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According to...
David Lynch
A selection of his finest quotes
Helen Donlon
First published in
Great Britain in 2007
by A Jot Publishing
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suite 774, 28 Old Brompton Rd
London SW7 3SS
© A Jot Publishing
All rights reserved. No part
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ISBN: 978-1-905904-39-6
Design: Lee Thomas
David Lynch Photographs: Rex Features
According to...
David Lynch
A selection of his finest quotes
Helen Donlon
David Lynch
David Lynch
Contents
6:
Intro
14:
Philadelphia
26:
Oddities, Freaks and the Inexplicable.
37: Surrealism and Visions of Lynchland
44: Twin Peaks, TV and the Sales Rig
52: And There’s Always Music In The Air:
Lynchian Soundscapes
62: Textures, Experiments and Realisation
76: Angels, Demons and Dream Interpretation
84: American Gothic
94: Lynch vs. Hollywood
106: Transcendental Meditation
116: Team Lynch and Co.
132: Lynch on Others
152: Citations and Bibliography
IMDB Filmography
David Lynch on the set of Mulholland Drive.2001.
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David Lynch
David Lynch
Introduction
David Keith Lynch was born on January 20th,
1946, in Missoula, Montana, in the U.S. He is
one of the most interesting film directors of
all time.
There’s always the danger that I’ll be forever labelled resolutely
odd. Because these days there is no time for shading in people,
and you’re put in a little box. I’m always put in the category of
strange, which I find a little odd. I’m a little different from that,
I think. (Lynch on Lynch, 1990)
Lynch’s film Wild at Heart (1990) won a Palme
d’Or at the Cannes Film festival. He has received
two César Awards for Best Foreign Film: for The
Elephant Man (1980) and Mulholland Drive (2001).
He has also had three Best Director nominations for
an Academy Award: for The Elephant Man, for
Blue Velvet (1986) and for Mulholland Drive.
David Lynch on the set of Blue Velvet. 1986.
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David Lynch
Three times married and with three children,
David Lynch is indisputably one of a kind in the
world of cinema. While fans, critics and Lynch
himself have cited major influences and heroes,
he is in composite terms absolutely unlike any
other filmmaker, in his ability to combine both the
mundane and the dark side of the American psyche
with an often dreamlike and surprisingly optimistic
worldview. His use of recurring motifs: physical
discomfort, characters who stutter nervously, odd
haircuts, theatrically-curtained antechambers,
compulsive-obsessive outsiders and faux-naif
beautiful women populate all-American hometown
landscapes filled with the anticipation and the
delivery of the unpredictable, and a menacingly
slow action pace.
Then there’s the scrupulously crafted sound design,
often involving Lynchland composer-in-residence,
Angelo Badalamenti, and collaborators such as Trent
Reznor and Barry Adamson... and the strange factory
machinery pumping out industrial monotony as a
backdrop to the early black and whites.
He has baffled and delighted viewers and critics
for forty years, and he keeps coming up with
new angles, despite maintaining an instantly
recognisable style all of his own. Like his (mutual)
hero Stanley Kubrick, Lynch manages to deliver
something utterly original and ahead of its time
with each new much-awaited feature, and,
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David Lynch
again like Kubrick, he does so with complete
commitment to his vision. Much of this he
puts down to his long-term devotion to
Transcendental Meditation.
But despite (or some may say because of) his
ardent individualism he has not always been an
easy fit for Hollywood. In the case of Mulholland
Drive, differences of opinion resulted in the pilot
being rescued from the cutting floor by powerful
Lynchophiles in France. Originally destined to be
a US TV series, it was rescued from obscurity by an
enthusiastic production executive from the French
company Canal Plus. The film proved a huge success
across Europe, and established actress Naomi Watts
as a face to watch as she heavy-breathed her way
to instant credibility in the now famous audition
scene halfway through.
Fisk married actress Sissy Spacek and took a part
in Eraserhead. Both Spacek and Fisk were later
instrumental in the Straight Story – Spacek in
a leading role and Fisk as production designer.
He also worked on Mulholland Drive, and directed
an episode of Lynch’s short-lived series, On The Air.
Lynch’s second wife, Mary Fisk, is Jack Fisk’s sister.
Esteemed British cinematographer Freddie
Francis who passed away in March 2007, did
beautiful work on both The Elephant Man and
The Straight Story.
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David Lynch
David Lynch
Actress Laura Dern, who starred in Wild At Heart,
is again the lead player in 2006’s Inland Empire.
Justin Theroux, who plays opposite her in Inland
Empire, played a benighted film director in
Mulholland Drive. Twin Peaks alone featured a
whole slew of actors whose names and faces would
remain synonymous with this quirky TV series.
Actors now often perceived as Lynchian include
Kyle MacLachlan, Sherilyn Fenn, Lara Flynn Boyle,
Madchen Amick, Isabella Rossellini, Grace Zabriskie,
Ray Wise, Crispin Glover... and then there’s
Jack Nance of course.
Editor/producer Mary Sweeney has been working
with Lynch since Blue Velvet, and is the mother of
his youngest child. The list goes on... and, for now, so
does Lynch, for which we are grateful.
Nance, now immortalised as the quintessential Lynch
figure, played Henry in Eraserhead, inspiring a whole
wave of experimental industrial geek imitators with
his hairdo. Jack was married to Catherine Coulson
(“The Log Lady” in Twin Peaks), and they were
both instrumental in getting Eraserhead made,
offering Lynch hands-on support and a longstanding
friendship, which continued until Nance’s unfortunate
and brutal death in the late 1990s.
And then there’s the wonderful Michael Anderson,
or Little Mike as he is affectionately know in Lynch
circles. “The man from another place” in Twin
Peaks, he reappears years later in Mulholland Drive
as Roque, a powerful backroom Hollywood stringpuller. His use of reverse-speak in Twin Peaks was
perceived by viewers as a remarkable use of sound
manipulation at the time.
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According to David Lynch is a selection of just
some of the more interesting and amusing things he
has said over the years. To give the newcomer
a well-rounded primer on what’s what in Lynch
world, as he sees it. To give the fan, student or
critic a handy pack of references and good
Lynch copy. Because, although there are several
good books already out there, which I will note
in the bibliography at the end, the new up and
coming generation of film buffs need a quick
answer to the question, “David Lynch, who’s he?”
and if your first Lynch experience is Inland
Empire, it might help to have a little extra
background to get you on track.
Fisk married actress Sissy Spacek and took a part
in Eraserhead. Both Spacek and Fisk later were
instrumental in the Straight Story – Sissy in a leading
role and Jack as production designer. He also worked
on Mulholland Drive, and directed an episode of
Lynch’s short-lived series, On The Air. Lynch’s first
wife, Peggy, is Jack Fisk’s sister.
Esteemed British cinematographer Freddie Francis
who passed away in March 2007, did beautiful work
on both The Elephant Man and The Straight Story.
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David Lynch
David Lynch
Creatively, there are a lot of sides to David Lynch.
Apart from the fact he’s been involved in films for
over 40 years now he’s also a painter who exhibits
and sells his work worldwide, he’s a furniture
designer who has designed items for the Swiss design
firm Casanostra, and he’s a long-time devotee of
Transcendental Meditation. His beautifully designed
hardcover 2006 book, Catching The Big Fish is selling
all over the world, and his accompanying celebritypropped lecture tours have been very popular. Lynch
exhibited his paintings at the Cartier Foundation in
Paris in Spring 2007 in a well-received show entitled
The Air Is On Fire.
and recurs as a motif, or possibly a stage direction to
Laura/the actress throughout. The monologue was
the first thing shot – and as it was shot in low res on
Lynch’s Sony PD150 camera, the rest of the film was
shot in keeping. It was a four year process.
A few notes on Inland Empire
His latest film, Inland Empire, was shot on low-res
DV. When asked to describe the film and what it is
about he says it is “about a woman in trouble, and it’s
a mystery, and that’s all I want to say about it.” and “We
are like the spider. We weave our life and then move along in
it. We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives
in the dream. This is true for the entire universe.”
Inland Empire began as the filming of a script
which was originally a long monologue read by
Laura Dern, parts of which run throughout the
film. Allegedly planned as a 7/8 episode series to be
broadcast exclusively on the website davidlynch.com
back in 2002, it was to be called “Axxon N” and now
briefly features at the beginning of Inland Empire as
the longest running radio show in the Baltic region,
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To save money, Lynch decided to lobby for Laura
Dern before the Academy Award nominations rather
than take out trade advertisements for the film. While
he has always maintained a fairly outside (as opposed
to anti-) Hollywood stance, he nonetheless felt that an
Oscar would be a wonderful thing for Dern, not least
of all because of her coming from a very Hollywood
family (her parents being Bruce Dern and Diane
Ladd). His idea of promotion was to park himself
on Sunset Boulevard with “For Your Consideration”
and “WITHOUT CHEESE THERE WOULDN’T
BE AN INLAND EMPIRE” banners, and a cow (see
cover image). When asked to elucidate a little on his
pitch, he replied simply, “I ate a lot of cheese during
the making of Inland Empire.”
Full credits appear in the bibliography at the end of
the book. We have tried to stay well within the limits of fair
use and have credited everyone as far as we can tell. All the
pictures are ours (see copyright page). Please feel free to contact
the author and series editor, Helen Donlon [email protected]
with any questions.
With very special thanks to Declan O’Reilly, Jenny Fabian,
Johnny Byrne and Kitty Robinson.
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David Lynch
David Lynch
Philadelphia
Lynch lived in Philadelphia at the end of the Sixties,
and it is here that his film career began in earnest.
He attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine
Arts and got heavily inspired by the darker corners
of the city. He also got married and had a daughter.
His relationship with the city is ever changing and he
has said he finds it truly stimulating and truly awful.
He made a few short films here, and got going on
his infamous early feature, Eraserhead, which he
refers to as My Philadelphia Story...
Jack Nance as Henry in Eraserhead, Lynch’s Philadelphia Story
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David Lynch
I didn’t want to go to Philadelphia. I detested
that city before I knew it: it was one of the last
places I would want to go to. But it’s because of my
friend Jack Fisk, I don’t know why he went there...
First of all we went to Europe together, to study in
Salzburg with Oskar Kokoschka. I was supposed to
stay there for three years, we stayed two weeks!
I didn’t get it. In Salzburg, I had the sensation of
being back in the American North-West: everything
is so clean, cute, the trees, the valleys...
No inspiration. Sometimes you try something
and you get a response immediately. I think that
what I was looking for was more a place like
Philadelphia: I immediately felt an attraction and
repulsion with Philadelphia. This is one of the
unhealthiest cities I know: corruption, anxiety,
anger, violence, hate, madness... a great place!
I had never seen anything like it... My biggest
source of inspiration has been Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. (2002)
I saw a woman in a backyard squawking like a
chicken, crawling on her hands and knees in tall, dry
grass. I saw many strange things. (1997)
I had long hair, oh yes. When I arrived in my
neighbourhood of Philadelphia, a guy passed by
me on a bicycle, took one look at my hair, and
shouted at me: “We don’t like your type here.
The 24th Street gang is gonna kick your
ass!” (1992)
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David Lynch
When I was living there, there was lots of brick. Redbrick buildings. Factories. Actually, the bricks weren’t
so much red as they were black from disrepair. Now
they’re closed. But they were real great places. Nature
was taking them back. Where I was living, the bricks
in my house felt paper thin. It felt like there was very
little separating me from the bad things happening
outside. People would say, y’know, ‘bricks are bricks!’
but in my mind they couldn’t keep out this sense of
insecurity. Philadelphia was a very unsafe place.
The bricks oozed with a kind of fear.
I grew up in the world of painting, not of music.
Andy Warhol was painting, but my favourite
painter was Francis Bacon. I went to New York to
see one of his exhibitions, and it was magnificent.
I feel myself close to Bacon but not pop art. What
interested me in Philadelphia were the organic
phenomenon. I made my first short film [Six Men
Getting Sick] in Philadelphia in 1967, the second
[The Alphabet] in 1968, and I finished the third
in 1970. With the third film, The Grandmother,
and the fact that I’d been accepted into the AFI in
Los Angeles, I began to feel that it was at least as
important to me as painting. Perhaps it had even
begun to become more important. I don’t know how
it happened. But I was having ideas for films and a
great desire to make them concrete. (2002)
That’s all I wanted to do for a long time. Just paint.
But, suddenly, now there was film. This big thing. (2007)
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David Lynch
My greatest influence was the city of
Philadelphia. No kidding. Eraserhead was born
in Philadelphia. (1997)
On Eraserhead, 1977:
David Lynch has often been quoted describing Eraserhead
as “a dream of dark and troubling things.”
(Barry Gifford, 1997)
The film was inspired by Philadelphia. There was no
Philadelphia accents, that’s true, but just the same, it is sort of
The Philadelphia Story. (1978)
When I made films as a student - and I count Eraserhead as
one of them - there wasn’t a difference between painting and
filmmaking to me. The reason was that I made them for myself.
On my own, completely independent (1984)
I started at the American Film Institute. I did a few small jobs.
My wife was living in a garage with my daughter, we were
separated... It was a lovely garage, kind of a bungalow in fact.
She was going to move. She asked me to move in there. But
I couldn’t afford it. My friend Jack Nance, the lead actor in
Eraserhead, had just found a job as a newspaper delivery boy.
I asked him if he could find me a job. Suddenly I was
delivering The Wall Street Journal for 48 dollars a week. I
had a bit of money at last. Till then I’d been sleeping on the
Eraserhead set... Mind you, we were shooting in a huge house
with 18 rooms, in Beverly Hills, constructed by the millionaire
Doheny, one of the founders of Los Angeles. But it’s true that I
was penniless. (1992)
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David Lynch
I love a small town. It has to be a certain size small
town. It can’t be too small. It has to be big enough so
that you don’t know everybody and yet there’s these
pleasant places and then strange secrets and sickness
there as well. [Going on childhood trips to Brooklyn]
was like plugging yourself into the electricity outlet.
I couldn’t believe what I was feeling and what I was
seeing and it kinda got worse and worse... more
fearful and more violence in the air. Now, it’s just
thick in the air. It was a very powerful, fearful thing.
It was not pleasant but sort of thrilling. I wanted to
know about it, but at a safe distance. (1990)
I’ve told the story of the reason I got into film a
million times. I was working on a painting of a
garden at night at the Pennsylvania Academy of
the Fine Arts. The plants in the dark night painting
began to move and I heard a wind. I thought, ‘Oh,
this is interesting. A moving painting.’ That was the
thought that started it. (2007)
There was an experimental painting and sculpture
contest at the end of each year, so I built a moving
painting, a sculptured screen. I went to a camera
shop and got a camera that took single frames and
asked the guy there how to light the thing and they
told me. That would have been the end of it, but then
one guy commissioned me to do one for his home. I
got a used Bolex, beautiful, with a leather case, single
frames. I worked for two months on an animation but I
didn’t realise the camera had a broken take-up spool.
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David Lynch
When I went to get the film developed it was one
continuous blur – everyone thought I would be upset
but something inside made me happy. I called the
guy and told him what had happened and he told
me to keep the rest of the money and do whatever I
wanted and give him a print. By then I’d been getting
ideas about live action combined with animation.
So I made a completely different kind of film out of
that supposed disaster and it was actually a gift. A
gift beyond the beyond. I don’t remember what your
question was. (2007)
It was like seeing a five-year-long film. A certain
type of architecture, interiors, insanity in that city,
fear in that city, hate in that city, turmoil in that city.
The intensity of Philadelphia was something.
I think it’s different now, but I still think it’s pretty
bad. On top of that, it’s called the City of
Brotherly Love. (1997)
Philadelphia was a city filled with fear, filled
with twisted behaviour. It’s called “The City of
Brotherly Love”; the absence of that love was alive
and well. There was a sort of sickness in the air; a
twisted, infectious sickness and a decaying city.
But it was very powerful and a lot of Philadelphia
seeped into me and it’s a time in life when the
window is wide open and things hit you
particularly hard. And it was a beautiful
experience for me... it fed many things that
came along later. (1996)
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David Lynch
The most corrupt, fear-ridden city I’ve ever seen.
It’s one of my major film influences. (1990)
I lived at 13th and Wood, right kitty-corner from the
morgue; that’s real industrial. At 5:00 there’s nobody in
that neighbourhood. No one lives there. And I really do like
that. It’s beautiful, if you see it the right way. (1978)
On a border between purgatory and hell. (1998)
It’s so old, it’s decaying. You see, Philadelphia has a
mood that is unbelievable if you go to the right areas.
New York, there’s so many people, there’s so much
happening that the fear is mixed in with a lot of other
things. In Philadelphia, there’s not that many people
downtown, but there’s plenty of fear.... (1978)
There was violence and hate and filth. But the
biggest influence in my whole life was that city...
I saw things that were frightening, but more than
that, thrilling. (2006)
For a while, I lived right near where Edgar Allan
Poe lived and you know what kind of atmosphere he
was picking up on... Then I lived on the border of an
area that was black and white and there was conflict
and there was such hatred, it was unbelievable.
This kid was killed right in front of our house and our
house was broken into twice and some windows were
shot out one night – it was really bad news and I was
plenty glad to get out of Philadelphia!.. (1978)
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David Lynch
All the interaction of these chemicals and nature on
things produces something that you could never get
unless man and nature worked together... As bad as
LA is getting now, I still don’t experience that kind of
fear that I had in Philadelphia. It was too close and I
was too vulnerable all the time. (2006)
Philadelphia, more than any filmmaker, influenced
me. It’s the sickest, most corrupt, decaying,
fear-ridden city imaginable. I was very poor
and living in bad areas. I felt like I was constantly
in danger. But it was so fantastic at the
same time. (1990)
It all started for me in Philadelphia because it’s old
enough, and it’s got enough things in the air to really
work on itself. It’s decaying but it’s fantastically
beautiful, filled with violence, hate and filth. (1997)
The house I moved into was across the street
from the morgue, next door to Pop’s Diner. The
area had a great mood - factories, smoke, railroads,
diners, the strangest characters, the darkest nights.
The people had stories etched in their faces, and
I saw vivid images-plastic curtains held together
with Band-Aids, rags stuffed in broken windows,
walking through the morgue en-route to a
hamburger joint. (1984)
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David Lynch
We lived cheap, but the city was full of fear. A kid was
shot to death down the street, and the chalk marks
around where he’d lain stayed on the sidewalk for five
days. We were robbed twice, had windows shot out
and a car stolen. (1984)
If you love the world of the movie so much,
you want to be in the middle of things. So, it’s great
if, while shooting a film, you’re always living in the
places, and spend as much time there as possible.
That way, the world reveals itself more. (1997)
I always say Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is my biggest
influence. But for painters, I like many, many painters
but I love Francis Bacon the most, and Edward
Hopper. Both really different, but Edward Hopper
makes us all dream, take off from a painting. Magical
stuff. And Bacon for a whole bunch of reasons, but
those two are big, big, big inspirations. (2007)
To me, [Francis Bacon is] the main guy, the number
one kinda hero painter. (2007)
I had my first thrilling thought in Philadelphia. (1990)
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David Lynch
David Lynch
I despaired plenty. I despaired during Eraserhead that
I’d even finish the film. I despaired a couple
of times during Elephant Man that I would make
it through, and at the end of Dune, so much had
gone into it and it was such a disappointment. There
are dark times in every picture, and even after every
picture. Not everybody loves what you’ve done and
negativity is a very powerful thing. And even the
positive things are upsetting in a way because then
you want to please them the next time again. You
gotta kinda just think about the work but it’s not
always easy. (1990)
Bob’s is a coffee shop and it’s very clean. It’s very normal,
good food. And they’ve got a chocolate shake that’s, like,
the most. This is what I like, where I’d like to go -I’d like
to go to Bob’s, but in my mind I’d rather go into a factory
world. It’s too frightening to go there really, so we can
only go there in the movies. I like clean well-lit places in
my life, but when I sit down and start thinking, I can go
to Philadelphia. It’s like looking in, but if things get heavy,
then you can leave. It makes you feel comfortable and
happy, so you can think of other things and concentrate
on ideas. If you’re miserable you can’t create. (1982)
I lived not far from the morgue. I walked past
every day to have lunch at White Tower. OK my
lunch was at 3am, that was my body clock at that
time. I worked all night, painting. At White Tower
there were all these guys who’d tell me stories about
the morgue. So I decided to take a glimpse.
One lonely night... (1992)
No-one has ever asked me to teach cinema, and it’s
never really tempted me either, because I probably
wouldn’t be a good teacher. To teach is an art in
itself, and very few people actually possess the ability
to do it well. I’m not very well-versed in the history
of cinema and I don’t have the requisite oratorical
skills, so I can’t really see what I’d be able to tell my
students, if not to simply take hold of a camera and
get out there and start filming. After all, that is how I
learned. (1997)
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I’ve only taken one film course in my entire life,
with a teacher called Frank Daniel. It was a film studies
course, during which he showed films to the students
and asked them to concentrate on just one element:
the photography, the sound, the music, the acting,
the actors... Afterwards, we would discuss the use of that
particular element in that particular film, and we’d
compare notes and therefore discover whole bunches
of incredible things. It was fascinating. But it worked
because Frank, like all good teachers, had this capacity
to inspire his students, and to make them passionate for
the subject. But I just don’t think I’ve got that quality. (1997)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Philadelphia is the
most violent, the most degraded, the sickest, the most
decadent, the dirtiest, the most twisted, the darkest of all
American cities. Its motto is ‘The City of Brotherly Love’.
I’ve lived there. To enter that city is to penetrate an
ocean of fear. In 1965, it was terrible. (1992)
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David Lynch
David Lynch
Oddities, Freaks
and the Inexplicable
‘Oh, my,’ says David Lynch, as he walks into the
Paris hotel suite. ‘Look at you all lollygagging
around.’ Lollygagging? (Dominic Wells, 1997)
John Hurt as The Elephant Man
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David Lynch
On Eraserhead, 1977:
I’ve changed a lot between starting Eraserhead and finishing
Eraserhead, for sure. I’m not anti-life, but, it used to be that I’d get
into some really weird stuff – like in Philadelphia, I collected
dead mice. Like I went to Vermont one time to visit my friend...I
built onto my collection in Vermont. You see, I found this little
dead field mouse and I got this dish, this deep dish that had been
out there for awhile, and I poured epoxy over it and I’m not
kidding – it was unbelievably beautiful! Because this dish had
roses on it, it was like a deep tea saucer with roses on it, and
there’s this little grey field mouse at the bottom. The polyester
resin heated up as it cured and it heated up the mouse enough
so that the blood boiled and the blood came out the mouse’s nose
and floated, like a cloud, up to the surface of the resin, and with
it a whole cluster of little baby maggots and all of the sudden,
everything froze like that and it was locked. It was so beautiful,
it was incredible. Clear, clear pink, like a rose colored plastic....
It was a beautiful thing. I like organic things, and I don’t like
them necessarily because they were dead, but I like the way
nature goes to work on something after a certain point...(1978)
Henry’s a strange-looking guy, sure... But there’re people living
in those fringelands, and they’re the people I really love. Henry’s
definitely one of those people. They kind of get lost in time.
They’re either working in a factory or fiddling with something
or other. It’s a world that’s neither here nor there. But Henry’s
not a monster. He dresses up, he keeps himself tidy, and he’s got
his girl. He’s really confused, you see. He thinks a lot, and he’s
got plenty of time to think things out, but it doesn’t all add up.
A lot of things puzzle him. He doesn’t quite have a bead on
things. (1980)
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David Lynch
Henry from Eraserhead and Jeffrey from Blue
Velvet definitely have a lot in common with me.
They are both very special to me, but I can’t really
explain why. (1987)
Stuart Cornfeld, who worked for Mel Brooks,
called me because he liked Eraserhead. We got
to know one another. Then one day I decided I
had to see what was out there and work on
somebody else’s project. I asked Cornfeld what
was available, and he told me about The Elephant
Man. I said, “That’s it.” So he introduced me to the
writers and to Jonathan Sanger, who wanted
to produce the film. We got together at Bob’s
Big Boy. That’s one of my favourite places.
The chocolate shakes at Bob’s are fantastic.
They have these machines; I think they’re called
Taylors, that make this soft ice cream. You can’t
use a straw in it. But the shakes vary. Sometimes
they can be granular and too soft. The best is
when they’re the consistency of hard butter.
They have a lot of chocolate in them. I think what
happens is, the shakes come in cartons, and a lot of
the chocolate settles to the bottom, and when they
pour it into the machine, they don’t stir it up, so
sometimes the chocolate looks pale brown instead
of a nice, rich chocolate. Two-thirty is Bob’s time...
I can think there and draw on the napkins and have
my shake. Sometimes I have a cup of coffee, and
sometimes I have a small Coke. They both go great
with shakes. (1980)
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David Lynch
David Lynch
On The Elephant Man, 1980:
The story of the Elephant Man was about someone who was
a monster on the outside but who inside was a beautiful and
normal human being you fell in love with. He was a monster
who wasn’t really a monster. I like human conditions that are
distorted. It makes the undistorted stand out. I like psychological
twists, too. (1987)
It’s a dangerous thing, you know, to say what a picture
is. I can’t really talk about that. I can say, it’s, you
know, it’s... I wouldn’t be able to say it in a short, you
know, time. (1996)
At the London Hospital, where the Elephant Man really
did live, there’s a medical museum. A guy named Mr. Nunn
helps run the place, and he became a good friend of mine
while I was filming over there. They’ve got specimens from
the nineteenth century. He was telling me that there were
people walking around with gigantic holes in their bodies and
these terrible sores. You saw much more horror on the streets
then. (1980)
Look at rats. If you put them together in one room,
they change their behaviour and become quite strange... That
must be the same for those people in overpopulated
cities. We are so influenced by all these configurations
in our environment! I love watching that. (1999)
It could be very small things that are horrifying.
Just seeing one detail and the knowledge that came
from that detail could be as frightening as death.
It’s what your mind does with that information that
could be frightening. (1997)
People are a number seven, chairs are two or three and
walls are like a one. (1997) (Lynch-style synasthesia.)
30
On Lost Highway, 1997:
Every day... sometimes on some other films... I wished the driver
to take me somewhere else because things just get under pressure.
But this has been, every day, a beautiful experience. (1996)
After I’d found the song “I’m Deranged” by David Bowie, I
suddenly realized that everything in the scene was working. (1997)
The good is real. Those suburban images in the film are
definitely real. That’s the world I grew up in. People laugh at
the good because they don’t want to be fools. (1997)
Now...talking about this psychogenic fugue, which has the word
“fugue” and fugues at least make me feel insane. Though I like
to experiment with the form of a fugue. (1996)
The running asphalt, the yellow line illuminated by the
headlights had to give the feeling of pulling the audience in.
We worked a lot to find the right speed for the car, the right
speed of the camera. I don’t always shoot at 24 frames per
second. (1997)
When you’re an artist, you pick up on certain things
that are in the air. You just feel it. It’s not like you’re
sitting down, thinking, ‘What can I do to really mess
things up?’ (Mikal Gilmore, Rolling Stone, 1997)
31
David Lynch
David Lynch
Cigarettes are pretty much my worst vice, and I even
stopped smoking for 20 years. I spend most of my
free time with my family and working on art. (1997)
I keep hoping people will like abstractions, space
to dream, consider things that don’t necessarily
add up. (1997)
Before you think of anything, the whole landscape
is open. But once you start falling in love with certain
ideas, the road you’re on becomes very narrow. If
you concentrate, ideas will come to that narrow road
and finish it. (1997)
Alone, only one person has to tune in. With a
group you have to talk and act and react until
everyone tunes into the same things as close as
possible. (1998)
I don’t like the word ironic. I like the word absurdity,
and I don’t really understand the word ‘irony’ too
much. The irony comes when you try to verbalize the
absurd. When irony happens without words, it’s much
more exalted. (1997)
I don’t know how it works. Sometimes it’s a hand
gesture or a look, but something is transferred from
one person to another that has nothing to do with
words. It’s an understanding, something is going on,
and little by little, this performance is altering and
getting very close to the way it should be. (1997)
There’s not a lot I don’t believe in. And if there were,
it would always be changing. Maybe you’d know it if
you saw it... But I don’t think you’d find it. (1997)
Cinema is a thing where you have to use your
reasoned mind a lot. But you also have to go into
intuition and the subconscious mind too, because
cinema can work with those things so nicely...
The uncomfortable, stranger or sicker aspects
should be done in a way that is cinematically
thrilling. Then I think that people can see it as a
cinematic, magical thing and enjoy all the different
elements of the film. If it was just sick for sickness’
sake it wouldn’t be right. (1990)
When a good idea bobs up, it really smacks you. It’s
like a piece of electricity and you see the whole thing
and you feel it and you know what to do. It all comes
with the idea. (1997)
Hats! They’re great! I wore this real cool one constantly
for six years – a ten gallon cowboy hat. I love Forties
movies when everyone wore a hat. Now there are no
more hats, and that’s a real shame. (1997)
I have a thing for curtains and the stage. But then,
I think everybody does because a curtain hides
something and we want to know what’s behind this
curtain. And in the cinema, when the curtain opens
and the lights go down, it’s so beautiful and magical,
there’s something to it. So it thrills me. (2007)
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33
David Lynch
I asked [an] analyst if treatment could have
dulled or reduced in some way my creativity and
visionary skills. He answered that could happen.
And I preferred to keep my neurosis. I think it’s
better to keep a little bit of innocence, of notknowing for the sake of my creative future.
(1997)
I don’t think the things you sense are strange. I just
think early on you realize that it’s not the way it
seemed last week. (1997)
Well, actors ask questions. When rehearsals start, you
can be very close or a million miles away, it doesn’t
matter. The process starts, you rehearse, you talk, you
rehearse, you talk. And I promise you, the words are
only part of this process. (1997)
My whole process begins when somewhere along
the line I catch an idea. That idea is everything to
me then. You catch a film idea and you fall in love
with it for two reasons. One is the idea itself and
the second is how cinema can translate it. And
then you just stay true to that idea and go. It keeps
talking to you, and you don’t walk away from
anything until it feels correct based on that idea.
That’s it. (2007)
34
David Lynch
Everybody knows mysterious places, there are
things in life that are more felt, sensed than rationally
known. We often receive signals telling us that things
came from far, from a “before”, they are not simply
happening at that moment. They are signals coming
from the mind, from hidden places, you don’t really
know what’s there behind the door at the end of
the dark corridor that swallows you. But you can
imagine it. And I make films to open that door in
front of the nothing. (1997)
What I’m trying to do with each canvas is
create a situation in which the paint can be itself,
which means letting go of any rationalization.
It’s important to let ideas blossom without too
much judging or interference. The beauty of children
is their ability to look at the world openly, without
being bound by the intellect. Your intellect can hold
back so many wonderful, fantastic things. Without
logic or reason, there’s always something else,
something unseen. The world is infinite rather
than finite. (1993)
You can’t force an idea to come to you but you can
make preparations. It’s like you can’t force yourself
to go to sleep, but you can lay comfortably in the bed
and close your eyes, get nice and cozy, and eventually
you’ll go to sleep. If you sit in a chair, and you have a
desire for ideas, you begin to daydream, and as you’re
daydreaming you’re sinking deeper in. And all of a
sudden you can catch one. (2001)
35
David Lynch
David Lynch
Surrealism,
and Visions
of Lynchland
I don’t know why people expect art to
make sense.They accept the fact that life
doesn’t make sense. (1990)
Lynch as a young filmmaker, on set
36
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David Lynch
On Eraserhead, 1977:
The lady in the radiator wasn’t even there in the original script
of Eraserhead. One day, I was sitting in a room where we weren’t
shooting and I got this idea and I ran in there to the radiator, and it
was the kind that had this weird little box in there. We’d already
shot a lot of the film, some with Henry even looking there, and
we didn’t have to change anything. It was the weirdest thing, like she
was already there but we didn’t know it! She, to me, represents
the goodness in Henry’s life and all that, but she’s a very strange
looking woman for sure. She’s got skin problems that she’s trying
to cover up with pancake makeup. A bad problem...(1978)
On Lost Highway, 1997:
It happened to me in real life. One day, in the morning, someone
rang on my door and said “Dick Laurent is dead.” I didn’t
see him, I’ve never found out who did say this message. I don’t
know any Dick Laurent. A mistake, maybe, but this occurrence
obsessed me for a long time. (1997)
On The Straight Story, 1999:
It’s the weird thing about a true story; one accepts the fact that
he rode all this way on a lawnmower. If you made that story
up, you know what would have happened! (1999)
Life is a symbol, the body is a symbol... the mystery
in life is to break through and find out what these
symbols mean. (1978)
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David Lynch
I don’t know. In surrealistic film, since you can’t
understand the story in a normal way, you’re paying
more attention to cinema, or sound, or music.
So they’re using cinema in a kind of nifty way, but
if you could use the same things in telling a regular
story, then I think you’re getting closer to what it
should be, to what it could be... (1989)
As everyone could see in the Cartier Fondation
exhibition, Francis Bacon really traumatized me:
I’ve been in love with his work since the 1960s! But
influence can be a prison, and you have to learn to
escape from it. Surrealism also had a big impact on
me. I put as much energy into distortion and twists
as I do in actually creating, in the strict sense of the
term. (2007)
The work (painting) has gotten, I hope, a hair
more painterly but I’m still not there yet - where I
want to be. They’re all failures in my mind. There’s
some kind of dark... violent mood, but there’s a
string of humour in them, too... I call (some of)
them ‘violent comedies’. (1990)
I think the American public is so surreal, and
they understand surrealism. And the idea they
don’t is so absurd. It’s just that they’ve been told that
they don’t understand it. You go anywhere and
old-timers will tell you very surreal stories with
strange humour. And everyone has a friend who
is totally surreal. (1990)
39
David Lynch
Painting is different because there’s no script.
So if you’ve got a bunch of canvases ready to go,
some paint and a place to work, all you need is to
catch an idea to get you started. Then it’s action
and reaction: the paint starts talking to you, the
beautiful process begins and a whole bunch of
different things happen. More often than not
there’s a point in the action and reaction where
the reaction is to destroy the thing: it’s pretty
much bullshit surface baloney, and you just want
to destroy it to get past it. The destruction is much
more free, so you might just start building on the
thing that was destroyed, another thing comes out
and that’s the way it can grow. You can break
through to something else, but if you’re not up for
destroying you can’t get there. (2007)
If surrealism comes naturally, from inside
yourself, and you stay innocent, then it’s fine.
A forced, affected surrealism would be horrible.
The surrealists were only interested in the
medium, the texture. (2005)
You’re sitting quietly and something unfolds...
in your mind. (1996)
David Lynch
The paintings are sort of figurative. But like I said
they’re bad paintings. But they’re bad in a sort of
cool way. I love bad paintings. They have to be bad
because there’re so many beautiful paintings. There’s
something about paint, if it gets too beautiful, you
kind of miss the fantastic thing about just paint.
That’s what I’ve been finding out about. There are a
lot of great painters who know about bad painting,
and who know what I’m talking about. When it’s
really working, you’re looking at the subject and the
paint at the same time. I wanted to bite my paintings.
I was worried about it though, I saw these little
skeletons on the paint cans, so I never did bite them.
But I wanted to bite them so badly. I don’t know
where all this is going to go, but they’ve got to be
beautiful and they’ve got to be bad at the same time.
Sort of like women. (1989)
Some things, strangely, are not so understandable.
But when things in film are not so understandable,
people become worried. (1996)
Cinema is such a beautiful language. Cinema is the
thing that deals with things beyond words, and it’s
so beautiful. So to go with cinema is like going with
music, your intellect travels along with it, it’s so fantastic.
Go in and have an experience in a different world. (2006)
In a sense, all film is entering into someone else’s
dreams. Maybe we can even share the same dreams,
exchange the same experiences. (1997)
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David Lynch
See, there’s the doughnut and there’s the hole.
The doughnut is the film. The hole is all the things
you’re talking about, so they say, “Keep your eye
on the doughnut, not the hole.” And the doughnut
is so much better than the hole, so it’s not that hard
to do. (2001)
The more unknowable the mystery, the more
beautiful it is. (1997)
Sometimes (ideas come) in sequences; another time
they don’t have a certain sound, but they contain
indications of the form of what they should sound
like. They have a mood, they have a feeling. They
contain characters that reveal themselves to you
with precision: they are particularly dressed, you
understand them right away. Sometimes it comes all
at once. Where does it come from? Within one minute,
that’s beyond our consciousness, and then, bingo,
there it reveals to you! That’s a magical thing. (1997)
I think it’s up to everyone’s own imagination:
the audience’s, and that of the actors playing the
roles. If you want to be incredibly literal you could
be, but I don’t think this is the place to be incredibly
literal. I filed my literal side away. (1999)
David Lynch
People have different interpretations. But abstractions
exist around every corner in so-called life, and these
are things that make us start thinking. (1999)
Its awfully strange, but its not twisted. Its just time
that America faced itself and realized that we’re
happy, strange people and we dig abstractions just
like the Europeans, and we understand them just like
they do. We have our own brand. But we have been
told all this time that we’re not that hip when it comes
to surrealism or certain abstract thing. But we know
we are. The way I see it we’re human beings with a
tradition we all understand. There’s a lot of humor
in it, and there’s also a lot of very strange things in
it that we really appreciate but are perhaps a little
afraid to celebrate. (1990)
I don’t want to give the impression that I sit
around thinking up horrible things. I get all kinds
of different ideas and feelings. If I’m lucky, they
start organizing themselves into a story--then
maybe some ideas come along that are too eerie,
too violent, or too funny, and they don’t fit that story.
So you write them down and save them for two
or three projects down the road. There’s nowhere
you can’t go in a film--if you think of it, you can
go there. (2005)
Cinema is a thing where you have to use your reasoned
mind a lot, but you also have to go into intuition and
the subconscious mind too, because cinema can work
with those things so nicely. (2001)
42
43
David Lynch
David Lynch
Twin Peaks,
TV and the
Sales Rig
One morning David showed up after meditating
and said “Mark, I have this image of a
tabletop full of doughnuts.” (Mark Frost, 2003)
“A murder mystery soap opera,” Lynch to
Badalamenti on describing Twin Peaks
Sheryl Lee as Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks
44
45
David Lynch
I love Twin Peaks. I would love to go back there with
Laura Palmer. I would still go back there, perhaps... (1992)
I don’t quite know how it happened, but the
characters turned out to be people we all know
instantly. They’re all very human. And, certainly,
they are slightly bent. (1990)
Mark Frost and I had this idea. The way we
pitched this thing was as a murder mystery, but
that murder mystery was to eventually become the
background story. Then there would be a middle
ground of all of the characters we stay with for
the series. And the foreground would be the main
characters that particular week: the ones we’d deal
with in detail. We’re not going to solve the murder
for a long time. This they did not like. They did not
like that. And they forced us to, you know, get to
Laura’s killer. It wasn’t really all their fault. People
just got a bug in them that they wanted to know who
killed Laura Palmer. Calling out for it. And one thing
led to another, and the pressure was just so great that
the murder mystery couldn’t be just a background
thing any more. The progress towards it, but never
getting there, was what made us know all the people
in Twin Peaks: how they all surrounded Laura and
intermingled. All the mysteries. But it wasn’t meant
to be. It just couldn’t happen that way. The yearning
to know was too intense. But the mystery was the
magical ingredient. It would’ve made Twin Peaks live
a lot longer. (1997)
46
David Lynch
The power of most movies is in the bigness of the
image, and the sound, and the romance. On TV
the sound suffers and the impact suffers. With just
a flick of the eye, or turn of the head, you see the
TV stand, you see the rug, you see some little piece
of paper with writing on it, or a strange toaster or
something. You’re out of the picture in a second...
And the commercials are very, very loud so people
just mute them anyway. I would turn the whole set
off. What are they doing to everything? They’re
ruining everything with this! I don’t know how
anything can work when they’re so destructive.
But you’re like a voice in the wilderness. (2005)
They don’t trust themselves. In TV you can’t trust
anything and you learn that the hard way. (1990)
I don’t like television. I don’t like it because it forces
a person to move too fast. Waterskiing works really
good when you’re moving fast because you stay on
the surface. But for a lot of things you want to go
deep. I think television forces you into a shallow sort
of thing. (1999)
We’re on the verge of high quality, beautiful
images that could be piped to the home, and
I’m afraid a bunch of people are going to ruin
it. You’ve got to be able to give a better chance
for people at home to enter the dream, but TV
is just for selling products. It’s just a little rig
for that. (1997)
47
David Lynch
The good news is that I love Twin Peaks. I love doing
it. I just finished shooting the first two episodes for
this season, and I love going into that world. So if it
keeps on going I’ll be very happy. The hard part is
turning it over to other people (to direct), because it
seems like it’s my world. It’s painful, because there are
subtle little differences that you’d want if you were
directing it. You just have to kind of accept that, or
you go insane. It’s part of TV... I guess it goes back
to this thing about how we’re all curious and we
love mysteries, when clues are given and there’s an
excitement to it. It’s great to know that the world (of
Twin Peaks) is real enough for people to care about
and think about. (1990)
Television is full of violence. Thousands of dead
bodies are televised each year. But there’s little
blood and you don’t feel the pain of the victims.
It’s rather action than violence. It’s confusing for
the audience; it makes them more ignorant to the
pain and suffering the violence causes. I think that’s
a great danger. (1990)
I know nothing about television. I know too little
of it to understand their ways of thinking. I do
however get the feeling that television networks
are a thing of the past. On cable, there are less
constraints, one can therefore conceive of some adult
projects. And soon with the internet everyone will
have their own station; then everything
will be possible. (1999)
48
David Lynch
I was on the set in Laura Palmer’s house, we were
going to shoot a panning shot in Laura’s room to
start with, and Frank da Silva was a set decorator
and he was in arranging some furniture, and at a
certain point he moved a chest of drawers in front
of the door. And someone behind me, as I was
pointing in the other direction, said `Don’t block
yourself in there, Frank,’ and my mind pictured
Frank blocked in the room. (1999)
I liked the idea of a continuing story that sucks you
into a deeper world, but Laura Palmer’s killer was
never meant to be discovered. The mystery was
meant to float permanently above the action. Once it
got solved, something beautiful was lost. (1997)
Well, I loved Twin Peaks. I loved the world of
it. That’s all I cared about – going into a world
in a continuing story. Mark Frost and I never
wanted to solve the murder of Laura Palmer.
The second year, I would come back and do
something every then and now, but basically I left it
because you can’t do everything. I have misgivings
about the way it went but I still – and always will –
love that world. (1999)
The film (Fire Walk With Me) was in the Twin
Peaks world, but Twin Peaks had run its course.
The feeling at the time we started it was very different
from the feeling at the time we finished it. People
had had enough. (1997)
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David Lynch
I don’t think I let myself down with it. It just did
not go well in the world. And the fact that it failed
was good in a way. A failure can free a person.
There’s no more place to go down and you get
more space to search for ideas. It really can be
pretty beautiful. (1997)
I just died a little bit on Fire Walk With Me. But it’s
true, and the reaction was understandable at the time.
It wasn’t in the same spirit as the series, that’s what
people got upset about. And the series was tapering
anyway. And there was a dark cloud over things
for me right around that time. It was just destined
to happen that way. But over time, since then, its
reputation has come up. (2007)
I WILL NEVER WORK IN TELEVISION AGAIN
(1992)
On Mulholland Drive, 2001:
ABC doesn’t want Mulholland Drive for fall, and they
don’t want it for midseason. They don’t want it... All I know
is, I loved making it, ABC hated it, and I don’t like the cut I
turned in. I agreed with ABC that the longer cut was too slow,
but I was forced to butcher it because we had a deadline, and
there wasn’t time to finesse anything. It lost texture, big scenes,
and storylines, and there are 300 tape copies of the bad version
circulating around. Lots of people have seen it, which
is embarrassing, because they’re bad-quality tapes, too.
I don’t want to think about it... It’s almost absurd to air
it as a one-off thing. Disney will release a kind of a
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David Lynch
movie-of-the-week on foreign television that will have a
closed ending. But the ending is not the traditional ending
like in a film. I call this ending a wart instead of a head.
It’s not a finished body. It’s a body with a wart on top
of the neck. (1999)
Everybody plays his or her own part and ABC did
Mulholland Drive by turning the pilot down. The idea just
had to take that route. Looking back now I see that they were
fulfilling a very important role, in this project going forward
to being the thing it always wanted to be. I really feel that’s
true. It benefited in many, many ways... Pierre Edelman
from the French company Studio Canal Plus came up here...
and he said, bless his heart, ‘I know I can get a copy of the
pilot for Mulholland Drive on tape. Can I have your permission
to look at it?’ And I said ‘Pierre, you do not want to see that
damn thing. He said ‘but you want to finish it, don’t you?’
And I said ‘yeah, but I don’t have any ideas about how to
finish it, and the tape is TERRIBLE...’ A year later, Pierre
got the rights. (2007)
They hated it. They hated the story, the acting. They thought
it was too slow, that’s for sure. Basically they hated everything
about it... I started, though, way before that, when it
was gonna be kind of a spin-off of Twin Peaks, but it
didn’t go anywhere...it was nothing but trouble with ABC,
and it was just more fuel for the [theory] that a thing is not
finished until it’s finished. It wants to be a certain way,
and you don’t know all the twists and turns in a road that are
coming up - you just drive down the road and, you know,
pay attention. (2001)
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David Lynch
David Lynch
“And there’s
always music in
the air...” Lynchian
Soundscapes
These sounds that we think of as Lynchian, the
ambient noise. (Mark Kermode, Guardian, 2007)
I haven’t heard much punk music – you know Pete Ivers?
He was playing me the Ramones and some other
bands. I really believe they’re on to something, like
going back to the roots of real rock ‘n’ roll and I love
that. Rock ‘n’ roll has gotten so watered down in so
many different mixtures that it’s nothing, it doesn’t do
anything for you, and when you hear the REAL stuff,
it just drives you crazy. The politics, I don’t go for,
I’m not into that one bit. I’m into doing something
and doing the best job you can at it, trying to get as
deep into it as possible, down at the roots, and surface
music and surface movies are just so much fluff. (1978)
Kyle MacLachlan and Isabella Rossellini in Blue Velvet
52
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David Lynch
On The Elephant Man, 1980:
I remember, for instance, that during the filming of The
Elephant Man, in a Sunday afternoon, I wasn’t working, I
was at home and I listened to an adagio for strings on the radio.
Suddenly the whole ending of the movie came to me (it was the
Adagio for Strings, by Samuel Barber, which, in fact, was used
in the movie’s soundtrack). The more I work, the more I see that there
is a real magic in music and in the way it relates to images.
On Blue Velvet, 1986:
Isabella (Rossellini) was supposed to sing Blue Velvet in the movie, so
I wanted to get a road band to back her up. In my mind I thought it
would be something that would just fall into place. Luckily for me, we
got a band that just did not gel with Isabella. So we had this fiasco
recording session in Wilmington. And because that didn’t work, the
producer, Fred Caruso, said, ‘Let me call my friend Angelo and have
him work with Isabella.’ Angelo came down, spent about an hour
and a half with Isabella, recorded this thing on a cassette, brought it
to where we were shooting, played it. I said, ‘We can put this in the
movie exactly the way it is now.’ It was unbelievable - the tempo, the
feel, this tenderness, this certain kind of mood that he got so quickly.
Fred was nodding and smiling. Angelo was a very happy guy. Isabella
was happy and everything looked good. (1990)
On Lost Highway, 1997:
With sound you can really create. I have tried that in every previous
film, but only now, thanks to new technologies, I was able to reach
the results I wanted. You can really get lost; sound effects are as
fascinating as music. Also for the soundtrack I wanted to play
with contrast between Badalamenti’s melodies and dissonant
sounds, such as Nine Inch Nails. (1997)
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David Lynch
On the set, while you’re shooting, the music by Badalamenti or
others is playing at full volume. (1997)
Here as well the thing is to talk to the people just to the
moment when what they’re proposing to you goes with
the scene. With Angelo our discussions were very short
because we’re used to working together. Barry Adamson who is
a great English composer has a very particular style which is
perfect for Mr. Eddy. After that we talked and Barry created
the other pieces also fantastic. That was born out of our
conversations. (1997)
On his album art: Well, I had ants in my kitchen,
they were sugar ants, but they were coming in for
water. So I made a small human head of cheese
and turkey and encased it in clay and mounted it on
a small coat hanger. I exposed some turkey in the
mouth and in the eyes and in the ears. I knew the ants
would go for this stuff, and sure enough, the next day
they’d already found it, had the highway built and
were going into the eyes and the mouth. Just racing
around this head, carrying off little bits of turkey
and cheese and coming back for more. They were
working for me 24 hours a day, and they cleaned the
inside of the head of every little bit of food in four
days! Ants, as we know, are tireless workers, so if you
can get a project they can do, they’ll do it with no
questions asked. (1997)
There has always been music, but mostly classical.
For me, like for everyone, everything changed in
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David Lynch
1956. I was 10 years old. A new style was born which
unleashed things inside me. I got it immediately – I
have to say I heard it loud and clear. During this time,
there were many different styles crossing over, but
rock ‘n’ roll supplanted all of them for me. When
you’re growing up the music you listen to marries what
you are living, and it becomes a part of you... (2002)
It’s like time stands still, I can’t tell you how much fun
it is. That’s why I love musicians. They have so much
fun. Plus they sleep late in the mornings after having
fun all day long. And they like each other. Well, I’m
not saying they ALL like each other, but the ones I’ve
met have this kind of love for life. They’re carefree.
They’re like kids. But I guess the most important
thing they sleep late. They’re never ready to work
early in the morning. (1990)
It seems to me that sound was used for dialogue
and that for a while film was theatre moved
into cinema. But people are thinking a lot more
about sound now and it really is the new area.
It all goes back to mood. You have to get the
sound to fit a particular film. Certain lightning
can create feeling – sound can alter mood even
more. I really like the idea of sound effects being
used as music. (1980)
Some of the happiest moments I’ve ever had
have been working with Angelo. He’s got a big
heart, and he allowed me to come into his world
and get involved with music. When we started
working together, instantly we had a kind of
rapport – me not knowing anything about music,
but real interested in sound effects and mood. I
realized a lot of things about sound effects and music
working with Angelo, how close they are to one
another. (1990)
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Now I’ll let you in a secret: I play with a Black
Bird guitar – a black guitar, it’s fantastic and very
sophisticated – and I use two Ampeg amplifiers.
That way you can hear the sound and follow it.
The sound makes you play in a certain way. It’s the
secret of lots of things, this process of action and
reaction. You don’t say to yourself “hey, let’s play
some metal!” When you hear this sound, your hair
grows 50 or 60cm, and your skin gets drawn: that’s
Blue Bob. (2002)
I like heavy metal and the dreamlike rock ‘n’ roll
of the 50s. For me, this type of music was only
being made during a very short period of time
which corresponded to the collision of rhythm ‘n’
blues and rockabilly. It ended up going in different
directions though which, for my taste, were not
satisfying. (2001)
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The producer of an album is like the director of a
film. We were able to shift the feelings of a song only
so much. So I was really into working with Julee
because it was like working with an actor. If something
wasn’t feeling quite right, then you have to talk to them.
So I would talk to her, not in musical terms because I’m
not a musician. After a little while, you sort of get a
sense of what might trigger something. You try to find
those things and see if they work. You get a dialogue
going. That’s what we all had to do. By the end, we
could understand each other without talking. (1990)
Punk didn’t interest me, and didn’t influence me in
the least. (2002)
I think that this dubbing of pictures has got to end.
It ruins the picture, completely. (2006)
I had been talking to Angelo about Industrial
Symphony #1. We’d even started writing stuff for it
a long time ago. When the Brooklyn Academy Of
Music called, we mentioned it to them. They loved
the title of it. Then we had to make it up. It’s a bunch
of things together. It was actually called Industrial
Symphony #1 And The Dream Of The Broken
Hearted. It’s a break-up of a love-story with an
industrial background. (1990)
Cinema to me is sound and picture rolling along
together in time and it’s so important, the sound, how
it goes with the picture, how it marries. (1999)
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I’ve always loved hearing sound through a little wind
and not being able to really understand it. It also
makes me a little bit sad. (2000)
Every scene needs a certain mood. Often I have the
music in my mind first and only after that the images.
And sometimes the scenes come completely mute and
then I have to experiment for a long time to find the
right music. (1997)
Sound is fifty per cent at least maybe forty per cent
in some scenes, sixty per cent in others. Sound and
picture working together is what films are. (1997)
It’s many parts, and every part you try to get up to
one hundred per cent so that the whole thing can
jump. When all the parts are there it’s magical.
So every single sound has to be supporting that
scene and enlarging it. (1997)
When we hit the quiet part of the music we’ll crank
it up on acting, okay? (1996)
It was from my collaboration with Angelo that
I began to understand and to appreciate better
the world of music – and I realized that
many of the laws of music are identical to the
laws of cinema, in terms of rhythm, in terms of
presenting themes, of atmosphere. (2002)
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It’s very common for a musical piece to be the
basis for a whole cinematographic architecture,
for me. (2002)
Lately I feel films are more and more like music.
Music deals with abstractions and, like film, it
involves time. It has many different movements,
it has much contrast. And through music you learn
that, in order to get a particular beautiful feeling,
you have to have started far back, arranging
certain things in a certain way. You can’t just
cut to it. (1997)
Then music comes in. Transitions from sound
effects to musical sound effects to music, or all things
going at once, it’s all letting the film talk to you.
(1997)
You try to get those sounds to marry with that picture
and enhance it, based on the idea. When they flow
together and they marry, then you’ve got a chance at
the thing where the whole is greater than the sum of
its parts. And that’s beautiful. (2007)
Well, film brings most mediums together.
Painting, building furniture, or working with
Angelo in music is like an avenue and is initially its
own thing. Sure, you can get lost in those specific
things completely. And if you get an idea for
some table or some piece of furniture, it’s pretty
thrilling... (1997)
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I’m not a musician, but I love the world of music.
I play the guitar but I play it upside down and the
wrong way... Like the painting, it could go somewhere
but that’s not what it’s about. (1999)
I guess the more [things] you’re into; the more they’re
going to help each other. (1999)
I wanted my paintings to move. It was as simple as
that. I heard sounds, mostly sound effects like wind,
when I painted, so I wanted movement and sound.
I just wanted to do it as a moving painting, with
sound. That’s how it started. (1999)
A room is, say, nine by twelve, but when you’re
introducing sound to it, you can create a space that’s
giant, hearing things outside the room or feeling
certain through a vent, and then there are abstract
sounds that are like music. They give emotions and
set different moods.
This allows, in my opinion, a great concentration of
the staff and the actors. It’s useful to let them fall into
the mood of the film. During dialogues, of course, I
prefer silence. (1997)
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David Lynch
Textures,
Experiments
and Realisation
Films and furniture are based on ideas.
You get an idea. And then you’re hooked.
(Swiss furniture company, Casanostra website)
Top Ten of textures? Well, skin is near the top. I love
the textures of a factory. I love smoke in the sky, and
I love oil in the dirt. And I like wire, and I like broken
glass, and I like sweat and pistols. I like a little bit of
blood and saliva on concrete. I like cars and exhaust
and, I don’t know, a million different things. Teeth. (1984)
David Lynch: Working lunch
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On Eraserhead, 1977:
There was one shot where Henry walks down the hall, turns
the doorknob and a year and a half later he comes through the
door! Those things can be extremely frightening, to think about
holding a mood and a correctness, something that will stick
together after five years. (1997)
I’m real interested in textures... For instance, I once had
this dead cat. A vet gave it to me. I took it home. It was
a real experience. I got all set up for it in the basement.
And I dissected it. I put it in a bottle, but the bottle had
a real small hole in it. The cat went in like a Slinky, but it
got rigor mortis in there. I’m not kidding you... This was for
Eraserhead. It’s like... it’s like a duck. I love the idea of a
duck. Because there’s the bill, there’s the head and neck, there’s
the body and feet, and then there’s that eye. That eye is real
little, but it’s gleaming like a jewel. So, it can be little and still
command as much attention as the big body. If the body were
the eye, and the eye were the body, it wouldn’t work. Those
kinds of things just drive me nuts. I think that those proportions
in nature, in a duck, mean something. The proportion of the eye
to the body, and the material, and the amount of “busyness” in
it. I think that painting subconsciously obeys these rules.
And all these things are there when you’re dissecting something.
The textures and shapes are unbelievable. That’s why I
dissected the cat. (1980)
I felt Eraserhead, I didn’t think it. It was a quiet process: going
from inside me to the screen. I’d get something on film, get it
paced a certain way, add the right sounds, and then I’d be able
to say if it worked or not. (1996)
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David Lynch
On The Elephant Man, 1980:
I didn’t know anything about the Victorian era before
I started, and I really worried about that. I mean, here
I was, from Montana, doing this Victorian drama. But I
believe you can tune into a feeling for a time and place.
We did a lot of research. I was going to work with really
great actors on a true story from Victorian times in a country
I didn’t know. At first, I thought I wouldn’t be able to
handle it. I couldn’t get into the atmosphere. I couldn’t even
find the locations I wanted. Then, one day, I was at an
abandoned hospital in the East End of London and it clicked.
Everything was there: the atmosphere, the rooms, the long
corridors. I always thought of it as a black and white film.
Black and white immediately takes you out of the real world.
To go back in time and have this mood of the Industrial
Revolution. The places, the stark feeling – black and white
is perfect. Most of my favourite films are black and white.
Well, I’m flipped out over industry and factories – sounds
as well as images... The Elephant Man takes place when
industrialization was still starting... I was hoping that the
Victorians would have had more machinery around. There
wasn’t a lot, but what they did have made a lot noise
and a lot of smoke. (2007)
On Dune, 1984:
There was a time when we had a four- or five-hour version
but only because when you assemble all the things you always
have a long film at first. My problem with Dune was that I
started compromising way up front, even in the shooting. And
it was subtly sorta compromising because I kinda felt I didn’t
have final cut. I was feeling the nature of the producers and
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David Lynch
David Lynch
what they were going to buy or not buy, and I was making
adjustments to go as far as I could in my direction and still
have them allowing it. And right away that was a compromise.
That’s the problem with not having final cut. Final cut doesn’t
mean you’re going to abuse the privilege, it just means you can
be completely true to the thing from the beginning and not worry
about making these wrong choices.’ (1990)
On Inland Empire, 2006:
I started to experiment with a PD150 camera, uniquely for the
website. Short sequences, like the ones with the rabbits, with
Naomi Watts, Laura Harring and Scott Coffey. Very quickly, I
fell for this piece of equipment. I started having ideas for scenes,
I wrote them down and then shot them without having any idea
how they’d go together... Eventually, it all clicked and I saw the
possibility to make a feature. (2007)
Dune was the only film I’ve made that was a failure to me.
(1997)
On Lost Highway, 1997:
In a way, Lost Highway started with the Barry Gifford book
Night People. Night People doesn’t tell the story of this film, but
one of the characters in it uses the expression “lost highway”.
These words alone created an impression and a mystery that I
loved very much. (1997)
I don’t think my film is sick. The movie describes what could be
a sickness, the name psychogenic fugue describes someone who
escapes from himself to become another one. Not in the mind,
but truly physically another one. (1997)
I want it to look really distorted – like hot, burning flesh.
Let’s get some light on the car. Let me know when everything’s
ready. (1995)
Then magic things can happen. You have the possibility of
talking with the actors at the same time as filming. You’re light,
mobile; you can move from place to place, you can almost see
in the dark. For me it’s like a dream come true. I was directing
a scene, and Laura [Dern] and me were filming. Sometimes
it was just the two of us. Other scenes required a bigger team.
Ideas were coming to me all along the way and – bless her –
Laura was always there at my side. (2007)
A car arrived and five or six guys get out and come into my
house. And they’re from Lodz, Poland, and they say they’re
from the Camerimage film festival... They invited me over there
and I asked them if I went there, because I heard there were
factories, so I asked if they could get me into factories so that
I could photograph, and if they could get me nude women at
night to photograph. (2007)
On The Straight Story, 1999:
As soon as I started to read the story, all my fears disappeared.
My imagination went to work and I felt the emotion coming out
of the material. (1999)
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David Lynch
Well, I got this idea, and I didn’t have the money to support
Laura Dern in the traditional way, and I thought: Oh, I’ll go
see what happens at the corner of Hollywood and La Brea
because we found a place we could go to there, it was very nicely
situated there. And I’ll take a cow and this placard and promote
Laura this way. Within one hour Channel 4 News was there
and Channel 5 News was there, and a good-sized crowd was
there, really nice people. And I didn’t realise the love people
have for cows. (2006)
In anything, I think making a mood is very important.
You’re somewhere where you couldn’t go if you
weren’t looking at that particular thing. And even if
it’s a violent comedy, you find something about it is
so compelling or appealing, in some strange way, that
you want to go there again. (1989)
What’s great about cinema is that it has allowed
me to try everything – even decor and furniture.
Most of my furniture is designed as it is being
constructed: at the beginning of a project, whatever
it is, I don’t make a plan, there’s just always this
phenomenon of action and reaction, as there is with
painting. The idea which allows you to get going is
important, but it rarely corresponds to the final result.
This process of action/reaction takes you much
further than the original idea does. That’s what is
so magnificent. The object becomes what it wants
to become. Cinema has allowed me to pursue many
roads, like photography. Each time you undertake
something, a whole other world opens up to you. You
follow the path, you look at the photographs and that
gives you the ideas – to use another film or another
type of paper, for example. There are so many roads
one can take: it’s really a shame that the days are
not longer. (2002)
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I’m fascinated by the fusion of man and nature.It may
not look like it, but to a certain extent I’m looking for that
kind of phenomenon in the abandoned wastelands of
post-industrial society: rust, dust, abandoned factories
overgrown with weeds, old pipes that drip, walls blackened
by soot, smoke billowing from smokestacks. It’s a
form of nostalgia, because this industry is rapidly
disappearing, particularly in the United States. (2007)
When I was at art school, in the 1960s, I smoked weed
but not a lot: it made me completely paranoid. I didn’t like
that very much. As far as LSD goes, my friends who
took it told me not to touch it. I always asked myself
why they advised me against it. I thank them for thinking
of me, and in the end I have never taken it... Sure the Beatles
practiced Transcendental Meditation and took drugs
at the same time. All of the ideas are there, right
beside you: drugs can help you grab hold of them,
but they can get deformed, and other ideas can be
suffocated. The risk is of falling into a state where
you can’t make your ideas concrete. With meditation,
you make the container bigger and you can catch
the same ideas. Drugs, like meditation, don’t produce
anything that doesn’t already exist. It’s all there. (2002)
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David Lynch
An empty room is a certain speed, and a person standing
there is another speed, and that proportion is, you know,
can be beautiful, if the room is a 2 and the person is
a 7. I think a person is around a 7; fire and electricity
can go up to a 9, for instance, a really intricately
designed, you know, decorative room is pretty
disturbing, sometimes – it’s too fast. But then if you
put something slow in it, it could work beautifully. A
busy room and a person, they fight each other. (1999)
(Filming with the PD150): I sometimes put it on
the tripod and light it but sometimes it’s floating.
Something happened because I’m holding the
camera more on this and when you hold the camera
you find yourself moving based on the feeling you’re
getting from the scene and I think that’s a secretive
act. You’re looking and listening and you are just
doing things that you wouldn’t do if you had an
operator. You wouldn’t be able to tell him in time. It’s
more like you’re in there and you’re doing things that
you couldn’t have done before. (2006)
I love smoke, machinery in motion, and endless
labyrinths of pipes. (1984)
But I do love black and white, light / darkness, contrast.
Black and white is so pure. It emphasizes emotions,
it’s powerful. To me there’s even a black and white
sound. And the image demands a certain sound,
noise, music. (1984)
I love concrete. Concrete is very strong. It can be very
smooth and make beautiful, minimal shapes. (2001)
I like to have two or three things going at once.
That’s the concept called double or triple exposure.
The visual equivalent is that every time you do a
dissolve on film, there’s a point where it’s a double
exposure, two images, one on top of the other.
Sometimes they’re beautiful and sometimes they’re
not. You plan a dissolve to be as beautiful as possible.
When you do double exposures, sometimes you get
happy accidents. (1990)
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You’ll be able to do amazing things but that’s also
very expensive. An effect I’m interested in is to be
able to choose my own lens. If you’re using a wide
angle, normally everything is distorted on the edge of
the frame due to the “fish eye” effect. With the digital
technology you can restore everything. You’d be able
to put a tiny little camera on the top of the nose and
the most bizarre angles and lights would still be in
perfect focus. You can go digitally to unsuspected
places. That’s unbelievable! (1997)
One time I used some hair remover to remove all
the fur from a mouse to see what it looked like and it
looked beautiful. (1996)
I just love electricity. I like smoke and fire and electricity,
these things are mesmerising. You could watch a thing
sparking and arcing for hours, and it makes such a
beautiful sound. And it’s also a disturbance. (2007)
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To my mind, most tables are too big and they’re too
high. They shrink the size of the room and eat into
space and cause unpleasant mental activity. (1997)
I’ve always been interested in industrial structures
and materials. Plastic has a place and it’s really a
cool thing. But it’s two or three steps removed from
something that’s organic. So, wood talks to you and
you can relate to it. It’s such a pleasant material and
so user-friendly, really. There’re so many different
types of wood - quite amazing. Wood is more than
just a material. (1997)
It would be wrong to invent a scene just to shock
somebody. Every piece has to live inside the film, it
has to make sense. (1997)
David Lynch
Lloyd Wright designed the house that I live in, the
Beverly Johnson House, in the Sixties. Lloyd
Wright’s son, Eric Wright, supervised the building
work for his father: 25 years later, Eric designed a
pool and a pool house on the property in the spirit of
his father’s work. (1997)
One of the reasons I prefer painting in black and
white, or almost in black and white, is that if you
have some shadow or darkness in the frame, then
your mind can travel in there and dream. In general,
colour is a little too real. It’s too close. It doesn’t make
you dream much. If everything is visible, and there’s
too much light, the thing is what it is, but it isn’t any
more than that. (1993)
I always go by ideas. The idea for the red room in
Twin Peaks just popped into my head. The floor has
the same pattern as the floor in the lobby of Henry
(Spencer’s apartment in Eraserhead). I liked that
pattern. (1997)
I love two-lane highways. They say something
about the way things used to be, and about areas
that don’t have a lot of people. On those two-lanes
at night you get the sense of moving into the
unknown, and that’s as thrilling a sense as human
beings can have. (1997)
Architecture or space is all around us. But capturing
space in a really pleasing way is an art form in its own
right. And there’re very few people who can do it...
Most houses, generally speaking, and especially the
modern US approach, more or less destroy something
inside... They’re devoid of design. I think they suck
happiness away from people, and it’s really hard to
live in those kinds of places. (1997)
Industry! In photography, it often seems to me, that
all you need is just a word. It could be as simple as
the word “industrial”, and that just fires you up to go
to different places to see what industry is giving you.
Then it’s about the way the light goes, the shapes,
the decay. These big, beautiful things and how they
are being eaten by nature. That’s just incredible,
beautiful, unreal. (2007)
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I’m totally embracing the digital world in sound and
picture, and I just can’t believe how much control and how
many tools are available to us. It’s really beautiful. (2006)
Style comes out of ideas. Sound, pace and locations
come out of ideas. Characters, everything comes out
of ideas. Never go against the ideas, stay true to them.
And it will always tell you the way you go. (2001)
I never end up with what I set out to do. Whether
it’s a film or a painting, I always start with a script,
but I don’t ever follow it all the way through to
the end. A lot more happens when you open yourself
up to the work and let yourself act and react to
it. Every work ‘talks’ to you, and if you listen to it,
it will take you places you never dreamed of. It’s this
interaction that makes the work richer. (1993)
Every film is like going into a new world, going into the
unknown. But you should be not afraid of using your
intuition, and feel and think your way through. (2006)
What I’m trying to do with each canvas is create
a situation in which the paint can be itself, which
means letting go of any rationalization. It’s important
to let ideas blossom without too much judging or
interference. The beauty of children is their ability
to look at the world openly, without being bound by
the intellect. Your intellect can hold back so many
wonderful, fantastic things. Without logic or reason,
there’s always something else, something unseen.
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The world is infinite rather than finite. (1993)
I hate slick and pretty things. I prefer mistakes
and accidents. Which is why I like things like
cuts and bruises – they’re like little flowers. I’ve
always said that if you have a name for something,
like ‘cut’ or ‘bruise,’ people will automatically be
disturbed by it. But when you see the same thing
in nature, and you don’t know what it is, it can be
very beautiful. (1993)
Different cultures produce certain things for one
reason or another. But a great design is recognized
everywhere. (1997)
German design is usually very pure, and sparse,
and solid and functional. And those are exactly the
features I like. (1997)
No. There’s no compromise possible. You keep
looking until you find the place that will work for the
story. And that holds for the objects, too. Many places
are painted or rearranged, new furniture is brought
in. You can’t make compromises. Compromises kill
the film. (1997)
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David Lynch
Angels,
Demons and Dream
Interpretation
Whenever someone lights a match in a David
Lynch movie, the flame whooshes close to your
face like a blowtorch. Stuff burns in his picture
– cigarettes, houses, people – and it burns big.
This is not pyromania, it’s pyrophilia: Lynch
never merely walks with fire, as the title of one
of his movies suggests. He makes love to it.
(Jan Stuart, Newsday, 1997)
There is a logic in each of my films, but what is important
is your own logic. (2007)
Laura Dern as Lula in Wild At Heart
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On Eraserhead, 1977:
One time I saw Eraserhead fairly soon after I finished it,
but I saw it with friends in the middle of the day and I was
relaxed, and I just clicked in and I went on this trip and I
think I saw it the way someone who wasn’t involved with the
film would see it, and I just loved it. I’ve seen Blue Velvet in a
similar situation, and I just loved watching the picture. And I
don’t understand why people wouldn’t just love watching this
film. It has so many kinds of textures, and it takes you into a
place where so many things happen – to me, it falls into a real
fantasy picture, a daydream I love to go on. (1986)
On Blue Velvet, 1986:
I started to get ideas for it in 1973 but it was all very vague.
I only had a feeling and a title. Then, when I finished The
Elephant Man, I met Richard Roth, the producer of Julia.
We had coffee and he told me had read my script for Ronnie
Rocket. He had liked it but, truly, he said, it wasn’t his cup
of tea. He asked me if I had any other scripts. I said I had
only ideas. I told him I had always wanted to sneak into a
girl’s room to watch her into the night and that, maybe, at one
point or another; I would see something that would be the clue
to a murder mystery. Roth loved the idea and asked me to write
a treatment. I went home and thought of the ear in the field.
(1987)
On Wild At Heart,1990:
It was an awful tough world and there was something about
Sailor being a rebel. But a rebel with a dream of the Wizard
of Oz is kinda like a beautiful thing. And the characters of Sailor
and Lula having this dream between them was pleasing. (1990)
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It’s a love story where people start off being in love,
which is kind of unusual. In a wild modern world, it’s an
indication of how it’s cool to be in love. And Lula and Sailor
have the perfect take on sex in the middle of a solid relationship.
They are, like, so innocent and yet completely wild at the
same time. It’s like looking into the Garden of Eden before
things went bad. (1990)
On Lost Highway, 1997:
You can say that a lot of Lost Highway is internal. It’s Fred’s
story. It’s not a dream: It’s realistic, though according to Fred’s
logic. But I don’t want to say too much. The reason is: I love
mysteries. To fall into a mystery and its danger... everything
becomes so intense in those moments. (1997)
It’s just a story, a story about these particular characters.
It’s not a generalized thing for humanity. But you know,
sometimes you get into a thing where it lets you dream.
A waking dream... I would love to be in that state all
day long, but you have to have some quiet. The world is
getting louder every year, but to sit and dream is a
beautiful thing. (1997)
On Inland Empire, 2006:
I want people to feel, to intuit their way through the movie.
See, some stories are surface stories, they happen up here...
and that’s great. That’s fine. Those are good movies too...
But other stories... they dive within. (2007)
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David Lynch
Waking dreams are the ones that are important, the ones
that come when I’m quietly sitting in a chair, gently
letting my mind wander. When you sleep, you don’t
control your dream. I like to dive into a dream world
that I’ve made or discovered; a world I choose. (1997)
When it comes down to explaining things, I stop.
With most films, there is no problem understanding
them, there’s no room to dream or to find your own
interpretation, and I don’t want my thing to get in the
way of anybody else’s idea. (1997)
Number one, I don’t like to talk about a
meaning – it’s my understanding and it shouldn’t
be anybody else’s. (2007)
I’m interested in some of the strange moods that
they instil in me. I’ve had some strange feelings in
dreams. (1990)
There’s a dark side to everyone. Inside all of us,
I feel we understand, to a certain degree, darkness
and light. The dark side is not a positive thing.
Maybe it’s not even negative. It’s just a contrast that
helps you appreciate the lighter stuff. In a film, a song
or anything, you have to have contrasts. You have to
have low notes to appreciate a high note. Characters
have to get into trouble and you have to hope that
they get out. Just like human beings, we’re all in this
confusing, dark, strange world. And we’re kind of
rooting for each other. (1990)
Violence is a natural element of our world.
There’s no paradise without hell. If you were to
choose between the two, hell wouldn’t be even the
worse choice. (1990)
My line is at a certain place, and it may be further
away than some people seeing the film. (1997)
I almost never remember my dreams. But the idea of
the dream and the way dreams work fascinates me.
The way a dream is a story, with the structure of a
story. I keep more the sensation of dreams. The best
for me is to combine the surface of a simple story
with the sensation of a dream, with the abstractions
possible in a dream. (2002)
I open doors that would otherwise keep being
locked. (1997)
I’ve been frightened a lot. And frightened by some
ideas. But when you make a film you’re inside
it, you’re seeing it from many different angles.
Everybody has a line they won’t cross over. (1997)
I feel like I live inside fear and darkness and
confusion... But there’s another whole thing that I
feel, too. That’s that there are many positive things. (1997)
But like the best, most seductive, even the most
terrifying of dreams, it’s sometimes hard to stop them
heading over the edge. (1997)
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You know there’s, ah, all sorts of symbols of beautiful
transformations, like the cocoon into the butterfly.
So it makes you wonder, you know, what is this
transformation we’re going through? (1997)
David Lynch
There are many things I think that are out there that
we don’t know about, but sometimes, you know, you
get certain feelings about. (1999)
There are a lot of things like that. Things we sense,
but can’t prove. (1997)
Waking dreams are the ones that are important,
the ones that come when I’m quietly sitting in a chair,
gently letting my mind wander. When you sleep,
you don’t control your dream. I like to dive into a
dream world that I’ve made or discovered; a world
I choose. (1997)
Making a film is a beautiful mystery. You go deep
into the wood, and you don’t want to come out of
that wood, but the time is coming very soon when
I will have to. (2005)
There’s such a magic to just the word ‘sequence’,
I’m not kidding ya. There’s something about the
word ‘sequence’, it’s what I’m fixated on now.
And it’s just the whole power of everything. (2001)
I go nuts in a film where I have room to dream...
In a good way... I love that. Like when a person
stands in front of an abstract painting. Something
starts happening. And this circle starts going from
the viewer to the painting, from the painting to the
viewer, and it goes like that, and a whole bunch of
stuff starts to happen inside the person. Based on...
triggered by what they are seeing. And that triggers
all kinds of things going on... so the view-er has
an experience unlike the next view-er! See, all the
frames in a movie are EXACTLY the same. I mean,
there are subtle differences in the projector, and the
sound system, stuff like that... But it’s the view-er...
It’s the view-er that makes the difference!
And there’s something to that. (2007)
I’ve said this a million times: when the lights go
out and the curtain rises, something really cosmic
takes places, and you enter into a World which exists
within. We have to lose ourselves in this world, to
prove it has depth. I adore the moments when
cinema expresses these types of things that cannot
be otherwise expressed. It is magical but it is based
on the real ideas. (2007)
When most mysteries are solved, I feel tremendously
let down. (1997)
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David Lynch
American Gothic
Home... It’s a place where things can
go wrong. (1992)
On Eraserhead, 1977:
I’m still learning so much about myself from Eraserhead that
it’s frightening. Eraserhead is so beneath the surface I didn’t
understand it. I felt it was honest, so it could be understood at
different levels, but I was only understanding at level four, and
now maybe I’m at level six, and it scares the hell out of me,
because it’s so much of a thing that’s personal to me. I think if
you’re really allowed to be honest with the thing, then it could
be understood little by little at different levels and still hold true.
I think that life is like that, that you can work it down lower
and lower and lower and it will always make some kind of
fantastic sense. (1986)
Patricia Arquette and Balthazar Getty in Lost Highway
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David Lynch
On Blue Velvet, 1986:
It’s not a genre film in my mind. It’s Blue Velvet. (1986)
I love Lumberton. It’s almost like Eraserhead country. It’s
different, but a small American town like that is inspiring to
me. There are fantastic characters and many things happening
under the surface that we don’t know about. (1986)
Norman Rockwell meets Hieronymus Bosch. (1987)
On Wild At Heart, 1990:
Something about Barry’s book thrilled me enough to want to
spend a year living in this little world. The book is very different
from the film, but it had these two characters, Sailor and Lula,
who had this kind of inner strength which carried them through
adversity. I realized I could take them through hell and they’d
still come out of things OK. (1990)
I see Sailor and Lula as innocents, but then I see most
people as innocents. We live in a dark, confusing world, and
we’re all trying to get it together and make sense of it. There are
various degrees of innocence, for sure, but I think most people
are kinda confused these days, which is kinda scary. Don ́tcha
think? (1990)
In Wild at Heart I wanted this wild, violent, twisted world,
and I wanted this love story bang in the middle of it...They’re
really in love with one another, and they treat each other extremely
well. Sailor doesn’t even talk down to Lula, but treats her as
an equal, and that is a modern relationship. They live in a world
that’s pretty tough, but they’re very tender with each other. (1990)
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David Lynch
Creating a place is super important. Like Sunset
Boulevard, for instance, which is one of my favourite
films. I want to be there in that house. I can drive
up Sunset Boulevard even now, and I say, If only
I could turn off and go to that house, and I just
can’t believe that I can’t do it. That’s why I love
looking at that film over and over. I don’t care about
the story or even about knowing it – I love
to experience that place. (1987)
I don’t like mysteries that involve the government and
foreign countries, and things like that. I like closer-to-home
mysteries. Like Rear Window, that’s my cup of tea. (2001)
My most personal impressions date back to the fifties.
I listened to music excessively. Rock ‘n’ roll dominated
the minds of the people, especially the younger
ones. At that time, completely crazy automobiles,
almost pieces of art were built, which weren’t shaped
for aerodynamical considerations. I have all these
memories of that time inside me. (1990)
I’m convinced we all are voyeurs. It’s part of the
detective thing. We want to know secrets and we want
to know what goes on behind those windows. (1997)
I’m not sure that children today have that same
space and feel... And what is real for me now is
probably mixed in with the passing of time. It’s like
jazz, and it doesn’t really matter, it’s all, you know,
pretty nice. (1997)
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David Lynch
David Lynch
So I like building things out of wood, I like chainsawing, I like the smell of the wood, I like the look of
a tree, particularly my father’s favourite tree was the
Ponderosa Pine. The wood is... everything all the fairy
tales made you feel. (1997)
It’s true, my mother refused to give me colouring
books as a child. She probably saved me, ‘cause when
you think about it, what a colouring book does is
completely kill creativity. (1997)
In the 1950s, everything had a very beautiful façade.
There was optimism in the air and a feeling of
moving forward in a good way. (2007)
..looking back, we realise that all the sicknesses and
perversions, distortions, all these things were there.
They were just covered over. No one talked about
them; no one looked, really. (2007)
My childhood was elegant homes, tree-lined streets,
the milkman, building backyard fires, droning
airplanes, blue skies, ticket fences, green grass, cherry
trees. Middle America as it’s supposed to be. (2006)
It was a feeling in the air that anything was possible.
(2006)
But on the cherry tree there’s this pitch oozing out
– some black, some yellow, and millions of red ants
crawling all over it. I discovered that if one looks a
little closer at this beautiful world, there are always
red ants underneath. (2006)
Look under any rock, peek behind any curtain, hide
in any closet: should you glimpse the possible key to
a disturbing, dangerous yet delicious mystery, lurking
just beneath the shiny normality, you’ll feel at home.
In an unheimlich sort of way. (1996)
When I was a child home seemed claustrophobic
to me but that wasn’t because I had a bad family. A
home is like a nest – it’s only useful for so long and
then you can’t (wait) to get out. (1992)
The ‘50s was a time when people seemed to be going
crazy with design. And the cars were just incredible.
I mean, you look at them, and it’s like you start to fall
in love. (2006)
But I love the idea of identity trouble. You never
know in advance what you’re going to get. (1997)
My father was a woodsman, yes. And wood has
played a huge role in my life. (1997)
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David Lynch
It was a feeling in the air that anything was possible.
People were enthusiastically inventing things that
thrilled them. And there was happiness in the air.
There was plenty going on beneath the surface,
but it wasn’t as dark a time because there was that
other thing going along with it. The ‘50s was a time
when people seemed to be going crazy with design.
And the cars were just incredible. I mean, you look
at them, and it’s like you start to fall in love. That
changed, you know, in the ‘60s and ‘70s. The cars
were pitiful. I mean pitiful. It made you ashamed.
You’d wanna hang your head and go in a corner.
It was sickening. (2006)
The fifties are just about it for me... From the twenties
up to 1958, or maybe 1963, are my favourite years.
Anything that happens in there I would find moods
that I would just totally love. (1996)
I like the architectures of the ‘30s, factories, old gas
stations. New gas stations are too real but a good
old gas station is just a beautiful thing, partly because
it represents a time that’s lost. I see an old gas station
and my mind goes out behind it and sees little scenes
happening. Then I go into the woods beyond the
station and my mind sees things that couldn’t
happen now. It’s mysterious and it’s another world
and there are romances back in there that wouldn’t
be like now. (1982)
It happens often: You’re in some place and
you’re having a good time and someone says
something that suddenly introduces a horror.
Or you see a bit of pistol in their pocket, and it
changes everything. You think things are one way,
and then something happens and you see that
they’re another way, and you have to deal with it.
Those things I really like. (2005)
Incest is troubling to a lot of people because they’re
probably, you know, doing it at home! And it’s not
a pleasant thing, you know. Laura [Palmer]’s one
of many people. It’s her take on that. That’s what it
[Twin Peaks] was all about: the loneliness, shame,
guilt, confusion and devastation of the victim of
incest. It also dealt with the torment of the father,
the war in him. (2005)
I remember the fifties on the surface as very idyllic.
But there’s always a sense of other things. The fifties
were a beautiful time, in many senses: the birth of
rock ‘n’ roll, the cars, a certain optimism and free
dom. It seemed like time was moving slower.
There was a hopeful quality to things. (1997)
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David Lynch
David Lynch
Lynch on the set of Mulholland Drive with Naomi Watts
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David Lynch
David Lynch
Lynch vs.
Hollywood
In France... the director, or the painter or the
sculptor has their own keys to freedom of
expression. They do want they want to do.
In Hollywood, the director is often a second
class citizen. (2001)
Where there’s compromise, to me, is in a studio situation.
And I don’t really know about it too much. (1997)
...more and more there’s not just one person at the
head of the studio that can make the decision.
There are, like, committees of people, and if I ever
had to go through a committee, I would be in big
trouble, because they all want to understand the
picture and I don’t want to explain in words and not
only don’t want to, but I can’t sometimes, you know
what I mean? (1997)
Grace Zabriskie in Inland Empire
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David Lynch
On Eraserhead, 1977:
The Rocky Horror Show is keeping Eraserhead out in
a lot of places, people are making so much money on it,
you know, they don’t want to drop it. Money’s what it’s
all about... (1978)
On Dune, 1984:
It was on Dune, where I knew I was selling out, and then still
you get a bad review, that’s dying two times. (2007)
On Lost Highway, 1997:
I felt this black cloud roll in. It lasted for over two years,
and I knew the thing was there, and I watched, and sure
enough..., I thought I was being true to myself – but the
reactions were colored by this cloud. (1999)
On Mulholland Drive, 2001:
What I want to say is that there is a tradition in
Hollywood of cowboy actors. It is a species that is
beginning to die out, but it’s still there. They are part
of a very particular group, they live their own lives, they
don’t swim in the same water as other actors. That in this
city with a reputation for its street gangs, there are still
cowboys, and that has always piqued my imagination...
He’s Monty Montgomery. He’s been a friend of mine for
a long time now and I asked him to play the cowboy.
He wore his own clothes. He collects a lot of this type
of thing. The hat that he wears actually belonged to Tom Mix.
Monty was the producer on Wild At Heart. It was him who
suggested to me that I read the book in the first place.
He wanted to make a film of it. (2001)
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David Lynch
On Inland Empire, 2006:
I love L.A. I love the golden age of cinema, I love so
many things about this town, and I also fell in love
with Lodz, Poland. (2007)
During the course of a conversation Laura was talking
to me about her husband [musician Ben Harper], pointing
out that he originally came from The Inland Empire [a
suburb outside of Los Angeles]. Something in my spirit
went crazy, and I said that we had the title. Some time
later, my brother had been tidying out the basement of my
parents place in Montana. Behind a cupboard, he found
a scrapbook of mine that I’d had when I was five years
old and he sent it to me. When I opened it, the first image
was an aerial view of Spokane in Washington State,
where I was living at the time. The caption read: “Inland
Empire”. That was a confirmation that I was headed in a
good direction. (2007)
I’m not within the Hollywood system. I’ve never
made a studio picture. I live in Hollywood and
I love Hollywood. But there is no such thing as
the Hollywood system. It’s always changing.
And I’m surprised that I’ve been so fortunate,
that I keep getting to make films. But I’m not
part of the system. (2001)
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David Lynch
In Hollywood, if you can’t write your ideas down,
or if you can’t pitch them, or if they’re so abstract
they can’t be pitched properly, then they don’t have a
chance of surviving. (2005)
A film will live throughout time, and a lot of these
false things are done for today’s audience right now to
make money, and they don’t hold up. If you’re true to
the idea, then it will hold up. (2006)
Little by little places start talking to you, ideas come
from different experiences, they pop into your
conscious mind and you’re rolling. Even if in the
beginning you don’t know where you’re rolling, all
that stuff, if you focus on it, will be revealed. (2006)
...a sense of place is so critical to a film. Like Billy
Wilder in Sunset Boulevard – such a sense of place.
Billy Wilder in The Apartment – just loved to go
back to that world because of the place he creates
and the characters. A sense of place with all the great
ones: it’s little details, its mood, it’s the place, and the
characters, of course. (2006)
I always thought the real film-lovers were in Europe.
But there’s a huge, huge bunch in the States, who are
just longing for an alternative to what comes out of
Hollywood, more and more and more. So that’s a
very uplifting feeling. (2007)
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David Lynch
I really believe that even if you just have a little
bit of money there are ways to get into film and
make it work without a compromise. It may take
a long, long, long time, like in Eraserhead. We didn’t
have the money but we had the time. (1997)
Well, The Elephant Man was a pretty successful
picture. But it was, you know, based on a true
story. It was further away from what you say, a
personal film, although I felt very personal about
it and I got into that world, and I feel I didn’t
compromise. Dune was the only film I’ve made that
was a failure to me. (1997)
I’ve learned that the major studios don’t want to
make movies with me – and I don’t know why that is.
I think they respect me, but when it comes down to it,
they don’t want to take a chance because I could ruin
things for them. (2006)
Hollywood is a fragile place and heads roll easily
here. As to how all this has affected me, you just
learn what your lot in life is, and I think my lot in
life is to be true to your school, like the Beach
Boys said. And, really, my lot in life is pretty
great. I have faith that I can make the pictures
I wanna make and have them near the main
centre but still be different in ways that are
important to me. (2006)
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David Lynch
What counts in Hollywood is money and my films
don’t earn much. I am aware of it, so I produce
the films I’d love to make independently, that allow
me to tell about the unknown and the mystery.
And for this reason I have to have final cut, the
control over the final editing, another blasphemy
for show business. (1997)
The minute I saw that magazine, (Time) I knew
it was over, and at that point a dark cloud began
to form over me. I wasn’t unhappy during that
period, because there’s a freedom that comes when
you’re down – you’ve taken the beating, things aren’t
gonna get any worse, and it’s all just part of the cycle.
It’s no fun, though. (1999)
I feel that Hollywood has been behind me since
The Elephant Man. Dune didn’t kill me; it just
kind of kept things the same. I’m not really a
“hot” director; I’m hot with quite a few qualifications.
If Blue Velvet were making $100 million at the
box office, then it’d be hard to keep the door shut.
These days you need to make a pile of money,
before people will take a second look. You need
quite a stack, actually, before you’re really
smoking. (1987)
There is no second place in the world living so much
from its own myth. This town is full of dreams; it’s just
perfect for a day dreamer like me. Besides I like the
light in Hollywood, mostly at night. Of course this town
has its dark sides too, but I tend to see only the light. (1997)
What I like about Los Angeles is that there are
street names that have an unbelievable meaning.
Like when someone says in the film: “I live near
the observatory,” every film buff knows right
away that it can be only the observatory where
Nicholas Ray filmed in 1955 the famous scene
with James Dean. (1997)
My big success is over, and it’s no longer interfering
with my life the way it was in 1990, when I was on
the cover of Time magazine. (1999)
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Whether they want to make my movies or not – I
think they find me quite okay... (1997)
I love LA for the light and the feeling of creative
freedom. There’s smog, but it’s not a stifling
atmosphere. There are plenty of problems, but
it must have to do with the light. It’s not always a
euphoric feeling, but a feeling that anything goes.
The city is crazy and always changing. (2001)
I love Los Angeles. People try to find a place that
speaks to them, and that’s for me, that’s L.A. (2005)
Where there’s compromise, to me, is in a studio
situation. And I don’t really know about it too
much... Maybe if I could write a poem to them,
but it wouldn’t work anyway. (1997)
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David Lynch
It doesn’t matter if it’s an easy question to answer. I
love the light. I love the feeling in the air that I sometimes
catch of old Hollywood. And I love the feeling in the
air of L.A., of we can do anything. It’s a creative feeling
in L.A. It’s not stifling to me, and it’s not oppressive.
It’s a feeling of freedom. And maybe it comes from the
light. I don’t know; it’s something in the air. (2001)
But it’s not like I set out to put a cool coat around
violence. I always start with ideas and these ideas
need a certain form as soon as they’re put on film.
That’s got nothing to do with a wave or a trend.
My films play in their very own world. I don’t know
what other directors learn from them. And I really
don’t care. (1997)
You can feel it when you’re on the outside. You
can feel it, walking into a restaurant – if things are
happening for you or not happening. Everybody
in this town knows what that feeling is. And
everybody in this town knows that when you’re on
top it’s not going to be for ever. It’s almost like
a curse. (2006)
I love Hollywood. I live there. It’s the place of
dreams, I feel free and sometimes you can breathe
the air at once. Actually, I think that Hollywood
loves me too. (1997)
I live in Hollywood, but I don’t hang out with
industry people. And I haven’t made a studio film.
I’ve never made a studio film. Dune was between
Dino de Laurentiis and Universal, and The Elephant
Man was sort of between Paramount, EMI and Mel
Brooks, although Brooks’ company was the one who
did it. And Dino really did produce Dune. (2006)
That initial burst of success is like a huge flame, and
if you’re lucky, it shrinks down and becomes a hand
warmer that stays warm for a long time. (1999)
I love Hollywood. (2001)
Well, the art houses have got to come back.
It’s tough going right now. But things go in waves...
I’m not kiddin’ you! Hollywood, the blockbuster
mentality, has gone around the world killing the
art houses, alternative cinema. But it is alive, that
cinema! It’s everywhere now, but it’s hard to see it
in the theaters in America. It’s hard to see it in the
theaters in Europe! So I’m hopeful that this change
can occur again, like we saw in the ‘60s. It would
be cool. (2006)
Well, I don’t know, I think that a lot of people
are able to get what they want and the one way
to get what you want is to have had a hit film. (1997)
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David Lynch
Directing Laura Dern in Wild At Heart
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David Lynch
Transcendental
Meditation
I thought when I started meditation that I
was going to get real calm and peaceful and
it’s going to be over. It’s not that way, it’s so
energetic. That’s where all the energy and
creativity is. Everything that is a thing has
emerged out of this field. So it’s tremendous
creativity. And you don’t lose your edge, you
get more, stronger feelings for something and
it can be magnified. And you don’t get sleepy
and laidback in this kind of flat-line peace.
It’s a dynamic peace. It’s very powerful; it’s
where all the power is. (2007)
I have been meditating since 1973, since during the
making of Eraserhead.
Lynch on the Catching The Big Fish lecture tour
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David Lynch
I meditate every day, and I have for 32 years. And it’s
a long topic, but there’s a thing called consciousness,
and though consciousness is pretty abstract, it is
also the ability to understand. It’s awareness, it’s
wakefulness and it’s bliss. Extreme happiness. It’s
intelligence, creativity, love and peace... The ocean
of pure consciousness is an ocean of all-knowingness.
Think about it. It’s the home of total knowledge, and
it’s right there. Modern science calls it the unified
field. And now modern science like Vedic science says
that every thing that is a thing emerges from this field,
which is unmanifest, yet manifestation comes from it.
So the unmanifest unified field of pure consciousness
gives rise to every single thing that is a thing. Think
about the intelligence that’s there and the creativity
that’s always been there and you can dip into that.
Now you start growing in intuition in an ocean of
solutions, so you can see your way into making a
thing feel correct. Like I keep saying, it’s money
in the bank! (2006)
Well, you know, I’m a meditator, and the idea of
that is to expand consciousness by clearing the
machines of consciousness, which is the nervous
system, and the greater the consciousness, you know...
I think in the analogy of fishing, the deeper your
hook can go to catch the bigger ideas. And it’s very
important to get down in there. Sitting comfortably,
in a chair, drifting off, not trying to manipulate
what’s in front of you, sometimes you can drop into
a beautiful area or bounce up to higher whichever
way you want to see it into a beautiful area and
catch ideas. (1997)
I meditate in the morning and in the evening, for half
an hour each time. I don’t know what my life would
be without meditation and I never have missed one
session anywhere. I’ve meditated every day for the
past 23 years. It cleans the nervous system, which
is the instrument of consciousness. Little by little, a
person becomes a hair more aware of what’s going
on. The bad things that happen don’t hit you so hard
and you’re not overpowered by success. Success can
be even more dangerous than failure. (1997)
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Every single day on Wild at Heart something
jumped to a whole other level, because you get
so many people together tuning into the thing,
everybody’s senses are heightened, and you see things
and feel things and you get ideas. And the ideas are
likely to be right for the film because you’re all right
there where you’re supposed to be. So all you have to
do is be ready and keep your eyes open when these
happy accidents occur and they can take the film who
knows where. (1990)
It’s amazing how isolated you become in the film
business. I don’t know anything about it. When
you’re in the middle of a movie, you just can’t go
out and see other people - it ruins your concentration.
Especially for me, because I immerse myself in my
own little world, one in which I’m completely
happy. (1990)
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David Lynch
David Lynch
It had an effect right away, and that right-away effect
was this anger lifted away from me. I knew I had this
anger, and I’d take it out on my first wife. Two weeks
after I started meditating, she came to me and said,
“What’s going on?” And I said, “What are you talking
about?” And she said, “This anger – where did it
go?” And I honestly didn’t know that it had lifted.
But she knew it had lifted. It just went away. I had
anxieties and fears and this anger, and those negative
things started lifting. And I started enjoying life. It
sounds strange, but I started appreciating things more
and enjoying the doing of things more. (2007)
The analogy is fishing. The little fish are on the
surface. Then you go deeper, and they get bigger and
bigger down there. Big fish, big ideas. (2006)
Evolution is a very small incline plane. So if you
wanna speed that up, you wanna meditate. All roads
lead to Rome. But some are dirt roads, some are twolane highways, and one is the superhighway. (2003)
A project sometimes has a time and if you don’t move
during its time it may be gone, but there’s another
saying ‘never say never’, so I don’t know what will
happen to either one of those. I still love them but I
don’t know that they’ll get made. (2006)
It’s the only experience – transcending, experiencing
this deepest level – that lights the full brain on the
EEG machine. (2006)
For business, you need ideas. If your consciousness
starts expanding, you’ve got a better chance
of catching more ideas, bigger ideas.
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When you have a note, and another detuned note
buzzes against it, there’s something in between those
two notes that’s the magical area. It’s a balance. And
I think since we live in a world of dualities – hot
and cold, high and low, the whole thing – that any
balancing point is very special. It’s not an intellectual
thing, it’s an intuitive thing. (1997)
It’s a strange thing, ideas. They’re not there, and
then they’re not there again, and then suddenly
they’re there. And it’s a magical and beautiful thing
when they do come. And then the next thing you
know, there are some ideas you don’t like. So those
are discarded or saved until they find their place.
When you fall in love with ideas, that’s pretty close to
euphoria. They’re more like little gifts or something.
Sometimes strange, twisted little gifts! (1997)
It’s so beautiful for working on projects. It’s a field
of knowingness – you enliven that and you get this
kind of intuitive thing going. It’s so beautiful for the
arts, for any walk of life. In Vedic science, this field
is called Atma, the self and there’s a line, “Know
thyself.” In the Bible they say, “First seek the kingdom
of heaven which lies within and all else will be added
unto you.” You dive within, you experience this, you
unfold it and you’re unfolding totality.
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The human has this potential and they have names
for this potential: enlightenment, liberation, salvation,
fulfilment – huge potential for the human being. And
we don’t need to suffer. You enliven this thing and
you realise that bliss is our nature. We’re like happy
campers, flowing with ideas. We’re like little dogs with
tails wagging. It’s not a goofball thing; it’s a beautiful
full thing, really, really great. (2007)
Mulholland Drive... It was built for an open-ended
TV pilot. ABC hated it. So I got the opportunity
to make it into a feature. Now an open-ended
pilot needed to be closed suddenly. I sat down
to meditate one night, and literally, like a string
of pearls, all the ideas came. Normally, you
meditate, and then you think after meditation.
But this just happened to zip up, and I wrote those
bad boys down as soon as I finished meditating,
and that was it. (2007)
The more you have, the more easily the rest
swim in. It’s like there’s more bait. And then one
day, it’s complete in script form. Then you go
out and make the film, being true to those ideas.
Now some other fish can swim in. You never turn
down a good idea, or a good fish, but you don’t
want to take a bad idea, or a bad fish. So you go
back and see how everything is progressing based on
those original ideas. And if new ideas come in, you
see if they really and truly marry to what has gone
before. (2006)
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There’s emotion and intellect, and then there’s
intuition, which is kind of emotion and intellect
together. In business, you might not be able to
explain an intuitive feeling to others, but you say,
“I know that is the right way to go for me. I know
that feels right. That is intuitively right.” And
you go that way. And maybe everybody else is
telling you you’re crazy, but you’ve got to take
a risk. (2007)
See, I love ideas, and ideas are thoughts, right?
So the source of all thought is the unified field,
the absolute. It’s pure consciousness. And the whole
process of these thoughts rising out is the principle
of TM. (2003)
I was just a regular meditator for a long
while, making films and paintings... In this town,
people hate you. People would really like to kill
you and they’ll do it many ways. They’ll threaten
you. Put that pressure on you. It happens to
everybody in this business, and every business.
If I ran my set on fear, I wouldn’t get 1 percent
of what I could. Fear in the workplace. A macho
cool thing. They’re total idiots. Fearful. There’s no
joy. Zip. Fear turns to hate. Hate turns to anger.
You want to kill your boss. Going to go the extra
mile? No, you want to kill him. This is what
Maharishi talks about. Don’t worry about the
darkness. Walk toward the light. Turn on
the light. (2005)
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Kyle MacLachlan and Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet
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Team Lynch
and co.
Kubrick’s one of the all-time greats. Almost
every one of his films is in my top ten. (1997)
In my films, actors aren’t reduced to single
notes, they have complete scores. (1984)
On Jack Nance:
It’s horrible, now that he’s gone, I would have loved
to have a coffee with him every day. It was always a
pleasure with him: Jack was the greatest storyteller
that I ever met. He had an inimitable way to tell
these always strange, unbelievable stories...
except that with him, we believed them. (1997)
David Lynch and Harry Dean Stanton on the set of Wild At Heart
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Jack Nance was a storyteller, but his stories took
a long time to tell. And many people would think
he was finished before he was finished and interrupt.
And Jack would never let on that he had more to say.
And I always thought it was very sad because
his stories were so great. The world was just a little
too fast for him. (1997)
Catherine Coulson (Nance’s ex-wife), who
plays the Log Lady, worked on Eraserhead for six
years. And I always wanted to do a whole show about
this woman and her log. It was gonna be called
I’ll Test My Log With Every Branch Of Knowledge.
And Somehow, the Log Lady sneaked into the Twin
Peaks pilot. (1991)
He was one of my best friends, Jack had a
quality... it’s hard to put into words, but in my
mind, Jack was a real Kafka character, Gregor
Samsa, which means to me: He understands
trouble. (1997)
On The Elephant Man, 1980:
You wake up in the morning, and you say to yourself, “Well,
today’s the day I’m going to direct Sir John Gielgud.” Your brains
are scrambled. You’re trying to get it together and get your pants
on. It’s mind-boggling. But at the same time, these guys are just
regular human beings, like the Elephant Man. And I didn’t
have a lot of directing to do. Somebody like Sir John will give
you what you want. All you have to do is ask. They’re all so
good that you’re nit-picking when you say things. After we were
finished, Sir John wrote me a letter. He said, “You never really
told me how I did.” That’s so touching. Here he is, one of the world’s
all-time greats, and he wants to know how he did. (1980)
He’s trying to do the right thing, but he’s also
sensing the darkness and confusion of the world.
That was pretty much Jack. (1997)
He really had a pretty rough life, and it was
rougher because he was a thinking person.
Sometimes when you don’t worry so much
about stuff, you’re actually kinder to yourself. (1997)
Jack Nance is one of a kind, but everybody is one of a
kind. But Jack, I would underline that. Jack is not
motivated, that really is one of his only flaws. He has no
motivation. (1990)
“Jack is David’s lucky charm,” says Johanna Ray.
“We went through a lot in Wild at Heart (because of a
scheduling conflict) to get Jack into the film”.
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On Twin Peaks:
I envisioned this broken China doll, all bloody, and ranting and
raving - and it was you. (to Sherilyn Fenn, casting for
Twin Peaks)
Kyle is a good guy, and I wouldn’t like to say anything about
that. Kyle’s my neighbour, he’s a really great person, but, you
know, when you’re in a TV show, the first year is golden, and
the second year, things get strange, and Twin Peaks was no
exception. (On Kyle MacLachlan, 2001)
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On Lost Highway, 1997:
Patricia Arquette is the greatest young actress around in the
world. She has got the stuff, there’s nothing that she couldn’t do.
She’s super-intelligent, she’s beautiful, she understands human
behaviour and she’s courageous. When I was working on the
editing, we kept seeing Patricia. Her performance was getting
better and better. The more I watched, I started seeing the
subtlest things and it was absolutely beautiful. (2003)
On The Straight Story, 1999:
Jack Fisk is my best friend. We met in the ninth grade in Virginia.
And we’ve been friends ever since. We were the only two in our
school, with a graduating class of 750, who went to art school. Jack
met Sissy (Spacek) when they were doing Badlands in ‘72 or ‘73;
he brought Sissy to the stables I was setting up, when I was starting
to make Eraserhead. I have always thought Sissy was one of
the greatest actresses; but it never happened that I was working
on a film where a part was right for her, until this. And I was
so thankful; I just wouldn’t have wanted anyone else. (1999)
Richard was born to play this role, He’s got a quality that’s
so strong, and he makes every word and glance seem real. He
has innocence, and that is a gift... Alvin is an old guy, but he’s
a total rebel – he’s like James Dean, except he’s old. He’s also
like a million other old guys. The body gets old, but inside we
feel ageless, because the self we talk to doesn’t have an age.
(On Richard Farnsworth, 1999)
Harry Dean (Stanton) has only one scene – and what a
scene! But Richard Farnsworth is in practically every scene.
We’re so lucky Richard is in the picture. Such a beautiful
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soul comes through in every look... The script is rural,
it’s John Ford territory, and it’s about a guy John
Ford would have really liked. Farnsworth worked
with Ford. (1999)
Yes, Harry I’ve worked with many times now. Harry asked his
name not be in the front credits, for kind of an obvious reason,
so it’s hard to talk about his role, but he’s a guy that has in a
way, like Richard, (Farnsworth) so much heart and soul, and
he can deliver the goods. (2000)
“You get a very old DP,” piped in legendary cinematographer
(and horror director) Freddie Francis, who shot Moby Dick
(1956) for John Huston and such British classics as Room
at the Top (1959) and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
(1960). “I said to David that I’m very old, that I’m 80,
and I don’t want to work 17 hours a day. David said, ‘How
many hours will you work?’ I said, ‘Ten hours.’ And we
finished two days ahead. There’s a story in there somewhere.”
(1999) “Freddie is a very fast director of photography,” said
Lynch, who also employed Francis on The Elephant Man
(1980). “Many people were dropping alongside the road.
Not Freddie!” (1999)
People who are happy and satisfied are boring. I’m
attracted to people with problems, and I like to push
them even further into trouble and see how they find
their way out of it. (1990)
You could be Ingrid Bergman’s daughter. (A
benighted Lynch meets Isabella Rossellini)
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Actors are strange because they seem to
understand abstract things pretty easily. And
they can buy into an abstraction without too
much trouble. (1996)
There is this huge bag of talents that is Los
Angeles. This is one of the best things about this
city: you can throw a rock in any direction and it
will fall on a sea of available talent. (2002)
On Mulholland Drive, 2001:
A great guy and he’s got so many great characters in him.
(On Justin Theroux, 2001)
I love Ann Miller. She is a real straight shooter, just the kindest,
most professional, anything-goes great gal you ever want
to meet. (2001)
My mother and father were not allowed to see most
of my films – actually, I think my father has seen all
of them, and that the last one, Lost Highway, really
disturbed him. (1999)
I sort of know how things should be, for myself. I’m
also the victim of many happy accidents. Freddie
Francis used to call me Lucky Lynch. (1990)
On Inland Empire:
She’s the most incredible actress. Some people get roles and do
their thing, but some have a lot more inside and don’t usually
get the chance to show it. (On Laura Dern, 2005)
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What’s important is to get the right actors for the roles. If
you’ve already worked with them, you’ve already developed
a shorthand and you’re friends but that is not the reason to
cast them. But when they marry to the part and you’ve got
that added bonus, it’s beautiful. Laura is in a film (Inland
Empire) that’s considered somewhat strange, but she has given
a performance that will rival anything done this year so I hope
she fares very well. The danger is that it will take a while to
filter into the culture and miss an award but I think she’ll be
remembered for her role. (2006)
When you first get an idea, you’re imagining it,
but eventually you’re out there in the real world.
There are little holes and blurs in the imagination,
and it’s not totally complete. But when an actress
arrives on the set in her costume, you suddenly
have a concrete element, and a whole new bunch
of things can happen. (1997)
She is production designer and in charge of costume
design. With regard to the costumes, I hardly ever say
anything to her, the things just blow out right of her.
(On Patricia Norris, 1997)
Oh, Eli’s my buddy. I haven’t talked to him in a long
time. Eli is a go-getter and he’s smart and a good guy.
So everybody’s got their own voice but Eli, I guess, is
making it happen. (On Eli Roth, 2006)
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I think what happens is, the rule is, get the right
person for the role. If there’re two people who
are basically both right and you’ve worked with
one of them before, and you have a shorthand
to working and have a good relationship with
them, you’re going to pick that person. It goes
like that. (2007)
I love actors. I respect them. They have to go out on
a limb, be somebody else and make it real. I just try
and make it a good environment for them to achieve
that. (2003)
On Little Mike:
I was leaning against a car – the front of me was leaning
against this very warm car. My hands were on the roof
and the metal was very hot. The Red Room scene
leapt into my mind. ‘Little Mike’ was there, and he
was speaking backwards... For the rest of the night
I thought only about The Red Room. ( On “Little
Mike” Anderson, 1997)
I think everybody’s on their own. You know all the things
about film for me come from inside, and I always said
that Philadelphia was my greatest influence especially in
the early films. But I feel close to the more European
sensibility and I feel close to it in terms of the freedom
given to people in Europe and not in the States. (1999)
I had lunch with Charles Eames, he came to the
American Film Institute in 1970 or ‘71 and took part
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in a lunch with all of the other students. And I sat at
his table. He was one of the most intelligent, down
to earth, greatest persons I’ve ever met. He was just
a pure, kind of happy person, somehow child like,
enjoying life. The kind of guy you’d like right
away. (1997)
Because Europeans appreciate the finer things. (1997)
Why remake a perfect film?... a classic? (Lolita)
Nobody can touch it. When [Adrian Lyne] did it, it
was a joke. I refused to see it. (2001)
I always thought the ending of Chinatown was the
most perfect ending. (2002)
I’m not really a film buff. But I was asked this
question just today – I liked Aki Kaurismäki’s film,
The Man Without a Past. (2007)
There are films I would see every other day if I
had the time: ‘8 1/2,’ Kubrick’s ‘Lolita,’ ‘Sunset
Boulevard,’ ‘Hour of the Wolf ’ from Bergman,
‘Rear Window’ from Hitchcock, ‘Mr. Hulot’s
Holiday’ or ‘My Uncle’ from Jacques Tati, or
‘The Godfather.’ (1999)
I love Hitchcock’s Rear Window... even though I
know what’s going to happen. I love being in that
room and feeling that time. It’s like I can
smell it. (1996)
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I adore Psycho. I adore the idea of psycho even more
than the film itself. Especially the way the film starts,
there’s a certain ambience... You just know that some
very serious things are going to happen. (2001)
Kubrick loved Eraserhead and that touched me
profoundly. (1997)
One of my favourite films is Lolita, and one of the
greatest scenes features this folding bed. The
bellhop and James Mason put this bed in the room
when Sue Lyon is asleep, and they don’t wanna wake
her up. Some people are not mechanically-minded,
and some machines are simple things that are not
user-friendly. There are so many absurd things in
that. (1996)
I love The Shining. If I see it on TV, no matter what
else is on, I have to watch it. It just gets better and
better. And yet, when it came out, it didn’t make that
much of a noise. But that’s the way it always was with
Kubrick’s stuff. It’s pretty amazing how they grow.
But I like everything he’s done. I love Barry Lyndon it’s a great, great film. (2001)
David Lynch
He understands the sort of world that I like.
And he likes as well. And the characters that
he writes about. I really like. I like what they say.
And I like a certain sensibility that he has about
things. (on Barry Gifford, 1996)
I love Fellini. And we’ve got the same birthday.
There’s something about his films. There’s a mood.
They make you dream. They’re so magical and
lyrical and surprising and inventive. The guy was
unique. If you took his films away, there would be
a giant chunk of cinema missing. (1996)
I want a dream when I go to a film. I see ‘8 1/2’
and it makes me dream for a month afterward; or
‘Sunset Boulevard’ or ‘Lolita.’ There’s an abstract
thing in there that just thrills my soul. Something in
between the lines that film can do in a language of
its own – a language that says things that can’t be put
into words. (1999)
Sunset Boulevard is in my top five movies,
for sure. (1996)
Frank Daniel – who was the Dean of the
Czechoslovakian Film School – was by far the
best teacher I ever had. Just a great, great teacher.
Unbelievable! I never really liked teachers, but I liked
Frank because he wasn’t a teacher, in a way. He just
talked. (1996)
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Human beings are like detectives. They love a
mystery. They love going where the mystery pulls
them. What we don’t like is a mystery that’s solved
completely. It’s a letdown. It always seems less
than what we imagined when the mystery was
present. The last scene in ‘Blow Up’ is so perfect
because you leave the theatre still dreaming.
Or the end of ‘Chinatown,’ where the guy says
‘Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.’ It explains so much
but it only gives you a dream of a bigger mystery.
Like life. For me, I want to solve certain things but
leave some room to dream. (1997)
She can be very disquieting. She’s one of those lesser known
actresses who works constantly. I love Grace and believe she can
play anything. (On Grace Zabriskie, 2007)
It is such a strange thing. I remember having met Sheryl Lee
in Seattle. She had to play a dead girl. Plenty of other girls
could have done it, but I chose her because I liked her photo.
I knew nothing at all about her. She came to see me, and
I told her I wanted to throw her into a bath of grey paint,
that she would be naked, dead and wrapped in plastic, washed
up on the shores of a lake. She said: “Here I am”. That was
just the start of it. Later we had to film the cassette of Laura
and Donna that was found in her bedroom. What really
impressed me what how fabulous she was in this small morsel
of video. As she approached the camera, the sensation of it
being a dream became stronger and stronger, and it
was incredibly beautiful. I remember having watched that
video, and telling myself “This girl really is Laura Palmer.
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There’s something coming from her which is completely spot on
!” It was a gift – I just couldn’t have imagined such a thing
possible. Later, just because she is so gifted, she succeeded in
getting back in as cousin Maddy. (On Sheryl Lee, 2001)
I saw Billy Ray in an interview and hearing him talk - I was
surprised. I suddenly saw Billy Ray in this role [Mulholland
Drive] and that was it. (On country singer Billy Ray
Cyrus, 2001)
John Waters was another guy that helped me out
a lot. One of his films was opening, I’m not sure
which it was, but he’d already established himself as
this underground rebel. And he did a Q and A or
something after a screening of his new film, and he
didn’t talk about his film. He just told people that
they had to go and see Eraserhead! It really helped
the film. It played seventeen cities regularly. And in
those days, which is unfortunately not the case now,
midnight screenings were really strong. So at the
Nuart here in LA, for instance, it played for
four years. It only played one night a week, but
every day of the week it was on the marquee. So
whether people had seen it or not, it became known
over four years. I wish they would do that more.
There are a lot of films that could make it if they
had that venue. (2005)
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David Lynch
Lynch with ex-partner Isabella Rossellini
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David Lynch
Others on Lynch
Eagle Scout, Missoula, Montana – David Lynch on himself.
To the eye trained on Lynch’s world, hair is never innocent.
(Gaby Wood, 1997)
Impressively gravity defying hair that is two parts Elvis to one
part Einstein. (Kermode)
Watching The Grandmother is like sitting for half an hour in
the electric chair. (Jack Nance, 1991)
David Lynch, 2007
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On Eraserhead, 1977:
The first thing I ever saw about Eraserhead was when I was
14. I was going to school, a private school off of Mulholland
drive. I went there from first to ninth grade. It was a really
good academically inclined school. And we would read books
and there was a program at the Nuart that after school children
finished reading a particular book, it is correlated so that they
would show the movie. Like, I remember seeing an earlier
version of 1984. They made one later on, more recently. But
there was one that had been made in the ‘50s or ‘60s that
we watched after reading the book. Lord Of The Flies I saw
at the Nuart. And it was all done during matinee times. But
for whatever reason, they showed the previews, the coming
attractions before these [matinees]. And they had the coming
attraction for Eraserhead. And I was 14 and I didn’t know
what it was. I thought is this an old movie from the ‘50s
that was obscure? I was confused. But the imagery was just
absolutely fascinating. I never forgot and I thought as soon as I
learn how to drive, I want to go see that movie. And that’s what
I did. When I was 16, I learned how to drive; I went and saw
the midnight show of Eraserhead. And it was early on and
you know, now certainly there’s an understanding of Lynch’s
work, but at that time, it was something where people got angry.
The audience would get kind of quiet. And then I remember
people getting up yelling and walking, saying expletives and
then walking out of the theatre. Then it would get really, really
quiet. (Crispin Glover)
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Eraserhead! That’s what I’d always associated David Lynch
with. Someone once gave me Eraserhead for a birthday present.
Not that I understand it, but we used to take things like bones
and pig’s hooves from restaurants and wrap them in blankets.
That was our Eraserhead baby. David Lynch’s humour was
something I could always tap into - the dark side.
(Julee Cruise, 1990)
On The Elephant Man:
They invited me to Mel Brooks’ office and Mel told me the
story of “The Elephant Man”. By the time he had finished, I
was hooked. I knew I could do it and I had to do it”.
(John Hurt, 1980)
You can’t avoid using superlatives about The Elephant Man.
It really was - is - marvellous. (Anthony Hopkins, 1980)
On Dune, 1984:
I really wanted to work with David Lynch. I was a big fan of
The Elephant Man and Eraserhead. (Sting)
$4 million over, $7 million over. It’s not so bad. I’m delighted
with Dune. It’s not only the greatest motion picture of my
career, it’s one of the greatest motion pictures ever made.
(Dino de Laurentiis, 1984)
David is a visual director - which is the worst kind for a
special-effects movie. (Frank Herbert, author of
Dune, 1984)
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There was the principal unit, which was David Lynch
and the principal actors, at the same time there was a whole
other unit shooting battle scenes with the Mexican Army dressed
up. There was another unit shooting special effects stuff with
the worms and stuff and there was another unit that was
shooting inserts and detail work. And Lynch did not oversee any
of the other stuff ! And I thought the worms were a disaster.
And that’s the major thing in Dune! And there were Academy
Award winning people doing it! And it came back dumb. And
the battle scenes were a joke. All these hot, tired guys out there
barely moving. So I think that was the real problem putting the
film together. I thought the stuff Lynch did was fantastic.
(Dean Stockwell, 1995)
On Wild at Heart, 1990:
With David, you play such strange characters you don’t get offered
by others. All his characters are overdone in make-up, wigs
and clothes. Just part of his style. It’s a lot of fun, changing
yourself. (Isabella Rossellini, 1990)
On Blue Velvet, 1986:
Like the Wizard of Oz reshot with a script by Franz Kafka
and décor by Francis Bacon. (JG Ballard, 1996)
I’ve got to play Frank. Because I am Frank! (Dennis
Hopper On Blue Velvet)
He’s so straight, it’s hard to realise he has such a sick and
twisted mind. Dear David. (Dennis Hopper)
I loved the series Twin Peaks. I loved Lost Highway.
I loved Blue Velvet, those incredible colours. I found it
a great inspiration. It’s exactly in this way that I
like to photograph women, in these extraordinary colours.
At the time when he was living with Isabella Rossellini,
I did a photo shoot at his place, in Los Angeles.
(Helmut Newton, 2001)
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Working with David is Disneyland! A complete
amusement park ride from beginning to end. His films are
dreams: all his characters are dreamlike, in a dream world or
they love dreams. I’ve never had as much trust and faith in a
director in my life nor received so much trust back. He always
has me play people with a vision, an idealism I share – that
things can get better. David recognises that I’m constantly
searching for that, personally. (Laura Dern, 1990)
All I kept thinking was he’s not red wine, he’s motor oil,
things like that. (Nicholas Cage on Sailor,
his character in Wild At Heart)
She’s Marilyn Monroe with a little bit of Lucille Ball,
a little bit of Southern and a little bit of Laura – she is sorta
thick, warm liquid in this glass and every time she has an
experience a little bit more of the liquid oozes out of the glass
into the world outside. And by that I mean she kinda exposes
what’s inside, she is coming from the inside out. Her heart is
putting feelers, out, she doesn’t think through situations.
(Laura Dern on Lula, 1990)
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David Lynch
I once looked at a painter named Frida Kahlo and I told
David she looked quite appealing yet, with her eyebrows
joined together, very wild. And I said it would be an interesting
character to play, an attractive, but very hairy woman.
A year later he called me and offered me ‘a small part where you
can have those eyebrows, but you gotta have a blonde wig’.
And that was it.
On Twin Peaks, 1990/1:
To be known as someone who’s dead is kind of strange.
In Japan they made a wax corpse of my body and had a
funeral on the day Laura was supposed to be killed. They
showed me pictures from their version of People magazine,
with hundreds of people at the funeral. So strange.
(Sheryl Lee, “Laura Palmer”)
(Isabella Rossellini, 1990)
Lula should be a definition in the dictionary now for ‘bird-brain
genius,’ That’s what she is, an airhead wise woman. She’s
the coolest thing. I love her. She’s the ultimate person. She’s
definitely on Jupiter, as I have been since I did the film. I don’t
think I’ll ever come back. I might visit Pluto or Saturn, but
Earth is not a possibility for me anymore. (Laura Dern, 1990)
He can afford nicer clothes now. But he still has
ten shirts that are the same and just wears a clean
one every day. (Catherine Coulson,
“Log Lady”, 1991)
He is one of the only directors who, the later and colder it
gets, says, “Hey guys, are you ready to have more fun!” He is
extremely positive, light on his feet – he floats. With him the
creative process is fun. One of the important lessons I learned
was that it is important to have fun. And then David said to
me, “it is not only okay, it’s necessary.” (Nicholas Cage, 1990)
We just kind of went along for a roller coaster ride, along
with everybody else, and had a lot of fun with it...It was
shaky fun...You start to feel kind of like the guy on top of
the human pyramid of the Flying Wallenda family.”
(Mark Frost, co-writer, Twin Peaks)
When he’s preparing for a movie he always listens to music. It
helps him enter the world and it helps him create that world that
he’s creating. So he had picked out quite a bit of music before
he even started shooting. And he has continued to listen to music
while he’s been shooting. Where we had music to the scenes he
has known about it for a while in advance. And he really likes
it to create the atmosphere for his sake and for the sake of his
actors. (Mary Sweeney, 1996)
138
He cares an awful lot about working. That’s all he does.
He’s a real dull guy. (Jack Nance, 1991)
Peyton Place meets Naked Lunch (NYTimes on
Twin Peaks)
The notion of David Lynch making a TV soap is
almost as surreal as the finished product, ‘Twin Peaks’.
This extraordinary exercise in grim humour, haunting
inconsequence and mounting horror will obsess British
viewers just as much as it did 35 million Americans.
(Steve Grant, 1990)
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David Lynch
David Lynch
I knew that Twin Peaks had to have a sound and its own
musical identity. The show is so unique. It was really very
natural to come up with the musical sound and the style of the
writing. I just knew that it had to be somewhat traditional,
but on the other hand, underneath the surface – as what goes
on with some of these characters – I went along with that vein
in the music so that it’s slightly twisted or off-centre. But not
off-centre in a stereotyped way. It’s got its own sound. Through
all seven episodes, I’ve stayed with that and developed it in that
area. (Angelo Badalamenti on series one, 1990)
Not only in the technique, but there is a mature concept, and
there is know-how. And this is very surprising, because you
don’t find this professional level in someone who does not devote
all of his time to painting and drawing. I would like to know
how he got to this point; he cannot be born out of the head of
Zeus. (Leo Castelli, art dealer, 1987)
Fire Walk With Me, 1992:
It’s not the worst movie ever made; it just seems to be.
(Vincent Canby, The New York Times).
That’s exactly what interests me: an appearance of normality
in which it’s not immediately evident what exactly is going on,
which suggests on the contrary a multiplicity of senses and
facets. You are basically left between a dream and reality, and
you enter into another dimension which you suppose might be
dangerous. This duality suggests a mystery, an enigma, a secret.
The brunette, dreamy, introverted, apparently passive, the blonde
who appears active, perverse, and maybe criminal. It seems
to me that this Lynchian dichotomy also exists in my work.
(Martine Sitbon, 2001)
Lynch is an American, you know what I mean? He’s that real
small-town boy who makes good. He’s not a big flag-waver, you
know, but he’s a real apple-pie American. Of course, he likes to
dig into all this subterfuge, all this secret stuff, people’s secrets
and all that, and he gets pretty perverse sometimes. He’s not
Norman Rockwell - but, still, he’s like Norman Rockwell, you
know what I mean? (Jack Nance, 1991)
On Lost Highway:
I think the world catches up with David 10 years later and it’s
his curse. (Patricia Arquette, 1997)
A psychopathic Norman Rockwell (NYTimes, 1991)
Incredible, incredible. This new film is draining, I tell you. I
left the screening of it so worried. (Barry Adamson)
He’s very careful about the way his collar stands, and it has
to be white, and it has to be a special kind of white shirt. But
he is not weird at all as a person – a lot of people ask me.
He’s such a serene, calm, very sweet man. I know he must be
thinking about the dark side of things, but I have never found
his dark side, never. (Isabella Rossellini, 1987)
It’s about a relationship where the man’s a misogynist.
He kills the woman, but can’t admit it, so he reimagines
himself as this young, virile guy. She comes back and
really wants him, but even in his fantasy he gets fucked up.
He’s too afraid of her. (Patricia Arquette, Arena,
BBC, 1997)
140
141
David Lynch
David Lynch rang me up and said ‘Yesterday, I listened
to your music for eight hours. I really like what you do and
I’d like you to contribute something to my new picture’.
What began as one track soon blossomed into a dozen
when the two sat down and worked through the script.
The film is so up my street. I connected with it totally. It’s a
thriller, it’s noir, there’s mystery, horror, it was perfect for me.
(Barry Adamson)
One eyebrow will go up, and it’s like really kind of strange and
wonderful. And that’s the way he would kind of communicate.
(Patricia Arquette, 1997)
Well, you know, he has these eruptions.
(Bill Pullman, 1996)
This isn’t your run-of-the-mill movie and it certainly isn’t for
everyone. (Patricia Arquette, 1997)
I think the fear of being out of control is a very real one
that most people do have. Seeing a spirit or a presence or
having – I don’t want to sound clinical – a psychotic episode,
seeing the Mystery Man, whom nobody else can see, and
having conversations with him - this is all really an element
of losing control. It’s all right there, and it’s not often that
you would see it on the screen, especially in this way.
There have been other examples of this thing, but never
close to being filmed in this way...I think that LOST
HIGHWAY is really reflective of the time. There’s a big
revolution in terms of the demand of your brain; it looks
like there’ll be no end to it – things are changing so fast it
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David Lynch
seems like you can’t keep up with it. I think, for us, it exists as
a metaphor. I don’t want to presume to speak for David in that
sense, but for me that’s how it feels. (Barry Gifford, 1997)
...there were a lot of ways in which I was aware of the fact that
I was kind of being charmed by him. (Patricia Arquette, 1997)
As an artist he rejuvenates not just your sense of looking
at the script but your sense of looking at the world.
(Bill Pullman, 1997)
My first concept was they were two different people. So I was
thinking, looking from an acting point of view, that I was
gonna make them very different... then David said: “No no no,
they’re the same person!” So then you have to cross a reality
border cause you can’t be really the same person and one of
them die... (Patricia Arquette, 1996)
We all have our own fantasies about what the secret of
Lost Highway is. At times, in David’s direction, he’ll give
you an idea and you’ll think you’re on to something.
Then the next day it will be completely the opposite.
(Natasha Wagner, 1996)
But I think what David sees as good and right in the world
is the ‘50s. Things that looked trite on the outside, like pretty
‘50s party dresses and lake picnics – you know there’s a picture
of David with his girlfriend on a tandem bike waving at the
camera, I’d give a lot of money for that photo – anyway that
says it all for me. David must have a very repressed side; he would
have to if he sees things as he does. (Julee Cruise, 1990)
143
David Lynch
David Lynch
What women have to know is that they can feign submission:
it is by doing so, that they are often at their strongest. It’s like
Shéhérazade or in Arabian Nights It’s a game. You see this, like
with Lynch, diving into this kingdom of fantasy where women
are finally gently in control of their sexuality. Then they can
play their role. (Clare Denis, 2001)
We expect our great film auteurs to somehow personify their
work. Disney was cuddly in a paternal way. Hitchcock dripped
with portent and irony on his TV shows. Lynch, who along
with David Cronenberg is the only other true American original
in the suspense genre since the Hollywood days of Hitch, is
something else again. (Jan Stuart, Newsday, 1997)
My second-best marriage in the world
(Angelo Badalamenti, 1990)
Jimmy Stewart from Mars (Mel Brooks)
I have loved David Lynch for a long time, and I’ve always
had the greatest respect for his work as an artist; he could be
in a garage, on a farm or in a house high in the LA hills, and
he’d still be applying himself in the same way, with the same
passion in whatever he undertakes to do. Working with him
reminded me of working with Terrence Malik on Badlands
(1974). Both of them are extremely attentive, and completely
committed to their work. But no-one’s quite like David, who,
a bit like Jimmy Stewart, is gracefully seductive. He always
knows what he wants, which is an absolute dream for an actor,
whilst remaining extremely funny. Everyone adores him.
(Sissy Spacek, 1999)
The main thing that David does is he uses the take. He
doesn’t edit your performance the way most [TV] shows do.
He stays on you. I mean, he’ll stay there until you’re seeing
what you’re seeing and you know you’re seeing what you’re
seeing. It’s just a different philosophy of filmmaking.
(Grace Zabriskie, 1990)
144
It does seem to me that sometimes you can watch a David
Lynch film with your eyes closed because of what’s happening
on the soundtrack. (Mark Kermode, 2007)
The first populist surrealist – a Frank Capra of dream logic.
(Pauline Kael, 1996)
The Czar of Bizarre - TIME
His voice is metallic and nerdy in the Mr. Rogers mould. He
says “beautiful” a lot and peppers his talk with such “Fargo”esque euphemisms as “By golly” and “I’ll be darned.”
(Jan Stuart, 1997)
He is pigeonholed as the master of weird, but he is much more.
(Mary Sweeney, 1999)
145
David Lynch
On The Straight Story, 1999:
...He’s a greater character than any character that’s ever been
in one of his films... He’s also the boy next door. There’s
something so endearing and so funny and so totally unique
about him. (Sissy Spacek, 1999)
Of course I’d never worked with him. I’d seen The Elephant
Man, but when my agent told me that David Lynch was going
to direct it, boy, that’s good. I’ve made the circuit.
(Richard Farnsworth, 1999)
He has a vision he wants to communicate. He’s no pushover.
But he is so kind and funny and treats everyone with such
respect; everyone falls all over themselves to give him what he
wants. (Sissy Spacek, 1999)
I did stunts for Ford. He was good to stuntmen if they made
an honest mistake. But if an actor didn’t remember his lines
or made a mistake, all hell broke loose. There’s no comparison
with David Lynch as far as getting along with people.
(Richard Farnsworth, 1999)
Just when we think we had him pegged, David surprises us.
Having known him for many years, I think Straight Story is
more reminiscent of the David Lynch that I’ve known than
many of his other films. (Sissy Spacek, 1999)
David Lynch
Mulholland Drive, 2001:
I was so thrilled the first time I saw the movie. I sat next to
David and I couldn’t keep my eyes off of the screen or my
mouth closed. I was so intrigued and frankly quite confused for
even I, who was in the film, wasn’t exactly sure what the story
was about. Honestly, I had to see it 6 times before I figured
it out. I saw it in different theatres just to make sure I wasn’t
dreaming. It is truly “a love story in the city of dreams”...
dreams being the operative word here. I can’t give it away or my
interpretation of it but I can say that it is so real and surreal at
the same time... truly a masterpiece and one of my favorite David
Lynch films. (Rebekah Del Rio)
David knows how to behave around people.
(Justin Theroux, 2001)
I trusted him 100% and it worked. I was putty in his hands
and there was NOTHING I wouldn’t do for him and I say
that with total conviction. Unfortunately you can’t do that all
the time. (Naomi Watts, 2001)
I believe the (lesbian) scenes were needed in the film to show the
obsession between the two characters, but I was terrified at first,
a little watery eyed before doing the scene. David made it very
comfortable. It wasn’t technical. He just let the cameras roll. There
was a lot of respect on the set. (Laura Harring, 2001)
I guarantee you, I’m the only guy ever to go to read for
a David Lynch movie with two stolen chickens sitting in his
agent’s Porsche. (Billy Ray Cyrus, 2001)
146
147
David Lynch
On Inland Empire, 2006:
My experience on this film was very unique to say the
least, even after working with David for a long time.
(Laura Dern, 2006)
You’re so used to directors who have a clear idea what
they want, but with David, you have to be flexible enough to
trust him. I couldn’t possibly tell you what the film’s about,
and at this point I don’t know that he could. It’s become sort
of a pastime – Laura (Dern) and I sit around on set trying to
figure out what’s going on. (Justin Theroux, 2006)
The truth is I didn’t know who I was playing and I still don’t
know who I play, and I look forward to seeing the film tonight
to know more. (Laura Dern, 2006)
David Lynch
Oh God! I was aghast, truly shocked! I remember sneaking into
a little cinema in Malibu, where I live, to see it. Some people
behind me evidently recognised me because they started laughing
when the “In Dreams” sequence came on. But I was shocked,
almost mortified, because they were talking about ‘the candy
coloured clown’ in relation to doing a dope deal, then Dean Stockwell
did that weird miming thing with that lamp. Then they were
beating up that young kid! I thought, ‘What in the world?’ But
later, when I was touring, we got the video out and I really got
to appreciate not only what David Lynch gave to the song, and
what the song in turn gave to the film, but how innovative the
movie was, how it really achieved this otherworldly quality that
added a whole new dimension to “In Dreams”. I find it hard
to verbalise why, but Blue Velvet really succeeded in making my
music contemporary again. (Roy Orbison to Nick Kent, 1988)
Small men on the phone to themselves. Twins, who are
in fact the same person. Lots of things catching fire.
Uh-oh, looks like David Lynch has a new film out.
Mark Kermode
Inland Empire. Lynch on set with Laura Dern
148
149
David Lynch
David Lynch
Lynch on the set of Dune with Kyle MacLachlan and Sting
150
151
David Lynch
Quotes herein are culled from
interviews originally conducted
and published, or recorded for
TV, in English, French, Italian
and German, between 1976
and 2007. They have been
credited for the sake of design
and legibility to the year of
publication.
There are a few absolutely
excellent Lynch websites,
Quotes from:
Cahiers de Cinema, Interview
with David Lynch, January 1997
Agence France Presse;
September 6, 2006
Campbell, Virginia; Something
Really Wild, Movieline, 1990
Edwards, Craig; Dean
Stockwell: Interview,
Psychotronic Video, 1995
American Film, Volume X,
Number 3, December 1984
Canal Plus, David Lynch,
Interview 2001
Bahiana, Ana Maria; “Bravo!”
Magazine, May 2002
Ciak, April 1997
Barron, Jack; Cruise’s Peak,
New Musical Express,
1 December 1990
Collett-White, Mike; Venice
honors Lynch, Reuters,
September 6, 2006
Behar, Henry; Mr Lynch?
Empire 1990
Crawley, Tony; Wild Thing,
Time Out’s Paris Passion,
September 1990
Beyda, Kent; Eraserhead, Search
& Destroy No.9, 1978
and notably:
www.davidlynch.com
– his homepage. Where Inland
Empire was conceived.
Biodrowski, Steve; Barry Gifford
Interview, Cinefantastique, April
1997, Volume 28/10
www.davidlynch.de
Blackwell, Mark; Interview with
Trent Reznor, Raygun, 1997
www.thecityofabsurdity.com
www.bbc.co.uk
Special mention goes to Cahiers
du Cinema for their continued
intelligent appreciation of Lynch.
Lynch, David; Catching The Big
Fish: Meditation, Consciousness
Dupont, Joan; International Herald
Tribune, May 19-20th, 2001
Rodley, Chris (ed.); Lynch on Lynch,
London & New York, Faber, 2005
All sources are secondary,
because there is more than
enough of Lynch already in
print. This ‘best of ’ Lynch
quotes is, however, the only
one of its kind.
Two excellent sourcebooks
for recent material
have been:
Bouzereau, Laurent; Blue Velvet:
An Interview With David Lynch,
Cineaste 3/1987
& Creativity, copyright – Bobkind
2006 (Published by tarcher Penguin)
Citations/Bibliography
David Lynch
Blatter, Helene; The PressEnterprise, September 2, 2006
Boston Phoenix; Straight time,
October 21 - 28, 1999
Brioux, Bill; Twin Peaks, TV
Guide, May 19, 1990
Bromell, Henry; David Lynch,
Rolling Stone, November 13, 1980
152
Dean Stockwell: Interview”
Epstein, Daniel Robert; David
Lynch, Suicidegirls.com,
Dec 7, 2006
Esterly, Glenn; TV Guide,
April 7, 1990
Cinéphage, 1992, p.50-52
The Face; Blue Velvet,
no. 82, February 87
Figgis, Mike; Into The Abstract,
Sight & Sound, March 2007
Fischer, Paul; Driven To Tears,
Interview with Naomi Watts,
iofilm, 2001
Cousins, Mark; David Lynch,
Scene by Scene Interview, BBC
Two Scotland, 1999.
Form; The World Reveals Itself,
issue 158, 2/1997
Daney, Serge/Tesson, Charles;
Cahiers du Cinema, April 1981
Friend, Tad; Creative Differences,
New Yorker, August 30, 1999
Dawtrey, Adam; Lynch invades
an ‘Empire’, Variety, May 12, 2005
Giammarco, David;
Patricia Arquette interview,
Toronto Globe and Mail,
February 24, 1997
Delorme, Gérard; Lynch Interview,
Première, December 2001
Delorme, Gérard; Bienvenue A
Lynchland, Première February,
2007
Delorme, Stéphane; Inland
Empire, Cahiers du Cinema,
February 2007
Gilmore, Mikal; Rolling Stone,
March 1997
Gore, Chris; Is David Lynch
Just A Little Weird, Film Threat,
April 1997
Grant, Steve; Peak Viewing,
Time Out, August 22-29 1990
153
David Lynch
KIRSTEN DUNST
Griffiths, John; All Dolled Up,
Hair. Cut and Style, Spring 1991
Les Inrockuptibles, Homage to
Jack Nance, 1997
Lobby, Brian, SALON, Nov 6,
2001
Hattenstone, Simon; The
Bliss Of It All, The Guardian,
Saturday February 24, 2007
Les Inrockuptibles, Hors-Série
David Lynch, 2002
Marie-Claire, 1997
Jerome, Jim; David Lynch,
People, September 3, 1990
Henry, Michael; Interview with
David Lynch, Positif, No. 465;
November 1999
Jones, Dylan; Suburban
Spaceman, ARENA, September
/ October 1990,
Hibbard, Justin; David Lynch
Wades Into Deep Waters,
Business Week, May 26, 2006
Kang, Debbie; “David Lynch
extols value of transcendental
meditation”, The Eagle
Hill, Veronica, David Lynch
takes Lost Highway to Baker,
December 15, 1995
KCRW, Morning Becomes
Eclectic, February 1997
Hinson, Hal; Dreamscapes,
Rolling Stone, November 13,
1980
Kermode, Mark; David Lynch,
Guardian Unlimited, February
8, 2007
Hodenfield, Chris; Daring Dune,
Rolling Stone No.436 December
6th 1984
Kermode, Mark; Weirdo, Q
Magazine, 1997
Kress, Michael; Belief Net,
August 2007
Huffhines, Kathy; Turkey Freak
of ‘Twin Peaks’, The Arizona
Republic, Sunday, August 26,
1990
Krobath, Peter; Zoomissue,
March 1997
Hughes, David; Empire, 2001
Hughes, David; Virgin Books,
2001
Hughes, Mike; Coming down
from the mountain, Gannett
News Service
Hyman, Nick; Under The Radar,
Interview with Crispin Glover,
2006
Puig, Claudia; Lynch tries
direction other than dark, USA
TODAY, October 1999
Rabkin, William; Deciphering
Blue Velvet, Fangoria, #58,
October 1986
McGregor, Alex; Out To Lynch,
Time Out, August 22-29 1990
McKenna, Kristine; “Straight”
Shooter, Premiere, November
1999
Rayner, Richard; Dune: The
Movie That Cost The Earth,
Time Out, November 15-21
1984 Rebekahdelrio.com
Metz, Dave; Brain Trust, Vogue,
2003
Rentilla, J.; Justin Time,
The Guardian, The Guide,
Dec.29th 2001- Jan 4th 2002
NY rock, 2001
L ́Oeil de Lynch, Air France
magazine, May 2007
Rodley, Chris; Sight & Sound,
July 1996
O ́Keefe, Alice; New Statesman,
2007
Romney, Jonathan, Guardian, 1999
Olech, Franca; David Lynch
Interview
Ross, Jonathan; Richard Farnsworth
interview, BBC-Online, 1999
Peary, Gerard; Interview,
(October, 1999) gerardpeary.com
Rothe, Marcus; David Lynch est
un autre aussi mais pas le meme,
L`Humanité, 03 Nov. 1999
Pizzello, Stephen; American
Cinematographer, 1997
Rowin, Michael Joshua, Toy
Cameras: An Interview with
David Lynch, 2006
Playgirl, October 1990
Krohn, Bill; Lost Highway,
Cahiers du Cinéma n° 509,
January 1997
Polowy, Kevin; Billy Ray Cyrus
interview, Premiere, November
2001
Kuhn, Joy; Elephant Man: the
book of the film, Virgin Books,
1980
Pond, Steve; You are now leaving
Twin Peaks, Playboy, February 1991
Kutner, Jane; His surreal
paintings, like his films, are
strange and seductive, Dallas
Morning News
154
Positif, David Lynch Interview,
No. 465; November 1999
Potter, Maximillian; Premiere
Magazine, 1997
Press Association, September 6, 2006
Saada, Nicolas; Interview
with Sissy Spacek, Cahiers du
Cinéma, No. 540, November 1999
Saada, N. & Toubiana, S.;
Interview - David Lynch,
Cahiers du Cinéma No. 540
November 1999
Saban, Stephen with Longacre,
Sarah; The Soho Weekly News,
October 20, 1978
155
David Lynch
KIRSTEN DUNST
Salem, Rob; Interview With
David Lynch, Starweek, 1990
Toop, David; Welcome To Twin
Peaks, The Face, 1990
Visionary and dreamer: A surrealist’s
fantasies, Cinema 12 / 1984
Schiff, Stephen; The Weird
Dreams of David Lynch,
Vanity Fair, March 1987
USA Today, Friday August 17, 1990
Vice magazine, 2007-08-25
Waldron, Robert; Crazy Mama!
Soap Opera Weekly, 1990
Vogue Paris December 2001 /
January 2002, p. 286-289
Snyder, Tom; The Late Late
Show, Feb. 26, 1997
Weigel, Herman; David Lynch,
tip Filmjahrbuch Nr. 1, 1985
Sragow, Michael; I want a
dream when I go to a film, Salon
Magazine, October 28, 1999
Wells, Dominic, 1997
Stathis, Lou; Heavy Metal, 1982
Willman, Chris; Setting Lynch
́s Muse to Music, Los Angeles
Times, September 29, 1990
Strasser, Brendan; David Lynch
reveals his battle tactics,
Prevue, 1984
Wise, Damon; Interview with
David Lynch, Total Film, Jan
2000
Strauss, Bob; E Online, 1997
Wood, Brett; Head to Head: an
interview with David Lynch, Art
Papers Oct 1998
Stuart, Jan; Newsday,
March 9, 1997
Sundell, Margaret & Spears,
Dorothy; David Lynch, Splash,
April 1989
Theroux, Justin; Beat your own
drum, i D, March 2007
The TV Book, June 9-15, 1991
Thompson, Bob; Patricia
Arquette interview, Toronto Sun,
February 23, 1997
Tirard, Laurent; La Lecon
de Cinema de David Lynch,
STUDIO, issue 118, January
1997
Todd, Stephen; Head Trip:
David Lynch, Black + White,
number 24, April 1997
Wood, Gaby, 1997, The Guardian
Woodard, Josef; Interview with
Angelo Badalamenti, unknown
source, 1990
Woodward, Richard B.; A Dark
Lens on America, The New York
Times Magazine, Jan 14, 1990
Young, Paul; Talking Art, Buzz
Inc. 1993
Zimmerman, Kent and Keith;
The Gavin Report, May 11th, 1990
Zoglin, Richard, Worrell, D.;
Like Nothing On Earth, Time,
April 9, 1990
Interview with David Lynch,
Wired News, March 2006
156
IMDB Filmography of Lynch
as Director only.
Boat (2007) (V)
Inland Empire (2006)
Rammstein: Lichtspielhaus
(2003) (V) (video “Rammstein”)
The Short Films of
David Lynch (2002) (V)
Darkened Room (2002)
Dumbland (2002)
Rabbits (2002)
Mulholland Dr. (2001)
...aka Mulholland Drive (France)
(USA: closing credits title)
The Straight Story (1999)
...aka Une histoire vraie (France)
Lost Highway (1997)
...aka Lost Highway (France)
Lumière et compagnie (1995)
(segment “Premonition Following
An Evil Deed”)
...aka Lumière and Company
(International: English title)
...aka Lumiere y compañía (Spain)
“Hotel Room” (2 episodes, 1993)
...aka David Lynch’s Hotel Room
Blackout (1993) TV Episode
Tricks (1993) TV Episode
“On the Air” (1992) TV Series
(unknown episodes)
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
(1992)
...aka Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with
Me (France)
“Twin Peaks” (6 episodes, 1990-1991)
Episode #2.22 (1991) TV Episode
Episode #2.7 (1990) TV Episode
Episode #2.2 (1990) TV Episode
Episode #2.1 (1990) TV Episode
Episode #1.3 (1990) TV Episode
(1 more)
“American Chronicles”
(1990) TV Series
Wild at Heart (1990)
...aka David Lynch’s
Wild at Heart (USA)
Industrial Symphony No. 1:
The Dream of the Broken
Hearted (1990) (TV)
“Français vus par, Les” (1988)
(mini) TV Series (segment “The
Cowboy and the Frenchman”)
...aka The Cowboy and the
Frenchman (USA: DVD title)
...aka The French as Seen by...
(literal English title)
Blue Velvet (1986)
Dune (1984)
The Elephant Man (1980)
Eraserhead (1977)
The Amputee (1974)
The Grandmother (1970)
The Alphabet (1968)
Six Figures Getting Sick (1966)
...aka Six Men Getting Sick
(Six Times) (USA)
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David Lynch
David Lynch
I had tried to track David Lynch down years ago, just to
see if he was a fan and if he’d ever be into doing a video
or anything like that. And then one day I got a call through
Interscope saying that he was doing a new movie and,
much like the Oliver Stone Natural Born Killers thing,
“Would you be interested in doing a soundtrack on [Reznor’s
label] Nothing?” I said “Well what is it?” and “I’m a big fan
so, yeah, I’m interested.” So I talked to David on the phone
and he said, “Would you be into me coming to New Orleans
and maybe we could sit down and try to score some bits of the
movie?” So I said, “Sure.” I didn’t expect that. And he ended
up coming to New Orleans and I had one of the most nerve
racking situations I’ve ever been in. He comes in the studio
and it’s David Lynch, right, my hero. And he’s bigger than
I thought; he’s exactly that character on Twin Peaks, the hardof-hearing FBI agent. (booming voice) “Trent! Well, whaddaya
say we get started?!” And I’m sitting there nervous out of my
mind. I’d gotten the script and I’d read it. And he goes,
“Okay! Here’s the scene. The guy’s being pursued in a car by
the police and I want this sound of chaos.” And he’s talking
real loud, he’s real animated. I say, “Did you bring any
footage?” (Loudly) “Nah! I didn’t bring any footage. Okay!
See what you can come up with!” And he just sits back on the
couch. And I thought, “Oh my God...All right.” And the thing
that impressed me was in a way he knew he was putting me
on the spot. But he was really cool about it. It wasn’t like in a
shitty way at all. Super nice guy. (Trent Reznor,
of Nine Inch Nails on meeting Lynch for the
first time during the recording of the Lost
Highway soundtrack.)
With Kyle MacLachlan on the set of Blue Velvet
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