David Lynch interview (2000)

David Lynch is widely regarded to be America's premier avant-garde filmmaker you need look no further than the following films Lost Highway blue velvet Eraserhead and the Elephant Man what can you tell me you could read Theresa was with me that's right you may think my god hello it's me hey baby I can't see her tonight okay say the Ripley learnin loves you David Lentz unique place in cinema contingence with his latest film the straight story it has already been recognized by the National Board our viewers one of the years 10 best films I am pleased to have David back at this table welcome back thank you Charlie it's good to be back let's just talk about the straight story first and how it fits in somewhat of an evolution of a filmmaker when did you tell me the story the story of how it happened how I came to do how you came to do the Velcade um in 1994 Alvin made this journey this is Alvin - Alvin straight and he travelled on his writing lawnmower to visit his brother it was who was very it was very ill and the newspapers covered this story toward the end people got you know aware of it and started covering it and Mary Sweeney read about it in the New York Times she held this you know desire for four years to want to you know write the story and get it made and I'm hearing about it I live with Mary I know as the sage and every morning you know every night I'm hearing about this great story it's right story she didn't get the rights for it until 1998 so when she got the rights she and her childhood friend John Roach sat down and wrote this script they wrote it pretty fast they took the whole journey they went and interviewed many people talked to the straight family and wrote a script that I think of all the scripts I've read I've really only like four scripts and this is one of the four I loved this script I didn't think that I would love it and so once I read the script I was I was there all right there here's what's interesting about this what are the other three scripts that you've loved okay I loved a script called love and vein about Robert Johnson great script I loved to school by a guy named Gregory Bricker spring of 61 and the Fallen rise of Glen and those those the freak I loved yeah and plus and so they'd hit then Mary wants you to direct it she says take a look at this and see if you're interested in reacting it ranked and you but everybody knows first of all this is not like anything you've ever done before right I it was he was curious I'm reading the script and I'm feeling things and I've always said that the film is such a beautiful language it can it can do abstractions it can do abstractions and it abstraction are there the combination of all these different elements that you have in a film it can do an abstraction of emotion and I felt this emotion coming from the script and that's what I really that's what lit my fire that the emotion of what the emotion coming from a scene from a word from a look when you read something we all have the experience we picture it in our minds and those pictures those initial things are what guide us from then on and so as this thing you know I was picturing it I'm at the same time I'm feeling things and I'm thinking film can do this and it could be beautiful you spent 21 days filming no no 30 31 ok 31 yes 10 more okay more you know difference you filmed it sequentially - we had to film in sequence yes Richard Farnsworth was he the unanimous choice oh yeah he's brilliant and yeah we're so lucky to have had Richard in this film and everybody who's seen the film agrees that that Richard is spectacular I loved working with them I think he's one of the all-time great actors he doesn't consider himself an actor which is kind of sad but but okay he came about acting through he was in the rodeo then he was a stunt man and then he came into acting and he never really because maybe he didn't study or he didn't do this or didn't do that but the guy can make it real from way deep inside of them and it's a beautiful thing to watch do you consider yourself in your heart a painter or a director I am I am both you know that's that's what I am both I'm also a great guitar player while you really yeah cook no no I don't like cooking at all don't like it I don't know what else do you do well you paint you direct you play the guitar no I'm very interested in music I'm not a guitar player I play the guitar but I am very interested in sound and and music I love working with Angelo Badalamenti he's done everything you've done since yes blue velvet right now and now I have my own studio and the primary purpose of it was to be able to experiment and that's that's a great thing to be able to do all right let's take a look why is this man's journey Alvin straight played by Richard Farnsworth across Iowa to see his very sick brother on a tractor interesting it has to do with the reason he makes the trip and it has to do with the difficulty of the trip and it has to do with his age and the things in his heart it shows what he feels and what he sees right and how he feels about what he sees it's a it's a beautiful reason to make the trip and the trip has to be done in a certain way and that's that's you know what it's all about and that that comes through you know for me and you know I think for others all right roll tape here it is a scene with Alvin straight and when he's talking to his daughter Rose was played by kind of a an eccentric daughter played by Spacek about going to visit his brother Lyle here it is Rosie I I've got to go see Lyle and I I've got to make this trip on my own I know you understand if you don't like that then you know you're not living on this planet that's that's a beautiful scene and Cissy did a spectacular job as well as Richard as well as everybody why did you want I've always wanted to work with her she's married to Jack Fiske who's won him he's my oldest and best friend he's a screenwriter director what he started out as a production designer and he worked with Terry Malick and you know a bunch of people then he went into directing and now he came back to production design and so this is the first time we've worked together and first time I worked with Cissy even though I've wanted to work with her but you've got to get the right part lined up for the right person and it happened this time yeah did is Mary happy with what you did with her script I hope so yeah she's also the editor so exactly so and that's in fact what her profession is right right yeah but she's producer now and editor and now it writer is so she's taking you know taking over now having done this was it difficult for you what because it's not the kind of thing you had been used to doing there was all make Bluebell but this is a long way from blue velvet it's not difficult every film is difficult in a way but it's so much fun and the story dictates everything and so once you fall in love and those pictures form and you stay true to those early feelings true to the story you go it's the same as as every film I know it's different than most of my other work but the the way it goes is the same and and and it wasn't any more difficult to do because you're dealing with capturing the emotion of was it easier you know it wasn't easier in some ways it was more difficult this thing about emotion you know it's it's it's an intuitive thing the the the film talks to you and the story talks to you and so it's a little bit action in reaction you know you're experimenting as you go to get the thing to feel correct and and how come it has to feel correct to me and so you work and work until til it does feel correct and on this there were fewer elements going along in the sequences and so each one became more important and I start getting you know real fascinated about the way sound would present itself how it would come up out of nothing and and go and how it could how it would die away those things became real critical the way the way things appeared and disappeared some will argue that restraint can heighten the emotional effect it's it's too little it's not so good too much it's not so good it's that magic point when when it all the lights go off like a pinball machine and you know you're there but you don't know exactly how you got there rotate this is what final scene because I think Richard for insurance is so great in this in which he talks about the importance of family when my kids were real little I used to play a game with them I'd give each one of my stick and one for each one of them and I say you break that put this in the context of things you have done how do you feel about it so just part of the evolution of one man's I feel very good about it it's a film that I think it's out there right now and it's it's holding its own and apparently as very good word of mouth and I'm just hoping that it can hold out there and that people will go experience it on the big screen I think in time it will have a very good reputation this particular film any longing within you to make peace with something yeah maybe myself yourself yeah you're at war with yourself or you trying to understand yourself are you on a daring understand new - yeah - it to understand conduct contradictory impulses or exactly yeah to figure it out it's a mystery is this simply a case of a gifted filmmaker seeing a script he loved or can you make more of the fact that you're doing this film in terms of the cycles and the evolution of the life of a creative artist life I have said that I I think first you read a script and or a book or you get ideas and you begin to fall in love and at the same time you feel a thing in the air and the thing in the air is always changing and something about the thing in the air verifies your love or you kind of goes against it and in this case it went you know with it the thing in the air and so it felt correct to go forward what's the thing in the air I don't know what it is it's it might be in Germany they say it's a zeitgeist they told me that name for it and I don't know if that is this this thing that day is always changing and it's a product I think of every one of us and since we're always you know moving about and changing and going forward this thing is always changing and it and it tells you something okay you know the question I'm really asking does this fact that David Lynch at this point in his life is making this film beyond the fact there was a script he like say something I mean here David Mamet's making the Winslow boy mm-hmm I don't know when winders is making one of these - yeah that's a great great it's a great documentary yeah it's you know what I mean yeah I know exactly what you mean I don't think it says so much about me I said I think it's I think people do feel this thing in the air and it might alter our thinking a hair you you you don't know what you're gonna fall it the most important thing is what you fall in love with and the reason you fall in love is an abstraction nobody knows why they fall in love with this woman and not this one yeah or why they fall out a lot of why they fall out well they know that a lot of but so yeah and you can't figure it out did in other words you can't you can't sit here and say to me I can tell you what was in the air was this this and there's normally it just it's a it's a beautiful a beautiful extraction of some kind of a psychic thing what kind of paintings are you painting them I'm painting with glue I like texture and oil paint is very expensive so I found this tile cement that's that's not so toxic but you can get a five gallon tub of it for pretty cheap it's really sticky but if I paint outside and a little bit later the Sun starts cooking it and it becomes less and less sticky and then if I mix paint in with it sometimes I set it on fire their glue paintings and they're organic and I try to get nature to work with me on the things do you paint on top of your house is where your is that what your studio yes it is you just go up there in the sunlight and paint exactly but why do you paint outside well because there's a lot of toxic things involved with the relaxing so you could be outside so anybody get sunlight it works on it it cooks it in California it gets sometimes very hot but what are you painting with this glue well I'm painting a series of this character Bob and and his you know in particular concerns I guess yeah speaking of Bob just tell me the story about when you were going to Bob's Big Boy mm-hmm you like chocolate and I try but what else would you eat with this good coffee but you had all this sugar in the coffee yeah I had sugar know what was going on there was it's giving you a high that may was then clearly I didn't I it is like a drug I suppose yeah because it revs you up and but I went as you know and at 2:30 in the afternoon yeah because the they pour a liquid into these machines and it has to have time to get cold to become thick during lunch there's a turnover and so they're always kind of thin but after the lunch settles down before the thing gets too old in the machine it has time to congeal and get nice and thick and you got a chance for getting a great shake but you gave it up yeah I gave it up and you gave up all the sugar or sacre de whatever it is you used to call potatoes sugar but I gave it up one time I went through the garbage behind box and I found the carton of the the mixture and I couldn't make sense of any of the ingredients and I figured it was enough time of having that had those and I should stop what's in the air for you now in terms of the movies so what are you eating at first tell me what you're eating I'm eating for lunch tomatoes tuna fish feta cheese and olive oil you know here's what's interesting about you every day every day every day you eat the same thing yeah it's well it's it's very good I'm sure right for dinner chicken little pieces of chicken and broccoli and a little soy sauce every day yeah every day except when I travel then I go out that is this can we can we say you're a creature of habit yes habit in a daily routine and and then when there's some sort of order there then you're free to mentally go off any any place you've got a safe sort of Foundation and a place to spring off from yeah and you view that in terms of the creative process is very important it was very important for me for you you know you don't like a cluttered room when you're thinking no I the the pure the environment the more you know fantastic the interior world can be it seems to me can you can you help me understand where you may be going now now that you've done this film what's in the air I in the air I I think things are as they say they're always changing I think right now the air is filled with y2k and maybe in January it'll settle down and we'll see what what's really there but we got to get through why got to get four this thing it's a very busy kind of thing in the air now but I don't know what I'll fall in love with you know that's that's for sure I don't have the next thing yeah and and falling in love is really what it's about it's all about that young you'd rather tell a long story than make a movie no no I love both the things you do very much it's just a continuing story allows you so many different surprises and you're not you're not having to wrap things up and you can have one thing lead to this thing lead to this thing and then come back to relate to something that was introduced way back here and those things are thrilling for us is doing the worst mistake was that there was a that was an amiss I learned a lot and I it was a it was a little bit I would maybe more than a little I sold out I didn't have final cut and I knew the way people were and i justed and you can't you really can't do that though two things you got to know yeah final cut I know that I learned that kind owning your own thing yeah I haven't learned that but we get there do all the things you have made I realize it's a silly question but give me what's what are you most proud of I am i they're you know they like they say they're all like children yeah yeah so you I like every film and but there always is the feeling since nothing's ever perfect something makes you want to go again and there's something about this beautiful language you just think it can it can do something that would be so thrilling to the soul and so you're looking for a story that allows for modern cinema beautiful feelings and all in one story and and so you just keep it keeps pulling you I want Woody Allen once said if you really want to understand the sixties you got to see what was going on in the 50s it led to the 64 sure Elvis being one exactly and he always seemed look before late Louis by that people think a film that's set in the 50s right now right all right so they go and they find 50s furniture and put it in the house and make the film when in reality in P once somebody's house in the 50s you can see furniture from the 30s 40s nobody hardly any had people had the 50 stuff do you know what generation Atwood period you'd like to live in if you didn't live it yes he's 56 yeah somewhere I like to live in 56 yeah 50 I don't know the birth of rock and roll was very powerful and there was a feeling in the air then that I liked I was a child so that that makes it I I'd wasn't seeing the whole picture but in my little world I felt a real you know positive thing happening even in Missoula you know I was in Boise Idaho Boise and then yeah there those also who look at blue velvet and was it wild and hard I've forgotten the tie it was a while while it aren't wild at heart and they say there is a man with some weird ideas about sex mm-hmm well you know everybody knows that any Avenue has their extremes you know one where and there's most in the middle you know a balanced wild at heart was all about an extreme a crazy world crazy activities you know things just coming apart that was really in the air when I finished reading Barry Giffords book it married itself with this insanity sort of it was in the air things were kind of flying apart and I love the idea of a love story in the middle of an insane world so everything was kind of out and but sailor and Lula were very much equal one to another the man and the woman he respected her she respected him I like that in the middle of this crazy modern you know thing but they were with each other they knew what they wanted and and they were together Dennis Hopper influenced a blue velvet by his sheer intensity and performance for you mm-hmm did he not oh sure yeah somebody else I mean he was born to play he admitted he's I am Frank that's what he said you you once told me the story yeah didn't he call you up and sell me out and said on front that was good news and bad news what was the bad news the bad news was I had to work with this guy you know I my mind I'm thinking you know how often have you fell in love with the your actress actresses in your film and you're getting personal I I fall in love with them all because they're because work and love and all that is part of who you were yeah they worked with some great you know people and work brings you you know close and it's a special special thing and there's actors and actresses that's a very tough life and and when they're when they're going it's it's very delicate and things have to be a nice you know for them things have to be nice for you yeah they have to feel safe and so they can leave themselves and take on another thing and make it real and the ones I've worked with I've been they've been very great in doing that so are you straight story is a wonderful wonderful film deserving of all the accolades that it's receiving and Mary Sweeney deserves enormous credit does what she does yeah writing the screenplay and playing the role that she played and seeing that this film made it to this green screen absolutely Farnsworth and Spacek and so many people I mean it just shows me the power of storytelling the power of sort of basic sense of one man driven by a reason in his own heart to go as he said in that first scene I've got to go forget anything else I've got to go you Thank You charlie thank you Dave thank you very much pleasure it's good to see you thank you really good too okay David let's the director the film is called a straight story we'll be right back stay with us

Channel: Manufacturing Intellect

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Id: zuvdnCzwzjM

Length: 25min 34sec (1534 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 11 2016