David Lynch
By Daniel Robert Epstein
Dec 7, 2006
If I didn’t know better I would think David Lynch was Italian. He uses his hands to describe ideas more than anyone I have ever met. It’s fascinating to watch this man communicate. He pulls out the cigarette pack, the lighter, moves the ashtray, lights the cigarette, puts the pack away the and then, once his hands are free, resumes emphasizing his words with enigmatic gestures. Lynch, a four-time Oscar nominee, remains one of the most enigmatic American filmmakers. He first entered the feature world with Eraserhead, which was a five-year journey. Since then he’s directed the film adaptation of Dune, Blue Velvet, co-created the cult television series Twin Peaks and directed many other features. His latest picture, Inland Empire, is the first feature he has shot on video. He's even taking a stab at self-distribution. Inland Empire was another five year journey from start to finish, and once again Lynch is working with old friends and collaborators such as Justin Theroux, Harry Dean Stanton and perhaps his most talented muse, Laura Dern. Dern plays an actor who, after a long dry spell, lands a coveted role in a big film. While filming, Dern's character and the other actors are told that the film is actually a remake of another picture that was never completed for mysterious reasons. Along the way Dern plays two other characters and seems to segue from reality to fantasy without any warning. In other words, Inland Empire is classic Lynch.
Check out the official website for Inland Empire
Daniel Robert Epstein: Hello David, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve been a fan of yours since I saw The Elephant Man as a kid.
David Lynch: Did it freak you out?
DRE:
Yes, it did.
DL:
Doggone.
DRE:
Isn’t that what you wanted to do?
DL:
No [laughs] but it’s tough for a little kid. I remember someone telling me they saw The Elephant Man when they were eight. I think it was a little too much.
DRE:
I might have seen it when I was nine or ten.
DL:
Uh-huh.
DRE:
I had nightmares about your elephant scene.
DL:
Right, sure.
DRE:
It was very scary. Elephants were friendly when I was a kid.
DL:
Uh-huh [laughs].
DRE:
I look at Inland Empire as more of an art piece than a feature film. Do you see it that way?
DL:
No I don’t but I’ve heard people say something like that.
DRE:
Do you see a narrative in it?
DL:
Yes.
DRE:
How many times do I have to see it until I discover the narrative?
DL:
You’d only have to see it once. Well, you might have to see it a couple times, but it’s there.
DRE:
It reminded me of that old quote of yours from when you first got into film, where you said that you wanted to see the pictures move. Inland Empire feels like you are using the paintbrush to go in many directions. Is that more of an editing process or are you already thinking about this stuff when you’re shooting?
DL:
It is weird. It is all from ideas and then the ideas tell you everything. But you get to a point where the ideas are gathered and now you’re getting close to a whole thing, a sequence is indicated pretty clearly. Then there’s a point where for the sake of the whole, another thing happens. When you finally see the whole thing and react to that you see that there’s much more work to be done and then there’s sometimes rearrangements and deletions, maybe even something new that you never thought you were going to use. So it’s a process but driven by the ideas.
DRE:
Watching Inland Empire is a harrowing experience for the viewer. Is creating it as harrowing?
DL:
When you get an idea it’s like seeing it in a movie so it’s not so much as harrowing, it’s like thrilling. It fires you up because then you know what you’re going to do. You get an idea, you love the idea and you love the way cinema is able to translate that idea. Those things are what drive the boat for me. It’s not so harrowing, but if you get a fragment of a whole, that’s usually the way it happens. Starts with fragments, then an unknown thing opens up and that’s sometimes harrowing, but beautifully harrowing because you don’t know what’s there and you want to know.
DRE:
Is it true that you were writing scenes right before you shot them?
DL:
No, not right before I shot them, I’d write them before I shot them but not necessarily right before [laughs]. Now a couple of times I wrote them the day before, because I was in a place where I had to take advantage of an idea that was there. It was like a blurred, veiled inkling and then this thing happens and you focus on it and it comes into focus and you see it and you write it down. I was in places where I needed to do something there because I’d be leaving.
DRE:
The scene where the prostitutes do the song and dance number to The Loco-Motion reminded me of Lost Highway where in the middle of the movie Robert Loggia freaks on the guy on the highway and also the Naomi Watts audition scene in Mulholland Drive. These are very impressive, in-your-face scenes. Do those things liven it up for you or is that all just part of the process?
DL:
It’s part of the process. Different scenes do different things and when you’ve got nine girls dancing to The Loco-Motion or something like that, it’s got to be in the liveliness department.
DRE:
Does a scene like that energize the movie?
DL:
No, it’s not like you say, “Oh, I need something here.” The idea came along for it. It is not that I feel I need something and then would make something to fill that need. The idea is what’s doing it.
DRE:
A few years ago I interviewed David Cronenberg. Now, I’m not comparing the two of you.
DL:
Good.
DRE:
Too many people do that. I asked him if he puts certain things in his movies to tweak the audience and he told me that if he were to do that it would be more like he was tweaking himself. That seems to jibe with what you were saying with just putting something in a film.
DL:
Yes, that would be a real false note and I feel like if you’re true to the ideas and you work on it until you realize those ideas and they feel correct based on the idea, then they have a chance of feeling correct for others. Even if you’re going on a intuitive feel, if you’re true to those ideals, sometimes they’ve got these harmonics, if you dick with them, you might ruin the harmonics. They would be bad things and people would start smelling a rat. You may not even understand those harmonics, but somebody out there might and it’s true on that level and it’s true on the harmonic levels. So you’ve got to be real careful.
DRE:
Are the harmonics ever not correct?
DL:
No, they have to be. If the notes, the chords are correct, the harmonics are going to be correct. But you may not understand the beauty of the harmonics but somebody else might. If you’ve been true to these notes, they’ve got a chance to appreciate some other thing. On Eraserhead, I don’t remember what it was but I had the feeling that I appreciated some other level of it later, but I wasn’t even aware of it when I did it. It’s that thing.
DRE:
Your past films are so recognizable and famous for having great, lush cinematography and beautiful colors. Even though Inland Empire does have those things, it is in a much different way.
DL:
It was because I was shooting DV so the quality isn’t film quality. But it is it’s own quality. For projection in theaters it needs to go to film, so you’ve got a certain quality resolution DV up-res-ed to Hi Def and then put on film. All these processes are opportunities to me. They keep adding something that’s really magical and beautiful.
DRE:
Besides it being shot on video did you try to shoot it the way you did your other films?
DL:
I sometimes put it on the tripod and light it but sometimes it’s floating. Something happened because I’m holding the camera more on this and when you hold the camera you find yourself moving based on the feeling you’re getting from the scene and I think that’s a secretive act. You’re looking and listening and you are just doing things that you wouldn’t do if you had an operator. You wouldn’t be able to tell him in time. It’s more like you’re in there and you’re doing things that you couldn’t have done before.
DRE:
Did the idea of the movie come before the idea of self-distributing it?
DL:
Oh yeah. People would tell me that I’ve got a three hour picture that no one understands. [laughs] But I long for the 14 year old girls in the Midwest to fall in love with Inland Empire and embrace it. That would be so cool. I don’t see why it couldn’t happen but there’s a whole bunch of things happening and I don’t know all of it at all. It’s a feeling that the studios are just following the music industry. The music industry used to be a big advantage to artists and then those advantages started going down and down and down. To the point where they say, Jack give me your final album and maybe we’ll distribute it. They’re going down low enough so that you say, “Well wait a minute. I’m going to do the same amount of work, take this advance and that’s the last nickel I’m ever going to see.” You don’t see another nickel even if your film is doing good. How depressing is that? So I’d rather go a different route and take my chances. It’s a little bit thrilling to do it. It is a large amount of work but I’m getting to meet the people. I’m getting to meet the theater owners and I’m taking a hair more responsibility than in the past. I think it’s the way of the future.
DRE:
I saw the video of you with the cow in Los Angeles on Youtube, are ventures like that something you want to be a part of?
DL:
It is what’s just going to happen, but for me, I’m still hanging on to the theatrical experience as the best. But it won’t be too long before there won’t be any DVDs. We will be downloading our films and what you do with it is up to you but I would recommend squirting it on a big wall with speakers in a dark room and seeing it all the way through. Kill the phones so you have that experience and you can go into another world. But a lot of people are going to see it on their phones and their computers but in my book they won’t have seen the film.
DRE:
Was it very important to have actors you’ve worked with before like Laura [Dern] and Justin [Theroux] in the main roles?
DL:
What’s important is to get the right actors for the roles. If you’ve already worked with them, you’ve already developed a shorthand and you’re friends but that is not the reason to cast them. But when they marry to the part and you’ve got that added bonus, it’s beautiful. Laura is in a film that’s considered somewhat strange, but she has given a performance that will rival anything done this year so I hope she fares very well. The danger is that it will take a while to filter into the culture and miss an award but I think she’ll be remembered for her role.
DRE:
It is interesting how self-referential the film is. Much of it takes place on a film set, part of the movie is about a director working with actors, part of the movie was shot in Poland and there’s a Polish character in the movie. Do you like putting what’s happening to you right into your movies?
DL:
I also went to New York City but no ideas came in New York. You see what I mean? It’s the ideas coming and how one relates to another. You never know what’s going to trigger them or when they’re going to come. When they come along, then you focus on those and that focus and desire for more brings more in time. So the thing starts growing, you don’t know where it’s going, it just starts growing. A whole thing comes from Poland and from Hollywood. Now if I hadn’t gone to Poland, I don’t think I’d have gotten the Polish idea, but something was happening there. But I’ve gone to other places where something’s happening but the ideas didn’t come.
DRE:
What is it you like so much about Los Angeles?
DL:
I love the light. I love the feeling. It comes, I think, from the light, maybe more than that. But in LA I get the feeling of all possibilities. A freeing feeling of all possibilities can be gotten.
DRE:
You started the short film Rabbits before you finished Inland Empire, did you always intend to put it into Inland?
DL:
It started something happening. One thing leads to another, that’s the beautiful thing about the world. So some things you do and that’s it. Some things lead to more and more and more.
DRE:
I believe you had some non-professional actors in Inland Empire.
DL:
Well there were Polish actors, American actors, professionals and some surprises.
DRE:
And regular people?
DL:
Regular people, yeah.
DRE:
What does putting regular people into your movie do for you?
DL:
Everybody’s an actor and they might be bad, but there’s an actor in everybody. So sometimes you meet someone and see that their face would work. If they’re right for that thing, then that’s what you got to do.
DRE:
Would you ever work for a studio again?
DL:
Well, I haven’t ever worked with a studio, really. But it is like asking, would you ever poke a knife through your chest? Maybe, but I don’t think so.
DRE:
Are you already doing things for your next project?
DL:
No, I’ve got to do this distribution. But I’m longing for the day to start focusing on catching ideas. Maybe I’ll catch them during the distribution thing. I’ve got some ideas for the next one but a lot more has to come.
DRE:
I heard a rumor about more Twin Peaks.
DL:
No, somebody asked me about that the other night. I don’t know where that rumor is coming from.
DL:
Is there material there for a special edition DVD of The Elephant Man?
DL:
I don’t think so.
DRE:
What do you think about the rise of Eli Roth?
DL:
Oh, Eli’s my buddy. I haven’t talked to him in a long time. Eli is a go-getter and he’s smart and a good guy. So everybody’s got their own voice but Eli, I guess, is making it happen.
DRE:
Do you watch many movies?
DL:
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