Counter-Currents
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Ondrej Mann: What does your pseudonym Trevor Lynch mean? Is there a story behind it?
Trevor Lynch: My first reviews were published with the pen name The Cat Lady. It was a joke. It amused me to imagine Savitri Devi reviewing contemporary films. I was also tired of the lament, which was a cliché even 25 years ago, “What can we do to attract more women to the movement?”
But I decided to use my own voice from the start. When the reviews began going viral, I regretted the silly moniker. So I turned The Cat Lady into T.C.L. and then to Trevor C. Lynch or just Trevor Lynch. (Trevor’s middle name is Caeden, by the way.) I decided on Trevor because it is the name of an old friend, and David Lynch is one of my favorite directors.
OM: Why do you write film reviews from a Right-wing, pro-white point of view?
TL: I write reviews of films because I love film, and I love writing. I think my ideas illuminate film and culture in general, and I want to communicate my ideas to the broadest possible audience. Today, far more people watch films and television than read books. Far more people think in terms of Star Wars and Harry Potter than Homer, Shakespeare, and the Bible. If you want to communicate with modern men, you must know the modern myths.
Some films communicate deep truths and positive values. Most promote lies and degeneracy. Many do both. But if I can teach people to see through the propaganda, then they become immune to it. Moreover, when they begin to see just how systematic and all-encompassing the lies are, then the system’s propaganda begins to reinforce our message, not theirs.
OM: Do you have any rituals before watching movies at home?
TL: No.
OM: Do you like going to the cinema? Do you ever go to discerning viewer nights?
TL: Some films really need to be seen in the cinema. But I don’t like crowds, so I always go on off-peak hours. Never heard of discerning viewer nights. Do they exclude black women and their phones?
OM: Today filmmaking is highly decentralized. You can make a very good film on a small budget, like The Blair Witch Project. What are the best low-budget films you’ve seen?
TL: I know it is possible to make good movies with very little money if you have a good script and good taste. But there aren’t that many really good films that have been done that way.
By “low budget” I don’t mean relative to box office take, for that would mean that a film with a budget of three million that becomes a runaway hit is low budget. By “low budget,” I mean that the budget was close to the minimum necessary to shoot the script at the time it was made.
David Lynch’s Eraserhead was made for under $100,000 and released in 1977. John Huston’s adaptation of Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood was fairly low-budget (less than $200,000 in 1979). Both of those would have been high budgets in 1940.
Both films are excellent, but I honestly can’t think of other low-budget films that I like. I wish there were more, of course.
OM: Have you ever written a film or theatre script?
TL: I worked out a movie script based on five stories in Flannery O’Connor’s Everything That Rises Must Converge. I hoped to interest David Lynch in the project, but it went nowhere. Recently, I was looking through my paper files and found the folder. It was empty. The treatment may be somewhere else in my papers, or it may be lost. I would like to find or recreate it someday. I think it would be an amazing low-budget film.
OM: Have you seen any White Nationalist movies? I saw, for example, the Russian film Umka. These films are very rare, but they films can be found. Is film a good medium to promote White Nationalism?
TL: There are plenty of films that are useful or instructive for White Nationalists, but I can’t think of any specifically White Nationalist films, meaning pro-White Nationalist films. I wish there were. Film is the greatest way of communicating ideas to the widest possible audience.
OM: I’ve seen mainstream films about White Nationalism that are meant to discourage the viewer, e.g., The Believer, Mississippi Burning, Romper Stomper, American History X. Do you have any comment on this kind of film?
TL: I have seen The Believer, Romper Stomper, and American History X. The latter two make the skinheads seem cool. A lot of movies attacking race-conscious whites are made by people who are so smugly dismissive of our ideas that they think that merely by stating them, they can be refuted. They don’t realize that a lot of our ideas are actually very compelling. Thus anti-white propaganda often turns out to be pro-white propaganda. For more on this, see my review of American History X.
OM: Big-budget films have been made about various brave people. Black Klansman (a minor episode in the life of David Duke), The Baader Meinhof Complex (Horst Mahler), and Lords of Chaos (Varg Vikernes). But the people in question, even if they are still alive and living legends, are routinely censored. YouTube deletes their authentic feeds, social networks automatically block them. Do you have any insight into this?
TL: Nothing deeper than this: liberals want to tell us what to think about these people. They don’t want them to be able to speak for themselves.
OM: What’s the best “art film” you’ve seen? For me, it’s definitely Prospero’s Books. Peter Greenaway introduced me to the world of films for the sophisticated audiences.
TL: All films are works of art, even the bad ones. But I guess an “art film” means a film with a low to middling budget directed by an avant-garde auteur, or would-be auteur, that doesn’t appeal to a wide audience. By that definition, my favorite art film directors are David Lynch, Ingmar Bergman, Luis Buñuel, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Federico Fellini. Tarkovsky’s Solaris and Stalker are brilliant. I plan to watch more of his work. Sergei Paradyanov’s The Color of Pomegranates and The Legend of Suram Fortress are brilliant. They were introduced to me by my friend Charles Krafft.
Another kind of “art film” are films about art and artists. My favorite film about artists is Michael Powell’s The Red Shoes. Another favorite is Todd Fields’ Tár.
OM: Do you watch series, too? Would you recommend any series to readers?
TL: I occasionally watch TV series. I generally don’t like the medium, though, because an open-ended series rapidly becomes repetitive, exploitative, and unrewarding.
I loved parts of Twin Peaks, but it rapidly went bad in season 2. I didn’t like Twin Peaks: The Return at all.
I like some short British comedy series: Fawlty Towers, Yes Minister, Yes Prime Minister, and Absolutely Fabulous, seasons 1–4 come to mind. I liked Breaking Bad (although I would not rewatch it). I never got into Better Call Saul.
I also like science fiction. I really liked the Battlestar Galactica reboot, Andor, The Expanse, and Firefly. I am looking forward to Andor, season 2 and the continuation of Dune: Prophecy.
OM: Do you also like musicals? Is there anything you would recommend to readers?
TL: I am a huge film buff and a huge opera buff, but Broadway stuff and musical films are neither fish nor fowl. Most of them are tasteless slop. I liked Sweeney Todd and Evita. I also liked a Hungarian rock opera, István Király. I can’t think of anything else. I can’t imagine watching Cats.
As for musical films: the only one I really love is The Sound of Music. On the other end of the civilizational spectrum, The Rocky Horror Picture Show (based loosely on Mozart’s Don Giovanni) is also quite well done, and I agree with Edmund Connelly that it is essentially conservative in its message. The Wizard of Oz, Little Shop of Horrors, and Cabaret have their moments. I also enjoyed a few Bollywood movies: Kal Ho Na Ho and Khabi Kushi Khabie Gham. But most of them are terrible.
OM: Does anti-white Netflix bother you? Are you willing to write about Netflix movies because they’re popular even if they contain poisoned fruit? I personally boycott all Netflix movies.
TL: I never watch Netflix. I am afraid it would turn me black.
OM: What’s the wokest movie you’ve seen?
TL: See my review of original The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which is surely the most evil film I have ever seen. It is the first work of art that I thought was simply criminal. This one deserves the death penalty. No, I am not being ironic.
OM: Do you ever watch very weird movies? What’s the weirdest movie you’ve seen?
TL: I like weird movies if they mean something. If they don’t, then I find them boring. Most of David Lynch’s movies are weird. But with the exception of Inland Empire, they are also meaningful, which is why I love them. I find Inland Empire boring because it is meaningless.
OM: What are your favorite comedies?
TL: I don’t like most of what passes for comedy today: boob and fart jokes. Generally, I like dark comedy and satire. My idea of a good comedy is Kind Hearts and Coronets. I think Wise Blood is a comedy. I think A Serious Man and Barton Fink are comedies.
My favorite comedy series are Fawlty Towers, Yes Minister, Yes Prime Minister, and Absolutely Fabulous, seasons 1–4. My favorite comic films are The Loved One and Withnail and I.
OM: Who are your favorite film composers?
TL: Film music is very important to me. Good music adds a great deal to a film, but interestingly enough, I listen to a lot of film music on its own, because all too often, the music is far better than the films.
- Ennio Morricone (Sergio Leone films, The Mission, Cinema Paradiso. One of my fondest memories is seeing him conduct his music in Budapest with a huge orchestra and chorus.)
- John Williams (Star Wars films, Indiana Jones films, Superman, Jurassic Park. I have seen him conduct his music a number of times. Interestingly enough, although Williams has written many film scores, he has never scored a great film. His music is always better than the films it has appeared in.)
- Miklós Rózsa (Ben Hur, El Cid, Quo Vadis, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Spellbound. Rózsa’s score for Ben Hur was one of the first film scores to make a strong impression on me.)
- Bernard Herrmann (Vertigo, Taxi Driver, Jane Eyre, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Fahrenheit 451, Journey to the Center of the Earth)
- John Barry (His theme for Born Free was the first piece of music I ever loved. I also love his Bond film music.)
- Angelo Badalamenti (I love his music for David Lynch’s Twin Peaks and The Straight Story.)
- Nino Rota (the Fellini films, The Godfather)
- Henry Mancini (The Pink Panther, Breakfast at Tiffanys, Peter Gunn, Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?)
- Toru Takemitsu (Ran, Empire of Passion)
- Maurice Jarre (Doctor Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia. Jarre’s music for Doctor Zhivago also had an early and important impact on my musical tastes. )
Honorable mentions go to Malcolm Arnold (The Bridge on the River Kwai, Inn of the Sixth Happiness), Brian Easdale (The Red Shoes), Howard Shore (The Lord of the Rings, Crash), Erich Wolfgang Korngold (Deception, Anthony Adverse, Juarez, King’s Row), Franz Waxman (Sunset Boulevard), and Jerry Goldsmith (Legend, In Like Flint, Our Man Flint, Star Trek: The Motion Picture).
OM: What kind of impacts have your reviews had?
TL: I have had a number of people contact me over the years to tell me they discovered my reviews of their favorite movies, went down the rabbit hole, and eventually became White Nationalists. One even ended up majoring in philosophy. The most impactful reviews have been of The Dark Knight, Network, Fight Club, and Pulp Fiction.
A good number of my reviews went viral. The second review I wrote, on The Fellowship of the Ring, was discussed in The Washington Times and on an Atlanta-area talk radio show, even though it was published on a neo-Nazi website, Vanguard News Network, which I shudder to think back on today. It was interesting that the barriers between the mainstream and such a radical and marginal site were so porous then. My review of Kill Bill: Vol. I reportedly caused some spit takes in Hollywood. My review of Inglourious Basterds was widely discussed and even plagiarized. My essay on Blade Runner went insanely viral until Google’s invisible hand intervened.
One of my reviews excited someone enough to rent a movie theatre and a 70-millimeter print of the film. It probably cost him more than I live on in a year.
OM: Can you name the 10 most important films for you?
TL: This list has changed over the years., and may change again. I would argue that some of these really are the best films ever made. But they are on the list because I like them personally.
- Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean)
- The Red Shoes (Michael Powell)
- The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean)
- Blue Velvet (David Lynch)
- Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone)
- Rashomon (Kurosawa)
- Doctor Zhivago (David Lean)
- Vertigo (Sir Alfred Hitchcock)
- The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Peter Jackson)
- Network (Sidney Lumet)
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35 comments
Concerning low-budget films, what do you think about Darren Aronofsky’s “Pi”?
“Tarkovsky’s Solaris and Stalker are brilliant. I plan to watch more of his work.”
I would recommend “Andrey Rublyov” (“Андрей Рублёв”) and “The Mirror” (“Зеркало”), for example. And all others. 🙂
Although an American might not understand a huge part of “The Mirror”.
“See my review of original The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which is surely the most evil film I have ever seen. It is the first work of art that I thought was simply criminal. This one deserves the death penalty. No, I am not being ironic.”
Many people agree with you! 🙂
I watched Pi. I was amused by the Hasidic mafia. But I didn’t care much for the film as a whole and have forgotten most of it.
John Williams has never scored a great film? Hello? Star Wars, jaws. How about raiders of the lost ark? Ever heard of Schindler’s list? The other great film score is basil polidoris’s Conan the barbarian, which is also my personal greatest film of all time.
Otherwise, great interview and thanks for the film recs! May there be many more!
None of those movies are great, as far as I am concerned. The closest to greatness among his films is The Empire Strikes Back.
Okay, I have been given permission here to like The Sound of Music, which I always did, but have tried to take back in recent years.
Amen! Other great musicals: the king and I, fiddler on the roof, my fair lady, Camelot, and rocky horror picture show for a guilty pleasure!
I forgot to include The Rocky Horror Picture Show (which is quite good) and Little Shop of Horrors (which has its moments). Oversights now corrected.
Yes, indeed! In high school I was actually in Oklahoma! and The King and I, in which I had the second male lead, Lun Tha. I had a solo and a duet. I love The Music Man and Camelot.
I’ve determined that, with the exception of The Wizard of Oz, it is impossible for me to like musicals. Even musicals liked by folks whose opinions I respect (Sound of Music, Oklahoma!, Grease) are like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. As soon as someone starts singing when they should be talking, I have to turn it off or leave the room. It’s a lonely existence, I tell you.
Perfectly reasonable! I go through periods when I don’t like them, either. I just can’t stand opera. My older sister was an opera singer and I grew up to the sounds of vocalizing in our house. I had a small part in Cavalleria rusticana as a child. I like going to them and wearing black tie, and especially the parties afterward. But I’m always afraid my neck will snap when I fall asleep hard during the performance. I went out once in my early 20s with the cast of Tosca, one that I really like, and Anna Moffa could drink!
If millions of people watched operas, I would review 10 operas for every movie.
I wish you would do something on opera. I need some direction with opera. It’s the art form I know least of, but I am open to it. I like certain songs or highlights you know, but I’m not for the longeurs of the medium. I like light things such as magic flute and Gilbert and Sullivan, primarily mikado, Andrew loyd Weber. There is an overlap with film in Bergman’s magic flute. Seems like the Wagner Meyerbeer rivalry would be ripe ground in this area.
you could do a new pseudonym–Richard Wolfgang.
Greg gave suggestions for an introduction to opera in one of last year’s Counter-Currents Radio broadcasts. I think it was this one:
https://counter-currents.com/2024/10/counter-currents-radio-podcast-no-609-ask-me-anything-with-greg-johnson/
I was considering going to a short opera at The Met but I was surprised at how many non-Whites are in the cast. I even remember a synopsis of one being I believe a closeted gay man escaping from Franco’s Spanish nationalist forces, a story arc of luv and redemption from a most certain Jewish composer. Ugh…do they ever stop? You’d think south asians, amerinds, muslims, and blacks would have zero interest in the opera that it might have slipped beneath the radar of being targeted for DEIversitization to ruin a White audience’s afternoon.
Yeah, you’d think they wouldn’t have any interest in it. But they seem to have an interest in subverting our culture, crowding us out and making us feel uncomfortable. They have practically taken over the iconic Southern vacation areas: Gatlinburg, TN and Panama City Beach, FL. I was in Gatlinburg last year for the first time in decades and it was not white. They have no interest in the great outdoors, no interest in the beach.
I will always have a soft spot for The Music Man. I grew up watching it with my grandmother. The songs are great and the small town feel of River City Ioway is a wonderful snapshot of a time long gone.
Trevor Lynch film reviews were not the first reason I found counter-currents but they have been one of the reasons I’ve come back to the website. More importantly, they have given me an easy way to introduce Counter-Currents to some people I know. It provides plausible deniability, I’m just sharing an interesting film review on a random right wing website…
I would really appreciate more of this sort of content. Perhaps use some of these ideas. Trevor Lynch’s top 10 (or 20) films in the genre of [insert genre here]. Could also be based on decade e.g. best 20 films of the 90s. Or best films set in [location]
I also sometimes get stuck in social settings where a film is required, so its handy to be able to suggest ideas that contain some useful messages/themes.
Good idea. Next time I am sick in bed, or stuck on a long flight, I will start compiling listicles like that.
Even though I’ve probably read this book, I would buy it just for the cover. I love it.
Thanks, I agree that it looks great.
Thanks for the great interview. You mentioned a lot of movies I don’t know. I’d love to see those movies.
Here I’ve listed my very favorite movies, art films and weird movies. If you want to watch something for the discerning viewer tonight, try one of these films.
Art films – Konstantin Lopušanskij (Gadkie Lebedi & Posetitel Muzea), Andrzej Żuławski (Szamanka & Possesion).
The strange films: Bella Tarr (Satantango), Šin’ja Cukamoto (Tetsuo).
Films like The Color of Pomegranates – Wojciech Jerzy Has (The Saragossa Manuscript), Oldrich Lipsky (The Mystery of the Carpathian Castle), Jan Svankmajer (Lunacy).
I will soon take a plunge into Béla Tarr.
Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean)
The Red Shoes (Michael Powell)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean)
Blue Velvet (David Lynch)
Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone)
Rashomon (Kurosawa)
Doctor Zhivago (David Lean)
Vertigo (Sir Alfred Hitchcock)
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Peter Jackson)
Network (Sidney Lumet)
I’ve seen all of these except for Red Shoes which, quite frankly, I’ve never heard of before now. I’ll have to check that out. Blue Velvet is (obviously) my favorite of the other nine. And re LOTR, I think I might be one of the 12 people who enjoyed Ralph Bashki’s animated version. Seeing it as a young boy probably helped.
The Red Shoes is amazing. Also check out these other films by the directors.
A Matter Of Life And Death
Black Narcissus
Peeping Tom
Good stuff! I agree with TL about Jerry Goldsmith’s music, though my favorite score of his comes from The Edge.
For Bollywood I think the film Lagaan is well done, and also tells a ripping yarn about the British Raj.
Regarding Tarkovsky, I just finished Andrei Rublev and can recommend it. Not as good as Stalker, but a great period piece and unique story from Russia’s medieval time.
Actually, “Andrey Rublyov” is better, just not intended for the Western audiences. “Stalker” is great, but diverges from the original Strugatsky brothers’ book (which is also recommended) too much. For fans of the original story, it’s almost entirely not connected to the book.
The appeal of “Stalker” is understandable – it even takes place in England or Canada.
A low-budget, independent film that I thoroughly enjoy is Swingers. It’s certainly not an “art film”, and I’m not arguing it’s best of all time material. But what self-respecting Gen Xers doesn’t like this film? It captured a moment.
I just rewatched after decades Hitchcock’s Rope. Aside from paying for Jimmy Stewart and Hitchcock himself, this is the paradigm of a tasteful low-budget film, since it is simply a filmed stage play. It isn’t great Hitchcock, but it is a model of how one can do a film for very little money.
I don’t know if it was the Nietzsche discussions or what, but I actually really enjoyed that one, and it remains one of my favorite Hitchcock films. I’ve read that both Hitchcock and Stewart didn’t like it, so I guess I should defer to them, but I’ve always thought the dialogue combined with the conundrum the two guys found themselves in really worked.
Th example that came to mind for me was Robert Rodriguez’s El Mariachi. He made it for something like $70,000 but used every trick in the book to make a pretty neat little crime movie. On the DVD he even has a short making of featurette that shows the editing tricks and short cuts he used to make the most of it with what was a very tiny budget.
Will check it out.
I saw that. Supposedly it’s based on Leopold and loeb. Another good movie based on leopold and loeb is Murder by Numbers. I have a theory about them. I bet their vaunted IQs are a hoax.
I had no idea how the topic of low budget films would resonate here. The Man from Earth is a very good film. I can imagine a similar film about WN. A chamber drama where a college professor makes a coming out and tells all his colleagues at a party that he is a white nationalist and writes for Counter-currents. Other good low budget films Lars Von Trier makes are Idiots and Dogville, The Boss. And I also recommend Kenneth Anger’s films.
The only low-budget movies that I’ve seen that come to mind are Clerks and Paranormal Activity which probably have little to no interest to CC regulars but nonetheless did well for themselves. Haven’t seen Christopher Nolan’s Following.
Following is actually a good movie. Been thinking of reviewing it sometime soon. Yes, it is definitely a low budget film. But it doesn’t look cheap.
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