DAVID LYNCH

Coordinating Teachers:

Adriana Arcosi

Angela Stilpeanu

Student:

Cristina Baban Grade: 12 A

May, 2011

“I.L.Caragiale” National College Ploiesti

the mysterious world of

2

1. Précis 3

2. Introduction 4

3. Early Life 5

4. Philadelphia. Short Films 7

5. Los Angeles. Eraserhead 9

6. Mainstream Success 11

7. Bibliography 17

8. Appendix 18

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Works of art are easy to overlook at first glance. Some art is so far ahead of its time that only the passage of years will help it be appreciated. Many films must wait for changes to cultural tastes and style before their audience's sensibilities are attuned to receive them. Many masterpieces of art and literature are greeted at first with underwhelming or even hostile reviews before one day gaining the recognition they deserve. Films directed by David Lynch definitely fall into this category. As a filmmaker, David Lynch has established his place in the forefront of contemporary cinema, intrepidly following the path of his dark and sometimes strangely comic imagination, even on its course into psychologically deep, dauntingly uncommercial and critically treacherous waters. For this reason, I choose to write this paper about the most intriguing directors of the last few decades, whose spellbinding works are always capable of engrossing the viewers. His astonishing works are difficult to understand and they always leave room for discussions. Providing a portal into the collective subconscious, the daydream nation conjured up in tales such as Blue Velvet, Lost Highway or Mulholland Drive is by turns frightening, exasperating, revelatory and wild. Nobody makes films like David Lynch. He is the tour guide through a world of dancing dwarves, femme fatales and little blue boxes that may or may not contain all the answers. We wouldn't want to live in the places he takes us. Somehow, we suspect, we do.

PRÉCIS

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The Hollywood blockbuster may be in crisis, but the art of the cinema is as healthy

as ever. After all the discussion, no one could fault the conclusion that David Lynch is the

most important film-maker of the current era.

Over the last four decades, David Lynch has created some of the best-known and

widely discussed screen works of our time. This distinctive writer-director's art bears not

only the mark of box-office success but also critical acclaim and cultural posterity.

Most film viewers enter a David Lynch movie completely unprepared for what they

are about to experience and tend to dismiss his films at first as too dark, too weird, or too

confusing. Still, Lynch is a creative master and, even if his films aren't necessarily realistic,

they are real in their representation of what life is: a confusing, irrational series of random

events that truly have little purpose, and one makes their own interpretation of every

event, giving their life purpose personally. David Lynch's films age exceptionally well and

are more enjoyable for audiences to watch today than ever before.

Lynch's keen visual aesthetic varies between vibrant

compositions and biliously claustrophobic sequences that

suggest a reality only one step removed from nightmare.

Lynch's talent lies in keeping the viewer ankle-deep in ever-

shifting psychological sands, orchestrating eerie

convergences of opposite extremes, in a surreal landscape

where absolute meaning is never clear. The coalescence of

rusted metal and white picket fences, of adult corruption and

youthful innocence, of deception and truth, of explicit

meaning and baffling metaphor have made Lynch perhaps the

most noteworthy filmmaker working in this decade.

Lynch always wanted his films to resonate emotionally and instinctively and for

every person to relate and make their own understanding. As he once said, "Life is very,

very confusing and so films should be allowed to be, too".

David Lynch will never stop making beauty on the screen.

42nd Emmy Award September 01, 1990

INTRODUCTION

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1946–1965 “My childhood was elegant homes, tree-lined streets and the milkman, building backyard forts, droning airplanes, blue skies, picket fences, green grass and cherry trees. Middle America as it’s supposed to be. 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. Because I grew up in a perfect world, other things were a contrast.”1

David Keith Lynch was born in Missoula, Montana, on January 20, 1946. His father, Donald Walton Lynch, was a research scientist working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and his mother, Edwina “Sunny” Lynch (née Sundholm), was an English tutor, whose grandfather's parents had immigrated to the United States from Finland in the XIX century. Due to his father's job, the Lynch family often moved around according to where the Department of Agriculture assigned him. Because of this, when he was only two months old, David moved with his parents to Sandpoint, Idaho, and only two years after that, following the birth of his brother John, the family moved again, but this time to Spokane, Washington. Here, his sister Martha was born before they once more moved, this time to Durham, North Carolina, then to Boise, Idaho and then to Alexandria, Virginia. Lynch found this transitory early life relatively easy to adjust to, noting that he found it fairly easy to meet new friends whenever he started attending a new school. “I found the world completely and totally fantastic as a child. Of course, I had the usual fears, like going to school… For me, back then, school was a crime against young people. It destroyed the seeds of liberty. The teachers didn't encourage knowledge or a positive attitude.”2

Alongside this schooling, his father made him join the Boy Scouts, although he would later note that he only “became one so I could quit, and put it behind me.” He rose to the highest rank of Eagle Scout. It was through being an Eagle Scout that he was present with other Boy Scouts outside of the White House at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy, which took place on Lynch's birthday in 1961. Lynch had become interested in painting and drawing from an early age, when living in Virginia, becoming intrigued by the idea of pursuing it as a career path, as one of his friends’ father was a professional painter. At Francis C. Hammond High School in Alexandria, Virginia, he did poorly academically, having little interest in school work, but was popular with other students. After leaving, he decided that he wanted to study painting

1 Rodley, Chris. Lynch on Lynch. Revised edition. London: Faber & Faber, 2005 - p. 10-11 2 Idem - p.14

EARLY LIFE

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at college, thereby beginning his studies at School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1964, where he was a roommate of Peter Wolf. Nonetheless, he left after only a year, stating that “I was not inspired at all in that place” and instead deciding that he wanted to travel around Europe for three years with his friend, Jack Fisk, who was similarly unhappy with his studies at Cooper Union. They had some hopes that in Europe they could train with the expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka at his school. However, upon reaching Salzburg, they found that he was not available and, disillusioned, they returned to the United States after spending only fifteen days of their planned three years in Europe.

David Lynch in his early life

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1966–1970

Back in the United States, Lynch returned to Virginia, but he decided to move to Philadelphia, where, at the advice of Jack Fisk, who was already attending it, he enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. It was something he preferred far more than his previous art college in Boston, claiming that “In Philadelphia there were many great and serious painters and everybody was inspiring one another. It was a beautiful time there.” It was here that he began a relationship with a fellow student, Peggy Reavey, and they got married in 1967. The following year, Peggy gave birth to their child, a girl whom they named Jennifer. Later describing this situation, Peggy stated that Lynch “definitely was a reluctant father, but a very loving one.” As a family, they moved to the Fairmount neighborhood of Philadelphia, where they were able to purchase a large twelve-room house for a relatively low $3,500 due to the high crime and poverty rates in the area. “We lived cheap, but the city was full of fear. A kid was shot to death down the street… We were robbed twice, had windows shot out and a car stolen. The house was first broken into only three days after we moved in… The feeling was so close to extreme danger, and the fear was so intense. There was violence and hate and filth. But the biggest influence in my whole life was that city.” Meanwhile, in order to help financially support his family alongside his art studies, he took up a job printing engravings. At the Philadelphia Academy, Lynch made his very first short film, which was entitled Six Men Getting Sick (1966). He had first come up with the idea when he developed a wish to see his paintings move and he subsequently began discussing the idea of creating an animation with an artist named Bruce Samuelson. When this project never came about, Lynch decided to work on a film alone. So, he purchased the cheapest 16mm camera that he could find in order to do so. Taking one of the abandoned upper rooms of the Academy as a working space, he spent $200 – which at the time he felt to be a lot of money – to produce Six Men Getting Sick, also known as Six Figures Getting Sick. Describing the work as “57 seconds of growth and fire”, Lynch played the film

Philadelphia. SHORT FILMS

Six Men Getting Sick 1966, USA: 4 min. Color and Black and white.

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on a loop at the Academy's annual end-of-year exhibit, where it shared joint first prize with a painting by Noel Mahaffey. This led to a commission from one of his fellow students, the wealthy H. Barton Wasserman, who offered him $1000 to create a film installation in his home. Spending $450 of that on purchasing a second-hand Bolex camera, Lynch produced a new animated short film, but upon getting the film developed, realized that the result was simply a blurred, frameless print. As he would later relate, he “called up Bart and said, ‘Bart, the film is a disaster. The camera was broken and what I've done hasn't turned out.’ and he said, ‘don’t worry, David, take the rest of the money and make something else for me. Just give me a print.’ ”. Using this leftover money, Lynch decided to experiment on making a work that was a mix of animation with live action, producing a four minute short entitled The Alphabet (1968). The film starred Lynch's wife Peggy as a character known as The Girl, who chants the alphabet to a series of images before dying at the end by hemorrhaging blood all over her bed sheets. Adding a sound effect, Lynch used a broken Uher tape recorder for the sound of his baby daughter Jennifer crying, creating a distorted sound that Lynch felt to be particularly effective. Later describing where he had got inspiration for this work from, Lynch stated that “Peggy's niece was having a bad dream one night and was saying the alphabet in her sleep in a tormented way. The rest of it was just subconscious.”

Learning about the newly founded American Film Institute, which gave grants to film makers who could produce for them both a prior work and a script for a new project, Lynch decided to send them a copy of The Alphabet along with a script that he had written for a new short film, one that would be almost entirely live action - The Grandmother. The Institute agreed to help finance the work, initially offering him $5000, out of his requested budget of $7,200, but later granting him the further $2,200 which he needed. Starring people he knew from both work and college and filmed in his own house, The Grandmother revolved around the story of a neglected boy who “grows” a grandmother from a seed to care for him. The film critics Michelle Le Blanc and Colin Odell later remarked that “this film is a true oddity but contains many of the themes and ideas that would filter into his later work, and shows a remarkable grasp of the medium”. The Grandmother 1970, USA: 34 min.

Color and Black and white.

The Alphabet 1968, USA: 4 min. Color and Black and white.

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1971–1979

In 1971, Lynch moved with his wife and daughter to Los Angeles, California, where he began studying filmmaking at the AFI Conservatory, a place that he would later describe as being.

“It was completely chaotic and disorganized, which was great… you quickly learned that if you were going to get something done, you would have to do it yourself. They wanted to let people do their thing.”

He began writing a script for a proposed work entitled Gardenback. He was supported by a number of figures at the Conservatory, who encouraged him to lengthen the script and add in more dialogue, something that he reluctantly agreed to do. Nonetheless, with all the interference on his Gardenback project, he became fed up with the Conservatory, and announced that he was quitting. Attempting to prevent this, many of the teachers at the centre asked him to reconsider, believing that he was one of their best students. He finally agreed, albeit on the condition that he could create his own project that would not be interfered with. Feeling that Gardenback was “wrecked”, he instead set on a new film, which he entitled Eraserhead. Despite the fact that the film was planned to be about forty-two minutes long (it would end up being eighty-nine minutes long), the script for Eraserhead was only twenty-one pages long and some of the teachers at the Conservatory were concerned that the film would not be a success with such little dialogue and action. Nonetheless, they agreed not to interfere. Filming, which began in 1972, took place at night in some abandoned stables, allowing the production team - which was largely Lynch and some of his friends, including Sissy Spacek, Jack Fisk, Frederick Elmes and sound designer Alan Splet - to set up a camera room, green room, editing room, sets. Initially, funding for the project came from the AFI. Lynch was also supported by a loan given to him by his father and by the money that he was able to bring in from delivering the Wall Street Journal. Not long into the production of Eraserhead, Lynch and his wife Peggy amicably separated and divorced and so he began living full-time on set. Filmed in black and white, Eraserhead tells the story of a quiet young man named Henry (Jack Nance) living in a dystopian industrial wasteland, whose girlfriend gives birth to a deformed baby whom she leaves in his care. The baby constantly

cries, eventually leading to its accidental death, at which the world itself begins to fall apart. Lynch has consistently refused to either confirm or deny any interpretation

Los Angeles. ERASERHEAD

Eraserhead 1977, USA: 85 min. Black and white.

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of Eraserhead, or to “confess his own thinking behind the many abstractions in the film.” Nonetheless, he admits that it was heavily influenced by the fearful mood of Philadelphia and referred to the film as “my Philadelphia Story”. Due to the financial problems with the production of Eraserhead filming would regularly stop and start again. It was in one such break in 1974 that Lynch created a short film entitled The Amputee (1974), which revolved around a woman (Catherine Coulson) with two amputated legs reading aloud a letter and having her stumps washed by a doctor, played by Lynch himself. Eraserhead was finally finished in 1976, after five years of production. Lynch subsequently tried to get the film entered into the Cannes Film Festival, but whilst some reviewers liked it, others felt that it was awful, and so it was not selected for screening. Similarly, reviewers from the New York Film Festival also rejected it, but it was indeed screened at the Los Angeles Film Festival. Ben Barenholtz was very supportive of the movie, helping to distribute it around the United States in 1977. The film subsequently became popular on the midnight movie underground circuit and was later described as one of the most important midnight movies of the ‘70s. The acclaimed film maker Stanley Kubrick said that it was one of his all-time favorite films1

1 Rodley, Chris. Lynch on Lynch. Revised edition. London: Faber & Faber, 2005 - p. 77

.

The Amputee 1974, USA: 9 min. Black and white.

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1980–1982 The cult success of Eraserhead on the underground circuit led to it being seen by Stuart Cornfeld, who later remarked that “I was just 100 per cent blown away… I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever seen.” Contacting Lynch, he agreed to help him with his next planned project: a film entitled Ronnie Rocket for which Lynch had already written a script. Lynch soon realized that this film, which he described as being about “electricity and a three-foot guy with red hair”, was not going to be picked up by any financiers, so he asked Cornfeld to find him a script written by someone else which he could direct. Cornfeld found him four possible scripts, Lynch chose the first one, going on nothing but the title: The Elephant Man. The script was based upon a true story, that of Joseph Merrick, a heavily deformed man living in Victorian London, who was held in a sideshow but was later taken under the care of a surgeon, Frederick Treves. Lynch wanted to film it, but at the same time also had to make some alterations. The resulting film, The Elephant Man (1980), starred John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins. Filming took place in London and Lynch brought his own distinctively surrealist approach to the film, filming it in color stock black and white. The Elephant Man was a huge critical and commercial success and earned up to eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.

1983–1986 Following on from the success of The Elephant Man, the film maker George Lucas offered Lynch the opportunity to direct the third film in his Star Wars trilogy, Return of the Jedi. Lynch however refused, arguing that Lucas should direct the film himself as the movie should reflect his own vision. Soon after, the opportunity to direct another big-budget science fiction epic arose when Dino de Laurentiis asked him to create a film adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel, Dune. Lynch agreed and then started writing a script based upon the original novel. Lynch also helped build some of the sets, attempting to create “a certain look” for the film. He particularly enjoyed building the set for the oil planet of Giedi Prime, for which he used steel, bolts and porcelain.

The Elephant Man 1980, USA: 124 min. Black and white.

MAINSTREAM SUCCESS

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However, Lynch was unhappy with the work, later remarking that “Dune was a kind of studio film. I didn’t have final cut. And, little by little, I was subconsciously making compromises to my own vision”.

Meanwhile, in 1983 he had begun the writing and drawing of a comic strip, The Angriest Dog in the World, which featured unchanging graphics of a tethered dog that was so angry that it could not move, alongside cryptic philosophical references. It ran from 1983 until 1992 in a few publications. Around this period, Lynch also got increasingly interested in photography as an art form and travelled to northern England to take photos of the degrading industrial landscape, something that he was particularly interested in. Lynch was contractually still obliged to produce two other projects for De Laurentiis. The first of these was a planned sequel, which due to the film's lack of success never went beyond the script stage. The other was a more personal work, based upon a script that Lynch had been working on for some time. Developing from ideas that Lynch had had since 1973, the resulting film, Blue Velvet (1986), was set in the fictional town of Lumberton, USA. It revolves around a college student named Jeffrey Beaumont who finds a severed ear in a field. With the help of friend Sandy, he uncovers that it is related to a criminal gang led by psychopath, who has kidnapped the husband and child of singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) and repeatedly subjects her to rape. Lynch himself described the story as “a dream of strange desires wrapped inside a mystery story.” For the film, Lynch decided to include pop songs from the ‘50s, including “In Dreams” by Roy Orbison and “Blue Velvet” by Bobby Vinton. The latter was largely inspirational for the film.

Dune 1984, USA: 137 min. Color.

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“It was the song that sparked the movie… There was something mysterious about it. It made me think about things. And the first things I thought about were lawns – lawns and the neighborhood.”

Dino de Laurentiis loved the film and it achieved support from some of the early specialist screenings, but the preview screenings to a mainstream audience were instead highly negative, with most of the audience hating the film. Blue Velvet's controversy with audiences and critics introduced him into the mainstream and so it became a huge critical and commercial success. The film earned Lynch his second Academy Award nomination for Best Director and even Woody Allen mentioned Blue Velvet as his favorite film of the year1

.

1987–1996 During the late ‘80s, Lynch had begun to work in television, as well as cinema, directing a short piece entitled The Cowboy and the Frenchman for French television in 1989. Around this time, he met the television producer Mark Frost, who had formerly worked on such projects and they decided to start working together on a biopic based upon Anthony Summers's book, The Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe. Whilst this project never got off the ground, the duo went on to work on a comedy script entitled One Saliva Bubble, but that did not see completion either. Lynch and Frost both had the idea of a corpse washing up on the shore of a lake and using this image as a basis a third project was set, initially named Northwest Passage. It eventually became the television series Twin Peaks (1990–1991). A drama series set in a small Washington town where popular high school student Laura Palmer has been raped and murdered, in Twin Peaks not only supernatural elements of the murder are discovered, but also the secrets of many of the local townsfolk. “The project was to mix a police investigation with the ordinary lives of the characters. Mark Frost and I worked together, especially in the initial stages. Later on we started working more apart.” 1 Peary, Danny. Cult Movies 3. New York: Simon & Schuster Inc. 1988. - p. 38–42.

Blue Velvet 1986, USA: 120 min. Color.

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They subsequently pitched the series to the ABC Network, who agreed to finance the pilot episode. Once this was completed, they also commissioned the first season. A second one went into production soon after that and lasted for a further twenty-two episodes.

In all, Lynch himself only directed six episodes out of the whole series due to other responsibilities, but he carefully chose other directors whom he entrusted with the job. Meanwhile, Lynch also appeared in several episodes of the series, acting in the role of a deaf FBI agent. The series was a success, with high viewing figures both in

the United States and in many nations abroad and soon spanned a cult following. Nonetheless, the executives at the ABC Network, believing that public interest in the show was decreasing, insisted that Lynch and Frost reveal who the killer of Laura Palmer was prematurely. Lynch has always felt that agreeing to do so is one of his biggest professional regrets. Twin Peaks continued on for several more episodes, but following a ratings drop was cancelled. Lynch chose to direct the final episode, which he ended on a cliffhanger, later stating that “that's not the ending. That's the ending that people were stuck with.” While Twin Peaks was in production, the Brooklyn Academy of Music asked Lynch and the composer Angelo Badalamenti, who had been responsible for the music in Twin Peaks, to create a theatrical piece to be performed as a part of the New Music America Festival. The result was Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Broken Hearted. Meanwhile, Lynch was also involved in the creation of various commercials for different companies like Yves Saint Laurent, Calvin Klein, Giorgio Armani or the Japanese coffee company Namoi. “Monty Montgomery gave me a book that he wanted to direct as a movie. He asked if I would maybe be executive producer or something and I said ‘That's great, Monty, but what if I read it and fall in love with it and want to do it myself?’ and he said, ‘In that case, you can do it yourself’ ”. The book was Barry Gifford's novel Wild at Heart: The Story of Sailor and Lula, which told the tale of two lovers on a road trip. Lynch felt that it was “just exactly the right thing at the right time, the result being Wild at Heart, a crime and road movie, starring Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern. Describing his plot as a “strange blend of a road picture, a love story, a psychological drama and a violent comedy”, he altered much from the original novel, but despite this, it won the prestigious Palme d'Or at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival.

Twin Peaks

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Lynch decided to return to the now-cancelled Twin Peaks, this time without Mark Frost, to create a film that acted primarily as a prequel but also, in part, as a sequel. Lynch later stated that “I liked the idea of the story going back and forth in time.” The result, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), primarily revolved around the last few days in the life of Laura Palmer, and was much “darker” in tone than the television series, dealing with topics such as incest and murder. Lynch himself stated that the film was about “the loneliness, shame, guilt, confusion and devastation of the victim of incest.” The film was, for the most part, a commercial and critical failure in the United States, but a hit in Japan. British critic Mark Kermode often referred to it as Lynch's “masterpiece”.

1997–2001

David returned to making feature films. In 1997 he released Lost Highway, co-written by Barry Gifford and starring Bill Pullman and Patricia Arquette. The film failed commercially and received a mixed response from critics. Then, he went on to work on directing a film from a script written by Mary Sweeney and John E. Roach, resulting in The Straight Story (1999). It came as shocking news to many in the film industry, who were surprised that “it did not disturb, offend or mystify.” The same year, Lynch approached ABC once again with ideas for a new television drama. The network gave Lynch the go-ahead to shoot a two-hour pilot for the series Mulholland Drive. However, with $7,000,000 from Studio Canal, Lynch completed the pilot as a film, Mulholland Drive. It was a non-linear narrative surrealist tale of the dark side of Hollywood, starring Naomi Watts, Laura Harring and Justin Theroux. The film performed

relatively well at the box office worldwide and was a critical success, bringing Lynch a Best Director prize at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival and a Best Director award from the New York Film Critics Association.

2002–present With the onset of popularity of the internet, Lynch decided to release several new series that he had created exclusively on his website. In 2002, he created Dumbland, which was later released on DVD. The same year, Lynch released a

David Lynch and Isabella Rossellini, May 1990, Cannes.

May 2001, Cannes.

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surreal sitcom via his website – Rabbits, which revolved around a family of humanoid rabbits. In 2006, Lynch's latest feature film, Inland Empire was released, the longest of Lynch's films - almost three hours. Like Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway, the film did not follow a traditional narrative structure. Lynch described the piece as “a mystery about a woman in trouble”. In an effort to promote the film, Lynch made appearances with a cow and a placard bearing the slogan “Without cheese there would be no Inland Empire”. In 2009, he also produced a documentary web series directed by his son, Austin Lynch and friend Jason S. called Interview Project. In 2010, Lynch began making guest appearances on The Cleveland Show, as Gus, the Bartender. He had been convinced to appear in the show by its lead actor, Mike Henry. Moreover, in May, a short 16-minute internet promotion film made for Dior - Lady Blue Shanghai - written, directed and edited by Lynch, was placed on the internet. On March 23, 2011 he also directed a concert by Duran Duran. It was live-streamed on YouTube from the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles. Currently, David Lynch has two films in production, both of which differ in content from his previous work. One of these is an animation entitled Snootworld, and the other is a documentary on Maharishi Mahesh Yogi consisting of interviews with people who knew him. “I don’t think that people accept the fact that life doesn’t make sense.

I think it makes people terribly uncomfortable.”

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Books

Wallace, David Foster. A supposedly fun thing I'll never do again. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1998. Print.

Lynch, David. Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2006. Print.

Rodley, Chris. Lynch on Lynch. Revised edition. London: Faber & Faber, 2005. Print.

Maddrey, Joseph. Nightmares in Red, White and Blue: The Evolution of the American Horror Film. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2004. Print.

Peary, Danny. Cult movies 3. New York: Dell, 1988. Print. Articles

Wallace, David Foster. “David Lynch Keeps His Head” US Premiere Sep. 1996. Print.

King, Barbara. “Look Homeward, Angels” Los Angeles Times 20 Apr. 2003. Print.

Grundy, Gareth. "David Lynch: 'I'm not a musician but I love making music." The Observer 19 Dec. 2010. The New Review Q&A. Online.

Woodward, Richard. “Dark Lens on America” The New York Times Magazine 14 Jan. 1990. Print.

Bradshaw, Peter. “40 Best Directors” The Guardian May 2007. Online. Interviews

Adders, Roger. “David Lynch: In Odd We Trust” The Independent 11 Mar. 2007. Print.

Gilmore, Mikal. “Lost Highway”. Rolling Stone Magazine 6 Mar. 1997. Print. Documentaries & Collections

Pretty as a Picture: The Art of David Lynch. Dir. Toby Keeler Perf. Angelo Badalamenti, Jack Fisk, Mel Brooks, 1997.

The Short Films of David Lynch. Dir. David Lynch. Perf. Dorothy McGinnis, Catherine E. Coulson, David Lynch, 2002. Links

http://davidlynch.com/ http://www.artnewsworldwide.com/DavidLynch/

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Impact - the word most often associated with writer/director David Lynch. As the creator of such films as Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, The Elephant Man, Dune and the cult classic Eraserhead, Lynch has never failed to outdo himself in terms of sonic, visual and emotional impact on the big screen. David Lynch has given us the nightmare world of "Eraserhead"; the touching and powerful film version of "The Elephant Man"; the hauntingly beautiful "Blue Velvet"; and the highly popular, distinctly different, "Twin Peaks". His successful foray into television with Twin Peaks and the series' subsequent release in feature film form have consolidated a cult following stronger than virtually any filmmaker has ever done before. Stars as well known and respected as Laura Dern, Nicolas Cage, Isabella Rossellini, Willem Dafoe, Kyle MacLachlan and Robert Loggia have found some of their most revealing roles in Lynch's films. Raising two fists, Lynch slowly unclenches his hands to the sky, “I love absurdity.” A longstanding reward for attentive viewers of his films, Lynch’s sense of humor is not lost in translation to a static medium, often bridging the real to the surreal and back again. Lynch speaks surrealism with the vocabulary of Outsider art. Time, memory, and bliss are constantly probed in these works, and Lynch’s ardent practice of Transcendental Meditation never feels too far out of the conversation. Through his work, David Lynch reveals himself as an artist deeply in love with the creative process, from writing and directing, to composing, painting, furniture-building, sculpting, photography, and always something new. "Ideas are the best things going", he likes to say. Exploring his passionate pursuit of ideas and their creative fulfillment always turns out to be an extraordinary experience.

CONCLUSION