David Lynch: David Lean Lecture

[Applause] hello Lee welcome the faster this year the Academy celebrates a very special anniversary it's sixty years since the den British Film Academy was founded under the chairmanship of the pioneering director David Ling this event is held annually in his memory and commemorates the work of film directors who like David Lean have made a truly outstanding contribution to cinema previous names include the likes of Robert Altman Ken Loach Sydney [ __ ] and Woody Allen this year well this year we're talking about someone who is truly an artist a groundbreaking visionary film director amongst other films his work includes blue velvet wild at heart Mulholland Drive and most recently Inland Empire maps for the cinema for television who can forget Twin Peaks that's a little look at some of his work alright this is the road this is an army for Joyride [Music] [Music] [Music] ladies and gentlemen please welcome that's the William life thank you very much well honor to have you here if we could just go a little bit back well a long way back all the way back to 50s America that's the period you grew up and obviously fascinating time in modern American history as well and clearly great influence in your work yes I said that the 50s what a beautiful time you know as everybody knows the birth of rock and roll in the 50s changed music so much and it was it was such a thrill and in the 50s where I was there was an optimism in the air a feeling of a bright and shiny future and there were cars that were very very beautiful with lots of chrome and it was a very beautiful time to kind of dream you got into art and I think you know we'd all agree you can see that influence very much in your films but when did that happen for you well as when I was little I would draw all the time and I draw because it was right after the war I would draw mainly guns rifles and knives and Melfi things we truly enjoyed that drawing and my mother for some reason refused to give me coloring books which was a real blessing she would have been a bit worried about what I said so my father would bring paper home from the office and I would draw on that and I never thought that drawing and I got into painting I never thought it was something that an adult you know did and seriously I don't know what logic is a perfectly good thing yeah but it was so much fun it was so thrilling but I thought it would come to an end and then I met my friend Toby Keeler my family moved to forge yeah and on the front lawn of my girlfriend's house I met Toby just not knowing that soon he was going to be stealing my girlfriend from him but it didn't matter because that night Toby told me that his father was a painter and at first I thought a house painter but then I realized that he was a fine artist and it totally completely changed my life you're also fascinated by machinery and industry and belching smoke stocks and things like that smokestack industry smoke and fire big machines great sounds come out of this factory neighborhoods a whole world of that you know industry that came up and it just is you know it's fantastic visually and and you know for sound it's just just beautiful you've embraced modern technology in your sort of you were fairly early sort of avatar of the Internet do you not feel I mean it seems to me that your work is build up the films and probably what you'll continue to is very rigid and at times one of the things I love is that that love of big noise and big machinery it's something I really like are you a bit of drift in this world where everything is kind of smaller and we're talking about little laptops and yeah yeah yeah but you know cinema can create an another world it's what's so beautiful about it so even though out in this world things are one way we can get ideas and and you know make a world to go into and have experiences so all those things can come to life well that leads me neatly into the first woman we're going to talk about which is a razor head I think it's clear from that that there are things in there that only cinema could really have delivered let's have a little look at that scene from that [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you [Music] [Music] let's just absorb that Oh what are you feel looking back on that I mean oil did you actually watch the risen heard these days I saw Eraserhead last with my then I guess 14 year old son right and what questions did it prompt from your son I don't answer them really anyway so um but he really liked Theresa read Believe It or Not Eraserhead is my most spiritual film mm-hmm what elaborate or not no I think and nobody no one sees it that way or maybe maybe somebody out there does but it is no how did it fail my movie I'm someone here but when the film was released and I began to just take off and it happen I never take off but it was a little gradual event not a very ago but you know yet sort of lovely Yetzirah jewel took winging fluid and that I'm using awful kind of metaphor there but now it I always say it would came out finished in a time when the midnight circuit was very popular and had it not been for the midnight circuit Eraserhead would have been long gone but a guy named Ben Barinholtz who they call the grandfather of midnight films sod in New York loved it and he distributed he said David I'm going to spend no money and no advertising and it'll be lines around the block within two months so and it was sort of true so after 15 years in the margins maybe it didn't feel that way but you've arrived with with with the elephant I'm going to be going to that unless you have Oscar nominations coming out of your ears you you're actually not let go well yeah afterwards you must have felt amazing that from a razor had to be in that situation very quickly how did it are the duck so incredible and I you know it's Mel Brooks Mel Brooks took a chance Mel Brooks fate handed female Brooks and he saw a racer head I thought this would be the end of everything but he came out of the theater racing toward me arms outspread and braced me and said you're a madman I love you and did you give him a big cuddle off of them yes very tight tight and Mel Brooks backed me up a hundred percent on that film and it worked out really well so I'm aware we moved rather speedily through from a razor has rigged the Elephant Man there but we're gonna have a look at a scene from the elephant run in this one Anthony Hopkins character is inviting Sir John Gielgud to look beneath the surface of the Elephant Man and find the humanity within it's incredible seeing this fabulous Lord is my shepherd I shall rock what make this mean eyes out but it was a brave attempt trees the man was love is to simply Marvin will let's talk about you is it I'm sorry to have wasted your time man restoreth my soul he simply doesn't belong here he be much better off somewhere else we need contacts after right I'm sorry she died think about it this way a good idea yay though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I fear no evil for the Chicago [Music] I didn't teach in that bathtub as I see you will follow all the way to my eyes I'll learn the house how did you know the rest of it I didn't teach you the rest of it it's a stranger I mean how did you know blessed 23rd psalm if she could eat you by univision sigh I know you well and the Book of Common Prayer track charge new footage sake um stopped me is one of the most powerful scenes in cinema frankly I mean a very basic question what do you love about shooting Lansing John Hurt who literally you know became you know in this morning makeup transformed to John Merrick just to beyond the beyond most beautiful performance Tony Hopkins just was rock-solid and Sir John Gielgud what a great human being he was I remember I tell the story the day I was going to work with Sir John I was putting on my underwear and thinking Here I am putting on my underwear and I'm going off to work with Sir John Gielgud he says a little bit about how you actually go up the elephant man I had a script I wrote after Eraserhead called Ronny rocket and it was Stewart who called me out of the blue one day raving about Eraserhead and Stewart was then trying to help me get Ronny rocket going no one wanted to know about Ronny rocket so one day after trying for a long time I called Stewart and I said Stewart I think maybe I should try to direct something that he's exists do you know of any scripts that I could direct and Stewart said David I know four scripts that you could direct come to lunch with me at nibblers and I'll tell you about so we met up at nibblers and sat down and before we even ordered anything I said Stewart now tell me and he said well the first one is a film called the Elephant Man and an explosion went off of my head I never heard the other three I said that's the one I want to do looking back knowing what we know now about your the themes and preoccupations evident in your films the jump to Victorian England seems even more profound when you went from Jack Nan's to Sir John Gielgud yes thinking in your underwear I was I was born in Missoula Montana and Here I am in London doing a Victorian drama pretty strange but as strange things happened I was hit the East London hospital as a derelict Hospital and but the beds were still in their wards and these fantastic hallways and I was standing in a ward me reward in a hallway but I could see the ward and like a thing started happening and I was back in time I knew exactly the world as if I was there and once that thing came over me I I owned Viktor English was a strange experience we will move all noted to blue velvet other things that we think of again in your films I think it's fair to say they kind of reached the zenith with blue velvet the scene that we're going to look at now this is where Jeffrey Beaumont is confronted by the wealth the horror of his actions I guess have a look it [Music] it seems to me that blue velvet is even more powerful no 20 21 years on than it was in 1936 when it was released because paradoxically and we live in more violent times now and that the part of the film I mean I watched it again hadn't seen it for maybe 10 or 15 years in Washington the other night and we live in very morally policed times do you think that it actually has says much more of a comment than I than it was even there I don't know recent violence you know to me it's it's it's it's it's its own world I like I like going into that world and I don't know what it says you know everybody said it's the you know like in the 50s the optimistic shiny exterior and then a lot of darkness you know swimming beneath it and that's sort of what it's about all those things go on doesn't matter what time it is so kind of timeless not really sure now the other thing of course that a lot of us will remember from lugar but is Dennis hoppers incredible portrait of Frank booth he was on the list of actors for sure and but the reputation of Dennis was you know I had fallen because couldn't work with him and they said you can't work with Dennis so one day his manager called and his manager says David you know Dennis is clean and sober made another picture and and you could talk to the director and you'll tell you how great it was working with Dennis I said oh and and he said also Dennis really wants to talk to you so the next phone call was Dennis Hopper and Dennis says David I have to play frankbooth because I am frankbooth and so I say it was good news and bad news and but Dennis is the perfect the perfect perfect person and it was so beautiful that he did he did that what a move on sin 1990 okay it's the year wild at heart came out year won the Palme d'Or account of course started sounding you were going through something of an imperial affairs if you liken that in that time there's Imperial things things were going pretty well yeah you were an emperor now you've often talked about yourself as being a kind of like a radio a kind of receiver of signals and then you sort of channel them or however you want to go with such ideas catch ideas and then translate them to a medium well let's take you back okay we're going to look at a scene from wild heart not in this scene stealer Ripley I'm played by Nicolas Cage serenades Luna played by Laura don't fantastic that's a Balu [Music] [Music] [Music] I'll be [Music] mmm-hmm I just Loredana nothing is just more apparent as little is really incredibly now and yeah I think we've seen her is sandy how many four years before that to go from the embodying that kind of all-american innocent to someone I think it's fair to say slightly less innocent not nothing what is it with Laura as well because you use her a lot well when you I worked with her in blue velvet and then she became a friend and when you you know know somebody more you see different sides of them and you see that they can do different things that he might somebody else might think so when it came for blue velvet I mean a wild at heart she just I knew she could do it and but you know Lula's got this kind of goodness in her and so does sailor and I always say it's a modern romance because sailor really respects Lula and Lula really respects a sailor and it's it kind of equals going down the road it's it's a real nice relationship this humor in that film the absurdity for this humor on there but there's a great deal of optimism because love conquers all enough so there's a Hallie's kind of world but then there's a happy ending because the book didn't have a happy ending to this oh no and then and no one could really live with that why did I get to adopt someone else's work as well having you know come up I did it read that book I wasn't supposed to you know directed my friend Monty said I'm thinking of directing this thing would you be you know maybe want to be executive producer or something I said Monty what if I read the book and wondered direct to myself he said well then David you'll direct it and this happened we're going to move on to the Mulholland Drive and I in this scene everybody seek Adam Kesher meets the cowboy howdy howdy to you beautiful evening yeah she want to thank you for coming all the way up here to see me from that nice hotel downtown no problem son of mine well now here's the man who wants to get right down to it kind of anxious to get to it are you whatever man's attitude man's attitude goes some ways the way his life will be is that something you might agree with sure and did you answer because that's what you thought I wanted to hear or did you think about what I said an answer because you truly believe that to be right I agree with what you said truly what I say that amande attitude determines to a large extent how his life will be I could ask you what the film is about but you don't really like to tell people what your films are by can I ask you instead what other fairies you have heard what would have other people propounded to you and many many things let's hear a few of them no no no you know I always say that see it's it's the the film is the thing the film is the thing you work so hard to get you know after the ideas come to get this thing built all the elements to feel correct the whole to feel the correct in this beautiful language called cinema and this second it's finished people want you to change it back into words and it's very very saddening it's it's a torture it's the film the language is cinema when things are concrete very few variations in interpretation but the more abstract the thing gets the more varied the interpretations but people still know inside what it is for them and and even if they don't trust their intuition I always say that if some girl named Sally she comes out of the theater I don't have a clue what that means she goes over with Bob and Jim to get a cup of coffee Bob starts talking about what he thinks it is because he knows exactly what it is he starts talking five seconds later Sally is saying no no no no it's not that and all this thing's comes out of Sally so Sally really did no for herself that's the beauty of it just like life you see the same sort of the same things but you come up with many many different things as you go along as the detective okay detective Jason thinks it's a ghost story is it a ghost story it's a ghost story for you the conventions of cinema we want your we want the vision no you have everything in the film that's the thing it doesn't matter what I say zip it can only be a negative the thing is built so you don't want to take anything away and you don't want to add anything to it it's complete that's the that's it and that's it and if the author is I always say like some somebody wrote this book and they tour guide died so you can't get your mop and ask them you know what this book means you just you just love the book and you come to your own conclusion this brings us on to the to the final clip we're going to look out now this is from Inland Empire I think everything you've said in the last five minutes probably calls through more than for any anything else for this film amazing opportunity to talk about this film but in this thing Laura Dern's characters Laura again reaches a rather grim and bossy [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] we dilating what you say about Pomona with otter dive the most intriguing film I've ever seen I this thing started I got an idea and I got an idea for a scene and I thought it was a one-off scene so I had this Sony PD 150 camera and I rewrote the scene I wrote the seamount just like a regular thing and I shot that scene then I got another idea and I thought it was a one-off kind of thing so I shot that thing and it didn't relate to the first thing at all then I got another idea and it didn't relate to the first two I thought it was a one-off thing I shot that then I got some ideas that related those but this happens in in the writing a script but here it was already shot and shot with the Sony PD 150 so I continued with Sony PD 150 until and and and then more ideas came and when the more came I shot in a more traditional way but always have have the script you know before we went out and shot anything so you put the material out there and you just invite us to come I get ideas and I get some ideas I fall in love with and I fall in love with them like I say because of the idea and the way cinema can translate that idea so you know or painting could translate if you get painting ideas you get chair ideas you get you know for photography ideas music ideas and then you get an idea so it's a beautiful thing to get an idea because then you see it you hear it you feel it there it is and then you just translate it and you build it a lot of times I get an idea I don't know what that idea means so I think about it and I find a meaning for me another idea comes to it the script starts going building building and then the thing started oh it's about this it's about this and then you know and then in the more you have the quicker it comes together you know and and then you build that thing until it feels correct based on those ideas that have been driving the boat and then you get it to feel correct and then it's done David well I believe it that we could talk all night it's been a profound personal closure it really has you've changed cinema keep on changing it thank you for me and thank you for better thank you Jason thank you very much [Applause] [Music]

Channel: BAFTA Guru

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Keywords: BAFTA, BAFTA Guru, British Academy Of Film And Television Arts (Award Presenting Organization), creative, career, film making, TV, gaming, actor, advice, movie, movies, movie making, david lynch, interview, lecture, twin peaks, mulholland drive, blue velvet, new twin peaks, the elephant man, funny interview, twin peaks explained, nerdwriter, behind the scenes, twin peaks ending, david lynch 2017, explained

Id: SpomrL0qA-E

Length: 32min 9sec (1929 seconds)

Published: Fri May 26 2017