The incredibly strange film show - David Lynch

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] a candy colored clown they call us and tiptoes to my room every night just as people started everything is on I hello's my [Music] you [Music] ah David Lynch was born in Missoula Montana in 1946 and grew up in a happy family environment in the Pacific Northwest in small American towns with traditional American values but although he draws heavily on his past for his films they're never straightforward or simple for David Lynch always looks past the surface through the obvious to the dark undercurrents of the American dream I Oh to you when David Lynch asks you to be in a picture you feel you're gonna be in something that's going to cause controversy people are going to see and probably will last [Music] all right let's hit the [ __ ] Road he's so straight it's very difficult to think that he has such a twisted sick mind ha ha ha our dear David ha ha are you Laura Palmer hey Phil hey Noah worse so mr. Riggs my arms and she's very officious why are we from the bursting of freshly stung and there's always music in here when looking at the work of David Lynch it's easy to understand how he's won the reputation for being a little strange for example this is a fairly typical moment from his latest project the highly successful television series Twin Peaks there's a lot of David Lynch stories around very fascinating stories about shaving mice and I asked him about it if that was true he shaved a mouse to feel the texture of the mouse stories that I kind of dig you know that I like things that I would probably do if I was pressed and so I asked him about he said yeah there's some stories and I've heard a lot of stories about you but the thing about David is he's a very positive very positive guy well I've heard these stories before that probably a lot of people would not want to you know to meet me but we all know that there's we were all like these you know icebergs there's so much hidden you know beneath us all that um it's not so much of a surprise to meet someone who's you know completely handsome and charming [Music] and of course very successful his latest film wild at heart is already an international Award winner La Palma dough cutter Wendy's wild at heart American wild heart say [Applause] I was very surprised that it did it one thrilled but surprised I think equal a cage nerado Kobe deanship what attracted you to the story in the first place well uh my buddy Monty Montgomery gave me the book and uh I heard it was sort of a road picture and there was something strangely cool about it and I started reading it but what really grabbed me was the characters of Saylor and Lula and their relationship the little judge praised defendant John Roy but was dismayed to learn the Roy had had sex with the corpse one lawyer was quoted as saying sample Canada's state authorities last October released 500 Turtles into the Ganges to try and reduce human pollution and now plan to put in the crocodiles to devour floating corpses for this state I can't take no more this radio turn never heard so what she's all my life victim of a sexual assault mewling rape Oh [Music] Wow [Music] see there could be very in a wild unlike a rebel and be you know masculine and Lula could be in a wild and a rebel and feminine and they treated each other you know with respect and they were totally in love and they were kind of equals in the relationship so I thought it was kind of a modern you know romance there's a journey that David takes that to me is something that is good for all of us to look at and that is sort of a theme that runs through every one of his movies to me is that there is innocence where we say I'm an innocent and I believe that the world is gonna be a better place and I close my eyes to the darkness and David puts faith in heroes that are innocence because they have taken the journey through darkness and have made it out the other side and those are my favorite kind of heroes heroes that have faults heroes that are accessible and are willing to look at all sides Marietta tells me you've been trying to [ __ ] The Tortoise capacity in minutes crazy [ __ ] bad boy trying to [ __ ] your girl's mama tell me how that you look I knew nothing about that oh you know what [Music] just gave me this kill you know she's a loon [Applause] the first scene where I brutally killed a guy and smashes his head on the cement and blood spraying and brains are coming out of his head that may be extreme I mean it is extreme and there's a lot of other extreme things in the film but still there's a thread there that it came from love came from love yeah a lot of weird things come from love let me tell you heard it here Nicolas Cage said it love can be weird it's funny in the bio and wild at heart it says David Lynch Eagle Scout from Missoula Montana it's his credit I think that's pretty good I think he's David Lynch is an Eagle Scout from Missoula Montana who found some tools in his dad's garage and the neighbor boy who always asked hey what you doing and got together and found some paint and started to paint some things and decided that maybe he could paint things in front of a camera Hey leech was studying painting in the mid-1960s when he was first attracted to film initially animation when I was at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia I was painting these kind of large kind of dark paintings and it wasn't quite so nice for the when the painting was just still it needed just to move a little bit and so this idea of animation came up I kind of started to fall in love with film during that time and that was what the alphabet that was called the alphabet yes [Music] [Music] now the alphabet although only four minutes long he's Lynch's first proper film and contains many moments that are characteristic of his later work but it wasn't only his films that were odd his brest sense was also rather unusual as fellow student Dec Fiske recall when we were in art school he always wore ties and he used to wear two or three ties he had won a war all the time because that was his lucky tie and he had won a war for another reason I can't remember and then he would wear one to kind of go with his outfit so he was he always had like two or three ties and he used to wear a straw hat let's talk about your dressings now it seems to be very constant are you a man of habits yes I am what appeals to you about this lovely the bottle of stout this was this came about from a kind of a insecurity I think where I felt too vulnerable with the top button opened and especially with a wind on a conic collarbone was something that you know really disturbed me and I like that tightness around the neck but I don't like ties anymore Lynch's next film was a more ambitious project the grandmother mixing live action with animation it's the story of a little boy who grows a grandmother from a giant seed in his bedroom meanwhile clinch his own life was about to change drastically he was in art school wanting to you know sort of take on the world with his painting and film and suddenly his girlfriend was pregnant and he found himself with a baby and and I think it was like oh no my life has ended you know I'm sort of gonna become like an adult and I think that that that experience and to my own mind is probably what inspired all Eraserhead that's a baby it's at the hospital oh and you're the father that's impossible it's only it's premature but there's a baby after the two of you are married which should be very soon you can pick the baby up I guess one of the main misconceptions is that especially as of late is that the prime idea for Eraser had came out of my birth and although it was without a doubt inspired by my conception at birth because David that in no uncertain terms did not want a family it was not his idea to get married nor was it his idea to have children but it happened I was born with club feet and people have made insinuations to the fact that because the baby and Eraserhead is deformed and all of this and certainly it had a lot to do subconsciously as any event that takes place in life has to do with things but I don't think David credits that directly to where Eraserhead comes from I think that if I had to interpret it slowly I'd say yes that was influential but a lot of it was as it is in the film a very simple man who sort of thrown into a relationship and thrown into fatherhood and Parenthood is confused and everything around him seems so immediately dark and strange and he longs for the sort of clean pure childhood image he had before all this happened [Music] it's not so simple as just being one thing it's it's partly true that things do come from your life but Eraserhead is hopefully about more than one thing and and being abstract it it strikes people in different ways so it should just be kind of left alone to float in that you know Pleasant abstraction Eraserhead was begun with a grant from the American Film Institute based in Los Angeles the will Lynch had now moved most of the film takes place indoors but Lynch found himself drawn to the industrial area of downtown LA for the exteriors if you haven't seen a wise head out of cinema then you haven't really seen it at all because it's not just industrial scenery that Lynch loves but industrial sound as well and it forms an incessant and chilling backdrop to the entire film [Music] there's not one particular type of sound that I like but if I had to pick a category it would be factory sounds [Music] I like the the power of them and it makes a picture in my mind that I enjoy you know looking at I like the idea of factories and factory lives probably because I don't know that much about them I can I just imagine a world and it leads to you know a bigger place where you know many many strange and beautiful things can happen Los Angeles was a little different than this is very nearly 20 years ago and there was um there was not some of the new construction and some of the new industry that we see it was all very old and a lot of big massive concrete buildings and bridges and things so it it had a little different flavor to it but we definitely you know chose chose locations very carefully and we looked for the right the right feeling in the rest mode I know you shot a little bit move around here what what scenes exactly did take place in this oh gee you know there are there aren't actually too many exteriors in the film but the ones that are they're just pretty carefully chosen locations this this archway is actually one where the character Jack Nance Henry walks out at the beginning of the film and the scene has changed a little bit because there was none of this new construction but but you know we chose it because of the scale it appears to be a very normal looking piece of architecture until you walk up underneath that I knew become this little ant and it seemed just to be to be the perfect place for Henry to to live in a minute that was really his world I think that it definitely grows out I think that he draws on all those years of being an art school there and living in the factory part of town Jack howdy dumb Henry's hair evolved that hair Oh God that haircut that's all it would do you know well that is our uh yeah I wore that haircut for a long time before it was fashionable I just stayed up in the air and it was like um it was so tall the first night that none of us could believe that we would really seriously film something like this it was just unheard of now there's hair that's you know taller and you know and and much you know stranger but right at that particular point in time this tall hair had had it was it was completely unusual we've got chicken tonight I understand it's the man-made little damn thing lower than my fist that they're new I'm bill hello I'm Henry so how was it written it was it like a piece of prose was it like a short story no it was like more like I wouldn't call it like a poem but it was written out like that like um not like in in any kind of rhymes but a very kind of freeform poem do I just cut them up like regular chickens sure just come up like regular chickens [Applause] there were months and even years between cuts one scene that we talk about a lot that the Henry's sitting on the edge of the bed and he gets up to walk through the door and it's a year and a half later before he comes out the other side and it matches you know how how we did that how I don't know [Music] the film actually took on incredible six years to complete six years it incredibly long time did you ever feel that the film would never get finished I there was a few dark hours you know when I felt that it might not get finished and I at one time was thinking about building a small like eight inch tall Henry the main character and stop motioning him through some small cardboard sets just to film in the end of the blanks and um just to get it finished [Music] Valley way ahead was destined to become a huge cult hit Lynch was forced to try his hand at a number of curious activities to get it finished I was doing odd jobs my landlord had several like buildings and he found out that I very much enjoyed installing hot-water heaters luckily nothing went went bad that gave me some money and then I was building sheds that didn't make any money and I was delivering The Wall Street Journal for my you know the big bucks I made $48 in two cents a week what's the appeal of shed building it's such a satisfying thing to have a just a bit of you know ground and then make a kind of a thing that you can go into and and have another whole mood strike you did you I mean what did you do and did you sell them well no no I built them they're permanent structures little houses with electricity plaster walls I built an l-shaped gabled roof which might was my you know kind of crown crown jewel it does it seems almost in Congress today you have a man who is now one of the most respected directors film directors in America we took a joy out of installing hot water systems and important shared plumbing is uh it's a very satisfying thing to direct water and successfully I must try it yeah you got to get into it yeah Lynch might well have remained on the margins of the film world making low-budget pictures financed by odd jobs and plumbing but his talent for creating dark and beautiful worlds on screen had not gone unnoticed and he soon found himself in London directing a film that was perfect for him the elephant me what was it that initially attracted you to the project I can't tell you it was there was everything about it the whole feel of the Elephant Man was it seemed just right I saw this strange-looking flesh with this you know beautiful soul happening in the middle of industry and it was the day I just was caught without a doubt the decision might produce a Mel Brooks to choose Lynch for the Elephant Man was an inspired did you at any time think that perhaps due to the unusual nature we waste ahead compared to conventional film that it might be a problem for people to give you free wine on the movie like the way it was going to be a very big problem if it wasn't for Mel Brooks um Mel uh came to my rescue on several occasions and he you know protected you know everything you know for me and and made sure that [Music] the film ended up being you know just what I wanted which was amazing for a first to feature film and within the business David was going to do the makeup start with and really DQ felt that he could do it and indeed the image that he came up with it looked fine except for the fact that it wasn't workable on a face it's a very very specialized form of cinema makeup and we had to really start again and you see parsekar long gone this is chummy hello I give okay think I may appear to meet you how you feeling today I'm special are you comfortable here everybody there cried my first attempt at the Elephant Man makeup was a total disaster and that's one of the the worst periods of my life it was four days that I thought I was for sure going to be sent you know back home and that was a bad bad time but also working with people that I was like from Missoula Montana and making this Victorian you know drama in England and with actors that were known the world over and that's another whole kind of pressure that you wouldn't want to wish on anyone Lord is my shepherd I shall not walk 15 I love little bit afraid of attempt cheese the man was obviously simply mouthing words taught by you yes I'm sorry I've wasted your time for five so he simply doesn't belong here he'd be much better off somewhere else we hate the concept after right I'm sorry she's looking for tundra this way hey goodnight you yay so I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I fear no evil for now and I saw Chicago [Music] I didn't teach him that Oh David's one of the great directors there's no question you know it was a terrific script there wasn't a question about it now cuz you were nominated as Best Director for an Oscar as was of the Elephant Man hat did you expect anything on that how did you feel no it's these things that happen after a film is finished or out of one's control so they're they're very sort of thrilling but they can also get in the way of you know doing something you know the next project they make you second-guess things so you're the successes are are just in a better way but they're there they're complicated things psychologically as there are failures and it's it's it's hard not to let them affect you but they when they do it's it's it complicates the end of the future my name is David Lynch welcome to the convention in 1975 it was voted the greatest science fiction novel of all time now Universal Pictures and Dino De Laurentiis present author Frank Herbert's epic story of survival and adventure a story set on the vast desert planet Arrakis a world also known as dune Slate one take one just like a dream beautiful I loved working on was great didn't lift anything heavier than a beer bottle hahaha dude that was a great difference but the sheer size of the film was to provide Lynch with his greatest challenge to date soon was such an unbelievable project it was so huge you know so many people involved I don't think Blanche could really believe that he was in charge office on locations in Mexico City and in the vast deserts of the southwest writer director David Lynch and producer Rafaela De Laurentiis are involved with the complex and difficult task of bringing dune to the screen oh sure you know 2,500 people and costume on this thing you know and we walked in for this rehearsal and it was the first time I'd ever seen this particular set and these people that I hide I just cracked up I mean sometimes Lynch and I would look at each other and crack up laughing well it taught me a lot um making dune that I started I think looking back on it I realized I started selling out on the project right from the very beginning because I didn't have final cut I knew the people I was working with and and I sort of again you know this intuition thing was working with them sort of feeling what they wanted the film to be like and knowing how far I could drift off that to be to make it the way I wanted to be and it's ended up being a kind of a compromise and um it just uh you know it just doesn't you know work out so well when when that happens he'll probably tell you those two I mean he died a thousand deaths a thousand deaths again and again and again I was uh you know beaten down badly after you know dune and I had in my mind nowhere you know further to fall [Music] although they loved his movies real fans of David Lynch are almost as fascinated by the many stories about his unusual behavior like his famous big boy period for example you see for many years David would come here to Bob's Big Boy diner every day for an all-american lunch after which he didn't bark on marathon coffee drinking sessions fueled by the caffeine and his excessive sugar intake he then spent the afternoon wiping down ideas for movies on the napkins thoughtfully provided by Bob I was in the bobs halfway through Eraserhead for seven years actually Doon the end of Doon was pretty much the end of Bob's as well I'm what would you do at Bob's I had a couple of several cups of coffee and one chocolate shake each day of 2:30 a silver goblet shake Bob's hasn't gone on for a few years but there are fond Bob's memories Oh Bob's went on for shoot it was a it was a ritualistic experience for at least eight nine years of my life solid daily ritualistic experience 2:30 fobs time no no doubt about it in the car and off to Bob's with a large coke big boy combination and a chocolate shake for dessert and they had the best fries and that was where the drawing on napkins took place the ideas and tons of coffee with lots of sugar I would get on to a sugar jag and create on the napkins trying to get ideas so what would sugar what kind of a wash would you get from well it would just a sort of a euphoria happiness and you still use motor mood altering substances like sugar today I'm a heavily into sugar I call it granulated happiness and it's just a you know a great you know help my friend after the huge critical and commercial failure of June Vint returned with an altogether different film project it grew out of one solitary strange idea that of creeping into someone's room and watching undiscovered as something very bizarre took place for the first time Lynch fully explored his obsession with small-town American life his language his customs and most importantly those secrets that may be kept behind closed doors the film was blue velvet [Music] she wore live love was the night I know the blue velvet came out of the light and darkness dreams that are so much David his home life as a child which was very white picket fence and lovely with his parents who are wonderful I don't think David bought it that there was only peace going on inside those doors and he knew better number one and because he didn't think anybody believed him he exaggerated what might be going on inside those homes and I'm sure that sort of segwayed into blue velvet a lot of it and those things are going on in people's houses we just don't know those people fortunately right hello baby shut up it's daddy you [ __ ] where's my bourbon don't you [ __ ] remember anything that's dark [Applause] spread your legs David was in North Carolina I called him on the phone and I said I know we haven't met but don't worry because I am frankbooth which he seemed to be very thrilled about hearing and then I understand he got off the phone and he told Isabel and Kylie said oh my god I just talked to Dennis Hopper and he said don't worry about frankbooth I am frankbooth he said that's great for the picture but how are we gonna have lunch with him I was caught in a bind because I didn't want to know anybody like that and yet for the film I had to have that person that hell was it too the way Frank it was great Dennis was Frank but he's also somebody else too so I worked out you know extremely well mom here [Music] give me a [ __ ] you [ __ ] knock her you [ __ ] huh huh David never said that word he only said say [ __ ] he didn't say say [ __ ] he said when you say that word you know no I said as many foxes there were you know written but he seems to be able to write [ __ ] not say it I was curious man I had many many many of them written in the script but he always added more he told us that you didn't actually say the word yourself on the site you would refer to as that word oh there's that true but I didn't want to you know like charge the atmosphere any more than it was already is a strange world [Music] why are the people like Frank why is there so much trouble in this world sandy is the archetype of the girl next door her father is the detective of the town she has a slight curiosity for the macabre but she would never really admit it and she's sort of taking Jeffrey on this journey to get him excited by the idea of being a detective it's kind of an old American girl I suppose yeah the symbol of innocence and purity [Music] I mean and underneath there was our world and the world would it dark because there weren't any Robin and the Robins represented love and for the longest time there was just this darkness and all of a sudden thousands of raava's were set free and they flew down and ruff is blinding light of love let it seem like a mom would be the only thing that would make any difference [Music] david has this amazing ability and gift to make everyone uncomfortable when they're watching his movies and they don't know whether to laugh or cry or get turned on or feel repulsed and that scene to me reflects David's complete belief in the 50s American dream a cool car a cool girl a cool house a cool bird on your windowsill and you got it made and and he believes in that world as much as he may believe in a fascination of the dark side [Music] maybe rather to you I don't see how they could do never ate a puck stranger now the bobbing at the end of blue velvet was a very happy moment for me as for much of the audience I think what made you choose an artificial bird it wasn't an artificial bird that was a real bird it acts like an artificial one well it's uh it's playing a role and this is this is what came out another of David Lynch's extracurricular activities is the cartoon strip that appears each week in the LA reader newspaper for the last seven years Lynch has been writing the captions that lend meaning to the rather miserable existence of his creation the angriest dog in the world [Music] James tell us about the angry stove in the world how does the strip of Y of each week it comes in the most amazing little American envelope slept under our door by David Lynch's assistant and you know it's as simple as an envelope with a little bit of writing we have no idea came this morning so it's a way to get y'all boffo oh the artwork is used over and over and over again and this is just a master own to which we put the the gag balloons and I tell it to the new one the envelope please space is a three-dimensional continuum and at the bottom he tells us he wants it in the first square I think it's good to to do all these other things it keeps things kind of alert and you're kind of active in many areas film it uses all these things and there's 24 hours in a day as well as the angriest dog in the world david has been developing an opera producing an album we seen a Julie Cruz and painting for the project that has occupied most of his time over the last couple of years is this the television series called Twin Peaks [Music] although it's sending me Pacific Northwest the extraordinary tween piece can actually film here in the studio in downtown Los Angeles David Lynch has teamed up with mark frost one of the creative forces behind Hill Street Blues to produce the soap offer of the 90s a show which is already been described by Time magazine as like nothing else on prime time or on God's earth you want forensics first let's spin the water gotta take some pictures who is she Mandy pictures sorry sure okay we had worked on what was in Twin Peaks what the town was like for some months but it wasn't until we said a body washes up on shore that we had not only our first image but to be the starting point for the whole mystery we discovered that this is the body of a girl named Laura Palmer who is the town's homecoming queen as a high school senior the most popular and arguably the prettiest girl in town involved with all sorts of charity work and a highly successful student most likely to succeed type of girl good Lord Lord [Music] in the investigation that ensues we soon discovered that there was all that to her life that was true but there was also underneath a subterranean life that she was living that was much darker and much more dangerous and much more frightening [Music] if I'm not mistaken that hinting piece is used more often than any other in Twin Peaks out of the two of you come up with that David came into my office and said Angela we need a score for Twin Peaks and I'm looking for a multi-faceted theme that could work throughout the the pilot as well as some of the episodes and I said well what is that he said I think you've got to start with something very dark and very slow and almost Gary and then it's got to build into this some switch from minor to major or something like that and start this most beautiful single note climb and let it move ever so slowly and let it build and reach a climax that should tear the hearts out of people and without going overboard with it and and then after you stay on that climax a bit and then come down in a falling gentle way and then make it segue back into that first minor dark thing I said oh okay so now you just described five different segments in one piece and I sat at the piano and um started out with which they felt was right on [Music] and we build this into that little climb the change [Music] you as in all of Lynch's projects Twin Peaks is full of extraordinary events taking place in the most ordinary of settings the kind of small town where Lynch himself grew up [Music] I like a town that's small enough to not be you know overpowering and you know yet large enough so you don't know everybody there's some you know mysterious news new people some strangers that you can meet and I like towns near the woods because to me the woods is mysterious until I was fifteen I lived in the northwest in Twin Peaks country sort of my father was a research scientist for the Department of Agriculture and had experimental forests and his like one of the original you know woodsman Lynch's childhood love of wood has obviously influenced the creation of one of Twin Peaks most popular characters the log lady blog leading right hi can I ask her about her log many have some people think she's a bit eccentric I don't really see her that way she has a log it's very important to her which she carries at all times and her log really ties her to her husband who died a very untimely death in a forest fire so she she has a connection with him through her log and is able to to communicate to people who need information as a result of her relationship with the log for your information I heard you speaking about Laura Palmer yes one day my log will have something to say about this my log saw something that night really what did it see asked it [Music] I thought so Wendy David first talked you about the law lady actually was 1972 we were doing you raise her head during that time one time I put on my glasses and and David said someday you're gonna play a girl with a log on a TV series and now this was like so far-fetched that first of all that David would ever be in a position to do a TV series and it wasn't this series he had this idea for this show called I'll test my log with every branch of knowledge and I asked him recently yeah before doing another interview why did you say that at the time and he said well when you put on those glasses like I just saw log in your arms sir pleasure working with him he's a great he's a great creative force really is I feel that David's probably the first surrealist director American surrealist he's a soaring rocket from Walt Disney's favorite closet he's just like the ultimate cool cat on the move first David Lynch [Music] thank ya thanks a lot John it's a biggie

Channel: Damien

Views: 65,021

Keywords: David Lynch (Author), Film (Film)

Id: On02Z42mznc

Length: 52min 12sec (3132 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 17 2014

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[u/Aiden_Noeue]

For those who don't wan't to click, David Lynch says his Father was a "Research scientist for The Dept of Agriculture" and that he was "like one of the original Woodsman".

My favorite quote: "I'll test my log with every branch of knowledge". -Margaret Coulson (Log Lady)

[u/gravecats]

Apparently he was very inspired by his family's careers lol. There's a Letterman interview where he says that his brother is responsible for all of the electrical wiring of the government buildings in Washington.

[u/toolenduso]

Also: Experimental forests?

Like, I know it was probably trying out different pruning techniques or something, but since it's Lynch I have to imagine it was something far crazier.

Like seeing what would happen if you planted a severed arm in the ground and let it grow for 25 years, for example.

Or, like, differently-flavored saps.

[u/LadyTrekkie42]

YOU'RE GONNA HAVE TO SPEAK UP, DAVID.

[u/[deleted]]

I thought his dad was a pharmacist. Or maybe working at a pharmacy was David's first job. In any case, experimenting with some of the chemicals behind the counter there might explain a lot.

[u/psilocybonaut]

Timestamp?