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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Who is David Lynch?

  
 
Tamayyurt
04:21 / 12.06.02
Yes, I'm the same ignorant fucker who asked "Who is Philip K. Dick?" but you know, I'm a better person (?) for that thread. So here I am again, poking my head out of it's hole in the dirt and asking "Who Is David Lynch?" I know how testy you folks can get so did a google search and know that he's a film maker (Muhuland Drive, Lost Highway, Twin Peaks) none of which I've seen. So what I'm basically looking for are recommendations, suggestions, and a description of some sort as to what he's about.
 
 
The Sinister Haiku Bureau
05:27 / 12.06.02
I've only seen bits of the Twin peaks, and am gradually downloading the thing off IRC, the film, (before I saw any of the series, so it didn't make much sense). But my favourite Lynchery has to be Eraserhead. It was, at one point at least, one of the weirdest things I'd ever seen. Black and white, lots of bleakness, about lots of very strange people. Features a character called 'lady in radiator'. contains mutant babies, crazy families, and Morbid Hallucinations. He also did Blue Velvet, which I didn't like as much at the time, but I should probably watch it again. It's about a teenager who finds an ear, and then gets caught up with weird psycho gangster types. (it's been a good 5 yrs since I saw it, apologies for the vagueness).
Actually, I'm really going to have to watch eraserhead again, and make the effort to obtain a copy of drive and highway... I'm pretty sure there was a fairly substantial MD thread here a few months ago, which I didn't read for spoiler-type reasons.
 
 
The Sinister Haiku Bureau
05:29 / 12.06.02
that should read 'and the film'
 
 
The Natural Way
07:31 / 12.06.02
Surrealism, strobes, splintered identity, fire, roaring sounds, evil dwarves, fractured narratives, jazz, the fifties, what lies beneath suburbia, sex....demons....

The films you've already mentioned would be a good start, but you could add 'The Straight Story' to your list as a foil to all the Lost Highways.
 
 
Shortfatdyke
07:56 / 12.06.02
impulsivelad - lynch = ordinary life, ordinary people, skewed and distorted and looked at from such a bizarre angle you might never be the same again.

jack somethingorother, the main character in eraserhead, was killed recently. an incident involving a doughnut. says it all.
 
 
The Natural Way
08:21 / 12.06.02
Well, actually it was a donut shop....but, anyway, now I'm getting pedantic...

Fare thee well young Nance.
 
 
netbanshee
20:38 / 12.06.02
...just picked up the Blue Velvet DVD (new release stateside) and got into Lynch after a bit of a respite. Calling him surreal is a good way to go...he's very representational and not always coherent, but he's imaginative and likes to take the audience places they otherwise might not have been aware of.

Like in BV, there's an interesting theme with dark and light where daytime is full of suburban dreams, poor acting, and delight, whereas the nighttime brings out the baddies, the seriousness, and the bizarre. Plus hearing Hopper say, "It's Daddy, you shithead....where's my bourbon" has always brought a smile to my face...
 
 
Billy Corgan
22:11 / 12.06.02
David Lynch is probably the greatest filmmaker of all time.

Did you know that one of my big hits, "Eye", was featured on the soundtrack to his film Lost Highway? Well, it is, and that song fucking rocks.
 
 
rizla mission
10:01 / 13.06.02
A dead cheap Blue Velvet / Wild At Heart double bill has just been released on video.

Buy it, Lynch novice, BUY IT!
 
 
Abigail Blue
16:20 / 13.06.02
I really recommend reading David Foster Wallace's essay on Lynch in his collection A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never do Again. Should give you all the written introduction you might want to Lynch's work (up to Lost Highway, anyway) plus it's funny.
 
 
Chuckling Duck
21:06 / 13.06.02
Twin Peaks is his most accessable work, and damned addictive too. It's worth combing the local video stores to start your viewing of it from the pilot episode (beware; many tapes have a 5-minute false ending Lynch added so the pilot would stand on its own). I believe there's also a DVD version coming or now available.
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
23:08 / 13.06.02
Videodrome's probably better to yammer on about Lynch - I specialise mroe in unfounded generalisation, really - but I guess you could say that Lynch is, as he was once described by someone (who I can't remember, but it wasn't who everyone thinks it was) Jimmy Stewart...from Mars. He's essentially a geeky ordinary guy with a penchant for scab-picking: most of his stuff seems to look at the underside of humanity in a sort of cough-syrup drinking way. He's best-known for Twin Peaks, I guess, as it was what kicked the whole oddball TV thing off, I think - the '80s version of something like The Twilight Zone or The Prisoner: uniquely weird, only Lynch's take seemed to reach deeper into the cherished idea of the small town, and then proceed to fuck it sideways. With donuts. And... dammit, if you've not seen it, there's nothing I can say that's not a spoiler. Suffice to say that there's some terrifying moments there, and it's worth watching. All. In. A. Row.

Oh, did I mention that I thought I saw Frank DeSilva in a pub at Cambridge yesterday? You don't need BOB moments over a pint, I'm fucking telling you.

Um. I don't know what else to say, really, that's not going to be fanboy. He can work within the construct of "regular" films - The Elephant Man is particularly straight, say - but his best (I reckon) work tends to be odd as fuck; normality that's a little bit skewed, as has been suggested here previously. It all makes a kind of sense - again, usually after lots of cough-syrup - but his attention to detail (sound, particularly) is always rewarding. Stylistically, I'd say that I'm reminded of him in Nic Roeg's work (Don't Look Now, say) or in Alan Parker's grittier stuff (Angel Heart, natch.), though he's a lot more... perverse? than they are. He did the PS2 ads with the guy with a bird's head in it - as well as a couple of other ads - and as soon as you see some of his work, you'll probably recognise it from a number of other places; his approach is fairly influential, though I could be overreaching.

Additionally, he's fucking nuts.

As for what to watch? Anything. Except Dune, unless you like Sting in flying underpants.

Linkdump:

Some essays. (with the Wallace one chopped down here.)
Lynch's official website.
The Universe Of David Lynch.

Videodrome wrote an entry with even more links in it, too.

But the granddaddy of 'em all is really LynchNet, soon to be moving here. It's gooooood.

SFD: Jack Nance. He died pretty mysteriously - it was after an "altercation" in a donut shop, but I was unable to find really clear reference to what'd gone down...

Chuckling Duck: I think there's a bit more changed in the version of the pilot you're talking about. Because of copyright fuckups, you can't legitimately get the TP trailer - that's why the box DVD set starts with the first episode, not the pilot (IIRC). There IS a copy that's a pirate (I'm guessing) from Asia - look around on eBay for it. I've got a copy, and it's OK, only the sound was mixed in an aircraft hangar, judging by the sound of it. The self-contained version was called "Northwest Passage", I think...
 
 
shirtless, beepers and suntans
00:23 / 14.06.02
to answer the original question, david lynch is the man who's been making the same film over and over for the last 10 years.

HEINEKEN?! FUCK THAT SHIT! PABST BLUE RIBBON!!
 
 
videodrome
00:38 / 14.06.02
The footage added to some forms of the pilot was actually contractually mandated so the pilot could be sold as a stand-alone in certain markets. It's footage that, for the most part, gets recycled later in the series though there is one good scene of Andy and Lucy at home that sadly never made it to an episode. In the States this is available as the old Warner Brothers release, dunno what was available in the UK and elsewhere. I do know that the broadcast version was never relased to US home video, so any tape rented in the States should be stopped when Sarah Palmer begins to have a vision at the end, about 90 minutes in. (Full details of the differences here.) While the different ending won't spoil the series, it creates a couple of assumptions that aren't quite brone out by the series. When Bravo show the series (once every 18 months or so) they show the 'good' pilot, AKA the US broadcast version.

The disc Roth mentions ain't too bad, but the sound concerns must be heeded and while the video is passable, it pales next to the stunning job Artisan did with the DVD box of the first season. The German release of said box set will contain the US broadcast version of the pilot, so that's worth getting if you don't have the first season already.

As an introduction, I'd say Blue Velvet is best, because it encapsulates his general concerns quite well without managing to be too out there. Peaks is certainly more accessible, but the length and crap episodes in the late period can be off-putting.

Unfortunately, the link of mine mentioned by Roth I think isn't the one he meant it to be, but bugger if I can find the proper post.

And for current news, Dugpa is also pretty good.
 
 
videodrome
00:39 / 14.06.02
to answer the original question, david lynch is the man who's been making the same film over and over for the last 10 years.

Oh, man, I thought that was Woody Allen. I always get those guys confused...
 
 
rizla mission
13:08 / 14.06.02
Oh, did I mention that I thought I saw Frank DeSilva in a pub at Cambridge yesterday? You don't need BOB moments over a pint, I'm fucking telling you.

That must rank pretty high on list of "scariest things that can possibly happen"..
 
 
videodrome
13:17 / 14.06.02
Yer, especially since he's dead...
 
 
Twig the Wonder Kid
14:17 / 14.06.02

shameless plug for one of my sites :

http://www.britishfilm.org.uk/lynch/
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
14:21 / 14.06.02
Just see all the movies. Okay, it probably won't tell you one iota about who the Lynchster actually IS, but your life WILL be the better for it.
 
 
videodrome
14:38 / 14.06.02
Actually, to answer the original question, perhaps the best viewing is Pretty As A Picture: The Art of David Lynch. It's a pretty good documentary on the guy, made around the time Lost Highway was going down, hence all the on-set stuff from that film. As I remember it, there's not too much of LH given away, so it's a safe watch if you've never seen that film. It excerpts a lot of the early short films that were quite rare until a couple months ago (when Lynch relesed them on DVD) and has really amusing footage of him painting. There's something about the Do-It-Yourself Fish Hobby Kit as well, if I recall...

Oh, and the company that released this on DVD usually does region-free releases, so it's prolly safe to order if yer in the UK.
 
 
Professor Silly
16:00 / 14.06.02
The first Lynch film I saw was Blue Velvet, and it really, really disturbed me. As my viewings of this film increased, I liked it less and less until I hit a critical mass--it's currently one of my favorites.

Next I saw Dune (which seems an admiral effort by Lynch, doomed to failure by the overall complexity and length of the book) and Eraserhead (took two viewings--I passed out the first time I tried).

Then came Twin Peaks. I highly recommend waiting to watch the prequel AFTER you've seen the series. That said, Fire Walk With Me remains my favorite Lynch film of all time. The autopsy scene (w/ K. Sutherland and musician C. Isaac!!!) alone is worth the viewing. The main problem with the actual series lies in the fact that Lynch only directed a handful of the episodes (the better ones, to be fair). Twin Peaks's other creator Mark Frost (Hill Street Blues) brought the primetime soap opera feel, and sometimes the side stories get a little tedious.

Wild at Heart didn't do much for me the first time I saw it, but not I like it quite a bit (it seemed to wander aimlessly the first couple times I watched it...now I understand the scope of the story).

I recently watched Mul. Drive, and was blown away! It had one of the most erotic scenes I've ever seen on film.

Here's the order of personal preference:

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
Mulholland Drive
Blue Velvet
Wild at Heart
Twin Peaks: Pilot
Dune
Lost Highway
Eraserhead

This leaves off the two I haven't seen: Straight Story and Elephant Man.

Also there's another Lynch/Frost series that I've seen, called "On the Air" that might prove hard to find, but is absolutely fucking hilarious.

All Hail Discordia!
 
 
videodrome
14:02 / 15.06.02
A lot of people prolly missed On The Air, largely because it wasn't. On the air, that is. There were six episodes made, and I think only three were broadcast in the states, two of which I caught. Featured a number of TP actors, primarily Miguel Ferrer (Albert!) and the guy that played Dick, whose name escapes me. Seems like Lucy was in it as well, and a couple others here and there. It took place in a television station in the days of live broadcasting, with shows often going horribly wrong. It was a stab at broad, almost screwball comedy, and evidently no-one thought it worked. I remember not liking it as much as I hoped to, but it has been a long time. There was a Japanese laserdisc release that had all the episodes and a couple of bonus bits, but I don't think that even the Lynch-mad Japanese have gotten around to pressing this on DVD yet.
 
 
rizla mission
13:56 / 16.06.02
Three viewings and I still can't watch Fire Walk With Me without running away to hide during certain scenes..

Blue Velvet was the first Lynch film I saw too, and for a while I thought it was the most disturbing film I'd ever seen. Now I've seen the rest of his output it seems almost light-hearted in comparison..

Re-watched Dune recently, looking at it from a Lynch point of view, and was blown away by the sheer unrepentent prog-rock insanity of the whole venture .. it's absolutely fantastic!
 
 
uncle retrospective
14:56 / 16.06.02

Lynch is one of the few directors i'll practally run to the cinema to see one of his films. They can be very tough to watch for the first time. It took a few times to get through Wild at Heart but it was worth it. For all the abuse Lost Highway gets I still couldn't look away. Yes, I was holding my head and shouting "what?" loudly at the screen but I was entertained.
As for Dune, I love that film, again Sting in winged pants was a bad idea but it's a fantastic film. I've just re read the book and it's a lot closer than people give it credit for.
Anyone seen the DVD with 35 min extra footage?
 
 
videodrome
15:04 / 16.06.02
Yes, and as someone who kinda likes Lynch's cut, I'll say: Don't Bother. It's very bad, and I can easily see why Lynch wanted his name removed from all copies of the longer cut. (Indeed, the long one is an Alan Smithee Film.) There's a long prologue that's basically narration over crap storyboards, and then there's other scenes poorly cut into the film, some of which are not really finished so they look out of place against the rest of the film. It's much worse than Lynch's cut, weighed down by far more exposition. Definitely not worth the time.
 
 
The Natural Way
15:06 / 16.06.02
Well, it's interesting all the abuse Lost Highway got from the reviewers at the time......because, a few years later, Lynch releases Mulholland Drive - a film whose themes mirror LH's almost exactly (and no, I'm not just talking about the twisty-turny narrative) - and suddenly they're all ranting about how great it is... The critics have been in a game of catch-up w/ Lynch for years.
 
 
Sandfarmer
03:55 / 19.06.02
Who is David Lynch?

The first man to rape my mind. You've not lived until you've seen Dune and Wild at Heart on DM and LSD.
 
 
---
23:29 / 03.08.07
THREAD LICH!

Suppose I find Lost Highway utterly awesome and bizarre, then want something of the same type next, what should I go for? I've been wanting to check this guys films out for a while now and am just getting around to it, so any advice would be welcomed.
 
 
De Selby
03:18 / 04.08.07
Mulholland Drive is very good, and so is Blue Velvet.

I'd probably suggest Blue Velvet first, as its quite accessible and Mulholland Drive can be a bit puzzling if you aren't used to Lynch. Of course, if having to spend time unraveling a film after watching it is your thing, then definitely watch it.
 
 
PatrickMM
03:05 / 05.08.07
If you liked Lost Highway, I'd go for Mulholland Dr. or Inland Empire, which are its spiritual sequels. Mulholland is a bit more straightforward, though that's only in comparison to those two films, it's less straightforward than virtually every other film ever made. Inland Empire is Lynch's most abstract film, a three journey through a subconscious experience of something. It comes out on DVD with an additional 75 minutes of deleted scenes next Tuesday. If you enjoyed the weirdness of Lost Highway, this one will give you all the weirdness you need.
 
 
Spaniel
17:14 / 05.08.07
Patrick's absolutely right you know. As Pigs mentions above Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive are very closely related films thematically and structurally, so if you like one you're bound to like t'other.
 
 
---
01:25 / 06.08.07
Wierd. Wierd, wierd, fucking wierd.

I'll go for Mulholland next, and then Inland Empire, thanks for the tips.
 
 
Spaniel
07:32 / 06.08.07
Weird.

I try not to think of Lynch's films simply in those terms, because there is more going on than opaque strangeness, although I appreciate that when you're new to his stuff it can seem that way.

Really glad you're getting into his films, Te. I'm excited for you.
 
  
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