David Lynch!
Please forgive me for the extremely simplistic descriptions of the movies. . . Also, spoilers abound!Ever wondered about the wide world of David Lynch outside of Twin Peaks? Me too! here is a very minimal discussion of his other works.
David Lynch was born January 20, 1946 in Missoula, Montana. After he made The Alphabet and The Grandmother, he was recognized for his superior filmmaking abilities, and earned the chance to study at the American Film Institute's Center for Advanced Film, where he would spend 5 years making Eraserhead.
Early movies:
Six Men Getting Sick (1967):A 1 minute film/sculpture piece about, well, 6 men getting sick.An animated 4 minute short about the letters of the alphabet, but with a lot more complex, Lynchian happenings.
The Alphabet(1968):
The Grandmother(1970): A half-animation, half live action 35 minute film about a young boy who creates an ideal grandmother out of seeds because of neglecting parents.
The Amputee (1974): A woman sits going over a correspondence in her head, ignoring a doctor who is treating her severed-at-the-knees legs. Introducing catherine Coulson (the Log Lady from TP), and David Lynch as the doctor.
The Cowboy and the Frenchman(1988): Another short film, it
was the only one in a collection of French films made by an American. A
bunch of cowboys lasso a Frenchman, who has a bag full of French stuff (you know, wine, cheese)...some chicks arrive and they have a good old fashioned Old West/French party. TPers will enjoy Harry Dean Stanton and Michael Horse (Hawk).
Dumbland: A 35-minute collection of Flash-animated shorts originally viewed on Lynch.com. In David's words: "Dumbland is a crude, stupid, violent and absurd series. If it is funny, it is funny because we see the absurdity of it all."
Later (more well-known) Movies:
Eraserhead (1976): The deeply Lynchian, deeply disturbing, and probably most well known of Lynch's work. The movie starts with an Old Man in the Planet using levers and pulleys and such-- is he controlling our world? Then we flash to a deeply depressing industrial town (the first Lynch use of the lumber industry), where Jack Nance, in his first of every Lynch piece (except Elephant Man), is Henry Spencer. He unwittingly impregnates his girlfriend and must deal with the monstrous offspring. He fantasizes about a woman who lives in his radiator, who sings songs about heaven while crushing little creatures resembling the baby. The baby gets sick; Henry sees himself in the radiator, where the baby's head takes over his own, which gets processed into pencil erasers. Henry then kills the baby, which seems to destroy the Planet. Henry ends up in the radiator, embracing the woman there.
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The Elephant Man (1980): This film was based on the true life story of John Merrick, who is a circus side show freak because of his enormous deformities. Anthony Hopkins plays the doctor who rescues him and treats him as a patient when he discovers he has been abused. He begins to realize that not only is John not an idiot, but that he is a smart, caring, and gentle man. He begins to educate him further in the ways of Victorian society, which embraces Merrick in a pretentious way. He escapes the hospital (tormented by the night porter's habit of bringing people by to gawk at him), but when he begins to get abused again, the other freaks help him escape and he returns to the hospital where he dies peacefully.
Dune (1984): The sci-fi epic based on some other dude's (Frank
Herbert) book about the Atreides family quest to save their planet, Dune. Dune is the only source of a certain spice, melange, which enhances life and allows space and time travel. Paul Atreides is actually recognized as the messiah of Dune, the supreme being, and thus leads the Fremen into battle to save Dune. Paul becomes the master of Dune, and the Universe.
Introducing Kyle MacLachlan. This movie is not one of David Lynch's favorites, especially after the commercially released version was not at all what the director's cut would have looked like.
Blue Velvet(1986): A wonderfully disturbing look at suburban life: Lumberton, USA. . .Jeffrey Beaumont (MacLachlan) finds a severed human ear. With the help of a police officer's daughter, Sandy, (introducing Laura Dern), he begins to investigate the case himself. He discovers Dorothy Valens (Isabella Rosselini), a beautiful nightclub singer whose husband and son have been kidnapped. He discovers Frank, the sadistic gangster (Dennis Hopper) who has a fetish for forced sex and blue velvet. Jeffrey, having become entangled in this world so different from his own, sleeps with Dorothy, which pisses Sandy off. No matter, because he has also figured out that Sandy's father's partner is involved with the bad guys. Jeffrey ultimately kills Frank, Dorothy gets her son back, and Jeffrey and Sandy live happily ever after. Hmm...bad guys, sexual fetish, murder...you know, the usual small town stuff (Twin Peaks, anyone?)
< Zabriskie (Sarah Palmer).
Industrial Symphony No.1: The Dream of the Brokenhearted Woman (1990): The one time performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, this involved staging by Lynch, and as such is mainly a piece about music and lighting and stuff. Since he was making Wild At Heart at the time, Nick Cage and Laura Dern are the heartbreaker and broken hearted woman, with bit parts at the beginning. The bulk of the piece is Julee Cruise (the roadhouse singer from TP) as the dream-self of the brokenhearted woman, who floats over a twisted city singing songs.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992): Do I really need to talk about this? OK. The sequel-ly made, prequel film to the Twin Peaks series. In the movie, also titled The Last 7 Days of Laura Palmer, we meet Laura for the first time and witness her life in the week before her murder. We discover that she is a prostitute with friend Ronette Pulaski, a secret life she leads, hidden from everyone; another world she has created for herself to escape her horrible real life of rape and incest. Anyway, we see Laura realize that her father is BOB. She goes to have an orgy at Jacques' cabin, where her BOB finds her and murders her. Her spirit ends up in the White Lodge, where she is saved by her angel.
Lost Highway (1997): This film by Lynch involves, sadly, no TPers. Bill Pullman, Fred, is the man who gets involved in a weird world of body switching and pornagraphy. Videotapes of their house arrive, one showing a murdered Renee (his wife). He is arrested, and gets a lot of headaches in his cell. The next day, a garage mechanic, Pete, is in his cell and can't explain how he got there. His girlfriend talks about something really weird happening to him on that same night. Pete meets Alice, the doppelganger of Renee, the girlfriend of gangster Mr Eddy, and they begin an affair. Alice convinces Pete to rob a pornographer, Andy, who is then accidentally killed. As they flee, Pete is replaced by Fred, who kills Mr Eddy. . .
The Straight Story (1999):
Richard Farnsworth stars as an elderly man, Alvin Straight. He is intent
on visiting his brother, who has just suffered a stroke, and with whom he has not spoken for some time. His daughter (Sissy Spacek) cannot help him, nor can anyone else, so he drives the 300 miles on his John Deere lawnmower. He meets lots of people on the way and eventually he makes it to his brother's house, where they make up. A touching movie that really seems to not be up Lynch's alley, but he handles it well and makes it a warm movie about family. You can also catch some Lynchian features: the obsession with space, the crazy characters and sly, clever, humor. Haunting music by Angelo Badalamenti is also always a plus. Based on the true story of Alvin Straight.
Mullholland Drive: This was originally created as a series pilot that none of the networks would pick up, so Lynch turned it into a feature film. God, Lynch movies are so hard to summarize. Mullholland Drive stars Naomi Watts in her first role as the aspiring actress Betty. She meets Rita, who has amnesia from a car crash, and together they set out to find out her identity. They fall in love. After going to Club Sliencio, Betty vanishes and we enter a new reality where Betty is a washed-up actress named Diane. Diane is upset thinking about her ex-lover Camilla (Rita) who has left her for a director. Diane pays a hit man to kill Camilla, and Diane, in extreme distress and knowing she is under police suspicion, kills herself.
Inland Empire: Can you believe I still haven't seen Inland Empire? I cannot summarize, I apologize. I know there are rabbits.
Also, just released in 2008, the David Lynch "Lime Green Set," which is expensive but includes all kinds of hard-to find stuff. The set includes material personally selected by Lynch, including a "Mystery disc" of content taken from Lynch's own personal archives and available only in this box set. It includes Eraserhead-- Remastered version, Eraserhead soundtrack, The Short Films of David Lynch, The Elephant Man, The Elephant Man Extras-- DVD debut, Wild At Heart, Industrial Symphony No. 1-- DVD debut, Blue Velvet-- New Lynch approved 5.1 sound mix, Dumbland, Mystery disc, 32 deleted or extended scenes from Wild at Heart, and a 40 page collector's picture book.
Also of interest is David Lynch "One." Compiled from over two years of footage, the film is an intimate portrait of Lynch's creative process as he completes his latest film, Inland Empire. We are with him as he discovers the beauty in ideas, leading us on a journey through the abstract which ultimately unveils his cinematic vision.
TV Shows:
On The Air: A short lived series about a 50's variety show, hosted by Ian Buchanan (Dick Tremayne, TP) and with Miguel Ferrer (S.A. Albert Rosenfield, TP); the show within a show wants to be good but can't seem to get over having everything go wrong, including having a flake for a leading lady.
Hotel Room: This was a movie produced for HBO by Lynch/Frost Productions, consisting of three shorts all involving people in the same hotel room over a span of 60 years. The first and third shorts were also directed by Lynch, and star some familiar faces of Alicia Witt (TP, Dune) and Harry Dean Stanton (FWWM).
Twin Peaks: I'm not even gonna start.
American Chronicles: A Fox series documenting various aspects of American culture, such as truck stops, a high school reunion, and Hugh Hefner. It was produced by Lynch/Frost Productions, and Lynch and Frost co-directed one episode called Champions.
Other Endeavors
Nadja: A modern day tale about vampirism which was produced by Lynch. He also makes a cameo as a morgue attendant.
Zelly and Me: A movie about a girl who must choose between her neglecting mother or her wonderful, deeply caring nanny Zelly (Isabella Rosselini). Lynch stars in this as one of the girl's suitors. The movie was also directed by Tina Rathborne, who later directed a couple episodes of Twin Peaks.
Crumb:The documentary about the life of cartoonist Richard Crumb (known for his pornogrpahic Felix the Cat cartoons) lists Lynch as a producer.
Other Projects:
Non-film related:
Also of interest to Tpers/David Lynch fans is the movie "Boxing Helena," made by Lynch's daughter Jennifer Lynch. Although not well recieved by critics and audiences, the film about a man so obsessed with a beautiful woman (Sherilyn Fenn!), that he kidnaps and eventually amputates her arms and legs to keep her with him, has some familiar Lynchian themes as it examines the line between love and obsession.
