience of saying "i appreciate THIS & not THAT." some people still
think that duchamp's urinal is NOT ART. some people (on this list) find
madonna to be ART. some people get a frown on their faces when they hear
difficult music & say "oh, i see, this is 'ART'." some people think that
art is in everything that is, thus rendering the very notion of art pretty
much meaningless. it's a very flexible, & highly subjective word. to me
even "aesthetic experience" is more solid as a concept than "artistic
experience". art can be borne out of sheer skill, of clumsy inspiration,
cheeky immaterial concepts, & so forth. all the richness of art is in the
multiplicity of readings & interpretations, & the involvement of the artist
& the listener/viewer/smeller/toucher/taster.